Our VW Family in San Felipe

After two weeks on the street in Santiago, we had sorted what we could and it was time to move.

We checked the engine oil was high enough to get us there and set off a bit earlier than usual, trying to take advantage of the cooler mornings. We had been in regular contact with our soon-to-be host, but as he was having surgery on his hand that day we couldn’t arrive straight away. Nevertheless, we decided that we would get the majority of the drive out of the way in case anything went really wrong. Ruby was running, but was significantly down on power. We opted to take the slightly longer road though, as there were no tolls and also fewer hills.

I drove her very gently out of the city, hitting the speed bumps as slowly as possible so as not to damage our new shock absorbers. While they had fitted fine, our incredibly low and saggy front suspension, coupled with a lack of bump stops, meant that we sat on the shocks. Something which undoubtedly was very bad for them. The only plus side was that it was now impossible to hit the new tyre on the wheel arch. Luckily, Chile’s roads are in pretty good condition and once we hit the main highway we chugged along steadily.

It took us around an hour and a half to reach a nice little river spot on the outskirts of Panquehue. We drove through the small town and parked up just before the road crossed the River Aconcagua. It was lovely to be back in nature once again and the perfect stop off for the night before we once again hit a garage. We stopped under the swaying willow trees, next to the babbling river. While the main river wasn’t very clean, a small stream to the side provided crystal clear waters and so we made the most of it. Firstly doing nasty jobs like cleaning the toilet and the laundry, then followed by a very refreshing swim. The cats went crazy in the trees behind us, clearly enjoying being back in the wild too.

As much as it was a lovely peaceful spot, the random cars that came in the night and the large amount of bottles around made it clear that this was the local party spot, and even in the middle of the week, people turned up in the small hours of the morning. The next day, it was time to go. We headed for San Felipe and braced ourselves for the upcoming repair.

Unlike Mejillones, the home to our last breakdown, San Felipe is a well-equipped town. We headed for Jumbo, a large supermarket chain here, to stock up on supplies before we lost our wheels. Then, we headed for the address that Mario had sent me. We pulled up outside the black gates and rang the bell; a lady opened the door. She was expecting us though and motioned that she would go around and open the gates for us, allowing us to pull in and park at the end.

As we began to unpack everything, we introduced ourselves. Claudia and her mother lived next door to the space we were in. Mario was her brother and lived on the otherside of town. She said he would come by tomorrow though, as he was still recovering from his operation. Then she brought us two glasses of peach smoothie and a bottle of water, before leaving us to get ourselves sorted. We weren’t in any particular hurry to start, so we set up the van and enjoyed our smoothies.

After a not-so-quiet night, punctuated by incessant dogs barking and cockerels, we awakened to our first day in the garage. By the time we had got ourselves going that day, Claudia and her mum arrived with a plate of nibbles and a bottle of wine. They offered to buy us some vegetables from the local market and we shared some pistachios and little toasted bread rusks as we sipped our midday wine. Before too long, Mario arrived. He showed us around, pointing out where we could plug in our hook-up, where the tools were and even pulling his fridge out of his T3 so we could have some more fridge space. He also had a big piece of wood and some metal stands, so that we could make a large table to work on. It was the perfect space really; it was just us, lots of space and lots of tools. As it was a private space, we weren’t working around other people in the garage. No being kept awake until the small hours of the morning here by a late-night session in the spray booth.

Now that we had everything we needed, we set about removing the engine. It’s the third time we've done this in 12 months and so in just a few hours, we had it on the floor. Now was the moment of truth, when we took the heads off. If we had badly damaged bores, the whole thing was about to get a lot more expensive. The removal of the cylinder heads revealed some very dirty pistons and some very dirty valves. The bores, while a little worn, didn’t look too bad. We figured that with the compression we’d had previously not being too low, a set of new rings would only improve matters anyway. We decided to stick with some standard rings and a hone, as well as a very large-scale clean-up.

What I needed in the meantime, was a valve spring compressor. The only parts that I had bought in Santiago for the engine internals were the new valve stem seals. We decided that it was better to strip the engine before buying the rings themselves. Now with the weekend approaching, we figured we’d go into the city on Monday, while spending the weekend cleaning up the heads. Mario walked me around the local garages, seeing if anyone would lend us the tool. The guy in the garage a few doors down didn’t have one, but came back and showed me a neat trick to remove the valve collets without it. Simply sit a socket on top of the spring and give it a brisk tap with a hammer. Watch out for flying collets though. It was a surprisingly quick method and in a very short time we had the heads stripped. The valves were coated in a thick layer of carbon and would need a good clean as well as lapping. The ports too were filthy. We bought a plastic box from the local shop so that we could sit the heads inside and soak them in fuel. Let the clean-up begin.

We spent that weekend cleaning, and still we weren’t done. The layer of dirt on the block was so thick that the knock sensor was entirely buried. Fine dust, like talcum powder, fell out of the electrical connectors and sat inches thick on everything. The heads were even harder to clean, the carbon baked on several millimetres thick. After two days of wire brushing them with the Dremel, they were reasonably clean. Once again Mario walked us around to the local shop that could resurface them. For a fairly reasonable £20 per head, they’d be ready later that day.

In actual fact, it took us several attempts to collect them as each time we went back to the shop they were shut. It appeared here that several businesses shut between 1–3pm. On the third attempt, we collected our new shiny surfaced heads, and were also told by the machinist that the distortion was minimal and had only required one pass with the machine. This was good news, as we had got them pretty hot on occasion. The next step would be to head into the city and pick up the rest of the parts required to build the engine back up.

Mario had drawn us a small map showing the location of the car parts street in relation to the bus stop and that afternoon we headed over to buy our tickets for the next day. We decided on a relatively early bus, leaving at 8.30. It was nearly a two-hour journey into the city and we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time as we had several things to buy. The following morning we walked through the chill of the morning back to the bus stop. We boarded the coach, sat in our allocated seats and just a few minutes past the scheduled departure time, we were off.

We were already acquainted with 10 de Julio, a long street running several kilometres through the heart of the city that housed a large amount of parts shops, from our last stay. A new place for us to try was the street called ‘Brasil’. As this was closer to the bus stop, we headed here first. We decided that the first thing to search for would be the piston rings. We had already contacted two parts shops in advance, both of which did not have the rings and so as this seemed to be the hardest part to find we decided to look for it first. We tried several shops advertising Subaru parts as we walked down the street. The first three didn’t have them. It was certainly looking like this might be a challenge.

We tried one final shop and were surprised when he told us he had them. He checked the sizes of the piston we’d brought, telling us the rings were 1.5mm and 3mm. I was pretty sure they were 1.2mm but he had the piston in front of him and I hadn’t measured it myself so I took his word for it. We paid for them in advance and made an arrangement to send them up to San Felipe on the bus the next day as they needed to be ordered in. I made a note of the part number too so I could double-check when we had internet access again. With this unlikely victory, we decided we would walk over to 10 de Julio as this was the location of the Subaru scrapyards and we wanted to buy a second-hand alternator pulley. We could also pick up the rest of the gaskets we needed there.

It was a good 3km walk to the start of the street and about the same again to walk its length. We tried a couple of ‘desarmadurías’, second-hand breaker shops, for Subaru. Unsurprisingly, most of them didn’t want to just sell the alternator pulley from a complete alternator. In the end though we did find someone who was willing to strip one down and sell it to us. It was annoying that we’d lost the first one, but now at least the second alternator project could continue when we got to Argentina.

The last thing now was to find ourselves a new timing belt kit and gaskets. We headed to the shop that we knew stocked the parts for a quote. Much to our horror, he quoted us around £700 for a timing belt kit. This was quite insane and so we headed back to the place I’d bought the stem seals. Here we got our hands on a complete timing kit and water pump for around £250. Another shop a little further down sold us two new head gaskets as well as the exhaust ones and our purchases were complete. It had gone surprisingly well, all in all and I was glad we had decided to return to Chile to repair Ruby. The novelty of being able to walk into a shop and buy Subaru parts was well worth the detour.

Back at the bus station we waited nearly an hour for the next bus which had space for us. It was now rush hour and spaces filled quickly. We headed back to San Felipe in the dark and arrived to some very needy cats.

The following morning as I drank my coffee, my mind drifted back to the piston rings. I couldn’t help but think they were the wrong size, so much so that the previous day I had bought a new set of feeler gauges to check. While I normally delight in being right, this was not an occasion to celebrate the fact. The rings were indeed 1.2mm. I messaged the parts shop showing him photos and explaining that he had measured them wrong. I asked him if he could get the different size in. It was good news at least that after a while he told me he could find the other set and that they would be in the shop at 3pm that afternoon. I remained sceptical and so we decided that it was a safer bet to head back into the city with the piston and physically check and so once again, we headed out to the bus terminal.

Back at the parts shop again, they told us that the parts weren’t here yet and to come back in half an hour. I left the piston and my gauges with the shop so they could see for themselves. Of course they weren’t there in half an hour either but we were now in agreement that the 1.5mm rings were too big. In regards to the smaller sized ones, we were told that ‘the fat cousin was bringing them on his bike’. It wasn’t the only thing we were waiting on. I still hadn’t managed to get hold of a valve spring compressor and so we decided that we’d hop on the metro down to the cheap tool shop and pick one up while we waited.

We were now well acquainted with the trains and it was the third time we had visited the tool shop, so it took us less than an hour to pick up the necessary equipment. We were back at the parts shop with half an hour to spare before they closed. As we walked up this time, he waved our piston at us, complete with a set of new rings. They were here and they fitted. To say I was happy was an understatement. Finally, we could start to reassemble things.

Now that we had the parts sorted here, we could finally send the parts we needed from the UK. I would say I had been holding off on sending them in case we needed anything else, but in reality it had taken about the same amount of time for me to get the pieces we needed ready anyway. After a lot of chasing, I had secured us another gearbox input shaft and another set of seals for the bellhousing. These could now be sent out and hopefully we would finally stop the leak we had been driving with since Ecuador. With my dad on a mission to navigate DHL’s website and get our parts en route, I set about cleaning up the carbon-coated pistons ready for their new rings.

We worked our way through about 10 litres of petrol and 5 sets of steel brushes in our efforts to clean up the engine. I honed the cylinders and we pressure washed the block inside and out, leaving it to dry in the beating sun. We removed the sump and cleaned out the sludge from the bottom of that too. Then I refitted the pistons, an annoying and fiddly job that in the end required the sacrifice of one of our metal straws as it was the only thing small enough and strong enough to hold the con rods in line with the piston and allow me to refit the gudgeon pins. After a lot of swearing, the pistons were back in, and the sump refitted.

It was clear that not only was the input shaft leaking, but also the rear crank seal. I had already got a spare though and so I went about swapping that out too. I was horrified to remove the old one and see the amount of sand trapped under the seal. I hoped that it hadn’t damaged our crankshaft, which visually still appeared OK. Poor Ruby, she had taken a real beating.

While I gave our engine block some much-needed TLC, as well as repairing the coolant sensor wiring we had accidentally destroyed, Lee set about the tedious job of lapping in the valves. After another day of being filthy, the heads and block were both reassembled and it was time to put them together. It’s not my favourite job tightening down head bolts. We were reusing our old ones on the basis that Subaru did not recommend replacing them and I didn’t want to buy some aftermarket rubbish. I cleaned and oiled the bolts. We lined up the head gaskets and got ready to start the torque process. I distinctly remember the last time I did this in Mexico and how I ended up having a complete meltdown when the last bolt didn’t torque properly. I was convinced the gasket was going to blow on the first drive but for that year the engine kept running. This time I was a little less stressed and the heads went back together without any issues except some ominous squeaking from the bolts.

The last jobs on the engine were completed relatively quickly over the next few days. I fitted the new timing kit and pulleys as well as swapping out the water pump. The timing cover was cleaned and painted and then Ruby’s new heart sat there on the floor, waiting for the arrival of the gearbox parts from the UK. While we may have hit a wall when it came to refitting the engine, we had plenty of other things to be getting on with.