"TAG" - 1983 Campaign restoration blog

Well with the car off at the bodyshop it was time to tackle the engine.  

Firstly mounted it on a stand - such a useful piece of kit for engine work.

… then time to start the strip down.

Only two things put up stubborn resistance.  The first was the bottom belt pulley on the crank.   Why oh why did VW decide to use allen socket head bolts …… surely a standard hex head bolt would have been much simpler  especially for maintenance.  I am just SO glad I was not tackling this job with the engine in situ!  Two bolts came out fine…… but the other two…..!!!!  They had to round didn't they!!!

I managed to get a socket & iron bar to stop the crank turning, applied some heat to the rounded heads and banged a spline headed socket into the damaged head - and voila!  

The other s*d was one of the bolts holding the side engine mount to the block.  Again, why did VW decide to use allen headed bolts…..?  It would be interesting to know what made the engineers choose certain fittings - like hex head bolt/allen head bolt?????

Again the most difficult stripped but managed to use the same trick as on the bottom belt pulley bolts.

Finally… off with his head!

Cleaned the block with degreaser and given a waft of WD40 until I get round to de-rusting/painting.

…. now I hope I remember where it all goes!

Been a while since my last updates, but for those interested here is some of the recent works.

I had the manifolds soda-blasted (well worth it!!!!) and then I painted them in high temp paint……..followed by a few hours in the oven.  Family not impressed ………….. you could certainly tell it wasn't roast beef from the aroma!!!










Before and after soda-blasting - exhaust and intake











Looking better than good roast beef…….??????

Auxiliary air valve cleaned up and painted

Before


After

Alternator stripped down, cleaned, painted, bolts & clips plated.  Just doing one item in detail like this takes some time.

Same processes for the distributor.  Again I plated the clips & bolts.

Numerous parts being cleaned, treated, painted or plated!!  I have invested in a small ultrasonic cleaner with specialist carb. cleaner solution.  It certainly does a great job of cleaning hidden corners of dirty parts!  

Time to strip the block.

All looked good on strip down.  I am taking the block for checking/honing to a specialist engine tuner.  He is also going to port the head along with other head work.  At the same time his gearbox man is going to overhaul my gearbox.

And while all this fun and games is going on, there is signs of progress at the bodyshop.

And while all this fun and games is going on, there is signs of progress at the bodyshop.

Cracking work. Nice progress, the engine stand is a useful tool, worth its weight in gold.

I wish, I wish I had the space and equipment that you have when I did mine.

Some further progress:

Throttle body as removed from car

After cleaning and a session in an ultrasonic cleaner:

Fully stripped:

Finally painted, and all parts electro-plated: