ekaftan

(don't know if tech is the correct place for this, as this is 99% a rant and 1% a tech request. If all goes well it should turn into a build story...) About two months ago I came across an ad for a 96 505 SW for a very low price. A running, emissions-approved 505 SW sells around here for US$4000 easily. This one was less than US$2000. First problem: the car was 600 miles away. I spoke with the owner and he agreed to take it to the nearest branch of a national chain of service garages with whom I had worked before. The local chief mecnanic gave me the green light to buy it and the owner agreed to deliver it 200 miles north to a city where I have inmediate family and where the headquarters of this national chain is located. Car arrived to the headquarter and I called them and told them to please replace the timing belt, all coolant hoses, all fluids and to take it to the emission testing place. Later that day they called and told me a coolant hose had blown up on the way to the emissions place and they had to tow the car back. I complaint that I had requested the hoses to be changed and they said they did not do it as they 'looked okay'. They replaced the hose and sent the car back the next day and it failed. Smoke was coming from under the hood and the engine was running rough. I then took a bus, requested temporary tags to move the car back where I live and upon reaching the service garage I opened the hood to see no hoses replaced, a very visible oil leak from the valve cover to the exhaust and a very old and worn timing belt. I drove to a local parts place, bought a valve cover gasket, a timing belt and tensioner and demanded those two be replaced right now. Five hours later the 'mechanic' had replaced the timing belt but was unable to start the car. I should have walked away then, but I had worked with those same people for 10 years, so the head mechanic and me stayed until 11pm rechecking everything until we noticed the distributor was off several degrees and the big hose to the airflowmeter was leaking. Fixing those two made the engine run again. It was noisy, but it ran and had decent power. That night I drove the car to my familys place with no incident, except for a small coolant leak. The next morning I drove the car downtown to buy replacement hoses and when I was parking the engine stopped and a huge vapor cloud came from the engine bay. Another hose had blown. I replaced the hose on the curb, filled with water and started the engine. Everything seemed right and I drove to the garage and now furious demanded every hose to be replaced. They took several hours and produced a fixed car later that day. I drove the car back to my familys place (12 miles) and noticed reduced power halfway into the trip. 2 more miles and the engine started clanking madly and you guessed it: water vapor coming from under the hood. They had not replaced the small hose that goes from the thermostat to the throttle body and that had blown up at 50mph and the engine now overheated almost instantly. From where I saw the vapor to when I stopped the engine was no longer idling and it had a non stop clanking.... I left the car parked on my brothers driveway and took a bus home, defeated. I told the story to a friend that works for the service garage chain and he got furious. He forwarded my email to management and they unwound all that they had done to the car, the US$500 I had paid them in labor and fluids and they found multiple company rules violations. From nobody invoicing me for the prepurchase inspection and having no record of it (I do have the email recomending I buy the car as 'it was nice for the price') to having been previously forbidden to do complex procedures such as a timing belt change as they were not qualified for it. They are basically a tire and brake shop, but had managed to grow a side business doing mecanics work with no upper management authorization. End of the story, I got a call asking me what I would consider compensation, and I requested the car to be trucked over to my place, 400 miles north, and they agreed. I had already budgeted the engine rebuild when I bought the car and asking for that was too much of a long shot and I did not want to end up in court. Most likely, me having been involved (it was me who timed the engine when the mecanic could not get it started) would end making me responsible of the failures... Wow this has been long... Anyway, here are some pictures: http://imgur.com/a/BfFiJ and now the tech questions: How hard is to rebuild this engine? I have worked on XN1/XN6 engines and have rebuilt aircooled VWs and motorcycles. Is the engine rebuildable in place? Or do I need to take it out to rebuild it... I am planing on turbocharging it later on its life. Is there low compression rebuild kits to convert this engine into a turbo 2.2? or is it better to swap engines? Where I live (Santiago, Chile) EFI is still witchcraft to a lot of garages and this one it old and undocumented (down here) so I am replacing it with a GM ECU and DIS setup, mostly to get rid of the mechanical airflow meter, so the ECU/EFI side of the turbo conversion I have no problem with... Sorry for the long rant, this has been almost therapeutical. Please feel free to kick me for trying to drive the car without re-re-re-verifiyng that the work had been done, but in my defense 1.- this all happened from monday to wednesday, christmas 2013 and I was desperate to get home for Christmas eve (huge get-there-itis) and 2.- I had worked with this people for almost 10 years, was close friends (I am no longer sadly) with the head mechanic and I am their PBX and mail/web tech support and have been for 10 years. The good part is that parts are dirt cheap and I have a couple of weeks vacation coming... so I will be able to rebuild the engine and get it back on the road. I hope