THE PORTAL HUB - Pinzgauers, Haflingers, Volvo 303s and more!

Hey guys just a friendly spring time reminder for those who have had there trucks sitting over the winter. A little preventative maintenance goes a long way and saves money. Not seeing a spike but a troubling trend on motor's. Keep them clean (they are air cooled) which means making sure something has not built a nest under the engine tin. Especially that back cylinder. No electric fuel pumps unless you know what you are doing. If the engine oil smells like fuel you have a problem. Don't let a small problem become a large one. Large amounts of fuel in engine oil can be expensive.

Yes we are located in CA and there are more than a few nuts. Just happened that this Pinzgauer was carrying one too many nuts and lost the rear cylinder. Keep them clean and keep them running. Brian has developed a sick pleasure in scrapping neglected trucks.

"Runs great - no issues"
Here is what we found (obviously did not affect how it ran but def the cooling!)

More than a few look like this when they have come to the shop. Really does not take much to wash off the dust and a great time to just look around for small items like loose wires, carb linkage wear, loose or missing springs, leaks, etc, etc. The weepy carbs are a good indication they need rebuilt or it might be the electric fuel pump installed inline with stock fuel pump and over pressured with no regulator. Pinzgauers just need a little attention now and then and they will last. Drive your PInz, know your Pinz, maintain your Pinz, save your Pinz. Every day there are fewer and fewer of these trucks on the road.

After any serious run I clean up my engine compartment, summer or winter
to avoid crap build up. This fall I removed the carb cover and blasted clean
the base of the cylinders -- was pretty decent to begin with.

Even though winter is fix things up and projects, I regularly take Mozo for
a run to at least work at least once every other week or more frequently.
The Pinz doesn't like to sit w/o developing some kind of problem. At least
from my experience -- runs a whale of a lot better running, so to speak.

Ya, the cover is off, no rain, I need to update my Avatar

Tops of the spring cups and top of the rear gear box (it's fluted like the bottom and really picks up crud).

like every other mod for the pinz, electric fuel pumps are great but they need to be the correct one. The pinz runs on exceptionally low pressure. There are few pumps that meet the low pressure and volume requirements but if you get the correct one it is a great upgrade. No short cutting this modification with some JC whitney/autozone pump though.

The trouble we see with pinz owners is their lack of "feel" for the pinz. I have seen a few pinz drivers running their trucks with broken motor mounts and did not even realize it. The feel of the gas pedal and the shifter are good indications something is wrong and needs to be looked at. Amazing how spending a few minutes just laying under the pinz looking around can save lots of time repairing issues.

Lots of time and trouble can be saved by rebuilding the fuel pump or just getting a new one. I bought a spare from Napa for $40.

Another motor hits the scrap pile. We thought we might be able to save the core of the motor but it does not look like it will happen. After finally getting the filth off the motor and the motor removed from the truck we could see the bottom of the case was smacked hard enough to make the block a loss. Will be able to salvage some parts but the motor is a loss. Doing postmortem this week to see if we can determine the specific cause but that is not always an exact science. One thing for sure a little TLC would not have hurt. This is the crack in the block just above where the dip stick goes into the block.

Cheers,

Scott.

Man you have some really unusual customers (or dare I say should have been customers).

When you get the rest of the story the mystery really has a simple explanation. Was able to extract additional information on what happened. No oil on dipstick and adding oil after the motor blows really does not have the same effect of adding before. No broken rings, excessive wear on the cam or loose rods. Just burned up the bearings on the rods. Blew #3 but all the bearing were hot. Took a chunk out of the bottom of the cylinder and block as well as cracked both the upper and lower case halves.

Cheers,

Scott

Good'ol #3, why is that cylinder always the bad boy, runs
the hottest by far and seems to need the most pampering

I have heard that it gets the least air flow for some reason. Apparently every vehicle has some design issues.

On older air-cooled VWs its also the #3 cylinder which always seems to goes as I am told it gets less airflow due to the position of the oil cooler - not an issue with the design of the pinzgauer however.

I guess cylinders #2 and #3 (the ones in the middle - not the firing order) would run hotter as they are squeezed in the middle with a hot surface on both sides where as the cylinders #1 and #4 only have heat sources on one side - so they can radiate a bit more heat out on one side. Convection losses are probably dominate but even if the radiate losses where only a couple of percentage points it would make a difference when approaching the limits or when running out of oil.

Unfortunate to see an engine killed due low oil, poor maintenance or abuse. But I suppose it means some more used / spare parts available perhaps!

Speedo and cable for sale? How about the top, seats(front and rear), rims and engine cover?