---

Air-cooled saga: Internet purchase of a 1978 Westfalia yields a frustrating series of surprises

By Don Capestrain

The purchase of our 1978 Type II Westfalia was my first experience buying a car using the Internet. I did not see it firsthand until it had been trucked nearly 2,100 miles from Boise, Idaho, to North Canton, Ohio, and no third party inspected it for us in Boise.

Upon finally seeing it and driving it, I experienced some pleasant surprises and some unpleasant ones as well. One of the most unpleasant was, and continues to be, the situation with the engine.

A Shady Past: The previous owner told me that the engine had been rebuilt before he bought it and had approximately 28,000 miles on the rebuild. While under his tenure, there were problems with the cylinder heads and valves, and his mechanic had replaced them with freshly rebuilt stock VW heads. I asked a number of times if he knew who had done the original rebuild, and his reply was that he did not. But I found out the moment I peeked into the engine compartment. There, in plain sight, was a paper tag announcing that the engine had come from a company called GEX. This was further validated when I found the receipt for the engine purchase in the stack of paperwork the previous owner had provided.

Whether deserved or not, I cannot say, but on most air-cooled VW Internet forums, GEX has an awful reputation for sloppily assembling engines from used components that rarely live for more than 20,000 miles. Did the previous owner truly not know that this was a GEX engine, or did he not even know what the paper tag was for? Or, was he being less than honest with me? I don’t know, but had I known, I would have never bought this Bus at the price we agreed to — if I would have bought it at all.

Despite all of that, the engine ran reasonably well, made no funny noises, and did not burn oil. But, it had a stinky-rich idle that I could not cure by adjusting the idle fuel mixture, it leaked oil profusely from the crankshaft seal at the flywheel and from the pushrod tube seals, and it would not deliver over 14 miles per gallon. A compression test showed the engine to be basically healthy, although the readings were a bit on the low side, and varied by more than 20 psi between cylinders. In the spring of 2006, I decided to remove the engine in an attempt to repair the oil leaks and to perform a general inspection.

The inspection revealed more disappointing things. Oil was also leaking from the mating surfaces between all four cylinder barrels and the engine block. Repairing this would require removing the heads and cylinders. In addition, removing the hydraulic valve lifters for inspection showed that they were apparently not rotating in their bores as they are designed to do. Instead of a nice, circular wear pattern on the surface of the lifter in contact with the camshaft lobe, there was a distinct wear line depression across the face of the lifter from the repeated pressure of the cam lobe on the stationary lifter.

Plans for a Bright Future: It was at that point that I decided that the engine should probably be split open and thoroughly inspected by a reputable engine builder. I decided to use the relatively local air-cooled VW shop that had rebuilt the engine in my 1971 Beetle Convertible. I took the engine to the shop in early spring, with the assurance that I would have it back in a few weeks — in plenty of time for summer camping.

It was mid-July before the engine work was completed, and early August before the Bus was running again.

The shop owner told me that all of the engine internals were in good condition. He was surprised to find a counterweighted crankshaft in the engine. It needed nothing more than to have new bearings, new hydraulic valve lifters, new rings, the cylinder walls honed, all the seals replaced and sealant applied to the various mating surfaces to prevent oil leaks. I specifically asked about the camshaft and the lifter wear. He indicated that the camshaft was fine to be used again. I was concerned, but by that time, the engine was already reassembled and ready for me to pick up.

Hopes Are Dashed: I installed the freshly rebuilt engine expecting all of its problems to be solved. I was disappointed to find that it ran exactly the same as it had previously, with the same stinky-rich idle that could not be cured and the same amount of power. At least it did not leak oil. Its first camping trip was a two-hour drive to a campout the night before the Central Ohio Vintage VW Club show in August 2006. It was on that trip that the “funny noise” began.

At idle, the engine would emit a heavy “tock tock tock” sound. This was no mere ticking lifter but something heavier that could be heard through the chassis with the windows up. Based on my description and a recording I made of the noise, the Internet forums surmised that the camshaft had too much back-and-forth clearance and it was making the noise by knocking up against its thrust bearing. I drove the Bus back to the shop that rebuilt the engine. The owner acknowledged the noise, professed to have no idea what was causing it, and gave me no impression that he was interested in tearing it down to find out what was going on. His advice was to drive it and see what developed.

This I did, until I could stand it no more. Out of curiosity, I inspected the new hydraulic valve lifters that were installed. After only a few hundred miles, the same wear pattern that was on the previous lifters was already developing. I called the shop, explained the situation, and he agreed to tear down the engine again to replace the camshaft. There would be no charge to me except for the new camshaft and valve lifters which he would bill at his cost.

So, here I was again, removing the engine from the Bus, ensuring that the rest of camping season would be lost but hopeful that I could begin the following year with all of the problems behind me.

A Foolish Mistake: The engine was returned to the shop again in late August. The question was: What type of camshaft should be installed? I told the shop owner that I had been looking on the Internet, and found mild performance camshafts available for the engine that were designed to be used with the stock fuel injection. Could one of those be installed? He responded yes, and seemed enthusiastic about the idea.

We never specifically discussed exactly what camshaft would be used. I left the final selection to him. Unfortunately, I relied on expertise and knowledge the shop owner did not have. He chose a “Torque Special” camshaft from CB Performance. On their website, it specifically states that the camshaft is NOT recommended for stock fuel injected engines. Once again, the engine was fully assembled and ready to pick up before I was informed of what was done. Initially, the engine would not idle fast enough no matter how far the idle screw was opened. In the end, I ended up drilling a small hole in the throttle plate to allow more air to flow into the engine at idle. My stinky idle problem remained, and the engine struggled to “pick itself up” from idle speed when accelerating from a stop.

The Mysterious Seizure: I was spending hours and hours in the garage during the fall of 2006, trying to get the engine to idle and accelerate better with this new camshaft. At least the noise was gone.

My wife was complaining about the horrible smell of exhaust emanating from the garage, and she was concerned for my health as I breathed the polluted air while fiddling with the idle mixture adjustment, idle speed and airflow meter settings.

I ended up modifying the distributor to deliver more timing advance at idle to give better “off the line” performance and a faster idle. One warm fall evening, I finished some adjustments and took the Bus for a test drive. I left the garage around 9:30 p.m. As I accelerated up through the gears climbing a hill on the rural road just outside of our neighborhood, I felt a slight loss of power after cresting the hill and shifting to third gear. I drove gently down the other side, shifted to fourth, and continued for another three-quarters of a mile before deciding to turn around and return home.

As I pushed in the clutch while turning around, the engine fell to idle, then stalled. When I tried to restart it, the engine would not turn over. Thinking that somehow the battery had lost its charge, I decided to push start it. After popping the clutch in first gear with the Bus rolling, the rear tires chirped and the Bus ground to a halt. The engine had seized.

Dejectedly, I walked the mile home, got tools and returned to the Bus. My attempts to turn the engine via the alternator and directly on the crankshaft were in vain. It would only rotate slightly in either direction before hitting what felt like a hard stop. After sitting for about 20 minutes, I tried to start the engine once again. It cranked over slowly at first, then faster, then started and idled just as it had done before.

I drove it home and it idled in the garage as if nothing had ever happened. I called the shop owner and explained what happened. Once again, he could offer no explanation as to what might have happened or any instruction on what to do next. I’ve been driving the Bus ever since, with several hundred miles driven at highway speeds. I’ve had no further problems, but there is still that nagging doubt.

The Itinerant Air-Cooled Mechanic: My favorite air-cooled VW site is the Itinerant Air-Cooled Forum online at www.itinerant-air-cooled.com. The site is run by a gentleman named Colin who has decades of experience with the repair and maintenance of air-cooled VWs. He has left the corporate world and has spent the last few years doing laps of the country in his 1973 VW Bus, supporting himself by providing his mechanical knowledge and services to air-cooled VW owners all over the country.

$380 buys a 12-hour marathon, $190 a long half day, spent working on whatever your air-cooled VW needs. He visited our Bus in June of this year. Although he could not fix the stinky-rich idle and the poor gas mileage, he did tune the fuel-injection’s airflow meter, eliminating a slight surge I had been experiencing ever since buying the Bus. He adjusted the steering box and brakes, making the Bus feel showroom fresh. He also armed me with knowledge. I knew the camshaft was the root of many of my problems, but I didn’t know why. He explained, in a way that made it clear to me:

“I don’t know what to say about your current camshaft. ‘Torque-special’? that’s a laugh isn’t it? Did they even pull the correct ‘Torque Special’ off the shelf? Do you suppose if we had a knock-down drag-out specification fight between the ‘Torque Special’ and the stock camshaft, we’d find that the stock camshaft actually has the superior profile for torque?

“These aftermarket vendors promise you the moon with impunity.

“If stock has very little overlap for that factory fresh idle, doesn’t it stand that the camshaft is optimized for torque right off the idle? You bet. And if your aftermarket purveyor tries to tell you that the stock camshaft doesn’t breathe well but his ‘Torque Special’ does because it has ‘better overlap’, well guess what? More overlap kills bottom end torque, the torque you need to pull a bus off the line.

“The reality in your engine is that the inefficiency of the cam is the cause of the stinky-rich idle. You are getting a lot of scavenging in the cylinder empty-exhaust/fill-intake overlap due to, you guessed it, valve overlap. That means your cylinder fill at idle has a lot of exhaust in it and a poor intake charge to boot. There is no cure, only gross compensation. You need the fuel to keep the engine running, it just doesn’t have much oxygen to go along with it.”

The Revelation: Well, the answer is plain. The engine must be disassembled again, to replace the Torque Special camshaft with the correct, original, stock design. But in the back of my mind was a nagging question: If the camshaft that was in the engine when I bought it was stock, why did I have the same stinky-rich idle and gas mileage problems before the new camshaft was installed?

The answer came from the stack of receipts. With them was a GEX catalog, explaining their engine offerings. Looking closely at the receipt for the engine purchase showed that it was for the “Power Master” engine. Referring to the catalog, I found that the Power Master was an upgraded rebuilt engine featuring such items as “big valve heads” (that were replaced by the previous owner with the stock VW heads), counterweighted crankshaft (which explained that discovery during the rebuild), AND (drum roll, please) a TORQUE SPECIAL camshaft! Whether in fact it was the same Torque Special camshaft now installed, I don’t know. I’m guessing that perhaps it was not quite as “radical” as the current camshaft, but it does explain why I had similar idle problems. It all makes sense now.

The Plan: It is time to enlarge the depth and breadth of my mechanical knowledge of air-cooled VWs. By the time you read this, I will have once again removed the engine with two goals: The first is to install a stock VW camshaft. The second is to look for any signs of damage from the mysterious seizure. I will rely not on the VW shop to do this, I want to see for myself. I’m confident that with the Bentley manual at my side and the resources of the Itinerant Air-Cooled forum and its chief mechanic Colin, I will be successful. The result should be an engine that runs the way VW intended it to run.