jeremyweber.com

September 7th, 2005 @ 8.53 pm

On Saturday I took the afternoon and pulled the vw’s engine (finally… it’d been sitting broken since August 6th when we towed it home). I discovered the culprit this time… more carelessness on my part. When I reassembled it last time I must have misplaced one of the screws that holds the engine tin together because sitting just upstream of the intake port was a chewed up screw that had partially gotten past the intake valve, but not completely. After pulling the cylinder head the washer that went along with the screw was found pressed into the head as a semi-recognizable mass that had been mushed and welded to itself with the heat. Luckily (again…) the scarring seemed limited to scratches on the surface of the cylinder and the head, but no real damage. That evening I bought myself a torque wrench (I know I’ll be needing it again and again in the future). Much of this was done under the careful supervision of Beverly, and then in the evening we really proved that I am no longer lactose intolerant by enjoying Blizzards from DQ.
On Monday (Sunday I went to Beverly’s church, house for lunch, and hung out at school) I reassembled the car and fired it up before heading to UMBC for a impromptu cookout. Tuesday night the I drove it ~12 trouble free miles, and then tonite (Wednesday) I put on another ten or so miles. With this cool dry air, that thing is pulling hard! (Well, for 1776cc…) With all the bad luck I’ve had so far I still am not going to trust the car for anything, and am still on pins & needles driving it, but just maybe I’ll make it through the month without breaking down again.