Howdy Webriders! Dr. VW here. It seems that there is no rest for the wicked. After having completed the Jetta, the Red Baron decided to take a dump on me. Actually, it had been running worse and worse for a few months, and no amount of my tuning and troublshooting got to the root of the problem. So what was I to do? Hit the jump to take a look at what the most basic of engine builds looks like.

There it is. In all her greasy glory. The beating heart of the Red Baron with my brother lending a hand.

I originally pulled the engine for a clean up and run through of the intake system and to paint the exhaust, since it was begining to rust. What began as just some simple cleaning and maitnenance turned into a full tear down when I discovered the TRUE cause of all my runnability issues:

Cracked Head City. Population: Me. After posting some shots of my heads on thesamba, one of the experts said that in over 40 years of VW engine building (he was a technician TRAINED by VW “back in the day”) he had never seen a head crack like that before. Go me I guess. With only a day to go before my return to San Luis Obispo, I realized I would never finish it in time. The option of slapping on a used head of unknown condition and then driving 300 miles was not an Auto Adventure I was willing to undertake. Looking at the exposed pistons and cylinders, I decided that the time had come for complete rebuild, to save myself any future headaches. With that, I set off tearing it down the rest of the way.

The teardown findings were not good. The cam, by consensus, was not long for this world, and there were several parts that were looking very worn. If you look at the other shots in the galleries linked above, you can see the burnt/blue marks in the Cam and Crank bearings, as well as the pitting and discoloration on the cam. Basically, I’m glad I tore it down when I did or else I may not have made it back to SLO. As of this evening, the engine is town down completely and research has begun on parts. Stay tuned for the next installment where I’ll go over the new parts going into the Red Baron! Dr. VW– out.