The cylinders and liners failed and you think the rest of the engine is
healthy? On what basis? What happened to the pistons? If they melted, it
is possible that you have a warped and twisted mess.

The concept of breaking in has little to do with wearing in to get some
clearance and reduce friction. The goal is to get the high spots off the
cylinders and rings so they can seat and form a seal using the oil.
Regardless of viscosity, most off the shelf oil have so much in the way of
friction reducing and anti-wear additives, that the choice makes little
difference. I would use a light oil like 5 or 10w-30 to flush the debris
and dirt out of the engine and change to whatever you plan to use before
driving any distance. Change again in a few hundred miles. 20w-50 is the
proper oil for most driving unless using a synthetic that has slightly
different numbers such as Mobil 1 15w-50.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
David Kao
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 12:44 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Engine Break-In Oil Weight

I have just put in a new set of cofap cylinder/piston liner into the
engine of my 83 westy.
Could you experts out there advise what oild weight I should put into the
engine for breaking
in the new liner? I have searched the archive. But I did not get clear
advices there.

My 83 westy only had 110k miles on the engine. It had a pair of cylinder
heads (rebuilt)
put in by a VW dealer around 80+k miles. So the heads are in very decent
shape still. I did
not touch the block. I assume it is OK at only 110k miles. So I went ahead
to replace
only the liner.

I realized that oil weight may be critical for breaking in a new liner
after I had poured
into my enige 20-50w oil. I had started up the engine and drove about 5
total miles so far.
I had done 1/2- 3/4 throttle load on 2nd gear to rev up and down for half
a dozen times.
I now wonder if I had a wrong weight of oil in the engine trying to break
it in.

I hope it's not too late to make a correction now. The friction of the new
liner is still
obvoiusly high meaning it still needs to be broken in.

David

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