Yes, this happens. I doubt VW replaces the valves in the so called new
heads. The failure may also be caused by improperly machined valve seats
and not lapping to he valves to the seat.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf
Of Sam Payne
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 10:40 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Bad intake valve @ 30,000 miles????

Good Men and Good Women of The List:

     I went today to look at a 2.1 for sale, leftover from a conversion.
It's a VW factory rebuilt engine with 30,000 miles on it, (it's out of
the
vehicle, so it was tested cold). The engine looked its age, the seller
is
a really nice guy (and a List member!) but the leakdown test showed 10%,
10%, 7% and 35%. I did the test twice on all cylinders, valves closed @
TDC etc. and got the same values. I retested the 35% cylinder 4 times
(really liked the engine), the last time with a tablespoon of 20w-50 oil
in the cylinder; still 35%. On the low cylinder only I heard obvious
leakage at the intake manifold. So the leak is through the intake valve.
I
tried to backflush possible debris out of the valve with compressed air
when it was open, but no luck.
      Questions: Neither the seller nor I could understand why the
INTAKE
valve would fail after 30,000 miles only. The heads are AMC but the VW
factory would replace the Spanish valves with German ones, right?
Wouldn't
they? Any ideas?
      Also, crankshaft endplay *seemed* excessive (I didn't have a dial
indicator). Bentley specifies 6 thousandths max, but I could see a tiny
bit of play and hear a clunk when I pulled. It *felt* more like 10-15
thou. If it's sloppy I'm not worried about shimming the flywheel but am
concerned about damage done. ???....

                      Thanks in advance for the help!
                                                        Sam