Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 18:38:24 -0500
Reply-To: John Rodgers <jrodgers113@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Rodgers <jrodgers113@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Weird engine noise update (LONG)
In-Reply-To: <CAEwp_cROhZvL==rnbRaJqFmc8MSYBFER-cBYjVLp=M+sFhCNcA@mail.gmail.com>
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Marc,
Where do you hang your hat? There is a crackerjack rebuilder here that you
might make a deal with. He rebuilt the engine in my '88 GL in yr 2000 and
I've ne er had a lick of trouble with it. Externals on occassion, but
internally, never. He's rebuilding the engine for my '91 Carat right now.
Should be finished next week. He ships also. If interested, give him a
call. Outfits name is Jims VW. Speak to Jim Connel. Phone 205-533-5861.
Website www.jimsaircooled.com
Don't let the aircooled bit fool you. He does lots of them, but he does
1.9lL and 2.1L as well as Subaru conversions.
I have good experiences with him. His is a backwoods shop in the middle of
nowhere on the sid3 of a mountain surrounded by about 500 Bugs, Ghias, and
buses both new and old. An old timer in the business.
John
On Jul 10, 2015 5:35 PM, "Marc Perdue" <mcperdue@gmail.com> wrote:
> Not much to say; apparently my Vanagon guys were waiting for me to
> give the go-ahead before tearing into the engine. Communication is
> important.
>
> In any event, there is an unusual noise in cylinder 1 of unknown
> origin. They talked about an engine rebuild. Not prepared to make that
> kind of commitment without knowing the cause of the noise and what it
> would take to fix it.
>
> Being as the engine rebuild option was being put out there, I decided
> to look into some engine replacement/rebuild options. Being as we
> haven't had a good tire thread in at least a day, I thought I'd start
> an engine options thread.
>
> My Vanagon guy, Keith McDonald, says he can do a balanced and
> blueprinted engine rebuild for me for something along the lines of
> $4-5K. I assume he would keep my engine for a core, but don't know. I
> assume this cost is installed, but don't know. What I do know is that
> they did a video of one of his rebuilt engines running on a pallet,
> unrestrained, and not moving around on the pallet. They said they sent
> the video to Shaun (sp?) at Bus Depot and that he was impressed.
>
> I personally have no solid idea of what "balanced and blueprinted"
> means. I'd love to be enlightened on this. I do know that my engine
> definitely would go running off of a pallet if unrestrained.
>
> Bus Depot has a rebuilt engine for under $2K, plus a core charge,
> shipping, etc.
>
> GoWesty has a number of different options, price not including core,
> shipping, etc.:
> 1) 2.2L for about $4.3K
> 2) 2.3L for about $5K
> 3) 2.45L for about $5.7K
>
> I could sign on to Bostig's RG6 build for Winter 2015 with a deposit
> of about $1.7K, total non-installed price circa $6K, not including
> engine.
>
> Subaru conversion for who-knows-how-much.
>
> So, I have no idea how much an install of any of these would cost if I
> was having somebody else do it and I don't have the proper facilities
> and/or time to do it myself. On the surface of it, the Bus Depot
> rebuild looks good just looking at cost. But is it balanced and
> blueprinted? Should I care about that?
>
> I was hoping that the time to install a new engine was a long way off,
> and it may still be. It is kind of frustrating that I'm having this
> kind of issue at 170K miles on the 3rd engine. Now, the quality of the
> 2nd engine rebuild was definitely questionable, but this one is a
> Boston Bob engine with maybe 50-65K miles on it, and I've tried to
> baby it.
>
> Sigh...
> Marc Perdue
>
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