Volkswagon Kombi 1973

Volkswagen kombi van
Volkswagen kombi van

This 1973 Volkswagon Kombi van came into to us with the engine running poorly and misfiring badly.

First of all we carried out a compression test and found that engine cylinders number 3 and 4 had little to no compression at all. After explaining to the customer what we had found, he gave us permission to remove and strip the engine down to assess what was the cause of the low engine compression.

We found that the engine had overheated and burnt out due to a major air leak on the induction side. The air leak had caused a weak air/fuel mixture causing the engine to run much hotter than it normally should. Due to this particular engine been an air cooled motor, having a weak air/fuel mixture and overheating can be detrimental, especially when undiagnosed or ignored compared to a liquid cooled engine.

During the strip down of the engine we found that both the cylinder heads had distorted out of shape due to excessive heat and that the intake and exhaust valve seats had been damaged and were not sat in the correct position, causing the valves not to seat and seal correctly; thus causing the misfire and lack of compression. These cylinder heads were beyond repair.

On the rebuild of the engine we fitted four new pistons and cylinder liners. The customer supplied us with two new cylinder heads, which he had sourced from a reputable retailer so we were happy to fit them.