Club 80-90 Forums

You really don't need an engine stand
Just rest the engine on one rocker cover or on the exhaust if early and prop it up against a block of wood under the edge of the sump
The weight holds it there nicely
You then just need a stool to save your knees and back

Thanks for the thought Alex, but it's not just the "gear", where I live now I have no place that would be "cool" to pull the engine and no place to do the work.

Anyway, it seems you don't need an engine stand for other reasons than Itchy's solution, look what I got back of our American friend =

John asked:- "Do you ever do the head seal job with the engine in situ?"

Ken replied:- "Yes I normally do the head gaskets with the engine still installed in the van. I used an engine that was removed for the video just so it would be easier to video"

Plus Ken is in the process of creating a log in and will be along soon to tell us more about his views on this job (and other stuff he does I hope )

T25Convert wrote:Ben in Canada....... does however replace the bottom seal, but without removing the pistons...

I read about doing that on here years ago, again with the engine in situ. Doing it that way obviously makes the job a lot faster. I wonder what the downside is (other than needing it up on a ramp, wouldn't fancy doing that on my back in the cold dark and wet on the roadside )

Doing it in the van is going to be a bitch of a job without having a vehicle lift
Easier if you are into bodging and don't remove the liners of course but there is no way you can claim liners have not moved when gravity is on them horizontally

Doing the seal without removing the liner is also a total bodge as you will never get in to clean the mating surfaces

You could remove liners from pistons but the risk of breaking rings is not worth it imo

Good evening folks. My name is Ken Wilford and I live across the pond here in the USA. One of your members asked me to join the forum and talk about waterboxer head gaskets since you folks have been discussing my youtube video I posted a few weeks ago. I guess there has been some controversy on replacing the lower o-rings on the bottom of the cylinders.

Let me give you some background on myself. I went to school here in the US to be an aircraft mechanic and I got my certificate in powerplant. While I was in school I bought my first Vanagon and started to work on it myself since no one in my area wanted to work on them including the best VW factory trained techs around. I bought my first Vanagon from a Greek Orthodox Priest for $25US and it has just mushroomed from there. People started to ask me "who works on your van?" I would tell them that I did my own work and they would ask if I was interested in doing some work for them. I parted out the $25 Vanagon just because at the time is was in terrible shape and there were nicer vans to be had. That was almost 16 years ago. Since then we went online, selling parts and offering advice and help to Vanagon owners around the world. We have done many full restorations here at our shop refurbishing every part of the van from the engine to interior, etc. I ship parts to every part of the world including the UK, and even Germany (I know ironic isn't it?).

I have been replacing head gaskets in the Vanagon for the past 16 years. It was one of the first jobs I ever did on a Van. I am a very careful, thoughtful, thorough mechanic that usually does everything by the book. If I feel something is critical, it is done or the van doesn't leave my shop. Most of my customers want to be able to jump into their vans and drive across the USA so I have to try to think about systems that have not yet gone bad and try to preventatively replace items that could be problems on a 10k mile trip (20k kilometers for you folks).

With all of this as a background, I still recommend doing the head gaskets without replacing the lower o-rings. Yes the cylinder does move out a bit and there is nothing you can do to stop it. I also never recommend doing head gaskets on an engine that has over 150k miles on it. It just isn't worth it as the bottom end probably need attention. I recommend a rebuilt engine above that mileage.

All I can say is that I have done over 100 head gasket replacement jobs. Most of them were done with just the back of the van on a pair of ramps and the engine still sitting inisde the van with the heads removed. I have never had one come back because of a lower o-ring failure. Some of the head gasket jobs I have done are well over 10 years old and I am still actively involved with the owners as happy customers, (or I know the new owners, and even the owners after that).

Leaving the lower cylinder o-rings unchanged just doesn't seem to cause a problem. I was worried about not replacing it when I first started out since I am a by the book person. However after doing a few of these jobs, and not encountering any issues, I was emboldened to continue not replacing them. Now 16 years later, with not one single issue, I don't even question it.

Is it possible that this could cause a problem? Yes. However in my experience the chance is so close to zero that it isn't worth fretting over. If I had to replace the o-ring and pull the cylinders it would add at least 5 hours of labor to this job. Again if you are pulling the pistons and cylinders, why not hone the cylinders and put in new rings? If you look in the Bentley you will see VW has a special tool for reaming out the piston pin holes. This is because many times when you pull the circlips and try to pull the piston pins some of the metal of the piston has actually compressed in around the hole and makes removing the piston pin extremely difficult. I try to use a slide hammer to pull these or VW has a special tool but either way you are putting a lot of side load on the rods and rod bearings. Did you just damage the rod or the rod bearing? Now that you have the pistons and cylinders out, maybe it would be a good time to replace your rod bearings? The 2.1ls have a problem with the rod bearings going bad and having a low oil pressure condition anyway. But if I am going to replace the rod bearings and have the motor stripped down to that point, why not just rebuild the entire engine?

These are the things that I think about when I do this job. I see leaving the lower o-rings in place a way to do the job without it spiraling out of control from a cost perspective for the customer. It is the difference of this job costing $1500US (Reusing the old heads), $2500 with new heads, or $5000 with a fully rebuilt engine and the labor to pull the engine, swap over everything, replace parts, and put it back. It can mean the difference between a customer repairing a van and keeping it, or bailing on it and selling for $1000 just to get rid of it. I try to balance these things when doing my work. I want the work to be awesome because I have a great reputation, but at the same time, I don't want to make the job so expensive that the customer can't afford it. I have been striking this type of balance for 16 years so I guess I will just keep doing it the way I have been doing it. It is difficult to argue with success.

Sorry about the long post. In the future, they should be shorter.

Good of you to post all that ken after so many of us have seen your vid. Nice to hear from someone that has been doing this job for years with no problems, seams to be the holy grail of work on these engines, all a bit black magic and mumbo jumbo.
It's given me hope for mine as they are dripping a bit at the moment and can't afford to have the job done.

Welcome to the forum Ken & as Dazco says, cheers for putting up such a detailed post

Mmm, so ghosts engine failed as the lower seals were not changed and i just bought a second hand engine for parts which had mayo in the sump becuase a garage didnt change the lower seals and you say it never happens.

They do fail i have read about it many times and probably becase somebody didnt change them before, maybe you have the right knack but to tell people not to bother is risky advice imo.

Vanagain does say it's dependent on mileage to be fair

Hi Ken, glad you made it here

I foresee some interesting dialogue

There is nothing like lots of real hands on experience

ghost123uk wrote:
There is nothing like lots of real hands on experience

And you have hands on experience of lower seal failure because it wasnt changed when the head was removed.

itchyfeet wrote:

ghost123uk wrote:
There is nothing like lots of real hands on experience

And you have hands on experience of lower seal failure because it wasnt changed when the head was removed.

I think I can see the Love triangle forming...

ermie571 wrote:Here's your hug ((((hugs)))) and yep I have a spare dg engine. ...but it mixes oil and water

https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=129273" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Such a common "issue" isn't it and one that seems to usually result in either a "my DG re-build" thread or a "Should I buy an Elite engine or a Vege one" thread. If a garage can successfully do it, for around £300, a lot of folk will be happy

For now, my "drip" seems to have stopped Maybe the K-Seal took it's time to work. Anyway, it's ticking bomb so I will still be going ahead after Bustypes show in April to get Elite to do it, and obviously will report back. The worst that can happen is that :- A) a stud breaks. or :-B) the lower seal fails. Either way I will then be back to getting them to fit another motor, which is the usual option in the scenario anyway (up to now).

in my opinion many people refit the water jacket seals with Dirko on one face as is shown in Haynes, certainly the three engines I have stripped have all been that way
that may have worked from the factory with new heads but once they become pitted that's not going to last, I refitted mine with DirKo on both sides of the seal.