Hello All - I have been wrestling with this for 4 days:

82 Westy
2.0 aircooled
Weber 2 bbl Progressive (yeah, I know)
SVDA

Got my Westy back from having my mechanic do a rear brake job on my westy.
He also set the timing (he replaced points and condenser when I first bought
the car but did not time the engine (first strike). The PO had the timing at
a total advance of 60 BTDC. I can't believe my mechanic did not check the
timing or valves when I brought it in to them initially to check out.

It ran great except for a pinging noise which I thought was detonation from
the timing being to advanced (42 degrees total including dist. vac. advance)

I retarded the timing to 7.0 then 5 BTDC, then 0 and the ping did not go
away. The ping is not steady would not happen during idle, but would happen
on acceleration and deceleration. It was not a steady ping but random.

Did compression test (cold) later realized that I should do it warm- had
1=85
2-85
3-100
4-100

So I went back to square one and set the dwell to 48, retimed and adjusted
the carb - same pinging.

Ran 1/2 bottle of seafoam through the carb, ran worse - number 2 cylinder
was not affected idle when disconnected spark.

Air is pumping out of the crankcase breather hose

Ping still there....

did my first valve adjustment on cylinder 1 and 2. Wiped off spark plugs
(they were black (dry black) from the seafoam I think),

The intake valve on # 2 took twice as many turns (5) to get clearance as the
other valves. The car was cool - not cold and made two complete turns after
contact

The balance test on #2 cylinder is much better (same difference as other
cylinders when spark is taken away).
Ran the car - the lifters were clanking (well something was that sounded
like lifter noise I have had in the past). So drove it around to get rid of
it...after what had been about 20 minutes (usually goes away in about 5-8
min.) it had not quieted down so I parked it and took a look.

The timing was showing 0 (TDC), which was about 7.5-8 yesterday. Retimed to
7.5 btdc and 30 btdc at 3000 rpm without carb vacuum - and took it back out.
it was hesitating at low RPMs and not running great, but running - another 8
minutes and the noise was still there - besides some hesitation in low RPMS
ran pretty well.

My big concerns are:
1. I am still getting some pinging, but not as much as before (hard to tell
with clanking going on).

2. I am getting air pumping (pulsing) out of the crankcase breather hose and
the air is a bit dirty with a little smoke.
3. The clanking has not gone away after adjusting valves

Tomorrow I will:
Confirm TDC with static timing light
readjust the valves (cold) - both sides
retune
compression test (Warm).

Any ideas or suggestions out there?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions and input.

Best regards,
Frank

------------------------------------------------------------
+    To unsubscribe from the Vanagon List send an e-mail to
+    listserv@gerry.vanagon.com with SIGNOFF VANAGON
+    in the body of the message.
------------------------------------------------------------