VW - Pulling the Plug

PULLING THE PLUG

The oil galleries on the VW crankcase are sealed with aluminum plugs. They come in four sizes and two flavors. The smallest size (and Vanilla flavor) is a small piece of aluminum rod to seal the 5mm drillings. The other flavor is an aluminum Welch plug (i.e., ‘freeze' plug*) that comes in three sizes (counting both early & late model crankcases) used to seal the larger openings, although unlike the freeze plugs found on an iron casting the Welch plugs on the VW crankcase are installed with the convex side out.

When starting with a used crankcase of unknown provenance you must pull ALL of the plugs in order to clean the oil galleries. This rule also applies to a NEW or used crankcase on which any machine work is done. The reason is pretty simple: When opening up the case to accept larger jugs, or when doing an align bore, it's impossible to prevent swarf from getting into the oil galleries. Once you get swarf into the oil galleries the only way to get it out is to scrub it out using a bristle brush and copious amounts of solvent.

Many shops don't do this. Instead, they give the galleries a blast of compressed air and ASSUME it will blow out all of the swarf. Unfortunately, the oil galleries have several blind corners where one drilling intersects another. Opposite the blind corner the drill usually leaves a cone-shaped pit or even a short, dead-end passageway. Blowing air into one side of a gallery that has a dead end or blind corner simply packs the debris into the corner. Even when using solvent and brushes, working from only one side of the corner, no amount of scrubbing or flushing guarantees you will get the swarf out of those dead spaces because your brush can't go around the corner. But when you're working from only one side of the corner your brush can pack the debris more firmly into the void, where heat and vibration will cause it to come free once the engine is assembled. And end up in your bearings, since the debris is already downstream from any filter that may be installed.

Everyone who has overhauled more than a few engines knows what I'm talking about here. You split the case and the first thing you see are little smears of metal on the #2 bearing, with lesser amounts on #3 & #4. Pop the #2 cam bearing shell out of the right-hand side of the case and you're liable to find the large oil passageway behind it completely blocked with swarf. And while everyone with a bit of experience has seen this evidence, what happens next is kinda funny. Some attribute the contamination to ‘bad bearings,' others to ‘bad oil' or a ‘bad case' or even a bad crankshaft. I imagine there are even some mechanics who will blame the contamination on an act of God or a voodoo curse but the funny part is the fact not one in thousand will blame it on themselves.

Let me offer you a hint: If you find metal particles BEHIND a bearing shell the odds are the debris was there when the engine was assembled. You can't blame it on the customer for using ‘bad oil' or the supplier for sending you ‘bad bearings' or the regrind shop for delivering a ‘bad crankshaft,' you gotta look in the mirror and blame it on the monkey who failed to properly clean the crankcase prior to assembly.

Which raises an interesting point. A lot of VW ‘experts' say it's a bad idea to use an align-bored case, even though Volkswagen did exactly that with more than 7,000,000 factory-overhauled engines. Those same experts often say that using bigger jugs guarantees an unreliable engine, even though the 1600cc engine is nothing more than a big-bore 1500, which itself is a big-bore 1300. Craziest of all are those instant experts that tell you full-flow oil filtration ‘doesn't work.' Remember them? (And if you don't, just check the archives.)

Before you buy-in to the instant-expert version of reality it might be a good idea to take a look at an engine built by such experts. When you do any machining on the crankcase, one of the of the plugs you have to pull is just to the left of the base of the distributor, clearly visible even when the engine is fully assembled and mantled.

Is the stock plug still there? (All it takes is a quick look.)

If so, was any machining done on the crankcase? If it's ‘yes' again then walk on by; whoever built the thing doesn't know what they're doing.

(Yeah, I know... you've built a zillion align-bored, opened-up engines and have NEVER had this problem. Since you're already perfect, this article obviously isn't for you. This article is for me. And all the other engine builders imperfect enough to realize we still have a lot to learn.)

HOW TO PULL THE PLUG

Preamble: If you want to do it right, do all the drilling & tapping with a drill press. But since most of you don't have a drill press, or don't have one that is large enough for this task... or don't have the fixture to support a VW crankcase standing on its nose... just do the best you can.

Start by center-punching the plug. Then drill through the plug with an 1/8" bit.

[Odds are, you don't have the right drill-motor for this, nor the right tools to position the crankcase. Aluminum is virtually transparent to a properly sharpened drill bit turning at the right speed. To drill a clean hole in aluminum an eighth-inch bit has to be turning about two thousand rpm. Unless you do a lot of aircraft sheet metal work you probably don't have portable drill motor that turns that fast. And unless you've got the jigs to position a VW crankcase on the drill table, you can't use your drill press. Just do the best you can. (If you've ever wondered why your holes come out sorta raggedy, perhaps you should look up ‘SFM' (surface-feet per minute) and do a bit of reading.)]

Once you've drilled the pilot hole, put a #8 sheet metal screw in your slide hammer, screw the thing into the hole and do what comes naturally. In about three slaps of the hammer you'll have a greasy little plug in your hand.

WHICH PLUGS TO PULL

The rule is easy to remember: When in doubt, take it out.

On a used crankcase, pull them ALL.

On a late model crankcase we're talking about TEN plugs; eleven if you plan to the install a temperature sensor**.

On the pulley-end of the crankcase pull the little (6.25mm) plug on the #4 main bearing gallery, the pair of 14mm plugs associated with the main oil gallery and the 12mm plug on the gallery going to the oil cooler. On the top of the crankcase pull the 12mm plug just beside the threaded boss for the oil pressure switch. On the left side of the crankcase pull the small plug between the spigot bores for #3 & #4 cylinders. On the flywheel end of the crankcase pull the pair of small plugs for the lifter oil galleries, the 14mm plug blocking the end of the main oil gallery and the small plug just below it that goes to the oil pressure control valve. You may ignore the small plug on the bell housing flange; you can reach it's void space with a pipe cleaner. The above is for a late model crankcase.

Early model cases have fewer plugs to pull and the location for the oil temperature sensor is sealed with a THREADED plug. (To install the oil temperature sensor, simply remove the plug and replace it with the VDO adapter. [see the footnotes])

PLUGGING THE HOLE

Before pulling the plugs give the crankcase a cursory cleaning so as not to turn your shop into a grease pit but don't bother making a serious job of it until you've tapped all the holes. The drilling and tapping will generate a lot of swarf which can only be removed by cleaning the case all over again.

Some of the holes are the right size to accept a large set screw. Back in the Good Old Days, whenever that was, I used mostly set screws to plug the holes. Of course, being steel and having a straight thread, they tend to leak a bit but being an idiot kid I was more interested in going fast than in the trail I left while doing so.

The proper way to plug the hole is with a pipe plug. They're tapered and when properly installed, don't leak. Assuming they're aluminum. Steel pipe plugs, which are a lot cheaper and easier to find than aluminum pipe plugs, tend to loosen up after a few years because of the different coefficient of expansion between steel and magnesium alloy. Properly installed, aluminum pipe plugs don't leak. Ever. The coefficient of expansion for aluminum and magnesium alloys are very close together; the plug expands at the same rate as the case, insuring the plug will remain oil-tight.

Whatever pipe plug you use, steel or aluminum, you want the ones that are installed with an Allen wrench. Ask for the ‘internal wrenching' type. Earl's sells them. Cost the earth but it's a one-time thing.

TAPPING THE HOLE

Tapping the hole to accept the plug is where most mechanics come to grief. Not so much in the tapping but in starting out with the wrong diameter hole, or making it too deep. Being tapered, a pipe-thread tap is happiest working into a tapered hole, which is accomplished by drilling a starter hole that's too small then opening it up with a tapered reamer. Most mechanics, VW or otherwise, have never even seen a tapered pipe-thread reamer and their eyes pop open when they see what they cost. But there it is.

The depth of the threaded hole is fairly critical. Go too deep on some locations and you're liable to block the oil flow. Ideally, the plug should be fully seated either flush with the case or no more than one thread below. If you start with a properly tapered hole you can achieve this fit every time by putting a reference mark on your tap but if you've never done this before it would be best to keep trial-fitting the plug.

WHAT'S ALL THIS COST?

I probably spend about two hours total, pulling the plugs and tapping the holes. I could probably do it faster but a single mistake can take hours to repair. I've found I make fewer mistakes if I work at a steady - but fairly slow - pace.

Anodized aluminum pipe plugs are expensive. Figure a couple of bucks each for the small ones, more for the larger sizes. See the web site of any automotive supplier that sells Earl's Performance Products; they usually list the prices. There are commercial manufacturers of aluminum, internal-wrenching pipe plugs but I've never found one interested in selling small quantities.

As for the price of the tools, I honestly don't know. Most of my tools are older than you are; some are older than me. (I've got a half-inch pipe tap that belonged to my dad.) You need pipe taps for one-eighth, one-quarter and three-eighths, plus half-inch if you're doing the temperature sensor in a late model crankcase. Good taps, not that Chinese junk. And you need a reamer for each. And you may need TWO of the same size, since some of the holes you need to tap are shallow; you have to grind the tap to the right length.

Instead of a reamer you can ‘step-drill' the hole, assuming you have a drill press and the right drill bits.

Bottom line is that you need a fair amount of tooling. Which is one of the reasons I started out using set-screws :-)

CLEANING THE OIL GALLERIES

If it's a used crankcase it's going to have some oil trapped in the galleries. If the case has been laying around for a while the oil is liable to be harder than a bride's biscuits. I'm fortunate in having a cleaning tank large enough to submerge a crankcase. After the thing is tapped, if it's a used crankcase I generally leave it to soak overnight before attempting to clean the oil galleries. Soaking in diesel or mineral spirits will soften the oxidized oil, allowing it to be scrubbed out without too much trouble.

Most the brushes I use for cleaning oil galleries are bore brushes designed for cleaning rifles, pistols or machine guns. (I'm ex-Navy and have access to used, surplus bore brushes all the way up to 20mm.) I chuck them into a Makita cordless drill-motor and run them slowly up & down the oil gallery while keeping the thing flooded with mineral spirits. In a pinch, you can use nylon bristle brushes but it takes longer than with a ‘soft' stainless steel or bronze brush. Suitable brushes are sold as coffee percolator pump brushes, baby bottle brushes and the like. Be prepared to cut them down to the right diameter when necessary.

All of the oil galleries on the VW engine are drillings, meaning they are perfect circles with a smooth finish. The main oil gallery runs straight through the case and you can inspect it the same way you'd check the barrel of a gun. But it's also possible to VISUALLY inspect the other galleries if you provide yourself with the right light source. Such inspection lights come in all sizes; I've got one that's only a sixteenth of an inch in diameter. Not very expensive but you'll have to shop around. (The little one is a fiber optic thingee on a pen light. I think I got it from American Science & Surplus.)

The passageways are clean when you can SEE they are clean.

MODIFYING THE PIPE PLUGS

I use a round Swiss file (i.e., a little file with a fine tooth) or a small carbide burr to make a SMALL round-bottomed notch in the top edge of the plug. Just a little one; mebbe an eighth of an inch across and maybe the same for depth, although it's shallower on small plugs, deeper on large ones.

Once the plug is installed I use a ROUND NOSED drift to swage the metal of the crankcase into the notch on the plug. Don't hit it hard; use a series of light taps to gently flow the metal into the notch. You'll probably have to make the round nosed drift. Just polish the point of a center punch.

Swaging the metal of the crankcase into the notch on the pipe plug keeps it from coming loose.

SEALING THE PLUGS

Mostly, I use #3 Permatex. I start by putting the plugs in a little cup with some lacquer thinner or MEK to make sure they are free of oil. I use a Q-tip to wipe down the threads in the crankcase with MEK. Put the plug you're about to install onto the Allen wrench, blow it dry then put a dab of Permatex onto the threads of the plug and smear it around the full circumference. Then thread it in an bring it up to a firm fit.

For high temperature applications I use high-temp Loc-Tite. To remove the plug you'll have to use heat and the trick here is to put the Allen wrench into the plug then use a small tipped high intensity torch, such as MAPP or O/A to heat the area locally while applying torque to the Allen wrench. As soon as you feel it turn, move the torch away.

IS THIS TRIP REALLY NECESSARY?

As with all VW engine work, the answer to that question depends on you. But to give you a hint, when you order a rebuilt crankcase from a reputable shop it usually comes with the plugs pulled and the holes threaded. On the other hand, I know some big name builders who insist such care isn't needed because their engines are built on new crankcases.

So how do they remove the swarf that gets into the oil galleries?

"Oh, we blow them out, really good."

And how do they KNOW the galleries are free of swarf?

They don't. They ASSUME blowing them out ‘really good' is all it takes, in every single case, to leave the galleries perfectly clean.

‘Assume' is another term for ‘guess-work.' In my opinion, and that of many other engine builders, the wiser course is to leave nothing to chance. By pulling the plugs you don't have to assume anything, you can visually inspect the oil galleries. Good engines are not built on guess work.

-Bob Hoover -April 2002

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* - They aren't ‘freeze plugs' and never were. Those holes in the side of iron and steel monoblock castings are to facilitate removal of the fragmeable sand cores used in the casting process.
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** - Volkswagen provided oil temperature and oil pressure gauges on some of their industrial engines. The oil temperature sensor was placed at the inlet to the oil pump. Early model crankcases had a threaded hole (M16x1.5) at that location. To install the sensor the threaded plug was replaced by the matching VDO temperature sensor.

On later model cases the hole is no longer threaded and is sealed by a Welch plug about 19mm in diameter . To install the temperature sensor, pull the plug and thread the hole to accept a suitable adapter. Be sure the temperature sensor extends far enough to be constantly bathed by the oil being drawn from the sump but not so far as to obstruct the flow.

On most late model crankcases, a half-inch NPT hex-head plug, drilled and tapped to accept the temperature sensor, makes a suitable adapter.
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(Ed Note: Since writing this article a number of people have created web-sites showing how they've done the work.)

VW - Lubrication to the Right Side of the Engine

>I've taken my engine apart, (sniff) and noticed something I don't >understand. How does the right case half's lifters get lubrications? ...
Mike

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Dear Mike (and the Group),

Pressurized oil reaches the right side of the engine via the #2 cam bearing web.

This is one of the weak links in the Type I design and part of the reason those nifty drop-in hydraulic lifters CB usta sell did not work -- the 'corner' lifters on the right side of the case were starved for oil. This is also why those nifty needle-bearing rocker-arms don't work as well as they should -- insufficient oil supply.

This is also why a lot of big-bore strokers last only a few minutes. In relieving the cam & #2 cam bearing web to clear the flanges of the stroker crank, the builder would often cut away a bit too much, causing a dramatic drop in oil pressure for the right-hand side of the engine.

Fortunately, it's pretty easy to fix :-)

See the #3 cam-bearing web? Notice the hole is NOT drilled all the way through?

On some crankcases (careful here, troops) you may be able to extend the oil passageway by drilling from the #3 cam bearing to the end of the valve lifter oil gallery, which must also be extended. This gives the right-hand side of the crankcase two sources of oil. But it doesn't work for all crankcase castings and there is a bit of tricky work involved even when there is enough metal for the drilling -- you have to get the angle just right or you've screwed the pooch.

You can make this modification work on an early crankcase... but you have to add a bit of metal down in the bottom of that hole you'll find just off the rear-ward end of the right-hand valve-lifter gallery. And anyone who can TIG down in the bottom of that hole deserves a Nobel. (BT, DT, got the Prize :-) (Hint: You can't use a regular torch.)

There are a couple of hi-tek tricks you can do to the heads to feed oil into a hollow rocker-shaft for the purpose of juicing needle rockers but it's not for the faint of heart. If you gotta turn eight grand for a couple of hours to get a champagne shampoo it might be worth looking into. Otherwise, stick with a properly applied coating of DFL-1 and clean oil.

-Bob Hoover

PS -- Opening up the right-hand crankcase half at the #1 cam-bearing web to the main oil gallery and ensuring 100% lubrication to the rockers (normal is only 8%) is the foundation of the so-called 'HVX' mods.

VW - Polishing Glass

A Shy Person asked:

>Got a question on windshields. Mine is in pretty good shape as far as nicks, chips, smokey corners go, but it does have a lot of fine swirl type scratches in it. Maybe from being washed so many times? Anyways, is there a way to refininsh the surface?

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Dear Shy Person (and the Newsgroup),

No problem. Get yourself some cerium oxide and a felt polishing hob. Make a mixture of cerium oxide & water having the consistency of light cream. Paint it onto a small area of the glass and buff with the felt hob mounted in a low-speed drill motor. Keep the stuff damp -- spritz on more water and add more polishing compound as needed. Dry and buff with a soft cloth, inspect the surface with a loupe of at least 5x (look for tiny 'rainbows' -- refraction from microscopic pits & scratches... if you do a good job, you won't see any). Takes about 20 minutes to polish an area the size of your palm. But worth the effort.

You can get a 'kit' of cerium oxide & polishing hobs from J.C.Whitney. Cheap.

Stantium oxide cuts slower than cerium oxide, gives a finer finish. Ferrous oxide, the red stuff -- and often called 'rouge' for that reasons -- cuts slowest of all, gives the finest finish. But rouge is messy as hell and ferrous oxide can react with rubber & trim.

Polishing the windscreen is a standard procedure for vehicles that accumulate a lot of mileage -- buses, trucks and the like. But if the scoring isn't too bad you may not need to polish -- you can get rid of the refraction problems by filling minor scratches with black wax then buffing the glass smooth. This only works if the scratches aren't too deep.

Rain-X also reduces the effect of light-scatter caused by scratches but a layer of Rain-X can prevent the polish from working so try that last.

-Bob Hoover

Easy Pickin's

Dan Rose opined:

>Historically, robbing someone meant having your hands cut off. Today, in some states you can be killed for commiting certain crimes. None of these punishments deters would-be criminals.

Whoa, there cowboy. How did 'would-be' criminals get into this conversation? The methods above are designed to deal with known criminals... and they are very effective. (Kinda hard to pick a pocket without any hands :-)

> We have to look at what factors promote crime.

We? If you want to get into the philosophical aspects of the problem you'd better begin by defining government, get the mouse out of your pocket or stop using the Royal 'we.'

People create governments to accomplish collectively what cannot be achieved individually. But our government has already told us -- through case law and other means -- that our personal security and safety is an individual responsibility. Collectively, the cops will try to help... if they can... but we can lodge no complaint when they can't. Ditto for the fire department and so on. Public Safety agencies primarily function after the fact for the simple reason that it's impossible for them to prevent you as an individual from sitting your ass on fire. Or sticking a gun in someone's face. Pass all the laws you want, the root problem is that there is no effective means of ensuring they will be obeyed.

Which brings us back to individual responsibility, Good Citizenship and why I wear a gun.


Individually, the best we can do to prevent crime is to raise our kids right and not offer ourselves up as easy targets. But you don't have to be a legal scholar to see that the courts have told us that good citizenship in today's Amerika ultimately requires us to blow away any asshole who tries to do us harm.

The reason for this unpleasant but necessary duty is pretty simple. When a gun is in your face it's obvious you're dealing with a criminal and that whatever deterrents are in place have not worked. When that happens the best the police can offer is a free ride to the morgue. For one of you. Clearly, it is your duty to ensure the other guy goes into the body-bag. Not only does it guarantee they won't do it again, it saves our society an incredible amount of money.

So wear a weapon, hone your skills and be prepared to use them. Because the best possible crime-deterrent is to stop walking around with Easy Pickin's tattooed on your forehead.

-Bob Hoover

PS -- This will come as a Big Surprise to all the bleeding hearts but ninety-nine times out of a hundred you don't even have to pull the trigger. Once they know you are armed and willing to take a hit, they're gone.

AV - Primary Gliders to the Rescue

I'm guilty of trying to get more people into the air, ideally in airplanes they've built themselves. But it's a tough row to hoe when the person is not a pilot. Toward that end I recently posted a message to the Fly5k mailing list about using a primary glider as part of basic pilot training.

In the message I said you'd have to work pretty hard to spend more than $300 building a primary glider. That generated a bit of mail :-)

Some folks didn't know what I meant when I said ‘primary glider' and a majority of those who did doubted one could be built for that amount. Telling them I was referring to the DFS's SG-38 or one of its variants, and sure they could, didn't help. In fact, each time I tried to clear up some point, such as why the type of wood you use isn't important, it seemed to made matters worse. It took a while for me to realize I was trying to explain the joy of old, comfortable shoes to folks who'd gone bare-foot all their lives :-)

OLD SHOES

Primary Gliders pre-date powered flight. Built with locally available materials, their only aviation-certified component was a healthy dose of common sense. Those early machines came in a variety of shapes, sizes and control schemes. The record shows some had the Right Stuff but most did not. After the Bicycle Brothers showed us How to Do It the variations in primary glider design became fewer. By 1914 the stick and rudder control system had become a de facto standard. World War One proved the practicality of that system over other methods and de facto became de juri. Weight-shifting, shoulder yokes and wing-warping were swept into the dust bin of history, to be re-invented with the advent of the hang-glider.

The present-day form of the Primary Glider originated in Germany during the 1920's and was introduced to the world through an article in the June, 1929 issue of National Geographic Magazine (*). The design continued to evolve (and still does) but was pretty much frozen by 1933 when the DFS published plans for the Model 38 ‘school glider.' ( DFS stands for Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Segelflug, the German Research Institute for Soaring Flight.)

Primary gliders proved so effective for imparting basic piloting skills that virtually every airmen of that era began their pilot training in an SG-38 or one of its variants. (‘School Glider' is ‘Shulgleiter' and is normally abbreviated ‘SG.') When you see SG.38 in a an old log book you'll know it means a primary glider, so don't be surprised if it shows three hundred landings but only five hours of flight. (To understand why, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2e7tXROSnA )

Plans for the SG-38 were made available to all and examples were built in nearly every country of the world. Many of these departed from the plans in one way or another, reflecting local flying conditions or the availability of materials. Among the many variants were struts instead of wire bracing, a wheel instead of a skid, fairings of various types (nacelles to some), steel-tube fuselage instead of wood - even a steel tube fuselage having a triangular cross-section (which is the type I prefer to build). Some variations even changed the primary's status from glider to powered flight by hanging a motor on the nose. (Anyone who has ever flown a primary gets a big grin on their face the first time they see an Aeronca C2. It's lineage is unmistakable.)

Unaware of the origin of the design or to distinguish a particular variation, Primary Gliders in different countries were often named after the first local builder or the first person to import a completed machine. The Kawasaki Model 24, for example, has struts and a nicely faired pod around the pilot but is otherwise virtually identical to the basic SG-38. Here in the States a primary is often called a ‘Northrup,' honoring the fellow who first imported one from Germany in the early 1920's. (I've not been able to identify him further, other than he was a scion of the Northrup seed company dynasty.) And while we may call it a ‘Northrup' even the most cursory inspection shows it to be the metric-dimensioned SG-38 cloned in inches and feet. (If you'd like to build one you will find plans and building instructions in the old Flying & Glider manuals, reprints of which are available from the EAA(**) for about ten dollars. Later issues of the Flying and Glider Manual depict some of the variants.)

(Note: Not to be confused with John K. Northrop, the brilliant aeronautical engineer whose broad spectrum of engineering innovations contributed significantly to Lockheed, Boeing, Douglas, North American and of course Northrop Aviation's incomparable flying wings.)

While details of their structure might change, the function of all primary gliders remains the same, which is to roar silently down their eight-to-one glide slope at a breathtaking thirty miles an hour. The pilot's task is to keep the wings level and to land straight ahead. Once the basics are mastered life becomes more interesting :-) (Riding the ‘hang' or slope-wind, you may stay aloft for hours, if you wish.)

SUCCESS OR FAILURE?

Some people felt I'd overstated the case regarding the need for pilot training, that everything was just swell within the General Aviation community. As proof, they usually cited air-show revenues or attendance statistics to show there's no cause for alarm; surely no need to advocate anything as arcane as primary gliders.

Pilots and FBO's know otherwise. The reality of General Aviation is spiraling costs, X's on the ground, weeds springing up in front of hangar doors and a steadily growing number of empty seats at EAA meetings. But if you want statistics, I'll give you some.

According to statistics compiled by GAMA (***) the number of student pilots is well below the figure needed to replace our losses and has been for more than twenty years. The best proof of that is the fact the number of American pilots has shrunk by nearly twenty percent over the same period and the downward trend is not only continuing but accelerating. For more than twenty years we've seen the leaders of the aviation community try to turn things around with one ineffectual program after another yet our numbers continue to decline.

We need more pilots rather than more programs. I suggest it's time for each of us to roll up our sleeves and start training our own replacements. Primary gliders happen to be an inexpensive yet immanently practical means of doing exactly that.

A primary glider's role in life is to safely carry a nervous, over-controlling student to a rather bad landing after a flight rarely more than a minute in length. And to do that over and over and over again through the course of a long, sun-burned day until it is too dark to see and you are left alone to hump a sixteen foot wing into a fifteen foot trailer while a squadron of yahoos, surely the worst crop of pilots to ever come out of Mrs. Edward's fourth-grade class, dances around you slightly insane with the thrill of having actually flown. Not as a lectured-to passenger in a 182 smelling of the last fledgling's vomit but as Pilot in Command on a never to be forgotten solo flight through the eery isolation of the air, and well above the land.

Primary gliders are inexpensive and easy to build. And for a good reason. A well maintained primary glider can withstand thousands of student landings but over time it becomes a collection of patches and repairs and accumulated wear until you bite the bullet, condemn the thing to the wood stove and build another. But rarely alone. By seasoning a barrel of patience with a pinch of wit you'll be surprised at the number of kids more than willing to abandon the tube for the shop. Once built, their labor earns them Head of the Line privileges in its use.

A PRACTICAL, INEXPENSIVE OPTION

Primary gliders alone are not the answer. But they have the potential to be a big part of it. Students with primary glider experience are safe to solo a powered trainer in a fraction of the time needed by students with no glider training.

In modern-day America the majority of people who would like to become pilots can not afford to do so. Indeed, the high price of a private pilot's license virtually guarantees the demise of General Aviation as we know it. Primary Gliders are one means of skewing the odds in our favor. They can put more pilots into the air at less cost than existing methods of pilot training. The proof of that is an historical fact and as such, is worthy of thoughtful consideration.

-R.S.Hoover

(*) ‘On The Wings of the Wind,' Seipen, Howard A., National Geographic Magazine, June 1929, pgs 751 - 780

(**) ‘Building Instructions and Plans for the Northrop Glider,' Weston Farmer, 1930 Flying and Glider Manual, pg 53

Reprints of the 1930 Flying and Glider manual are available from the EAA. Ask for Item Number F14168. Price is $6.95 plus shipping & handling. EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086 Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086 or call: 1-800-843-3612

(***) General Aviation Manufacturers Association 1400 K Street, NW Washington, DC 20005 http://www.generalaviation.org/pages/statistics.shtml

The opening image is of a primary glider over Box Hill, NSW, Australia, circa 1940.

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Flashman Returns!

Psst! Hey, kid. You wanna cheap flasher?

L.E.D Flasher Kit, Catalog # LEDKIT $1.75 per kit

12VDC DPDT DIP RELAY, Catalog # RLY-420 $1.50 each.

SPDT 40 AMP RELAY, Catalog # RLY-415 $1.00 each

PN2222A NPN Transistor 5/$0.80

Couple of 1/4 Watt resisters, mebbe a nickel each.

The stuff above is available from All Electronics Corp., www.allelectronics.com

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I came across the LED flasher kit some years ago at a swap-meet, priced at less than the cost of the components. Being a cheapskate (and a ham radio operator) I bought a bunch.

The LED flasher kit consists of a postage-stamp-sized circuit board designed to accept a 555 IC plus a couple of discrete components. The circuit is wired as a basic timer. The discrete components - a couple of resisters and a capacitor - determine the on-off frequency and ratio of the timer's output. I used the kits to teach Cub Scouts and the like how to solder. (Put it together correctly, it'll wink at you :-)

The timer not only makes a good LED flasher, by changing the circuit just a tad it makes a nice oscillator for teaching Morse code. Or, you can fiddle with the circuit a bit more, replace the output LED with a transistor and toggle a DIP-size relay wired dead-bug to the other side of the circuit board. And while the pilot relay may be tiny, it can handle about two amps. That's enough to pick a BIG relay. Or half a dozen 30A relays. Or whatever. The 555 is an extremely versatile chip, its uses limited only by your imagination.

Why bother making up a flasher when you can buy one? I've been using ultra-bright LED's for running lights and the regular flasher wouldn't work with them because they draw so little current. (That's the running lights on a car, of course.) There are flashers that will work with low resistance circuits but they cost more than the home-brewed variety, usually flash at the wrong frequency and, in my experience, are less reliable.

-R.S.Hoover

VW - The Flying Pig

There's a gal on the Vintage VW list who calls her bug 'Boris.' I mentioned Boris at dinner one night then had to explain, or try to explain, that a lot of Volkswagen owners give their bugs and buses names.

My wife gave me one of those looks, asked what I called my bus. Blank. To me, it's just the Green Bus. Before, there was a Brown Bus, before that a Red & White bus.

I said I didn't give names to things. "But you called your airplane 'The Spirit of Vista'," she pointed out. But never flew it to Paris. "If I ever put wings on the bus," I told her, "I'll give it a name." And muttered something about doing it just as soon as pigs could fly. That cracked her up. It also named the bus. "The Flying Pig?" she laughed.

"I couldn't do that," I muttered. I used to have a buddy who was a cop, spent umpteen years building a helicopter. Called it The Flying Pig. Flipped it during a test flight and burned to death. I wouldn't want to steal his thunder. But maybe El Puerco Volador? Is that right? I'm always getting my Spanish mixed up.

A ham radio buddy came over after supper. He's got some strange plumbing problems. Only way to fix it is to use an adaptor that will allow old thin-wall ABS pipe to mate with new schedule 40 PVC pipe, but now that the box stores have driven all the real hardware stores out of business no one carries the adaptors

So we made some.

Turned them up on the lathe. Took only a few minutes. Lathes are handy things and mine's fully automatic. Just grab the knobs and think about something else while the parts sort of make themselves. I was thinking about Flying Pigs.

While I'm working, my buddy is looking around the shop. There's an airplane engine under a bench, two fully dressed Volkswagen engines on scooters, a Datsun engine sulking over in the corner beside an orphaned 2-cylinder air-cooled Diesel engine that might one day power something strange and noisy. Above the diesel hangs a row of heater boxes.

My buddy looks at the five Volkswagen heat exchangers hanging in a row. Five. An engine needs two, a lefty and a righty. So how the hell did I manage to end up with five heat exchangers? I never noticed that before. All new, too.

Six blower housings. Three dog-house, three flat-backs. One of the dog-house housings is an after-market 36-hp style that proved it couldn't flow as much air as stock, ended up not being used. I've no idea how the others came to be in the shop. You leave the door open, stuff wanders in. My hands make another adaptor and my buddy hunkers down, peering under a bench.

Three 12v alternators, two Motorolas, one Bosch. Two 12v generators. A whole scad of 6v generators. Why do I keep that crap? Blowers. I had a nifty idea for using old blowers to make... I'll think of it in a minute.

A whole bunch of intake manifolds. Oops! Make that a bunch and a half; couple more of them hanging over there. Dual-ports and single ports, several of each. DP Kadron bases. SP Kadron bases. That makes... at least two bunches. And carbs. Lotsa carbs. Box of Kadron carbs. Box of Solex carbs. Whole big drawerful of other carbs including a lonely Bug Spray. Future projects, waiting for... the future, I guess.

Mufflers. Yea gawds have I got mufflers! Four stock bug mufflers, at least that many extractors. It's hard to tell with extractors. You toss them in a pile, they start squirming around, get all tangled together, you gotta spray them with a hose, beat them apart with a stick.

Black, greasy thing under a bench. My buddy gives me a look, brows raised. "Tranny," I tell him. Two more, back in there some place, along with a pile of axles. One of the trannys is a rebuilt, ready to run. I've been planning to install it in the '67. I better make a note to myself to get to it Real Soon Now.

Cylinder heads. Pile of them here, row of them there, two on that bench, pile over beside the grinder, couple over by the welding rig. The bench where I do head work has got this big box of valves, another box of fuel pumps, some old, some new. Shelves hold rebuild kits for carbs and pumps and generator brushes and wheel cylinders and a whole slather of reloading equipment for half a dozen different calibers. The reloading stuff should be over on another bench but that one's being used to test a six inch mirror for a reflecting telescope.

Stack of flywheels over by the milling machine, right beside a stack of stock, original, real VW-type Volkswagen hub caps for an early bus. Should be four. I count them twice. There are four. I feel relieved, give those five heat exchangers a glance. Still five of them.

Bus steering gear and steering wheel shaft leaning up in the corner behind the welding machine, like its waiting for a ride, which I suppose in a way it is.

Overhead, running pretty much the full width of the twenty-two foot wide shop is a pair of airplane wings. Volkswagen engine tin-ware is poked up on top of the wings, the smaller pieces hanging down on hooked hunks of welding rod, handy to get at. A stack of sump plates like little Frisbees. Funny gaskets. Sez 'GMC manifold.' There's an old Jimmy down in the grove. My hands finish another coupler as my buddy gazes at stuff hanging on a wire.

"VW air-vanes," I tell him. "Goes inside those things overt here," I nod toward the blower housings. Two sets of air vanes, one reconditioned, painted with gray epoxy primer, others looking like something out of the La Brea Tar Pits, which tells me they came out of an all-original 1967, never-been-touched engine I recently overhauled. The thing blew an oil cooler seal, pumped oil all over for about six months before the guy sold it to a kid. They were both happy as clams, each sure they'd gotten the best of the deal.

I finished making the adaptors for my friend, chatted a while. "You've got a lot of stuff," he said as I saw him on his way. Strong note of admiration, tinged with something else. Relief? Envy? Is it every man's dream to have lots of stuff?

I came back to the shop to wipe down the lathe, cover it, sweep down. Seeing the shop through my buddy's eyes was a strange experience, like when he stood reading the note on the chalkboard over where the phone used to be: "Pullen - Concrete", a reminder about helping Clint Pullen do a little sidewalk out behind his house so his wife's wheelchair wouldn't get caught on the stones. Clint's been dead at least five years. After I moved the phone, I never used the chalkboard again. We did the sidewalk for Alice back in 1977.

I sat looking at the incredible collection of stuff that has crept up on me over the years, looking at it with mixed emotions. Too much stuff is bad for you, nails you down. But my formative years were during World War II, when everything was rationed, you even had to stand in line to buy food. That's when I was taught that throwing away Good Stuff was a sin. We needed all that Stuff to Remember Pearl Harbor, so we could Slap the Jap and Heel the Hun. They made us chant slogans like that in school, then sent us out to scour the neighborhood for scrap metal, knocking on doors, brow-beat old ladies into giving up their aluminum pans.

And they were right.

Have you ever tried to make steel? It's not easy. Better to keep some on hand in case you need it, like that pile of tubing, or those old door panels. You never know when you're liable to need a door panel for a... whatever the hell it came off of. And an old veedub axel makes a fine gun barrel. Remember Pearl Harbor. And Ruby Ridge.

I sat thinking a little too long, started going a little crazy. Bus right outside, pair of airplane wings strapped up across the ceiling of the shop. Five heat exchangers hanging in a row.

El Puerco Volador. Maybe I could use one of them door panels for the rudder.

Copyright © 1995 Robert S. Hoover