Date:         20 Sep 1995 09:34:43 +1000
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "King, Robert" <king@tanelorn.aod.dsto.gov.au>
Subject:      RE: Da Boat 2 litre

Dave writes

>different crankcase breather box (no big deal, except that it might tip
>off the smog weenies that this was not a stock 1.7 engine) I decided at
>that point that I was going to have to transfer the internals of this
>engine to a 1.7 case that came with Jeff's engineless Westy. 

Hmmm.  Are *all* the smoggers this alert?  Seems to me that if you could scrub
round this one it would be better (and cheaper) to leave everything in the 2.0
litre case and go with an electric fuel pump.  Basically if you want to
transfer eveything into another case you're going to have to pay for
machining, bearings etc (you can't go putting parts with an established wear
pattern straight into another case - I don't mean to insult your intelligence,
I'd guess  from reading your posts you realise this....)

>My friend at the machine shop said not to worry about the scoring on the
>cylinder wall - said he could probably just hone it, or that I could
>probably get away with leaving it that way.  In his defense, he did want
>to look at it first.  What does the list think?

>Also, can I remove the pistons from the barrels and then reinstall them
>later, without messing up the rings? 

These questions are all sorta related.  I am personally loathe to spend lots
of bucks if its not required.  And if all the bits are within spec then
there's no need to replace everything. So what I would do is pull the 2.0
litre down and have a look at it.  Measure it all up for wear.  Check the
bearings, measure the journals, bores, pots, rings (closure and landings) and
see if they are still within spec - remember the cam/bearings cos they're what
go first in Type IV engines.  If they are all close to spec I would just get
the barrels honed and put it all back together - there is no problem
reassembling an engine providing everything goes back where it came from. If
the rings are worn but the bores/pots/landings are still tolerable I would put
in new rings and then reassemble etc. A Type IV actually has to have down a
*lot* of miles or been *harshly* treated to have a badly worn bottom end (bit
like people eh?)

If the whole lot is *well* worn then you're going to have to pay for the whole
schemoozle anyway and then it's probably time to consider a case switch.

Rob K.