Hi Bill, How are you? I hope just fine! :)

>        Having gotten Little Martha's clutch fixed, I finally concluded the
>deal I struck when I bought her and picked-up the '71 front axle assembly
>the DPO had accumulated to do a disk-brake retrofit.

Sounds like a good deal to me. Of course, you're in CA and i don't really
have an idea about used parts availability there, but '71 disk brakes are
hard to find. I'm pretty sure that it would be *very* difficult to find
a diskbrake frontaxle here in Holland.

>what's a front axle assembly worth? If I can
>pick another up in a year for $100 or less, I might sell this one and
>buy another when I have time to do the retrofit.

You could look into the RMMW catalog and see what the parts cost new:
(and probably not original VW) a fortune. And again due to the fact that you're
in CA, the frontaxle itself will be still like new. I don't know why you'd want
to replace the axle itself though, the only reason i could think of is that
the axle on the car has a different bracket for the master cilinder. If this
is not the case: just swap the master-cilinder/spindles/disks/calipers/etc. in
other words: remove these items from the axle you have and sell or trade the
remains...

>        Guy who sold me the pickup looked at my ECI engine and said
>"Hmmm, D case, that's a late 60s single port I think this came with
>an H case new, but it probably doesn't make much difference."

D engine has 34 DIN Hp/40 SAE Hp, 1192cc and was built far into the 80s.
The H motor is a 1500 circa 44 DIN Hp, 1493cc. I don't have a book or my d-base
at hand for more info regarding these engines.

I think that (and I would be pretty sure if you Bus was sold in Europe)
your Bus came with the B motor, 1600 SP.

>        Is this right and if so, what difference does a D case
>make versus an H case in a pretty much bone-stock 1600sp with stock
>carb & distributor, extractor exhaust?

The alloy VW used for the 1600 cases was different than what they used for
the smaller engines. Since your engine is pretty much stock i don't think
that there will be trouble due to that in the future.

I know that there is a *huge* worldwide market for AC VW core parts, so the
actual core may have came from who nows where, it could be possible that you
have a 80s mexican 1200 D case, identifiable by the *two* oilpressure
reliefvalves. If it is an early case it will only have one of course.

>I did have it built with GM hydraulic lifters

Interesting...

>I have a Pertronix electronic ignition I'm going to install one of these
>days.

That's on my wish list too

>        He also thought it was misfiring at idle (it doesn't seem
>uneven to me- any opinions how to troubleshoot this?).

Possible causes: valve adjustment: valve sticks open, ignition
timing/points, i would look for things like that.

>        Finally, said DPO, who is a mechanic, said that at the
>300 mile mark on the new engine it would be a good idea to
>retorque the lower head nuts and reset the valves, because it
>probably tightened up. Well, I shouldn't have to do the valves :)
>but retorquing the head makes sense.

Hydraulic lifters can be off as well, but that means that they were
not correctly installed/adjusted to begin with.

Most important is that you retorque *ALL* of the headnuts, even while that
means that you have to pull the engine, do *NOT* only retorque the bottom
nuts just because they are easily accessible, maybe that OK for stretching
the life of an almost worn motor a bit...

Cheers!
Brian