Here is my Garand that i am building. The bolt and new barrel were assembled and head spaced set when i got the barrel from the CMP. Still missing some small stock pieces.

that's a great picture....hmmm its an old picture OMG look at those girls hair styles LOL

Since those days i have developed a great respect for those 1200cc 40HP engines, not a lot of engine or car for that matter for those days. Wide open it would go 72 MPH downhill with a good tail wind, but it would do that all day long. Great cheap German Made product, was not accepted with open arms so soon after the war. Same with Japanese but Honda kind of smoothed that over with there fun little motorcycles of the 60s and slogan, You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda.

Make sure the ring terminals are rated to handle the amps. You could also use a thermal circuit breaker instead of a fuse. Auto parts stores sells them. If you draw over the rated amps, they warm up and open the circuit then re-close when they cool down. Also known as "Thermal overloads" commonly used on industrial motors. On my camping trailer, off of the battery my "main" fuse is a 30 amp self-resetting circuit breaker (same thing) then it breaks out to the smaller fuses. #10 stranded wire is borderline for the amp draw, but since this is for intermittent use for a winch verse a continuous draw it should be ok. Mike

Sorry guys I have been gone for a week, looks like i missed all the fun stuff. I didnt take my computer and didnt keep up. Where are we at on the rebuild now. I will try to answer a few of your questions. Yes you need to remove all of the old carbon from valves and piston. A ring compessor is nice and i have one but i generally use my hand to press down the spring and remove the keepers with a magnetic tool. I would put the rings in the cylinder and check the ring gap with a feeler guage the manual will tell you the servicable limit, Butting together with no gap means there is no ring wear. But check it with the feeler guage to measure the gap. When you put the ring in the cylinder put the piston in behind it an bump slightly to level up the ring and then check the gap.

Just got back from Florida also, Pensecola, home of the Blue Angels, you dont even want to know how many people were down there for the show. Five hrs to go 20 miles to the Perdido Key where we had a condo. Great time didnt see any sharks but many dolphins.

All engines of that era needed high Sulfur-Zinc oils it provided better lubrication for the metals used at that time for the engines, of course during that era all oils were of that consistancy, they may have been a few synthetic oils around but were not very good and not widely used. There were also softer metals used in the valves and the lead in the gasoline helped with lubrication there. I still run a couple of older engines factory specs and use a lead substitute in the gas. The volkswagon engine was probably the most underrated and ignored engine of the 60s in the first truly simplistic compact car. It was simple to the max everything you needed to get from A to B. I was one of those people never owned one never wanted one, but i have seen those engines sit in a junkyard for 30 + years and within 2 hrs you can have it running truly a great engine easy to work on and run. I always wanted to build what you have from a volkwagon frame but took the easy way out got a jeep CJ5 instead, been running it 40+ years never let me down.