akciddento

doh!

back up to the garage of thomas to finish splitting the case on the wbx...
cleaned some stuff up and found that the one stud that just would not move was actually a bolt all the way through just completely bimetallically corroded... looked like it was held in with concrete...

after lots of huffing and puffing and swearing and hammering thomas tackwelded a nut on the end that got it started moving - then sheared it off...

you can see the stud with the nut welded on still glowing from the welder.

but with that start and a large hammer it came out...
after a bit more swearing and lots of shaking (and if i'd thought for more than 2 seconds) i realised that there ws no way the case would separate unless i actually bothered to remove the pistons....

on a wasserboxer this is easier said than done. the removal of the wrist pin circlips has to happen though a little hole in the water jacket...

eventually i got the pins out of number two and number four pistons and they're off but number one and number three dont really want to budge.
i left at midnight with thomas and john still under a syncro t25 refitting a gearbox....

what fun.. !

here's all the stuff stacked up, waiting for me to locate the special VW tool 3901 wbx wrist pin puller....
i found 1, special order form the US , $47.50 plus shipping. maybe i'll try another way ...

come up to the lab and see what's on the slab....

here it is, the 2.1l waterboxer i was running lastyear in the red panelvan.
i dropped it a stripped it before the van went and thomasdiamonhell was kind enough to offer me some clear bench space at his workshop to strip it.
working inside with lighting and BLISS OF BLISS ! an air ratchet is so good. taking the block apart is so quick with the air ratchet!

i pulled off number 3&4 head last night and to my surprise number 4 loooks ok, no cracks, no pitting, the head looks good, all the rings are in place... it was number 4 that was low on the compression test and i expected th eworst...

the barrel is gunked and filthy but that's no hassle...
i might even get out of this with a good spare pair of heads!
with luck i might get the rest of it split and be able to get the case cleaned this weekend and send the rest off to be balanced... (though probably not....)

;)

d

shuttlebustastic !

borrowed the van and trailer from raceshack and trucked up to oakham near leicester to collect the NEW akciddento weapon of choice,

it's a 1990 devon microbus, double sliding door, walkthrough with captain seats and rear wash wipe...

it stinks of ep90 gearbox oil (probably because the engine and gear box are sat in side it) and smells a bit damp and i think i like.
i 'd not seen it before driving up to get it and when i slid open the side door it remonded me of the samba, when i picked it up from tilbury docks years ago. i think it might be the smell of engine oil and damp carpet but i still like it.

theres lots to do but theres loads of time. watch this space for plans and progress as both are made....

stacked it....

after a fantastic saturday night out in cardiff with rod912 and dude, meeting up with kelster and mave (much bench racing and discussion of new projects was done) it was off up to raceshack to help matty walker with getting his ghia ready for the volksworld show... it's going to be awesome... :)

unfortunately at the traffic lights entering the industrial estate where the workshop is i turned sharp right to follow the road and the car kept going int a straight line and i stacked it into the kerb.

and ripped off the front passenger side wheel.

oops.

dude, who was sat in the passenger seat, took it quite well.

i popped out the lower ball joint and bent the lower wishbone throgh about 30 degrees. not good.

after a few minutes surveying i got on the phone to thomas diamondgeezer iin bristol and got a number for danny P in ross on wye who said 'no problem, i'll get you one of those and bring it up... !"

after a heroic roadside rescue by matty and rod we got the jetta to raceshack on the trailer and the afternoons entertainment started.

hand polishing a porsche gearbox to a mirror shine...
...it's wrong, just wrong - in all the best kinds of ways.

danny p arrived with a lower wishbone he'd pulled off a mk2 golf he happened to have lying around and i persuaded him, with the help of a fistfull of twenties, to fit it all for me while i got on with polishing - it was about all my poor confused brain was good for.

and it got me home and the wheel didn't fall off either !

result
:)

out with the old...

after a strange and taxing day doing 'other' stuff i got to attack the panel van... i've sold it to gary from glastonbury who is going to rebuold it and race it and i've bought a 1989 t25 devon shuttlebus from dave up in oakham...

gary and jinx are coming on saturday to collect the panel so i need to get a load of stuff out (partly because it's been loaned to me and shouldn't strictly speaking be sold ;0 )

so advance toward the bus with screwdrivers, socket set and side cutters...

an hour later i have a heap of

all the gauges and clocks... (incidentally the clocks are worth more than the whole bus)
sparco race seat (thankyou conor)
msd ignition system & rev limiter (thankyou kevo)
chargecooler radiator & pump
chargecooler
kjet injection system
half the pipewrk for the turbo
nitrous system
assorted other junk...

all i need to do now is remove the injection pump & accumulator from under the floor and drop the engine...

if it stops raining...

i also called over on thomas diamondhell to say hi and it looks like i am going to take up his kind offer of benchspace to start stripping the 2.1 motor for rebuild...

finally :)

he also mentioned that he has a (cant-remember-the-code} 4 speed gearbox that's just been rebuilt that has the really tall 4th gear... sounds interesting. the devon is a 5 speed - which is not ideal - the dogleg first is a hassle and the box is weaker than a 4 speed... the only this is the tall 5th gear...
i need to check ratios and codes but this might work out welll....

ah... such plans

(btw i also spotted a 62mm turbo sealed throttle body on ebay for £cheap) it's short which is great and is HOOOGE ! but jimby says nah... IT'S TOO BIG...
too big ?

too big !

pah... although he's probably right, what does he know ?!!@@!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US !

Just realised that i've been writing this weblog for three years now ! started way back in march 2003 !!!!

that's a bit strange..

:)

d

shopping again...

after a hectic few weeks (they always seem to be hectic... i wonder why that is ?) i've done a deal with davecappucino cruiser (always meant to ask him why he calls himself that, cafe racer reference maybe ??) to buy his old devon shuttlebus off him. he bought it off ben and robbed all the good parts from it and now it looks to be headed for deepest darkest bristol....

what i have to do is make room for it so the panelvan - minus some of the more expensive parts - is up for sale. gary and jinx from glastonbury came to look at it on saturday and seemed interested but who knows. (they've been talking to mark germman (again i need to ask him about this ....) about racing a bus in vwdrc... - it's a small world ;)) they're planning a golf gti conversion and all sorts of shenannigans...

i've started bit shopping for a rebuild on the 2.1 wasserboxer in the panelvan. i did a compression test on it and found out why it won't hold boost... the cylinder pressures read (bear in mind that they should be within 10psi of each other -
ladies and gentlemen, in reverse order we have,
at number 1 is number one cylinder with 180psi,
strangely at joint second are numbers two and three with 170 psi
and last and very much least is cylinder number four with 70psi....

so i guess that's a little sickly then... bear in mind that it made 108bhp at the wheels like this (thats somewhere over140 at the flywheel... ;) )

so - i';ve got a spare block, new barrels pistons and rings, a pair of good condition second hand heads waiting for some dremel porting work & valve job.
i've done the horrible budget on a full best quality gasket set & also the little bits, new studs @ £7 each, new pushrod tubes, bearing set, oil pump, balancing etc etc etc... all the basics - comes to nearly £300 for what is only a bit more than a gasket set... oops...

there's also a part 2 shopping list with the shiny things on it.
so far i've got to

engel tsc-10 turbo grind cam £60
straight cut camgears to suit £50
scat 1.4:1 ratio rockers £190
solid lifters to suit from £60 up to £300 (ouch !)
SCAT H beam rods £200

(i've got a bag with my old manton chromoly push rods in somewhere too...)

but there's then a part 3 shopping list....

omex/wolf 3d fuel injection EMU
8 injector setup
new 54mm jenvey throttle body with TPS
crank trigger sensor & all the gubbins
new wiring loom to suit
edis ignition pack & bits...

- cheap as chips for what you get but not really all that cheap... ;)

ah well....

who knows, the last race bus got completely out of hand... so why break a habit !

oh btw while window shoppin on ebay for cosworth throttle bodies i found this...

on australian ebay but will ship to the uk, only £300.

100mm throttle body !

EEK ! thats proper scary.... if you made enough boost your could end up sucking all sorts of wild life and even pedestrians into it !

well hello !

well hello again everyone...

it;'s been a long time through a long winter with no entries in the weblog...
lots and nothing at all has been happening...

teh wedge hightop was sold last weekend. i got a new parts hauler.....

and even bought a new toolbox...

negotiating on a new bus to race and accumulating parts for a new engine build and turbo re engineer...

watch this space ;)