Now some background history of my 83 westy.

-My college classmate and a neighbor as well bought it new in 1983.
 I bought my 84 Vanagon a few months later.
-The westy developed the popular combustion gas leaked into cooling system
 syndrom at about 30k miles. My 84 was fine.
-My friend left the country and sold me the westy cheap with the problem.
-I contacted California BBB and got VWoA to agree to rebuild the engine
 for me at about 80k miles. I agreed pay 25% of the bill though.
-The leaking problem was fixed but the engine continued to be powerless.
-Before it reached 100k I decided to rebuild it again but by myself.
-My rebuild failed because I started up the newly rebuilt engine for 30 minutes
 with no oil pressure. The engine continue to be powerless and it burnt oil.
-At 110K now I reduild it again. This time I installed a new liner. Engine is
 still powerless and it showed missing compression on #1 and #3.

Based on this brief history I now believe that the front header being too wide
was probably the cause of the original leak problem. The engine developed the
leaking syndrom probably before 30k miles. A dealer worked on it but did not
fix it. The work order gave me enough proof to get VWoA to rebuild the engine
for me when the westy was 10 years old but I had to pay 25% of the cost.

The rebuild had a new pair of cylinder heads but the front exhaust header was
still too wide so it continue to prevent the heads from getting enough compression.
No leak any more but no horse power either.

Then I screwed up in my first attempt to rebuild it with a new liner. It only
add one more problem, consuming oil, to the existing low compression problem
caused by the front exhaust header.

So I rebuild it again this time with another set of liner. Well, the compression
check I did caught the problem. Did not realize what caused it initially. With the
front header removed I finally got excellent compression out of all 4 cylinders.
I believe I did nothing wrong to torgue the head nuts. I remember the engine
sounded really strong initially before the header eventually "lifted", as Dennis
said, the #1 and #3 slightly and the compression was lost.

Jesus, if the header were ever slightly wider I would probably had taken care of it
before completing the rebuild. Or had it been slightely narrower it would have been
fine for the engine to work.

I hope this is enough evidence to blame the faulty header to have crippled the westy
since its early age util now at 110K. Talking about VW quality. I think I am close
to end the chapter. I will know for sure tomorrow.

David

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