So, I pulled my engine the other day to address/investigate a few things. The VW absolutely HATES the heat, so I was hoping to find something like an old mouse nest in the cooling path or some such. No such luck.
I did observe an end play of about 0.020", easy to push/pull by hand (meaning there may be more play). I've driven on this particular engine since 1997 if memory serves, pretty sure it's ready for rest or rebuild.
So I'm digging around in another engine that spent some time under a tarp. I had pulled this one from the fastback because it had some deep noise I did not like, after which it spent a few years under a tarp (which was a mistake in my climate, don't do that if you can help it). Some work ahead of me..
Interesting build-up on the cam bearing. The cam itself is not pitted, so I'm guessing this is *not* a result of poor storage and I was driving around on that. I dunno. The lifters look like shit because I was massaging off surface rust particulates with super greasy hands.
Here's some surface rust on a crank rod. I had "handled" the rest of the rotating assembly pictured here in the same way I did the push rods, figured I needed to grab some photo record of conditions.
Here's a shot of the square indicating main seal failure. I was hoping I could replace a few seals and clean the airflow for cooling and get another summer out of it, but my gut is telling me to just suck it up and rebuild. I'm going to tear down the storage engines I have before cracking the case on the most recent runner though.
Awesome! 
