Digging Deeper then I wanted.

I had the pure joy of working on a vehicle I call the grease blob. This picture will show you why I call it such a name. I did a tune up on it and it left it's mark on my garage floor. I told Dixie that if I had waited any longer I wouldn't of had to pull the drain plug because it would have leaked all it's oil out. I changed the oil, fuel filter, pcv valve, air cleaner, spark plugs and spark plug wires.

 Here is the air cleaner. It had been awhile since this had been changed.

Here is the pcv valve. It was gummed up pretty bad and didn't rattle when it was shaken.

 The spark plugs were worn to have about double the gap that they were suppose to have. The good thing is that they all looked like they were firing good. Needless to say after all the work it ran better when it left the shop.

 I then turned my attention to Ed the bugs engine. I removed the sheet metal and checked things out. I pulled the engine to fix the oil leaks. I did a leak down test on it and quickly became discouraged. I new beforehand that I had 1 cylinder that was low on compression. It has been puffing out more smoke lately so that's why I decided to do the leak down test. I had 40% leak down on 3 cylinders and 18% on 1 cylinder. That really sucks. I had all my leakage from the rings. I heard no air coming from the intake or the exhaust so I am fairly sure the heads and valves are good. That has forced me to make some decisions. I could just fix some of the leaks and install it back in the car so I can make my deadline, I can send the heads off to be rebuilt and put new pistons and jugs in it, I can just install new pistons and jugs and leave the heads alone or I can rebuild the whole engine. I thought about it a lot on Saturday.

 I decided to pull the exhaust, retorque the heads and try the leak down test again. I had the same results as the first time. I needed to pull the heads to replace the push rod tubes so I figured I would look them over to see what I could see.

I pulled both heads and one jug. The rings looked ok but the cylinders were really polished. You could see some blow by on the piston.

 I inspected the heads and they look to be in really good shape. I filled the heads with alcohol and waited. I couldn't find any leaks from the valves so that made me happy.

I am under a time crunch to get this bug back on the road by March 15th so I don't have a lot of time to fix it. I decided to change the pistons and jugs out for some new ones and run the heads as they are. If I had more time I would have the heads checked out by a machine shop. This is farther then I wanted to go but I think it will be for the best and I should have enough time to get it back together if I can get the parts for it. I have my fingers crossed that I won't find anymore surprises. Wish me luck!