Pics of the Cricket.

That’s the name of my car. “Cricket”. Why Cricket? Funny you should ask. I work with a guy from India who is a Cricket fan. Not the bugs, but the sport. You have a question about Cricket, you ask Kalpesh. Have you ever heard of a “home run”? Well, in Cricket there is a similar event called “Taking you for a six”. We were talking about the car the other day and he asked if I have “taken anyone for a six” with the car, meaning beat them in a race… I hadn’t, but the topic turned to everything on or about the car that led to six.

It has a “six” cylinder engine, It has a “six” speed trans, It has “six” windows, top speed 14″6″, speedometer goes to 1″6″0, Its a 2004 which if you add the numerals 2+0+0+4=”6″, The radio has “six” presets, It is a GTI VR”6″, If you add up GTI VR6 it equals “six”, It has a 24 valve engine and 2+4=”6″. The car has a CD changer, a “6” disc changer.

So the car had to be named Cricket. If you see me at the track, be prepared to be taken for a six…

VR6

GTI

These things are like Rabbits!

Somehow when I wasn’t looking I ended up with multiple Beetle engines. I only have one car, but I have four engines? It’s almost like the car dropped some acorns. I suppose I will check the numbers on them and see what I actually have. I know for sure one of them is a dual port. The other two are single ports but, there are two different size single ports (physical size not displacement) so I will have to dig into it a little. You can never have too much vintage VW iron laying around. I reckon with all four engines I may have close to 150 HP sitting out there! My garage is getting pretty small. Hopefully the VW engine growing season is coming to an end. I may take a couple of them apart just for something to do. I hardly ever have anything to do. I will probably keep the dual port aside so my good Friend Gary Davis at Davis Racing can build a turbo charged fire breathing monster for me some day.

I can quit any time...

We are back to the longblock.

I spent the entire day today taking apart the drivers side of the engine. Flash hung out for a little while. He layed under the Jeep and came out every now and then for a drink from the hose. Eventually he got bored and had to go back into the house though. Few living things can hang with me when it comes to tinkering with cars out in the garage. I did figure out the front bumper on my Jeep is the perfect size for a piece of wet sand paper to clean up the piston tops. Once I had the whole thing cleaned painted and reassembled I noticed a small piece of engine tin sitting on the trans.

This cute little unassuming piece of tin has become my Bane! For you see this cannot be put in it’s place after you are all done. It MUST be installed before you put on the heads… That’s right sports fans, time for a redo. I was THRILLED! Really I was. I love to do things over and over, especially when I have been out in the glaring sun for hours.

Lucky for me Jake showed up with his shop apron on and safety goggles. He helped me get everything back together and he got introduced to the torque wrench. I let him torque the head on. He was amazed with the clicking. It was magic. Now I am ready to start scouring the Earth to find the OG thermostat assembly. For some reason everyone thought you should just throw all that stuff away.

Back to the start.

Get your head on straight.

Okay, I got to hone out my cylinders with an ancient hone I borrowed from a guy named “Dog”. No, I am not making this up. Actually to be completely honest “Dog” borrowed it from his Dad first. I don’t know “Dog’s” Dad’s name. Truthfully I am only about 50% sure I know “Dog’s” name. I put my new rings in using hose clamps, because I am cheap like that. I reassembled everything following along in a book. I just realized if I can read a book, I can rebuild engines! I wonder what else I can do? I am going to go buy some more books. Anyway I replaced all the seals and gaskets. I painted the cylinders flat black to help dissipate heat. i think they look pretty sweet. What think ye?

I like!

Pretty...

Plugging away on the Bug.

Awhile ago I was attempting to remove the distributor from the old 40 Horsepower beetle engine. The dizzy did protest vehemently. (From now on Dizzy=distributor.) After consulting with some experts in the field I was advised to use huge channel locks and a dead blow hammer. After two days of PB Blaster and dead blow persuasion the Dizzy reluctantly gave up and came out of it’s hole. As I removed the old crusty o-ring to replace with a really nice new o-ring I noticed the Dizzy had cracked all the way around the groove.

Great. Now I need to find a 47 year old Dizzy. Apparently they don’t make them anymore. Lucky for me thru my searching a fellow enthusiast offered a core Dizzy for the cost of shipping! We are back in the game.

When it showed up I noticed my Dizzy had much better “guts”, so I decided to switch all the parts out of my broken Dizzy into the good case of the replacement Dizzy. Did you know there are approximately 945,312 parts in a Distributor?

This is what I started with. Grime and crud.

Old and broken.

I layed all the parts out on the pan. It was shock and awe. I am in deep…

Oh Boy....

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth I finally overcame the most insidious three dimensional jig saw puzzle of modern times.

Mmmmm Shiny.

One step closer to the goal.