Club 80-90 Forums

I tried, but not for very long, to think of a witty title.

Picked this up today. History unknown, except it originally came with a van as is. I'm assuming there's been an internal problem and all the ancillaries have been stripped off for a replacement engine.

It's supposed to be a DG, from examination it seems to be a late case with original DG heads. There's no engine number, so does this mean it's a VW rebuild ?

So, the question is, what do you think I should do with it ?

Personally, I blame this forum for sending me down the road of having spare engines and bits lying around

Piccy time

No pulley



Heads



No flywheel



No engine code

Yes VW recon
german cast heads so not the latest date
what are the date codes on heads?

Full rebuild of course with pics and hopefully you can teach us all a thing or two.

Shame I live so far away or you could throw it in my van to test it while my engine bay is empty and my ancillaries are lying around in boxes.
Think I'd stash it in the loft "just in case".
If you strip it you know it's going to start costing you money.

Thanks

Well, I couldn't leave it alone, could I. Spotted a CU case with a flywheel attached. Now I know some won't like this, but I fitted an Aircooled flywheel to a WBX - and it didn't complain

That meant I could turn the engine over to do some leak tests. That was the idea anyway, I would say it managed to do about 355 degrees before locking up. A very smooth 355 degrees though. I did some leak tests, my leak tester isn't very accurate, the results varied from 25% to 45%, but only two of the readings will be meaningful anyway.

I have cleaned the heads up a bit and the date codes are below. Rocker shafts look nice and clean, bolts even better

I was just going to chuck it in a corner until I needed something off it, but now I know there's a problem I can see me spending time on it.

Not sure about doing a rebuild thread at this point, I have plenty of other projects to keep me busy at the moment, and the barr is already set pretty high - see what I did there

One head



The other one



Left hand head

if its in fair condition then a 100 quid gasket set and some curil T and you can put it back and be happy that ots a good spare.
If its shagged inside then no point keeping it as a spare because ot will let you down at the point when you really need it.
A spare of anything is not worth keeping unless it is tested.

Personally I would not fit an engine just to test it because the time to fit it and swap it back again is comparible to a stripdown.

and then this happened...

The engine now turns over a full 360 degrees, no signs of damage to barrels or pistons on this side either, must have been something in the case, now dislodged after tipping it on edge to remove the head ?

It's bit cruddy



Looks like it's been running very rich - plugs showed the same, looks darker in real life

No point kidding yourself the rebuild has started.

dissy gear can ride up and jam.

I concur with Paul, deffo looks like the start of a rebuild 937!! Good that she turning over fully now.

Yeah, I am still only stripping it down though

I didn't have real chance to look at the date codes on the heads. I didn't know they were there, are the photos what was requested, I haven't been able to decode them myself.

Interesting theory on the dizzy drive. It is still in the case. If that was the problem it would be jamming just before half a turn in either direction. it seems strange that this could cause a jam but you've obviously heard of it happening before. Was that after use or just when rebuilding ?

If that's what the problem was, (and I have not done any further work tonight) then on the one hand I'm a bit frustrated that's all it was, but in reality with no history, I always knew that the engine would have to be stripped. Generally speaking you don't strip all the ancillaries from an engine for no good reason.

Taking the head bolts off was interesting. They cracked easily, and then they seemed to go tight & being cautious I worked them back and forth to get them fully released. Is that normal ?

I think she's been drained of coolant for a while. Is it usual to find that amount of loose rust in those circumstances. I think when I clean the surface rust off the studs they'll be in decent nick

It's been about 3 weeks since I laid a spanner on a car so this afternoon was good fun. Finished up by resetting front tracking on one of the daily drivers after o/h kerbed it a few days ago.

Anything else I should do before I pull her completely apart. Only thing I was thinking of was measuring endfloat

Heads 91

only a guess on the dizzy drive have heard it can ride up

yes head nuts threads full of crap best to work them both ways.

looks normal to.me

itchyfeet wrote:Heads 91

Cheers, so it was that simple, I was overcomplicating it looking at the numbers in the inner circles after reading 0-1-2-3-4, then 1-9

I thought they had moved onto suffix C / Polish heads by then as I seem to remember you commenting that the DJ heads were being used on the late DG engines as well

these are early DG heads it seems they still made both types until the end who knows why

Yes on the dizzy. Mine stuck when i turned it over with no dizzy fitted. Someone on FB was selling a cheap engine cos the same happened to him and he stripped the dizzy drive by forcing it round.


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bigbadbob76 wrote:Yes on the dizzy. Mine stuck when i turned it over with no dizzy fitted. Someone on FB was selling a cheap engine cos the same happened to him and he stripped the dizzy drive by forcing it round.

Oh, OK, possibly quite common then. I'll try and remember that and also take a good look at the drive on mine when it comes out.

Thanks for the offer of a donor van to try it out, we are a bit far from each other, I could have helped you chuck yours back in too

Good excuse for a holiday on Skye. bring it with you.