Watch the video to see us get this engine tuned up and installed.

In the last video we got this engine running on the stand. Unfortunately, the rear main seal started leaking so the first order of business is getting it replaced. Sam follows that by adjusting the valves, replacing the spark plugs, installing an original vacuum advance distributor and then setting the timing and adjusting the carburetor. Once the engine is tuned and runny well, it can be reinstalled.

Video Transcript

I'm a firm believer and if it ain't broke don't fix it, but I should have known better.

This engine's been sitting for a long time. From what I can tell, possibly up to 25 years, if not longer. Once we got this thing running, we got some fresh oil in it, of course now the rear main seal is leaking. So, flywheel's coming off.

And there's all of our oil to confirm that.

Let's try to drive that wedge in there. That's the way to do it, plastic style.

So our flywheel shims back online. Bye.

Well this gasket cinch is sort of dried out, but we'll see if anything happens out of it. A little bit of assembly lube.

And deluxe flywheel seal installed.

That is one brittle o-ring. Just like before, a little bit of assembly lube. And right where our main seal is going to ride, a little bit more oil or assembly lube rather. Yeah, we can put this back on the engine.

We already greased up our pilot bearing when we did the clutch last week.

30 foot pounds.

You guys probably need to see this.

All right, now it's time to finally pop these valve covers off and adjust the valves for the first time and God knows how long. I'm gonna pull out the spark plug since I am going to be replacing those. That'll make the engine even easier just spin over without having to deal with any compression building. So, of course, spark plug wires.

Bosch platinum, w h a p, Germany. I'd say they were running rich before.

Washed the hands a little bit, even though I know they're gonna be absolutely filthy.

Yeah, nothing immediately out of place. Looks relatively decent. Pull off our distributor caps and let me know when we're at number one. We are at number one now. That appears to be top dead center. And looking into my spark plug I would say that's correct. So that tells me the smaller of our two marks on our crank pulley, the smaller two lines is top dead center. Now I can go through and adjust these two valves. Flathead 13. And because we still have aluminum push rods we're going to adjust these to six thousandths of clearance from our valve lash.

That one’s good.

Alright, now we’ll rotate the engine till this one’s at top dead center. And because this crank pulley doesn't have a bottom dead center indicator, kind of do it by feel to the highest point.

If you had a degree pulley with all the timing marks or if your stock crank pulley has a bottom dead center indicator it's a lot easier. This one doesn't, however, so having a spark plug out is handy. And we can put an extension, or otherwise something soft hopefully, wooden dowel would be perfect, but I don't have a small wooden dowel. I'll use a small extension. That way I can feel and I can see when we're at true top dead center.

All right now, I'm going to clean that up, put on some new valve cover gaskets. Hopefully I've got valve cover gaskets back here. I should.

That'll tell you that those valve covers were on dry. Just a thin coat of aviation sealant on the back side, but otherwise dry.

All right, so one and two are done. Now we'll go over and do three and four.

All right, a little hand cleaner, a little bucket of water. That's better.

Now, I can put in new spark plugs. And since Bosch discontinues more parts every day we've been using BR6HS NGK plugs. I do need to take the resistor caps off because these original style spark plug wires don't have the cap that'll accept them. So we'll pull those off. Anti-seize and I want to check the gap. Looking for 24. Good, good, good, and good. All right.

Steel plug, aluminum head. Always use anti-seize. I don't care what kind of car you got. Always use anti-seize. My installer hooks, anti-seize.

All right, so now that our valves are adjusted and we've got new spark plugs in

I could just throw this in the car. But I'm going to still take the opportunity while it's out and on the stand I'm going to swap out our 009 distributor for a vacuum advance module with an electronic ignition. Once that's done I will get it running and timed on the engine stand. And after that then it can go back in the car. And we can also make certain that our rear main seal is good to go with a little bit more run time.

So I'm going to pop this out. I just did this a couple weeks ago on a installing an SDA distributor video we did on that tan Super Beetle. So process is going to be basically the same. I'm going to put the engine over to number one which is marked on here, pull out the distributor, put in our new distributor. I'm going to do all that right now.

Our timing gear likes to sit that way, so straight across the case. Looking at different places and different sources you'll see that place different places, but again to the best of my knowledge this engine's never been out so I'm going to guess that that timing gear has never been out and that's where it's supposed to be.

I've got a 0231 137035 vacuum advance distributor and inside we've got an igniter 1847v module in here. The vacuum advance does work. However, there is no centrifugal advance. This is a single vacuum, single advanced distributor. Oh, I need to be able to move the rotor.

That is roughly where it was before. Tighten that down just a touch. This is number one. Dos. This is number, coil number three. Crimp on some terminal ends here. Nowhere near ideal, but they will do. Just standard crimp on terminal ends. I like the crimp and shrink terminal ends. They are much more secure. And I've already gone through and owned out our coil at three ohms so it is compatible with our electronic ignition. Truth be told this ignition came back as a return. Somebody said it didn't work. Well I tested it, on the bench anyway, and it did work. So I'm hoping that when I test it in the car it will still work, or at least on a bench. All right.

So I'll get a vacuum hose from here to here and get that set up. All right with that, applied power, some fuel, and some cranking power I can run this guy again. So give me a second to set all that up.

So we're sitting at seven degrees initial timing, vacuum is not hooked up and again I'm just going seven degrees off that top dead center mark. I could bump it forward just about eight to get that seven and a half factory, which I think I'm gonna do. Hold please. Eight degrees. Now if I increase to 33 I feel safe with. Now that we're getting a little bit of vacuum I'm going to set you on the engine stand for this one. Hold on.

Eight degrees initial. Vacuum hooked up.

Eight degrees.

Our idle is a little bit low so I'm gonna bump that up on that screw right there.

Idle stays good now.

Carb set, timing set. We’re gonna lock that down.

She sounds like a happy little engine.

Ready for the road which means she's ready to go in the car. Assuming the rear main seal isn't leaking. Let's take a look.

Well I didn't really clean it up any better than before, but all that run and we don't have a single drop down there so I'm going to say we should be good to go.

All right engine's in now. I'm just hooking up some ancillary wiring back in the back here. Our coil to carburetor, and then I'm going to actually jump into this over to our reverse light. Hopefully that would be long enough. Maybe. Not the way it was done originally, but it will do. Since this carburetor doesn't have an idle solenoid it's not going to need the jumper wire. For now it'll work. That's not going to be the long-term solution. Real important this wire is not fused. This straight comes battery, ignition switch, ignition switch, coil wire. This is plugged into the positive side of the coil. This does not get fused so make sure this wire is safe and away from any possible way of shorting out.

Coil wire and oil pressure washer.

All right, so I've got the rear engine body seal in place up underneath the lip on the tin, all the way around. Barrel nut’s hook up here. Heater cables are hooked up. I still need to get the heater box to car hoses and install those. Right now I'm going to put the base seals on and our fresh air heater hoses.

Well my phone's being stupid so I'm going to call it a day. Until I can get some more memory clear even though I've gone through and deleted like the last three days of videos which I've already gone through and edited. My phone doesn't want to give me any more room.

So engines in. Fresh air hoses are in. Rear engine seal’s in place. I've got to get a new ring terminal for that. Other than that everything in the engine compartment, short of license lid, license light, is good to go. I'm going to make a longer wire here for this reverse light.

Anyway that does it for today, Tuesday September 26^th. Counting down the days, but we're getting closer.

Later guys.

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