The continuing drama of trying to deal with aftermarket engine tin has pretty much left me on my last nerve.
Nothing just fits.
Nothing.
I wish I had known that this was a common problem but I never really saw anyone mentioning it and of course, given the number of vendors out there selling aftermarket tin I just assumed things were fine.
Oh how wrong I was.
So two pieces of original tin that came off the 74 AH engine without any issue where the left and right bottom cylinder tins.
I was trying to use these as a guide since they have 2 specific areas that have to fit under the flush to the cylinder exhaust ports.
However, if they are put where they are supposed to be, there’s no way that they can align perfectly with the cylinder tins or the pulley tin.
Now I already had to cut the cylinder tins to get them to come down on over the exhaust outlets, but it is almost like the vertical length is insufficient to properly attach the lower tins to. And if you kind of get 1 screw in, it throws the original VW lower tins off completely.
It is just a nightmare.
I finally was able to get the heat exchanger tins on, but of course had to beat the hell out of the rears to fit around the bottom of the exhaust outlets. I’ve had to dremel them and pound them on.
Of course, that is resulting in the screws barely holding them on now at the back (above). Look at the gaps and such. I know my work is not perfect by any means given the tools I have but damn nothing really works well together.
And that 36HP style fan shroud? That’s a nightmare too.
You get 3/4 side somewhat in at the expense of the 1/2 side.
And nothing is really tight together at all.
I’m just so ready to lose my cool with this.
Now if I can at least get some of the original cylinder tins I’ve gotten from the other engines somewhat ready to be used I may be able to get this working better.
The cylinder tins really seem to be the key to this working.
I suppose if I had a bandsaw it would also be easier to shape some of these cuts.
The question is… how much more time will I waste on this?
Or… how much additional money will I need to spend to acquire original OEM tin? And what sucks is I’ll still have to either use the tin with the heater holes in it if the damn aftermarket solid ones won’t fit.