UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

i wonder if there's anything i can put in the dowel holes (there seem to be 7 of them) to hold it steady? something that can remain permanently in the engine of course, so something metallic or high-temp plastic that is conveniently the right size...
i dont think i have anyone local to help me do that (tom might help, but he's not as athletic as he used to be... certainly my mum and bro are right out)

how about a bit of sellotape to keep it in place - only at the edges mind, so it can still be removed, not touching the mating faces at all

(something from the mongolian bar disagreed with me last night, and ive had to cry off for the day, only just feel up to doing anything other than cleaning the kitchen with the doors thru to the bathroom unobstructed)

nah it wasnt the pulley bolts - one of the smaller engine mount bolts. oops. it didnt even explode, just snapped apart with a kind of pathetic popping noise. probably a bit shagged anyway.
will have to see how much it rocks by when/if it starts. are there any extra mounts / strengthened bits for the G40, or do all polos share the same? (if not, then i reckon half of a G-strength mount should be ample for a 1-litre - it looks positional rather than structural anyway)

Tahrey, if you mean dowels to keep the head in position then there isn't any on the polo its just the head bolts nothing else the extra holes are either oil ways or water passages HTH

bloody haynes!

i could have got the head on last night

A bit of tape should do it, just something to hold it steady while you use both arms to lift the head into place. Like I said, the bolts will do, you don't need dowels. Put two bolts in diagonally from each other and as the bolts pass through the holes in the gasket, it will line up.

The little mount bolt shouldn't matter that much, as they hold the mount to the chassis. The weight of the engine and assuming the main mount bolt is in and properly torqued up (45NM IIRC) it should be okay, but I'd get it sorted. How come you've removed these bolts anyway?

removed it cuz the engine wouldnt quite drop down low enough with the mount still in place to get the alternator pulley free. that last centimetre or so's drop was just enough to let it slip past

had a hell of a time trying to stick the gasket in place with the tape, it just wouldnt stay put, particularly when i got the head within a bolt-thread's distance even after i gave it multiple cleans with various detergents and clean water then a dry-off, there seems to be a little bit of grease left. or the gasket itself is inherently slippery (teflon coated?)

plus as the car's still in the garage, i was having trouble eyeballing it using a couple of bolts. even in daylight, with the ceiling light and a desk lamp there wasnt quite enough illumination. and the angles were all wrong

(there's no way i could have fit two people in there really, anyhow --- its an old 1940s kind of blueprint, from when the car would likely be an austin 10 or something... narrow, short, and tall, like a Wagon-R. You can barely squeeze out of the Rover or Astra after putting them in)

so instead, i had a brainwave, and did this......
(more pics, but theyre even dinkier this time)


if VW won't supply me with dowels, then i'll make my own.... and they'll be man-sized ones!


one BBQ skewer per hole just aint thick enough - nine is a nice snug fit though, when sellotaped firmly together


originally wanted to do 4 but didnt have enough skewers for that. think this worked just as well as that would have, anyway


success! the gasket fits over them with just a little bit of resistance..... and the head is quite easy to line up at that height (any taller would have been a problem), slides right down and mates almost perfectly with the gasket.

a little bit of finger prodding on the edges saw it lined up dead-on, and a bit of megadowel-wiggling to get the whole arrangement seated properly on the block.

now, to bolt it down..... i have to use "good quality, high melting point grease" - i'm sure one of these will fit the bill, but which?


the stuff on the left is Lithium-based, and has probably sat in the garage for about twenty years, but still looks good when you open the lid (it's got an inner plastic thingy that squeezes up a half-inch thick sausage of the stuff when you press it, too!) .... the tube on the right is a lot newer, and claims "heat resistance to 1150 degrees celcius" on the packet. However it's copper based... im sure the reccomendation is always for lithium?

i'll just go off put the wheel, oil filter, etc back on for the time being

k, ive got the alternator belt back on and tensioned, the cambelt too after fitting (and torquing up by voodoo methods) the cam sprocket, with both ends properly aligned at TDC... plus the distributor, oil filter, vacuum hose, the coolant hoses, and some of the electrics.
going to put the throttle body back on now and refit the fuel hoses..

..after that i will have officially Run Out Of Things I Can Do Before Bolting Up The Head, so can anyone make a reccomendation out of those two greases for me... pleeeeeez?

i may just make a mixture of them otherwise...

ps bloody hell, it's 8.30pm already
edit - wellllllll matt's msn'd me to say they dont need either, so here goes nothing (literally)

I can't see how you will need any grease at all. I never like putting grease/oil near bolts under high torque, as you can end up hydraulicing the threads and shearing the bolts.

did a 90-10 compromise in the end... ie 90% what he (and you) said, and 10% allaying my own seizing/drilling out fears. just put a tiny dab on the tip and the first couple threads after it (wiping it on with a tissue - not any great amount at all) just to ease the first few turns... that way i can properly tell stiff-crossthreaded vs smooooth-properly threaded, other than wondering whether its properly in or not

also a similar scrooge like smear on the face of the bolt-head contacting the washer (there was something on the gasket instructions about it) ... nothing on the head-to-washer faces of course. far as i can tell / reason, it stops the thing seizing on the washer whilst still having the washer itself hold still, and still maintaining a very tight seal all round (heck, the grease might even act as a mini-gasket).

bolts went in a lot easier than expected, had to shift the head around a little bit to make sure they were all properly aligned (after already twisting it about some, and even lifting off slightly to re-jig the comparitive position of the gasket). even the 2x90 degree stage wasn't so bad as i'd expected it to be, though it wasnt exactly a walk in the park!

ANYWAY
status at the moment is that the thing is pretty much all ready to go!
after putting the oil and coolant in, and connecting the battery with jump leads, tried the starter "dry" - no fuel pump fuse - and had no luck. lights on the dash came on, but clicking the full beam flasher confirmed that the battery is, once again, shagged. Maybe it's not the stereo after all... perhaps its just too old and can no longer hold a reliable charge for more than a week or two?
wheeled it slowly... oh so slowly... out of the garage and down the drive, with astra in emergency catcher position (shifting the pair a few inches at a time, until polo was far enough out that i could hop in the drivers seat to guide it the rest of the way down solo).
got it out on the road and hooked it up to the much stronger vauxhall battery. success! the thing turned and the (as yet not fully covered) cambelt could be seen whizzing round in trademark jerky fashion. by the look of the astra's sidelights however, it wasnt without duress. the oil has yet to be properly circulated, of course...

so............. wheeee!


tomorrow will be.....

clean out battery tray (it mings like ... well... a box thats been left outside besides a road for 14 years, i guess)

fit battery back in there (possibly the source for the "mystery" nut i've ended up with)

hook up leads again

give it another, longer burst of starter, with the astras engine running - to give the oil a proper pre-churn on a cold and slow 400rpm mixer cycle, before it suffers the stresses of high-speed hot spin under its own power. this will also push the coolant around a bit and show if there's any big airlocks still in it (hopefully by dint of emptying the expansion tank, which is a bit over MAX even with a good 6-700ml left to put in)

re-fit fuel pump fuse

pray

hit starter and see what happens. with camera in HQ video mode and mp3 player recording on maximum quality, natch.

if it works, make sure it doesnt idle, but sit it in the low thousands for a moment and then knock it off.

refit binlid, filter, trumpet, outer belt cover, vacuum/breather hoses and hot air feed

then restart and let it run for a bit, again not idling (who gave me that tip?? apparently idling it's bad for the bearings in the first few "miles"?) and warm it up, check the coolant circulation and thermostat operation, electrics, etc, see if it can be eased back and forth.

call somewhere to get an MOT sorted

call insurance day before that booking to get a weeks 3rd party cover put on it

run it in, change oil

then ................?


now, though, im going to finish my celebratory "dinner" (pot noodle and bottle of beer... food of kings, especially seeing as all else ive had today with dicky tummy was a white bread ham sandwich about 12 hours ago) and go to bed!

night!

It's always such a good feeling the moment before you start up a newly build engine and you're doing your final checks. Kind of excitement and nervousness all in one.

Don't forget to prime the oil system before starting it up. Remove the spark plugs so there is no compression and turn the engine over on the starter until the oil light goes out. That way, you can be confident that oil is circulating the engine properly. Don't start it until you know you are absolutely certain you have oil pressure.

Yeah, and like you say, when it starts, bring the revs up and vary then around the 1200 rpm to 1500 rpm mark until the fan comes on, then goes off. That way, you can be then confident that coolant is circulating the engine properly.

After this, switch the engine off and do one last check over. Start her up again and bleed the cooling system, then take her for a short drive. Obviously don't do your trademark "rev the engine at 6000 rpm when cold to try and get it to warm up a bit quicker" but keep the revs below 3K and don't labour it.

Good Luck

its not to warm the engine up........ its to ensure i clock in on time

done it a coupla three times in the astra as well, but at least in that i dont have to give it full throttle in 3rd up some of the local hills to keep pace with traffic!

im just testing out my mp3 players recording abilities right now (dire - i might resurrect the Hi-MD player for a final fling) and charging / purchasing batteries and the like

also remembers i have two minor oddments to put on the block... the hot/cold switcher vaccuum hose guide (soon as ive looked at the piccies to remind myself where it goes), and that evil curved razor that masquerades as the hot air feed guide. in fact i may discard it (safely contained in a crumpled up tin can) and just put the bolt in, as it holds part of the cambelt cover on.

would it be ok to turn it over with the sparkers in? its always a pig getting a certain couple of them in/out, and they're in right now. i'll have the electrics connected up to a beefier car brick-throttled to about 2000rpm anyway so electrical juice wont be an issue.

'ere we go...

Remove the spark plugs and turn it over without them in. It's so there is no load on the bearings while you build up the oil pressure.