The other day I related my tale of woe about my '80 air cooled vanagon...oil
guzzling, loss of power, funky noises around cylinder no. 3, etc.
Strangely, it still has fairly high compression though.  Anyway, I'd like to
do the rebuild myself, but I'm not sure where to start.
  
This will be my first time to dig into an engine.  I'm reading Tom Wilson's
"How to rebuild your Volkswagen".  Because of my inexperience, and for
financial reasons, I tend to think new heads, pistons and cylinders.  Does
this make sense?  Is it stupid of me to think about leaving the case alone
and hoping it'll be OK (with 148,000 miles)?  What would you do?  If I do go
into the case, what should I look for?  

Also, does anybody know approximate cost of this type of top-end rebuild on
an aircooled vanagon?  How about the cost of a full overhaul of the whole
sheebang?  

Any suggestions on definate do's and don'ts will be greatly appreciated.  

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<<>>  Don Geiger                        <<>>
<<>>  '80 Westy in NJ                   <<>>
<<>>  dgeiger@k2nesoft.com              <<>>
<<>>  http://www.k2nesoft.com/~dgeiger  <<>>
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