Watch Sam and Nate tear down this engine to use in Nate's 1972 Baja Bug

Sam was fortunate enough to come across a deal for this spare spare long block engine. The engine didn't spin over, the spark plugs were missing and the case was open to the elements. Sam and Nate get to work tearing it down so that they can rebuild it for Nate's 1972 Baja Bug.

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Sam, I'm Nate, and we're going to pull apart another engine.

I got this and a complete sand rail. Yeah, it's a sand rail, it's got no front brakes, so I'm going to call it a sand rail and a transmission from a buddy of mine. He's moved on to other projects. He didn't want them in his way, so here we are. The sand rail I'm going to do for my own kind of project, just have something to play around with. It's got a spinning motor; it's not running currently, but I'm pretty sure it will. This thing won't spin; it's got cut sheet metal screws here, here, and here. It's got a broken exhaust stud on that side. It doesn't spin, but it's a complete long block, so we're going to pull this thing apart and see what it takes to get this engine rotating. It doesn't have a flywheel for some reason.

But we got one of those though.

But we've got one from Nathan's car. So, if we can get this thing spinning, if there's not any end play, if the rods aren't flopping around too badly, we can put this together as a

1600 and just throw it in my car.

Yeah, just give kind of an interim motor, so he can learn how to drive, um, not on the streets, but we can go out to the open desert and as long as he can reach the controls, he can drive this thing in the open desert, so 100% legal. He can learn how to drive, and or he can take my sand rail that I can play around with. I want to get that thing up and rolling; he can take that out there and learn how to drive in that as well. So, or we can take them both out there, and we can go both having fun, playing around either way because Volkswagen, why not? So, this time he is going to pull this thing all apart by himself, starting by draining the oil. Uh, he's got the six sump plate caps, yeah, which are center. Those are 10 or the drain nut in the center, which I want to say is a 19, that might get 21. Start with that, that oil seems like it's actually oil and not sludge, so.

Yeah, so step in the right direction.

There's a little sludge.

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of red, reddish-brown.

Yeah, it's oil, so it's good.

Yeah, it doesn't, honestly, look too bad, like, compared

Probably pop these valve covers off.

With a screwdriver.

Hey, this one's got a rocker assembly, so that's a good, and it's not completely toast in there, that's way better than the other one.

Way better condition. Look at that.

That's much better condition.

It's not roasted oil.

And it's not crunchy, crunchy, munchy. And this is an AE Volkswagen case. AE, I think is 70. I want to say is 70-71, or 71-72. Yeah, you don't want to drop that in there, keep those. Actually, you don't like mechanical pumps, do you? So just toss those. Nathan doesn't like mechanical fuel pumps.

Yeah, I know, just so much more simple. So, are you going to run an electrical pump on your sand rail?

Probably not, you can almost gravity feed that thing. So you've got 13s, and you might as well keep this up here for like a parts bin. Stack that one. Got two 13s, and then these are 15s. You got to pull the rocker assemblies off, so that's two 13 mm bolts right there, right there. You pull the rocker assemblies off, pull them, put them in the valve covers, see all our hardware, as per usual.

So it's 13s?

I would use some power, but yeah, 13s, I don't know why you insist on using those, but.

Yeah, I mean, it's not tight, so yeah, not too tight.

Get them both off?

No, not yet.

That's why if you were to use this, they would both be off already.

Oh yeah, look at that, just oh, I need my

Valve cover, valve cover.

Point them down in the oil pan, thank you.

Now this time, this side. Yeah, now just the other one. So, and how we need the 15s.

It's already on top of the engine, buddy.

Oh, thanks.

I came prepared. Where did you leave the other one?

What?

Where did you leave the other one?

Okay, thank you.

Oh, and for the record, it's Super Bowl Sunday, but I'd rather be working on a Volkswagen than

Yeah, watching a couple of guys run around the field.

Yeah, should be, it could be.

Actually, we don't even care about this head, just tap the exhaust studs, couple of taps over here, tap over there.

Oh yeah, wait, easier.

Hit it harder, you're not

Oh wow, look at that.

That's a push rod tube. Don't need that. Matter of fact, you might be able to reach underneath and pull four of them out.

I mean, honestly, though, they came out way easier than the um

Yeah, I've got much better homes for these.

Somebody's got a fancy car.

Oh wow, that's cool, it's actually sliding out.

Hold on the bottom, cuz if that thing drops on your toes, you're not going to be happy. You might want to screwdriver, not that you're not going to wedge it with this J screw, pop it right there in between there and there, and just pull off, just yank it out, just yank it out, yeah.

It's a bit heavy, but yeah, look at that, piston at least looks not too bad, huh?

Yeah, the heads, maybe a little bit crack right there, bit of junk in there, but liners look decent. We got some broken pins so.

Oh now, huh, honestly, way better than the um, other one.

I got to pull this cylinder off too, buddy. Just yank it, no hammer, tap it, tap that.

Might have a locked-up rod as well on the inside, but we'll take it again, see she goes on there.

Feels good.

Yeah, but spin good?

I mean, don't think it's going to spin quite yet. Oh, it is spinning.

We got some movement. So, these are probably locked up over here, so

And boom.

Let's pull this side off.

Pistons, cylinders, heads, boom 1600.

15, 15, 15, 15s, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

That's because those are the guys that are probably holding this engine from spinning. We'll find out in a moment, a little bit of oil in that one. All right, pull that valve cover bail off, just pop it off, and throw it in your rocker.

The moment of truth, bring the camera over here, oh wow, one of these looks pretty darn clean, but

The other one is full of rust, and that's probably why she's not spinning over yet. All right, and the trash can with it, let's, don't you grab the flashlight, just so we can put a light on the situation.

Shine the light on the subject, and the subject being to dirt and ground.

A whole bunch of dirt and rust, and oh my goodness gracious, that's disgusting.

I got, I saw one of them, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's fine, and then I saw the other.

There's a little bit of debris in that cylinder, and by a little bit, that one actually looks pretty darn good.

I know, this one looks like it would have that sponge cylinder, it looks like it was.

I think that's why it wasn't running, yeah, that's I'm glad we decided to just pull heads and pistons and cylinders. Okay, before you make a huge mess, why don't you get a trash can. Now scrape.

Now grab your hammer, and tap off your cylinders.

All right, well, let's pull this one off, yeah, and then we'll work on that.

Hey, spinning, it works just fine.

Really, put all back together.

Yeah, just need to probably get a new piston and cylinder on this side, but other than that yeah.

I am honestly impressed with the condition of this.

yeah, other than this one cylinder.

yeah, like, just because that one, if that one cylinder was not like that, it would probably run.

All right, now I wonder if we can something to shim in there. Yeah, I don't want to damage the case.

Might be, have gotten a little bit there.

Oh yeah, I think it did go a little bit.

Yeah, but I also think that maybe dropped a piston, that, you know what, let's pull those pistons off that side, and this one as well, that way, hopefully, we can just get all these pieces from stopping our momentum as we're trying to work on that. Needle nose pliers, pull out the wrist pin right there, the wrist pin clip into the trash.

So, new pistons, new cylinders, new heads, and should be good to go, and probably a carburetor, well, cuz that's another thing that we don't have. Well, I mean, as far as what we have right now.

You had on your car, we had intake manifold, we had like everything short of a carburetor, you're right, yeah.

What the I mean, judging by what everything or um, everything that works though.

To relief case, yep 10 mm studs, so this tells me it's a 71 or 71 or 72.

Did the Super Beetle have the same block?

Yeah, let's get the wrist pins on the other side.

It's not horrible, I mean, it's definitely got some wear, but I think it would run.

I mean, the 67 ran, yeah, and it was locked up.

Lifters are all moving, so that's good.

Oh, not like the other engine, where they're all jammed in place, yeah, just tried to pull, and then tap on it at the same time.

I think you're just tightening it at this point, gosh, yeah, I think that's why I didn't turn over, you're the problem.

It's you, you're the problem. It's you.

All right, well, um, I don't have any PB Blaster, but I got some WBs. Saturate that for a while, it's 12:43, but you want lunch?

Yeah, probably, sure.

All right, let's break there, get some lunch.

All right, now we've had some lunch, got two wrenches braced underneath the cylinder, probably going to be messy, because all that WD40.

I felt that.

Oh yeah, it's, it's below there now, oh yeah, it's there, this the piston is moving now, boom, now just need to remove those pistons, huh?

Slightly crusty.

Yeah, just slightly.

Crusty demons of cylinders. All right, wrist pin time.

Drop the mic. I'm going to pull the spring pulley bolts off, and yes, it's got a lot of end play, but it doesn't have a flywheel to set the end play. Hopefully, it's not too much, crank bolts off, probably soak this entire thing in a bucket of purple power.

Oh yeah, huh, just to get any grease and junk out of it, yep.

Which, honestly, though, it is spinning super nicely, huh.

These rods, no play whatsoever.

And that's so good, beautiful, oh that's good, and these are so good.

Yeah, there's no play on those, that's good.

This is like an awesome engine case, huh, this case, and the crank, and the guess not.

Boom, there we go, perfect huh.

All right, let's clean up some this in here, towels, grab some wrenches.

Yeah, I mean, definitely looks like somebody's been in here, huh, maybe a bad mechanic or something.

It's an off-road car, get the bucket of purple Power ready.

Oh yeah, and lower down in there, all it looks like some of it might, might have evaporated since.

All right, one thing I forgot to do, and sorry, I actually pulled out one already. We pulled out that oil pressure relief screw and spring. I filed down an old air chisel into an appropriate size that fits in the oil pressure drain plugs and going to try and get Nathan to undo this one, give that a shot. No, all right, why don't you flip spaces with me? What I did was I ground down the end of an air chisel, filed it down that way, or ground it down that way as well, so that it fits in our pressure relief plug, and if I have enough bite on this guy, it does, sweet. All right, one more pressure relief plug out, we'll get the spring out. Short spring goes to the back, and that piston came out from in there.

The other one didn't, though, right?

Not yet, but chances are, when we turn the case back upside down, we can get it.

Yeah, hope so, it just falls out.

Yeah, let's give that a shot. Anyway, we've got this case all cleaned up, cleaned out, and, oh, look at all that gunk funky out of there.

Oh wow, gosh.

That's why I pulled those out there. You, we can flush out all those oil galleys, make sure that everything is good to go, come on, bubba, there we are, boom, got it, and a little bit of water out of that too. So, that's because we rinsed this out and pressure washed it, and then we came back and soaked everything down with some oil, and put some rubber bands on it, and then we can keep turning it, so that everything is well oiled on the insides, yeah, there we go, we got those guys out. This engine is ready to uh, start rebuilding.

Yeah, which we got some parts over there already, and that will be in the next video.

We've got some returned Cylinder Heads. This one had a cracked fin, I think this one, the cylinders wouldn't fit into the combustion chamber, so I had to come in and just knock down a small edge. These were crushed as far as a return; these are some commercial samples, so we're going to actually, never mind, he is going to build the top end on this engine. We're going to pull apart the pistons and cylinders; he's going to check all the ring gaps, we're going to check the deck height, we're going to check the CC's on the combustion chambers, we're going to set the compression ratio as high as we can because these are off-road vehicles and they're not going to be driven for street use, so.

I mean, kind of street use. Once it's fully

We've got a couple of years before he'll be daily driving this, so chances are, we'll get him learning how to drive with 1600 in the desert, so he's used to driving an engine, knows what a stock 1600 can do. That way, when he gets a bigger engine, he doesn't go crazy and kill himself or somebody else, so yeah, with that, you see all the stuff that this engine's been dripping, and that's after draining the oil and soaking it in a bath of purple power, uh, and then going through and just putting a light oil in there. Here's a trick for you, take a couple of rubber bands, one here to here, through the connecting rod, one here to here, through the connecting rod, that way you can spin your engine around without everything banging into everything. Pretty cool trick, huh.

And with that, the disassembly for this engine is done, and oddly enough, this is probably a 1971 or 72 engine, uh, based on the fact that it's a dual relief as41 case, uh, with 10 mm studs, which they ran through 71,72, early 72. So, chances are, this case is the same year that came in this car originally, so kind of fitting that we're taking a similar engine, and we're going to redo the top end on this.

Uh, and on that note, life's full of good people, if you can't find one,

be one.

Later, guys.

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