I never understood why #3 runs hotter than the others, maybe it's the fan
design.

I built that engine for a friend and his family in the '70's for his Westy.
They immediately took off for Yellowstone Park, and it blew on a long climb
in Montana.  They left it by the side of the road, and it was gone when they
came back to haul it to a shop. They could not locate it, so they figured it
was stolen. They flew home, and got an insurance settlement.  A few months
later, the sheriff in that county called them to tell them they had picked
up the van from the side of the road. They really "impounded" it, because
even the insurance company couldn't find it.

They did not want it back, lucky for me.

Stuart

-----Original Message-----
From: Roy Nicholl [mailto:RNicholl@NBNet.nb.ca]
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2015 5:15 PM
To: Stuart MacMillan
Cc: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Air cooled head gasket

You beat me to this one, Stuart.  Over the bench in the garage, I have a
piston from #3 in a 1500sp which serves to remind what happens if the deck
height is too low :(

On 27-Mar-2015, at 21:00, Stuart MacMillan wrote:

> I'm sure others have more useful advice, but the one thing I know from
> my air cooled days is that deck height is critical for the proper
> compression ratio.  If you lap them in, you may need to raise the deck
> height using shims between the jugs and the case.  An experienced VW
> machinist should know what to do, but that would not be anyone under 50.
Probably 60.
>
> I burned up a 1600 engine by not paying attention to this years ago,
> but maybe the 2.0 is more forgiving.
>
> Stuart
>