Bob O'Shaughnessy wrote:
> 
>      Finally now I have come upon enough time to get to work on
> rebuilding the 1.9 engine for my engineless 85.  Disassembly starts today.
>      My plan is to go the whole nine yards, main, rod and cam bearings,
> pistons and cylinders, every gasket you could think of, oil pump etc.  I
> want this one to run for a good long time.
> ....
>       Finally, any random advice, horror stories or neat tricks would be
> appreciated.
> 
>Bob:

Unless your loose 1.9 engine is in terrible shape you probably don't need to
even split it to do anything in it. If it is within 150k miles the most likely
rebuild needed is the cylinder heads and possibly cylinders/pistons. You can
buy rebuilt or new heads (with all valves, springs, seals etc.) from VW dealers.
They come with a set of gaskets. I had my 84 vanagon 1.9 engine resealed due
to coolant leak. I found that my cylinders and pistons were still in excellent
shape. I only noticed that a few exhaust valves were in need of replacement.
I figured I can use them for another year or two and I just reinstalled
everything back together without replacing anything. It is now at 118k miles.
Today I drove almost 100 miles around the Bay Area. It runs great. If you are
thinking about massive rebuild of your engine you might have overlooked the
need of doing so.

David Kao
83 westy and 84 vanagon