1990 caravelle bus engine maintenance, tips?

welchy92 · Wannabe Joined: 05 May 2012 Posts: 3 Location: Australia

Hey all, i have a question.

I have a 1990 vw caravelle bus, and it has been sitting in storage for almost 2 years.. What happened was, a friend of mine took it on a trip, didn't maintain the coolant levels etc, and overheated it, which cracked the cylinder head..

Story short, he bought me a new cylinder head as i said i would fix it, but never got around to it as i went overseas. I have come back and want to fix it all up, but i am a bit hesitant about the whole engine now.

The cracked cylinder head was taken off and the pipes and other areas have been just left kind of exposed. I am not sure whether it matters or not, or if this means i am gonna have to pull a part quite a few things and give them some really good cleaning to get them looking good again.

Does anyone have any advice or tips for my situation? Tips on installing a new cylinder head, and what head gasket to get.. And even tips on what parts should be cleaned and checked when replacing a cylinder head while it is off. As well as general maintenance on these cars.. I understand with most, it is just a fact that there are certain parts and pieces that need replacing after a certain amount of time so that it runs well. I'd love to take it on a few short trips soon and getting it up and running quite well would be great.

Thank you.

Kai · Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 8:18 pm Post subject:

To get you started you should get your head in the engine bay and look at the exposed cylinder bores and cylinders for rust. I imagine it would I only be surface rust but could be worse. In an ideal world the engine should be striped down, cleaned, inspected whilst the cylinders bores are honed too.

However in the DIY mechanics world on a budget I would do my best to clean any surface rust away with the engine in situ. Look for pitting in the cleaned areas. If there is rust and it's pitted the cylinder bore then the engine will need stripping and further attention.

But if there was minimal to no rust then I would have a go at replacing the head gasket.

Can't tell you about maintenance on a wasserboxer as they may as well be mythical creatures to me.

You can always just persue your other route and just go for the Scooby motor.
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