Case in point 1: 2L engine with low miles out of a burned up van. Virtually every bolt, screw and nut on this engine was loose (or missing). Loose tin had literally cut slots right through the fan housing. Most of the 8mm bolts in the case were loose which had allowed the front and rear main bearing to beat in the case. The bus had burnt up because loose bolts had allowed one of the heat exchangers to fall off and the owner had kept on driving until the exhaust gasses started a fire. This engine netted me a good crank, a good set of rod, one good head, and possibly reusable pistons and jugs.
Case in point 2: 1700 out of my 411. This engine ran fair, but could never be tuned right. It was clean with no oil leaks. It had always made a tinny banging noise, which had slowing gotten better, not worse, over the 12,000 miles or so of my ownership. However the engine locked up while sitting for the couple of months I was out of the country. Every fastener was tight on this engine, the previous mechanic had even locktighted all of the case fasteners. But as soon as I loosened the head bolts I knew some thing was funny, the jugs seemed to flop around in the heads and block. Removing the heads explained it all. The PSM (previous stupid mechanic) had used 2L heads on 1.7L jugs. The jugs couldn't seat fully in the heads and one jug had cut into one of the head over time eventually reducing the piston to head clearance to near zero. The engine had locked up because scale off the piston had fallen into this small space while the car sat giving negative head clearance. The PSM had also put the engine together with two domed pistons and two dished pistons, no wonder it couldn't be tuned right. I got one usable head, a regrindable cam, and a usable case out of this engine.
Case in point 3: 1800 with low miles out of a bus. The main bearings in this engine made a horrible knocking noise that was unaffected by using heavy weight oils or STP. The problem here was obvious when I went to loosen the six large case bolts. There were chisel marks in the nuts, the PSM had apparently not had a 17mm socket so he had tried to tighten the nuts with a hammer and chisel. Everything was good on this engine except the case which had destroyed main bearing bores.
Sadly way too many owners and mechanics needlessly create junk. Aircooled VW can be truely dependable, wonderfully running machines, but way too many owners and PSM's seem to refuse to put things together even close to right and/or do obvious maintenance.
Bwuhahahaha! You just made my night!
