My 1st van and I could use some advice

[Freerange]

So recently i picked up a VW Vanagon from an Old timer for 500$ and a bag of stoinks. He had been living in it for awhile and it was a terrible stinky mess inside he also said the motor was blown up but I knew I could either fix it or part it out and make out real nice. Anyway, We loaded it up in Burns Oregon on my buddys pickup trailer and brought it home to the Willamette Valley stopping along the way to check out old buildings from the american dream days and looking for arrowheads in the vast sagebrush lands of the great basin. Upon getting it home and cleaning it for a few weeks i quickly realized the motor was not blown up at all but it had sucked a head bolt into the head. Any advice on what I need to do? Do I remove the head, find the bolt, and check for damage? Do I re tap threads for a new headbolt or do I just find a new head for the motor? I am a bit of a neophyte in regards to mechanics but I'm not scared to give it a go with a bit of advice.

 

[Jimmy Beans]

Old VW engines are a great place to start, if you're not very mechanically inclined yet. My first car was a 1961 Chevy Corvair. More or less a pancake VW engine with a few minor differences. One of my next cars was a 73 VW super beetle. I was driving back from Bakersfield during my switchman/brakeman training classes when the distributor in my bug went out on highway 99. I bought a 009 distributor and installed it on the shoulder of the highway within minutes, never working on an engine before in my life. Weeks later I had the whole engine torn apart and did a rebuild myself from a Chilton book. They're really easy to work on, especially nowadays with youtube and whatnot.

Just take pictures as you go, in case your memory isn't so great. Tape both ends of connections and wires and match them with some sort of code like R-1 L-3 etc, whatever system you come up with to help you remember where things need to be put back into place. I wish I could give you detailed answers to your question but I'd more or less need to see the engine in front of me to really assess what took place and the damages. I can't even wrap my mind around what you're explaining exactly. Like, did it somehow pull one of the torque bolts into one of the cylinders? Did one of the bolts just snap off in it's place where you'd need an easyout bolt extractor?

What's the condition of the head gasket and head itself? Do you have some sort of a precision level scale to detect warping? There's so many things that could have happened it's just hard to determine what exactly you need to do without seeing the thing broken apart in person. Don't be afraid of it though, it's a great engine to start out on. I believe the record for tearing one of those engines out entirely and replacing it is right around 1 minute flat. So take a few hours or days even, it's like a glorified lawnmower pretty much.

 

[Freerange]

Thanks man, guess I will just dive in and see what i can figure out. It should be fun.

 

[creature]

i'm trying to find threads, but as i always suggest to budding mechanics & aspiring gearheads, as well as rubbertrampers in general with no automotive experience...
*especially* those starting out on VWs,get a hold of "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot".. this book is great...
i dunno any particulars about the Vanogon, but i had a couple of buses.. a 70 & 78 (???) maybe 30 years ago (in my 20's).. and what i learned from this book, rebuilding my '61 bug back in 1978 (in my teens) is *still* applicable..

John Muir (an engineer) wrote the damn thing, and it's a gas..
the 1st edition of the book was published in '69 & was updated through 2001 or so..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir_(engineer)

good, good stuff..

the book is geared mostly towards air cooled engines, but if your rig is older than 2001, i bet there are applicable sections.. i *think* the later eds had some stuff about the liquid cooled systems, but i don't know that as a fact..

the book is geared mostly towards air cooled engines, as @Eng JR Lupo RV 323 said "Old VW engines are a great place to start, if you're not very mechanically inclined yet. ...So take a few hours or days even, it's like a glorified lawnmower pretty much."

in the earlier editions, Muir made a specific reference to loose head bolts on the classic motors, more or less being: "they can make it sound like Thor's Hammer is banging around in there, but all you need to do is torque them to specification".

if the bolt isn't *in* the cylinder (???), or if it wasn't run too much since it fell out, you may just need to replace it, if it's missing.
There's a chance the bolthead could have sheared & gotten swallowed, but if the head is not so loose that you have more than 3mm or 1/8" of movement, i would just bolt her down & give her a try, if you're going to drive her locally, for the most part, before going on any long trips, just to see how she behaves..

they are easy to drop & work on, if you have a small floor jack & jackstands, so even if she purrs sweet, go over her before heading out..

if the damage is done, it's done, and you'll also learn from seeing what it is, and how it happened, as well as repairing it..

good luck!!

 

[Freerange]

I been meaning to pick up that book. I know there is a section that has a maintenance checklist and for a newer wrench like myself i think that's always a smart move. My engine is water cooled but its pretty much the same motor. Im gonna tear it down over the next 5 days before the rain returns and i have to chop my meds down. I think its a good time to change out seals, lines, and to learn. Thanks for the advice fellas, good to see a few VW enthusiasts around.

 

[DrewSTNY]

I agree with what's been said above. Air cooled VWs are where a lot of us got our start and they will teach you a hell of a lot. The vanagons went water cooled, but the basic motor is the same except the injection system. Never worked on one of the wasserboxers myself. John Muir's how to guides are excellent. My favorite is the one written for the Beetle. I'm not sure, but I think the other versions were co-authored.

I am on my 6th VW vehicle, a diesel Jetta, but we have had Beetles, vans, and Rabbits throughout the years. A lot of people complain about how VWs are built, but I find them pretty logical myself.

Pulling the head off is a good start to figuring out what went wrong. There are a few tricky things with the water cooled engines that I have heard about over the years, but don't really have any experience with them.