I really have no idea what I'm doing but
I know some things that are gonna happen.
We're gonna cut some holes in this
and then try and make it work so just
enjoy the ride.
I was okay with doing some cleanup and
modifications to this housing
but now that I've moved further to other
pieces
I'm finding that this is getting a
little bit crazy.
I'm all in. I'm gonna see it through but
this is about to get nuts. There's some
problems down here.
This is too far out. There's a big gap
here. Over on this side looking down,
the tin is not up against the flange
on the case. Down here it stands out
a good bit. So we're gonna play with all
of that.
But I got curious about something. I
noticed
the heat riser tube- it got hacked off at
some point.
This side hacked off too. The good news
is I can see through, so it's not totally
clogged up.
And the tin doesn't doesn't have the
hole
necessary on each side
so that that heat riser tube can attach
to the top of the exhaust stack.
So now I got a thing. My favorite
solution for this,
if I had, like a swap meet coming up,
right? Everything's shut down right now
but
if there was a swap meet coming up I
would go to the swap meet, I would look
for
a good used intake manifold and the
appropriate tin
to be able to attach to the heat riser
tube. I know the engine will run
without the heat riser tube, that's cool.
I would prefer to have it so
I'm gonna do what I can. Now i'll
eventually
get a good intake manifold from a swap
meet but I don't have that right now
and I'm working right now so I'm gonna
fabricobble what I can
to save this intake manifold
and be able to hook up the heat riser
tube. So I'm going to have to make a heat
riser tube
with what I've got laying around. Which,
that's the part that kind of interests
me. That's going to be the
the fun part. Now I do have this old
intake manifold.
It'd be great if I could just swap this
one in and go with
it but I don't have any confidence in it.
I may try to clean this up at some point
but it's it's in pretty awful shape.
Really, the thing is,
is I'm kind of into trying to do this.
This may be a horrible failure but
I'm going to try it. Right now it makes
sense to
finish all of this before we get into
really heavy surgery that's going to be
happening up here.
To get this heat riser in, we're going to
have to make some holes
that the heat can rise through. And
they'll be connecting to the exhaust
stacks.
And so this cooling tin was not made for
that.
Which is too bad, but we'll cut this open,
we have to make some covers to
keep the hot air down there and inside
the tube and...
There's some crazy stuff that's going to
go on up here so I want to make sure
everything else about this piece and
back here for that matter
is all nice and straight. We want to
make sure we got a good
base to work with. Some more tin bending
here and then we'll get into the
craziness.
Which I'm looking forward to because
that's going to be kind of cool.
So one thing here, this piece
needs to be about right there. I would
like it to sit there on its own. I'm
being really nitpicky but
in pursuing stuff like that, it shows me
other issues.
I think this needs to be this way a
little bit more. Bring this down.
Do something to push this this way. Close
that up.
Big issues over here to mess around with.
So one thing at a time. Let's see if we
can get this side to sit nice.
Yeah, it looks like we've solved our gap
over here.
Now we need to take a look at this area
around the exhaust stack.
I'll go ahead and fasten it down for that.
I want to close this gap just a little
bit.
I think I might try this a different way.
Okay, I think we're in good shape. We've
got it in just about as far as I think
it's going to go.
I think the biggest part of the problem
here is this
is just twisted maybe. Maybe right about
here.
So it may be turned a little this way so
we'll just see if we can turn it back
that way
and then go from there.
Okay, that's much better. So a valid
question is-
"Is this cheap aftermarket cooling tin,
that does not
fit, worth it?" No,
this cooling tin is not worth all of
this effort.
The engine is worth the effort. If the
thing runs hot,
it doesn't run as long. These are
air-cooled engines and they already run
hot. So this is part of what we're doing
with Vandemic;
is doing what we can with what we have.
We've started with something pretty cool
here.
It's fun to try one way or the other.
Well, I opened up my gap again.
That's a problem. I'm going to flatten
this corner out.
I think that's causing problems
elsewhere.
That looks good
The more I look at this piece of engine
tin, the more I realize it just doesn't
have
anything going for it. It's forgivable
that it doesn't have
the heater openings. Not a lot of people
run
heat in a VW, especially down here in
Florida.
So that's okay, but not having the heat
risers,
that's an issue for a single center
mounted carb.
Probably not a big deal for dual carbs,
but it's got gaps too. It doesn't really
fit. So that's kind of a problem.
It doesn't matter what the configuration
of your engine is, that's going to be a
problem.
And over here, oh man, that's a huge gap.
That goes for quite a ways. Several
inches.
Not good. Here's another issue. I think
it's the shape of an
earlier engine. I think they were round
like this
but the pulley tin for the later engines
are kind of
swept like this. I'm not exactly sure why,
but they're not a half circle so we end
up with this huge
gap. I've got more cooling tin.
I've got the pulley tin that would fit
this,
and i've got other versions of this that
have heat risers
and would match this late model tin and
everything in between. I've got some
stuff laying around but,
I don't know, I'm kind of committed to
the idea of
"run watcha brung". Just for fun I want to
see
if we can fabricate this thing into
something
more worthwhile for this engine. So it's
kind of an exercise to do
all this but I want to close up this gap.
And I think what I'm going to do
is leave this tin because it's actually
kind of nice.
I'm going to leave this tin alone. I'm
gonna make this,
piece of junk really,
fit that. I'm gonna add the holes for the
heat risers
and cobble together some way to seal
them. I think I'm even gonna come over
here and add some steel
so that we get rid of that gap. Is this
the most sensible thing to do?
Absolutely not. But it should be kind of
fun so let's see how it goes.
I think I can hammer this section out
in order to close up that gap. This is
stupid.
So let's just try it. If I ruin it then I
have to get the right thing for the
engine.
What do I got to lose?
That looks pretty close, and strangely,
this part down here looks a little
closer, but we're gonna have to work on
this. That's a pretty big gap.
Hey that wasn't as bad as I thought it
would be.
Got that gap all nice and sealed up.
Didn't have to modify
this piece of tin, the pulley tin itself.
I think that's actually a decent piece
of tin.
But cool. I have used
conduit for exhaust before.
The exhaust on the motorcycle, about 12
years now,
I made out of conduit, and it seems
to work pretty okay.
So I'm going to bend up some half inch
EMT, electrical metallic tubing, or
electrical conduit here.
As it just so happens to be very close
to the size of the heat riser tube, so
I'm going to bend this up and see if I
can
fabricate something together to take the
place of the missing
heat riser tubes on the intake manifold.
*thinking aloud: "How am I going to do that?"
I might try a series of pie cuts here
to get this bend as tight as I need it.
Do some pie cuts and weld them up.
We'll see. Someone who's fabricated
more exhaust systems than I have would
really know what to do here but I'm
going to try that.
This is where my bend starts. This is
about where
my bend will end, and looks like this
is the center of it. Still got a line
going down the outside.
So I'm going to pie cut right here and
bend and see what it looks like.
I should have wire brushed all that
first.
That really got me somewhere. That's
pretty cool.
I'm gonna wire brush this some more, you
know, this coating is not good for you.
Before I fully weld everything up I'll
dunk this in some muriatic acid,
just a weak solution, and it'll eat that
stuff off.
Let's do a couple more.
Might have actually overdone it a little
bit.
I think i did.
I think i'll undo this one.
Okay, so here's what it looks like.
This part down here will be easy.
I'm going to use the block off plates.
I'll drill a hole through them
and then just weld the end of this tube,
just cut it to length and weld the end
of the tube to that.
The next trick is going to be attaching
this end to the existing intake manifold.
Looking at a cross section of this tube,
you can see some of the engineering that
went into this.
The tube is not a perfect circle here.
It's kind of flattened out
against this intake runner to give it
more contact. There will be more
conduction of heat
into that intake runner. And that's
pretty cool. And all this aluminum
around it helps conduct the heat into
this portion.
In a way this is all kind of like a heat
exchanger.
The source of the heat is the exhaust
gas running through that tube inside
there but it's shrouded by this aluminum
that conducts heat really well.
Yeah, that's kind of like a heat
exchanger. The problem is that they
didn't leave me any access. They cut this
this mild steel tube off flush with the
aluminum part.
So I think I'm going to have to chip
away enough of this aluminum here
to get access to where I can form
the end of this tubing
and tack it into place. And I want it to
be pretty airtight because this is a
source of heat
and all that'll be happening in this
area where I do not want exhaust
heat to be getting into the fan. So
I'll want to do a tidy job
of welding the new tubing into this
place. This is a little bit nutso,
maybe not worth it but kind of fun to
try it. It's a neat challenge.
That's really interesting. All this
grease that's in here.
Smells like oil. Not sure how oil would
get up in this
area.
I think I've come up with a complete
plan.
It's silly, but it's a plan.
Next part of the plan is to do one of
these for the other side
and if we look really close at the
manifold it's different. The bend is
right up on the manifold here. On this
side the bend is a little bit
before it. So I'm going to replicate this
just as much as I can
with this scrap piece. You can see I was
practicing
stubs here. So I wired this garage. The
inspector actually asked me if I was an
electrician.
And i said "No, I'm just crafty." And I
still have the conduit bender.
So we're going to put all that stuff to
use one more time and see
if we can make one of these for this
side
out of this. The rest of the plan, I'm
just going to make you wait until we
come to those parts
and that allows me to change it.
You can see I do not have this down to an exact science.
Alright, I'm getting kind of
comfortable with this. So this one starts
about right here.
So mine is going to start about right
there. So I'm going to make sure this is
on the outside of my bend.
I'm gonna wire brush this and put some
tack welds in. I think we're really close.
Gonna check before I really seal the
deal here.
Yep I think we're good.
While we're waiting for the zinc coating
or the galvanization
to be eaten off of that conduit,
we'll work on something else. I've got
the old block off
plates. I want to drill holes through
them so the conduit can fit down into it
and i'll weld it from the bottom side.
I got some gaskets here that I think are
dimensionally correct,
and we'll set these on here
to draw our marks. So we're going to
modify these things to be used
as flanges for the heat riser.
But we're pretty close. Yeah, basically
just want to shave that off.
And I want everything down here to be
equidistant
from the end.
I think I'm gonna flatten this one a
little bit. This tube is really flat here
and this is
not. And maybe grind some off the end and
I think we'll be good to go.
Grind some off of this side here.
I'll take a little more.
We are very close.
Need some off the top.
I think that's about where I want it.
So far so good. Let's take a look at how
we got things tacked in here.
It fought me a little bit but we got it.
So I'll take this off and finish weld it.
Should have turned up the heat a little
bit down here. One of my interests
in spending way too much time on this
is, in the future when I use an
aftermarket exhaust
on something I'm going to want to make
sure that this heat riser
works correctly even with an aftermarket
exhaust.
And what I mean by that is this: The
stock one
is designed so that some exhaust gas
will flow
through this tube, actually in that
direction,
and if you look real close at it you'll
see that here on...
whatever this is... number two, the number
two exhaust stack,
we'll have positive pressure to push into
this tube. Well, the only way that's going
to work
is if there's a way for the air that's
in there to get out of the tube.
And that's why this pipe skips the
number four
exhaust stack and wraps around here,
goes into the back of the muffler,
and shows up here
at an area of low pressure because
exhaust will be
escaping out of this outlet. This is the
tailpipe here, right? So
the flow of exhaust would draw air out
of that
tube. So this is the outlet for the heat
riser.
On most aftermarket exhausts, it's a
pulsing back
and forth. One fires and then the other
fires but there's not
a throughput of exhaust gases through
the heat riser,
so it just ends up clogging up and it
doesn't flow as much gas so it never
does
its job as good as it could. And, it'll
eventually get
really clogged up because that soot
doesn't ever make it all the way through
the heat riser. So in the future I can
see myself
choosing to use an aftermarket exhaust
that needs to be modified to flow like
this. So
with a little bit of experience
finagling this one, that's going to set
me up to where
I won't be quite as clueless when I
when I attempt that.
We have heat riser tubes!
I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and
see if I
can make this work.
I'll have to cut away enough
of this tin here so that this can stick
through it. Here's the thing that I
didn't really realize-
is that all this is above the level of
that tin, so it'll all be sticking out
above
this surface here. So I've got to cut an
opening big enough that it can do that.
And then somehow close it in. VW, of
course, had a really elegant way of doing
it but that's not what's going to happen
here.
So I'm just gonna see what I
can do. Just gonna start cutting and see
if we can close it in without
too much trouble here. Just to kind of
salvage
the cooling tin that's on this beast.
This has been fun but there's one more
thing we need to do before the cooling
tin is finished.
Whether or not you've heard of
"Industrial Tins" before,
make sure to check out the next video
because we'll be fabricating a set to go
along with a small change in the exhaust.
Then we can think about putting this
engine back together and hearing it run.
I know we're all looking forward to that
so stay tuned and we'll see you in the
next video.
