The engine re-do is coming along quite well. I have almost everything media blasted and re-painted that needs to be. I honed the cylinders and installed new rings. I checked the torque on the rod caps and case nuts and everything seems great. I re-installed the pistons, rings, and the LH cylinder head. I discovered someone had been in there and had been messing around with the deck height. The bottom of the cylinders has been machined off and there was a shim added. When I re-assembled the engine without the shims, the head sits way too close to the block and the deck height is a bit thin. I put the shims (1.25mm) back in and the deck height is just right. The head seems like it is still a bit close to the block, so I installed a shim under the rocker shaft mounts so the rockers would hit the valves correctly. This shim is about 1.5mm. You have to wonder what was done to cause these things to be buggered up. Someone obviously has been "adjusting" this engine to get a bit more power out of it. They left the bore and stroke stock though. Very strange.
As I was getting ready to install the RH head, I discovered a crack in the head right at the spark plug hole. I don't think that is repairable. After looking the head over completly, I discovered that someone had been in there welding. There was weld next to the spark plug holes on both cylinder #3 and #4. Time to throw in the towel on that head.
I was fortunate enough to have a friend at work that used to be an air cooled nut and he sold me a mostly complete, stock 1600 that had two good heads for $20. Can't beat that. Now I have all kinds of spare parts!
The heads come off the parts engine and get cleaned up next. I will probably put the valves and springs from the cracked head into the spare parts head. The valves that came with the engine in my bus look to be pretty new.
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