It forecast rain today so I planned on working in the garage. Actually it turned out nice and I could have got the cover off, but I had made plans and I'm hoping for some decent weather next weekend for that.
The head is going away to Motorcast in Wem, Shropshire so I've split it down to box it up and send it next week. Motorcast will just re-fresh the head, clean it, grind in the valves, fit new guides if needed and put it all back together. They did my 1.6 Pinto head for the Locost and did a great job. They have also been really helpful and can source shell bearings, rings, gaskets etc at what seem to be pretty fair prices.
Engine seems pretty sound and apart from a trashed front shell bearing in the first position (crank journals look OK) there is nothing major to be concerned about (I think).
I checked all the dims and they are pretty much spot on with very little wear at all. Main journals measure 93.75 against a spec of 94.00. Not bad for a 20 year old engine with probably 100k+ on the clock.
So standard bearings will be on order and the block cleaned down ready for re-assembly when the head comes back. I don't seem to be able to get the Aux shaft free from the worm gear that drives the oil pump so I'll just leave it in for now.
One interesting point is that it would seem that the VW tech who built this engine made a mistake and put an upper shell bearing in the lower main housing of Nr 4 bearing. You can see it has a groove (and an upper shell part number) so it's the wrong one. All the part numbers date from 93 so I can't see these have been replaced at any stage.
Anyway here's the pictures of today's progress.
![Image](http://images3a.snapfish.com/232323232%7Ffp734%3B3%3Enu%3D3352%3E58%3B%3E9%3A5%3EWSNRCG%3D3737%3A6%3A%3A75329nu0mrj)