Cream Separator

Preamble and Kombi History

Kombi (Klaus) was bought for $700 from a guy in Altona, motor turned but wouldn't fire, can't be that much wrong with it, right, wrong. I decided to convince me and my brother Graham to pull it down and find the problem.  So began our first experience of pulling a Kombi Motor. The valves didn't seem to operate so we were thinking something like a Holden timing gear gone. Pulled the heads, pulled the block/barrels/pistons (goid getting the clutch off... nightmare) to finally split the motor to expose  the crank and cam shaft. This was 10 or so years so my mermory is fuzzy but aqnyway the camshaft is driven off the drive shaft directly(?) , unfortunatley the gear that drove the cam shaft has come adrift of the shaft and in the process had broken the shaft in two, so second hand  cam shaft  was sourced and lobes machined.  Reconstructed motor with plenty of hijinks and laughs and cussing along the way , we finally got to the day when we injected oil and petrol and applied a battery to the starter motor.  This is the start of the long slow painful process of debugging why the motor won't start.  Incredibly, in a complete surprise to us it started first time. With a bit of tuning and a dodgy roadworthy it was ready for the road.

Ran for years from this point, did drop the motor again to replace the heads, as the valve seats had completely burnt out (damn that unleaded fuel!).  Run for a few more years with a funny squeaky noise on the left hand side of the motor, which we think is the replaced head not sitting flush. This would go away when the motor was warm and the head and the block moved together., but not ideal.

Preamble and a History of the Kombi