Harry Pellow Engine teardown question

[Craig Lettington]

Hi All,

pulled apart one of the late Harry's idiosyncratic gold and yellow cad rebuilt engines today.

It was a one of his "full enchiladas" with NPR big bore, Webers, counterbalanced SC crank (first under) and a cam stamped Elgin 36509.

Oh, and gold and yellow cad plating designed to upset the purists.....

I'd be grateful if anybody could provide information on the characteristics of the cam and also opinions on the copper sealing spacers between the heads and the cylinders.

One side of the engine (3 and 4) had a single thick spacer between each head and cylinder and the other side (1 and 2) had a thick spacer AND a thin one ??

The plan is to basically put the engine back together again provided everything measure to spec in a fashion more pleasing to the eye.

[Craig Lettington]

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds ... id=2416588

Information suggesting the cam was what he called his "stump puller " ?

[Olivier Auvray]

Harry known that on NPR kit, the oil control ring is very close from the bottom of the cylinder at BDC. To avoid to have the control ring on the chamfer of the cylinder, it's better to put a very thick spacer between the top of the cylinder & the head than to put it on the bottom of the cylinder.

Second point, you save time if you adjust CR by putting spacer on the top of the cylinder (no need to remove cylinder for putting another spacer).

[Doug McDonnell]

356 Enterprises used to sell a High Torque Street Camshaft Elgin 66508. Very close to current 66509 and The Maestro's old grind. I used one with a 1720 kit and find it to be a very nice street motor.

[Al Zim]

REVISED POST: After a long drive this morning I just looked at a car with a Harry Pellow engine. I will summarize the condition in another post. Without question engine service has MATURED a great deal since this work was done. Some gold screws some silver screws! al zim
With the stump puller cam you can keep the engine below 4500. Do not look for high RPM and 90+ horsepower

[Jim Liberty]

Off subject. In 1986 I sent my engine out to Harry. I loved the "Gold Treatment". I suspect that car is still out there in all its glory. ..................Jim.

[C J Murray]

Off subject. In 1986 I sent my engine out to Harry. I loved the "Gold Treatment". I suspect that car is still out there in all its glory. ..................Jim.

Go to confession and you will be forgiven.

[C J Murray]

I'd be grateful if anybody could provide information on the characteristics of the cam

also opinions on the copper sealing spacers between the heads and the cylinders.

Many old motorcycles use a copper gasket ring between the cylinder and the head.

One side of the engine (3 and 4) had a single thick spacer between each head and cylinder and the other side (1 and 2) had a thick spacer AND a thin one ??

That sounds strange. At first I thought that you meant that one side had two different amounts of shims. I hope you are saying that both cylinders 1 and 2 have a thick and a thin but both cylinders 3 and 4 had only a single thick gasket. Even still, why weren't both heads machined to the same depth? It would be even crazier if one head had two different gasket setups.

There is a lot of heat and pressure at the top of the cylinder and all the motorcycle gasket rings that I have ever encountered have had substantial thickness. I would not use a thin copper ring there. I also don't like the idea of more than one gasket in that position. I would proceed cautiously and do a lot of measuring to try to find a reason that the engine differed side to side.

[David Jones]

When VW updated their type 1 engine for the 60 model year and changed the whole engine quite substantially one of the changes was a copper sealing ring between heads and cylinders. I believe this was in an attempt to reduce the possibility of exhaust gas leaks into the cabin.

[Craig Lettington]

Thank you for the replies.

Apologies the copper gaskets are on the sealing surface between cylinder and case where they should be.

But, yes an extra thin gasket on RHS (1 and 2) which would, I imagine lead to different CR left/right.

Oh and bottom skirt ring has 5mm clearance from edge of barrel.

The heads are in great shape but no CC stampings so maybe Harry’s machinist Jay fly cut them ??

[John Brooks]

I helped Tom Olsen rebuild his Pellow engine a few years ago. You could tell it was Harry's because the crank gear had 6 big screwdriver marks from whacking it. Head chambers CC's were stamped but not where they measured at. Tom has a set of Ron's tools for measuring the volumes and deck height. Harry may have shaved the case half's then re-bored them. Using a tool to measure the top of the piston movement to calculate the deck clearance is probably why one side took more shims. You want the volumes of each cylinder to be the same, to achieve the same compression on each hole.

On Toms we went through and measured everything. We matched the head volumes and cylinder volumes to the thickness of the meniscus on the burette, balanced to less than a gram and it worked out fine. Tom drove from Washington across country to Atlantic City for the holiday a week later.

Get Ron's PM deck height tools if you are serious about rebuilding an engine properly.

[Craig Lettington]

Thanks John so it would seems the differing shims may have been for a reason and not an oversight on Harry's behalf.

I'll fess up that my original plans for this engine when it came out of the car years ago was to re-plate as per Harry's specs as I am a bit of a Harry fan.

His books enabled me to carry out my first rebuild prior to this tear down and the chap helping me out on this one has re-built 8 engines with the help of "Secrets".

I wonder how many people learnt something and saved money using Harry's fine legacy of books and videos ?

[Neil Bardsley]

I havent built an engine bit my HCP engine is still running well but no gold plating!