engine rebuild trouble

[agnew1985]

Hmmm... was certainly working before the rebuild but I'll check!

[silverbullet]

Whistling/wheezing means an induction air leak. EZ start test has never worked for me. I bet the inlet manifold gakets were reused...

[agnew1985]

sadly not. they were new as with everything on the rebuild otherwise that would be an easy one to fix! Could they be letting air in anyway?

[silverbullet]

A while ago I swapped a set of DG ancilliaries onto a DJ. It was fine but developed a knock, so put in a SS with the same parts. It refused to start, tried everything then in desperation lifted the inlet manifold. I guessed that it refused to seat down properly, so I resealed the gaskets with a whiff of Dirko both sides and it fired up first time..

[kevtherev]

Like Mr silver bullet, I have learnt never to assume with a VW.

[agnew1985]

Great! Will do that immediately and let you know what happens!

[agnew1985]

Good grief... I did as suggested and that seems to have solved the hissing/ whistling problem. Now there is a horrible banging/ loud knock coming from, i think, the right hand side of the engine. This happens on the first few attempts to start and then, once idling, when I try to give it some revs. Almost makes me sick to hear it It's not regular and sounds more explosive than a regular bang so I feel like it may not be the bearings. It's also loud and as I've replaced all the bearings, water pump, oil pump I'm hoping its not a moving part. And that seems to leave me with a timing issue, ie, the fuel igniting too early. Does this sound in any way reasonable? I've never dealt with a knock so this is all new to me.

[silverbullet]

Defo a knock? Louder than the clattering tappets in the second vid?
Pop the rocker covers and check that a pushrod hasnt failed to seat in the tappet or jumped out.
I prefer only half a turn of preload on tappets that have some "spring" i.e. not hydraulically locked solid.

[agnew1985]

No it's loud. Maybe a backfire. It's a big nasty explosive sound and its in no way regular (other than it happened every time I tried to start the engine). Could it be the timing way out? Just came in a bit stressed so if I had a clear head I would have got the timing gun out before posting but it's too dark and cold to do anything now!

[kevtherev]

you have got the leads on right.
on the distributor 1432 clockwise

[agnew1985]

Yeah pretty sure. I took them off to get at the inlet manifold and I always reference the manual even though I've done it countless times. I will of course double check tho.