Talk about ignorant!

I assumed that by turning engine by hand (w/o plugs in) I'd get a
reading that way. Ha!

Actually I have a spare tranny and starter, so could assemble and hook
up battery. Engine bare block at this point.

Interesting re: oil analysis. I won't be doing any oil changes on this
thing, so may just stick with checking for chunks of metal in oil or
bottom of case in oil filter etc.

Likely own't pull heads.

Cheers,

Neil.

On 8/30/07, Matt Roberds <mattroberds@cox.net> wrote:
> > From:    neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
> > Date:    Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:57:31 -0700
> >
> > Aside from a compression test, measuring end play, (and of course
> > installing and running!) are there ways to tell if there's anything
> > totally wrong with a given 2.0 air cooled engine? (like spun bearing
> > etc.)
>
> If you can do a compression test, you must have a bellhousing or the
> little cast piece that lets you put a starter on it.  Depending on how
> dressed up it is (does it have its FI computer+harness, or is that stuff
> still in the van?) you're not too far away from being able to start and
> run it.
>
> It might be worth taking the heads off to take a look at the insides of
> the cylinders, the valves and seats, etc.  If you pull a cylinder, you
> can see inside the engine a little... maybe not enough to see a spun
> bearing, though.
>
> Oil analysis has been mentioned.  The small airplane people (who, by and
> large, are running flat-four and flat-six air-cooled engines) often do
> this, but the opinion there seems to be that it's more of a trend
> monitoring thing rather than a one-shot.  One idea I've heard is that it
> takes three oil changes and analyses to establish a baseline, *then*
> further tests can reliably tell you if something is starting to wear at
> a high rate.
>
> Matt Roberds
>
>

--
Neil Nicholson. 1981 Air Cooled Westfalia -
"Jaco"  (Bustorius)

http://web.mac.com/tubaneil

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