Heinkel Cars, Kabines and Cabin Scooters: The Heinkel Engine "Hall of Shame"

Over 13 years of Heinkel ownership I've accumulated a number of engines; people have given then to me, I've found them in various places, or people have told me about them and I purchased them. There are a surprising number of engines out there in the USA, especially considering that maybe only a few hundred total vehicles (almost all scooters) were “officially” sold here by dealers.

One thing almost every engine has had in common was some type of major mechanical fault or abuse. Scooter engines tend the have the least damage; with car engines, each one has a hard luck story.

I present to you a “Heinkel Engine Hall of Shame”. These are some of the best surprises I’ve come across working on engines, what I suspect happened to them, and what I’ve done (or will do) to fix them.

We'll start off slow and work our way up:

Example #1

Engine type: 175cc Scooter

Diagnosis: This is your basic "hole in the piston". The scooter still ran with an obliterated top ring, and no barrel scarring. I guess that’s why they have multiple rings!

Heinkel Piston Hole

Fix: Simple (but not cheap): buy a new oversize cylinder, rings, and barrel.

It was from my first Heinkel scooter:

Heinkel 103-A2, originally sold in Chicopee Falls, MA

Example #2:

Engine Type: 200cc car engine:

Diagnosis: Everybody like corn flakes, and in addition to being a breakfast staple the box can be used as a gasket:

Brought to you by Kelloggs

Fix: This was easy. Use a proper gasket! That weird yellow green mold was a new one on me but came off easily.

Example #3:

Engine Type: 200cc car engine:

Diagnosis: Someone overheated this head, probably with a torch, until it started to melt. Aluminum starts losing it’s strength at 600 degrees and distorts at around 800 degrees so my guess is someone went at this with a torch for some reason (maybe to anneal it and soften the head for profiling? Who knows)

This engine also came with two heads:

Fix: If this was the only cylinder head left in the world you could machine it flat and remove the low spots. I left it as is and put it away.

Example #4:

Engine Type: 200cc car engine:

Diagnosis: Ether someone tried to run a bigger plug or this is the result of a botched helicoil insert.

that hole is way too big for a regular plug

Fix: For as bad as this head looked the fix was pretty easy; I used one of these, and a regular length spark plug:

The adaptor cost less than the postage to the USA!. Here's a link to the product:

http://www.gsparkplug.com/1x-spark-plug-thread-adaptors-18mm-down-to-14mm-brass-m14-m18.html

Example #5:

Engine Type: 175cc Car Engine

Diagnosis: Mice!

Fix: This really could be any old engine case. If it’s outside in a New England winter something will try to nest in it. But this engine case was harboring something else even more surprising that we’ll see in a minute.

Example #6:

Engine Type: 175 or 200cc car engine

Diagnosis: An engine builder’s bodge. I could see how this happened, but before doing this kind of work you think they would have asked “maybe I’m doing something wrong?” But no, they went at these pushrods with a grinder. The problem here was that they probably trying to use 175cc engine rocker arms on a 200cc engine, or vice versa. They look the same but are different. his person though they would make it “work” by grinding away at the pushrods.

What beautiful grinding

I'm not sure I can fix them

Fix: I'd probably try a metal epoxy and reshape them. I'm filing them away for now.

Example #7:

Engine Type: 200cc car engine:

Diagnosis: Snowflake shards of metal and oil that looks like silver nail polish are sure signs of a blown bottom end crankshaft bearing.

those snowflakes are busted metal!

Fix: Send the crankshaft to the Heinkel Club of Germany (http://www.heinkel-club.de) and get them to rebuild it. The cost is around 300 Euros. I tried to have this fixed in the USA but could not find anyone willing to undertake the task.

The same engine had a different (but related) issue. Take a look at this clutch bell. Notice anything missing? If you guessed a whole section of the clutch side itself, violently separated from the main clutch bell, then you are correct:

There's something missing...

Example #8:

Engine Type: 200cc car engine:

Diagnosis: Attempting to push start a car that couldn’t possibly go anywhere because the crankshaft was locked up. When you push start a car you are basically attempting to start the car by spinning the tire, which is not how the car was designed. Depending on the gear you use and the age/ mileage of the engine you are putting tremendous strain on internal components. In this case the clutch plates took the first hit, in declining order from the main clutch spring. You can see how the tabs are more progressively worn the closer you get to the outside of the clutch (where the diaphragm spring is located).

When I took it apart I found the missing piece at the bottom of the crankcase.

Clutch bell with missing part

The busted piece

Fix: It was serendipity that this piece broke away - I was going to weld it back on, but when I saw the stress cracks throughout the clutch I abandoned that idea. I’ll store this with the abused cylinder head and fix it only if I’m desperate.

Example #9:

Engine Type: 200cc car engine:

Diagnosis: Stupidity on my part! I can give you the diagnosis because I’m the one that caused the problem by overreving an engine into a freewheeling state on my test rig. According to my machinist, in an overrev situation the valves usually collide with the piston and trash the top end. In my case the rod bent. I also toasted the bottom bearing. At first glance nothing looks amiss, until you realize that the connecting rod is supposed to be straight! This connecting rod bent in two dimensions.