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MGVWfan wrote:Gears look beautiful, polished with no signs of wear. The drive dog has some wear, but it's not what I'd call excessive.

Hey, I thought these things had riveted cam gears, the one on my car has 5 bolts with external star-type lockwashers. Must be bad poop in the book I read.

The engine has been rebuilt before, that is typical of an aftermarket cam and gear set up, you might have a performance cam.

I'll have to ask the previous wrench what he put in

Heh, heh! More good news!

There, it's where it belongs, in this thread! Sorry!

Last night's work...the oil cooler got cleaned inside and out with mineral spirits, lacquer thinner, and acetone, blown dry numerous times, the last continuously for some 10 minutes, and installed. It wasn't very dirty inside, just the usual old oil last run through the engine, but I wanted to take no chances. Also installed a new oil pressure light switch, and cleaned the case around the cooler and switch.

Well, a hitch in the reassembly process. After pulling the valve springs, it looks like the guides are worn too badly to allow a simple head job. I was hoping to do a valve grind and check the springs, and that's it. Oh well. It needs new guides pressed in and reamed...so now I'm looking for a good machine shop that knows T4 heads.

On the plus side, I pulled the distributor apart, cleaned and inspected it, relubed it, and reassembled it. The dizzy's in good shape now.

Since last I wrote, here's the tally...

Replaced the bad parts of the FI harness (rats chewed some, heat got the insulation and boots on others, chafing got one line), using different strain relief, chafe protection, and heat insulation techniques. We'll see what holds up best.

Tested the FI harness, re-installed it in the car, tested the harness and ECU again.

Hit the junkyard and snagged a good A/C condenser off a 411 for backup.

Today I installed the horns and wiring to same (my car toots now!), and pulled the left front strut assembly. I wasn't expecting damper oil in the strut tube, I got a hydraulic oil bath ! I guess I should have expected a wet strut from reading some past posts. Anyway, the KYB KC4017 struts I've had on the shelf for a good while appear to not fit correctly...the center rod is too long for the strut mount dimensions. From mining the dissertations of Dr. Greenwood, I think I know what's up. I got these struts for cheap as a Plan B, thinking I'd do the Greenwood Mod as Plan A. Well, it looks like either option is going to take some work, so I'll be doing some flavour of the Greenwood Mod, after reading the 15 pages of posts I've gathered on the topic. Progress, though slowly.

Does it have stereo or mono? I think that the horn is one thing you have to get going before you get on the road! I love the classic VW sound too!
So what did you mean by the replace cart. was too long? Are you talking the total shaft length when extended from seal to end? The threaded area?
You can use some spacers if it's the threaded area. Did you take a measurement of the assemble before you dissassembled the strut? I had too use spacers and some washers along with a bearing race inside the tube under the cap to brace the cart in the tube. I also had to remove the old boot plate, the plastic large one to use another smaller boot since I couldnt find one that large. It is a balance trying to get the mount not to extend to far and get the total travel less the reduction we need. bill

So, you're up late too, eh Bill?

Dual horns, and it came that way from the factory. Unfortunately, one of the OE horns died, and it's really hard to find OE-style Hella horns at a decent price, so I replaced them both with German horns from Bus Depot. The sound is close, but different, and it's quite a lot LOUDER than before.

I've read your previous post outlining your struggle with the struts, so I've got to measure and see what to do. I'll let you guys know what I find.

The sound on the horns can be tuned by digging the gummy plug out of the hole on the back and twisting the screw. It moves the internal plates. The 411/412 had two different part number horns. Each vehicle used two "notes". Look closely at the stock horns and you will see a HZ or KHZ rating...like 880 hz or KHZ. Its what the horn is tuned at. You need to have two different ones to get original sound and volume.

I sounds like you got strut cartridges for 411 and early 412. the difference between those two...is...as vwbill mentioned...a 15mm spacer that is usually supplied. The common point of interest between early 412 and 411 struts, is that they both use the early symmetrically spaced bolt pattern ,bonded strut bushing. The late 412 used a different strut cartridge, because it used differnt bump stops and the assymetrical bolt pattern strut bushing. What strut bushing do you have? I can look at my notes, I believe with a little work you can use the early cartridges in the late struts. Ray

Symmetrical strut mount, bonded rubber to a metal plate, ball-type thrust bearings.

The mounts appear to be in decent shape, but I remember reading something from you a long time back that said they crack on the bottom, and you can't see it unless the strut is hanging at full lower stop and loading the strut mount downward. Did I read that post correctly?

I'm measuring everything right now, I'll post the measurements and some pictures when I get finished, to help puzzle it out.

BTW, there was some kind of hard off-white crud deposit in the OE struts, no sludge, just this strange caliche-looking stuff. And the seal was very, very hard, and fluid had obviously been leaking out of it for a while. No scoring in the tube or on the piston or rod. Very beautiful design, just too bad they're not calibrated like they should be, and too bad we can't get replacement bits for them.

Actually, I like the new horns. They're obnoxiously LOUD, a really good thing in Houston, and they have an almost Daimler-type note, very nice IMHO. They're made by FER in Eisenach...in the former East Germany a former supplier to the Eisenach auto plant that made Wartburgs. I have commie horns on my 412!

Heads up Ray and others, I'm uploading strut images right now to this URL...

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_ ... lodeutsch4

I'll edit this post with dimensions after I get finished with the images.

Edit #1: The OE strut cart and the KYB replacement have slightly different rod dimensions. The rod length from spring seat shoulder to top is about 1/2" longer on the KYB strut, and the thread length is about 0.1" longer on the KYB strut.

Edit #2: Measured with vernier calipers.

OE dimensions, spring seat to spring seat (midpoint, away from the spring end tapers on the perches) = 11 7/8"

Top plug = 0.57" thick (KYB KC4017), 0.782" thick (OE damper)
KYB plug is 0.312" thinner than OE, and requires at least 5/32 of shim to keep it from moving up and down against the strut tube fixing nut.

Rod dimensions:

Top of rod - 0.543" diameter (KYB), 0.546" diameter (OE)
Bottom of rod - 0.863" (KYB), 0.864" (OE)

Rod Holding Flats - two 0.4" (KYB), six 0.394" (OE), 10mm hex (OE), 10mm open end (KYB), length of holding area 0.433" (KYB and OE)

Thread Length - 0.845" (KYB), 0.82" (OE)

Rod Length from Spring Seat Step to Bottom of Threads - 3.412" (KYB), 3.100" (OE)

Strut Tube ID - 1.893" (top), wall 0.101" thick (bottom), 0.075" (top)
Main Strut Tube Diameter - 1.691"

Edit #3 - Spring Info

Blue paint spots, VW P/N 411 411 105 OSRB73

8.5 turns total
16.75" unloaded
Wire diameters - Ends 0.405" tapering to 0.485" in the middle coils
5.5" OD

Edit #4, Spring Info from my Haynes 411/412 manual...

Yellow springs (up to Aug 72):
Effective Coils - 6.5
Wire Diameter - 12.35mm
Coil Diameter - 129mm
Length Unloaded - 392mm

Blue springs (from Aug 72 on)
Effective Coils - 6.5
Wire Diameter - 10.3mm to 12.25mm (tapered wire)
Coil Diameter - 129mm
Length Unloaded - 441mm

Edit #5, Bump Stop Spacer Dimensions

See above link for images of the spacer

Bump Stop Spacer Bushing:

2.4785" long overall
1.100" outside diameter (top)
1.257" outside diameter (bottom)
1.117" from top to step in outside
1.359" from step in outside to bottom
0.553" inside diameter top
0.874" inside diameter bottom
2.021" long from top to inside step
0.467" long from inside step to bottom

Edit #6 - I added images of the steering knuckle and ball joints to the above link, 1441 CDT 2 Jun 05.

great! can you measure the unloaded coil width, height and cross sections too?

d/p

Sure, I'll do it...if I can get the spring compressor to expand far enough to get it off I had trouble getting the spring out of the compressor last time I used it with my '82 Turismo.

Where is the Land of the Umpqua?