Monday, May 6, 2013

Continuing with the Vanagon

As usual, I'm being kept away from working on the diesel. I'm currently replacing the head gaskets in the Vanagon. More accurately, I'm still working on disassembly. Long story short, the intake has to come off (it is currently off), the exhaust has to come off (working on that...), the coolant needs to be drained (not quite there yet), and the oil has to be drained (done) before I can remove the heads.

I had to go in to the office this past Saturday, which only gave me part of Sunday to work on the Vanagon. Hopefully, I'll get a lot more done next weekend. I'd like to have at least one of the heads off, and pending the condition of the head itself, I'd like to replace the gaskets on that side. Ideally, I'd like the van drivable before Memorial Day, so I can get back to work on the Mercedes.

still working on disassembly


passenger side pushrod tube tin off



Exhaust bracket loosened



Exhaust bolts soaking in penetrating oil



8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. I'll tell u another thing to be aware of just looking at the engine that particular distributor is known to experience bearing failure. You can identify this the same way wheel bearing failure.

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    1. What's your particular experience with this model of distributor?

      I'm not worried about it. The "new" engine didn't come with one, so this distributor is a transplant from my old engine.

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    2. Well I've never personally had it happen to me personally, but I remember one time an acquaintance friend of mine had a pinging noise that was coming from around the engine, nothing really loud but enough to notice that something was up. Anyways long story short, turns out the distributor bearings were bad and he had to replace it. It was a different car and probably had a different mechanical history, but it did have a red distributor just like that one.

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    3. Well, only the distributor cap is red. Orange, actually. I've never heard of a Bosch distributor failing on a Vanagon. I'm sure if happens, but it's probably reasonably rare.

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  4. FYI, folks - spam comments will be deleted.

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    1. it's really despicable when people do stuff like that!

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