advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

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LeeE
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Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2001 1:01 am

advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by LeeE »

This is posted below, but no responses, so I'm asking for advice here. What do I do now? I have a '73 camper, with a Type 1 single port engine (I didn't do it, just bought it that way, and this is temp. until I can afford, find and build a type 4). I have the '72-'79 rear engine carrier, bent tubular metal with two vertical engine mount holes. I bought some conversion engine mounts (Euro/Mex late model bus with Type 1 engine)from Bus Boys, but they don't look like they mount anywhere on the engine or on the carrier. So I bought a Bugpack mount that mounts over the oil pump, but it doesn't seem to attach to the carrier either. Should I be using an earlier ('68 - '71) engine carrier, and if so, will it mount to the later bus frame? There are no instructions or diagrams with any of these parts. What am I missing? Am I doing something wrong, or just not seeing something obvious? I'm beginning to think I'm wasting my time trying to make the type 1 work.
Any help and advice will be more than welcome.
Thanks.
Brutus
Posts: 186
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2001 12:01 am

advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by Brutus »

We put a '68 Type I into a friends '72 bus many moons ago. Just used the engine mount you reference that replaces the oil pump cover - it bolted right up to the type 4 cross member (but I don't know if it's the same cross member as what you would have in a '73).

Heath
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Bob Ingman
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advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by Bob Ingman »

Lee, I sent an email to Zen asking for the particulars on the mount. I think it will need to be fabbed from a combination of 68-71 mount and a 72 and later mount. I`ve done this conversion on numerous occasions in the 70s when type 4 engines were not affordable as they are today. At that time we just relied on the upper tranny mount to hold up the little bug motor. No problems ever. It holds fine. From 68-71 there was no need for a upper tranny mount so when using a type 1 engine in that van the oil pump adapter is used to connect engine to stock crossmember.
Also I think that torque is a part of this equasion in as much as the rear cross member is fabbed when installing the type 4 into a type one body. When I began my type 4 into Thing conversion I was told by Joe Locicero that a rear crossmember was needed. My reply was that I could`nt see that much weight differance in the two once converted to upright. Joe was quick to inform me that it is not a matter of weight but of torque. The type 4 engine will twist frame horns routinely without control.
Anyway in review, A type 1 case(non universal) in a 68-71 bus needs the adapter because there is no upper trans mount .the 72 and later has the upper mount and the type 1 motor can be installed without a rear mount just as it in in a type one body.Your palms may perspire for a couple of thousand but eventually you`ll relax and learn to live with it. The rear mount is kinda a security thing as much as anything else. You can do it either way. Good Luck. Bob PS What`s goin on Brutus?
LeeE
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2001 1:01 am

advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by LeeE »

Once again, thanks for your advice, Bob.
You're right, the type 1 engine seems to hang on the end of the transmission just fine, as it does in a beetle, without the rear carrier. The only reason I wanted the carrier is because the bus comes with one for both type 1 and type 4 engines, and I thought it was supposed to have one. VW must have had a reason for doing it in the first place, and probably, like you said, it's more for torque than longitudinal stress. I had envisioned the engine lurching around unrestrained, but I've already driven it about 1K miles, no problems except (how'd you know?)sweaty palms and a very careful clutch foot. So I guess I'll just drive it this way, try to fab a hanger/mount for piece of mind, and keep looking for a type 4 to build for it. No hurry, no worry.
Thanks again.
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Zen
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advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by Zen »

I'll try to take the good digital camera I use at work home this evening and make you some pictures of my rear crossmember. My friend that did the conversion fabricated it from scratch, but it would be pretty easy to copy.

First he mounted some type of motor mount on each side where the orginal cross member mounted. I'll try to find out what kind of mounts these are and let you know . . . but they are pretty simple mounts that have one bolt hanging straight down out of them.

He used an engine with the three mounting points, but when I aquired the bus it had a standard type 1 case with the oil pump cover adaptor. First thing I did was put a universal case engine back in it. But either way, the mount works the same. He cut out a piece of flat iron and drilled it so he could bolt it to the engine (or adaptor), the welded a long piece a flat iron to it to run to the motor mounts he installed on each side of the bus. On each end he welded a short piece of angle iron and drilled a hole for bolt coming out of the motor mount. I don't know if this makes any sense without pictures, but it should with pictures . . . I'll get them ASAP.

I don't really know if it's doing any good. You might be OK without the rear hanger, but I'd rather have it than take a chance.

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Zen Hendricks

"You can observe a lot by watching." -- Yogi Berra
Scenic City Volks Folks, Chattanooga, TN -- Where Air Meets Water! http://www.volksfolks.org
ray greenwood
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advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by ray greenwood »

Bob, good assesment. The type 4 motor for example, as originally fielded in the 411/412, is actually 100% supported by the middle support that is bolted at the transmission/engine joint. The transmission tail cone mount...when properly adjusted with the 3 factory guages, is a non-contact point in both the auto and manual. It is simply a bump-stop to allow some flexability in the drive train. The rear hanger is also designed to have a very light load. It is actually also a bump stop and an adjuster bar. VW is quite specific in the alignment and compression of the rear hanger bar bushings...and the installed height and alignment. Their point being that if you put too much tension at either end of the drivetrain assembly (either at the tail cone or rear hanger bar), it tends to distort the driveline in the transmission. This I would tend to think is true. Once the cases are bolted together and suspended at the joint, they have a large amount of rigidity. They become a single unit so to speak. In the early days before I knew this...I tended to find excessive wear on the clutch splines, and difficult downshifts when the tranny got warmed up. Releasing tension on the nose cone bushing by using the rear hanger bar height and lateral adjusters...pivoting the transaxle up and down and side to side on the center hanger- mount corrected this problem in a split second. I see no reason that this method couldn't or wouldn't work on the type 1 in the bus. I see too many people building ridgid mounts for engine/tannys without really looking at why the factory did what it did. Ray
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Zen
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advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by Zen »

Here's a picture of my mount. I talked to my friend that did the conversion and he said the motor mounts were either out of an old Mazda 626 or a Dodge (Mitsubishi built) D50 pickup . . . he put the Mazda engine in the pickup and these are the mounts that were left over. He says he can't remember which one they came out of now.

He said it is set up so that it is supporting very little weight. He added it just to limit the amount the engine can twist.

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Zen Hendricks

"You can observe a lot by watching." -- Yogi Berra
Scenic City Volks Folks, Chattanooga, TN -- Where Air Meets Water! http://www.volksfolks.org
LeeE
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Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2001 1:01 am

advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by LeeE »

Most interesting; I hadn't even thought of doing it that way. I was going to try to make the BugPack adaptor plate fit the standard VW engine carrier with some kind of mount.
I'm still not certain how the Euro/Mex mounts that I got from Bus Boys work. Apparently Europe, Mexico, & maybe Brazil still had the type 1 engine in the '72 and later buses, and these are the mounts VW used, but I can't figure out how they attach to the engine or the carrier, unless I'm missing some other parts.
Thank you for the photo. I appreciate the help.
MASSIVE TYPE IV
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advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by MASSIVE TYPE IV »

Here's my advice: Don't do it! repair the original engine, 100,00 miles later you will be glad you sticked with TIV power. Many of us are using these engines in other vehicles, because they are super tough.....I just don't understand a downgrade in both performance and longevity.

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Jake Raby
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Zen
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advice on Type 1 engine in late bus

Post by Zen »

I agree Jake! Sticking with the original engine makes the most sense . . . in most cases anyway.

Here is my situation - I bought this old junk bus for $75 from a guy that "won it in a poker game." It had sat in his pasture for over 10 years when I got it. It had dropped a valve on #1 cylinder and was apparently ran for some time. There wasn't much left of the #1 piston, just bearly enough to keep the rod in place. It looked like the entire engine was trashed . . . someone had started to tear it down with it still installed, and had cut and bent the tin (and a few other parts) all to heck. I found a couple of engines I could afford, but they needed to be rebuilt. After pricing the parts I would need, I decided it was too much to spend on a $75 bus, so I sold it to a friend of mine and got my $75 back.

He had two freshly rebuilt 1600 single ports sitting on his workbench with nothing to put them in. He also loves to fabricate and modify stuff. As I mentioned in a previous post, the motor mount he used were left over from putting a Mazda 626 engine in a Dodge D50 pickup. So for him, putting a 1600 in the bus was just something to see if he could do it. He had no real use for the bus, so he sold it to a guy we work with for $600 (about what he ended up having in it after installing the engine and going through the brakes and installing new CV joints).

This guy ran the thing hard and put it up wet for 2 or 3 years, and finally trashed the engine the second time he ran it without a belt. Then he built another 1600 single port and dropped it in, but had lots of problems with it, so put it up for sale. I bought it back for $400.

I didn't really trust the engine he had in it . . . it had less than 200 miles on it when I bought it, but it was running hot and burned/leaked over a quart of oil on the 35 mile trip home. So, I put another engine in it . . . this engine I put together from good parts of three bad engines. I had about $50 tied up in it.

So, to wrap this all up . . . as it sits right now, I've got about $450 plus my labor in this bus. That's probably about $200 more than it's really worth right now! LOL

I have no type 4 parts whatsoever . . . starting from scratch without a core, building a type 4 engine and putting it in a $450 bus is something I can't justify. Especially when as it is, I can drive it wherever I want. It gets decent mileage, and given a long enough on-ramp it can run with the flow of traffic on the interstate (I drove it from just south of Chattanooga, TN to Florida Bug Jam with no problems)! I'm not showing it or racing it, just driving it. After I get it fixed up a little cosmetically, and after I get a few of my other projects somewhere near completed . . . yeah, someday I'll put the right engine in it. But for me, right now, having a 1600 single port in it makes perfect sense!

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Zen Hendricks

"You can observe a lot by watching." -- Yogi Berra
Scenic City Volks Folks, Chattanooga, TN -- Where Air Meets Water! http://www.volksfolks.org
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