45 posts tagged “air-cooled volkswagens”
I got the tow kit installed this weekend. The car doesn't need to be towed right now. Why the kit?
In 2006 I broke down on I-465 during rush hour. You don't ever want to do that and have to think. The traffic is heavy and fast. It's extremely loud. It's hard to think straight, and you mostly just want to get the heck out of there.
I want to be prepared for the next time I break down. I want to be able to walk into my garage, grab the tow bar, drive the new Beetle back, and rescue my old Beetle. I want to know exactly what needs to happen and how to get by '73 Bug back to my garage in peace.
Related to that, I don't like having to bum rides out to Greenfield to drop off the Bug with Dick or pick it back up when he's done. If the car's not running, then I have to find somebody with a truck and hitch.
So that's all fair, but there's a third reason too: I wanted to see my New Beetle tow my Beetle. It's a statement. I tooled around the neighborhood to see how the New Beetle would handle with the load. I got a look from every single person I passed, because face it, when have you ever seen such a sight?
I got my 1973 Beetle out of storage. It feels a little late to be pulling it out, but it's been a cold and wet Spring in Indiana.
All I had to do was change the oil. The oil in the lawn mower needed changed too, so I did both at the same time. The car's oil was pretty sludgy, but that's probably a consequence of sitting for the winter. A little gasoline and air is all the filter needed to get clean.
As usual, it was a messy job. My car doesn't have the separate drain plug you can remove before removing the filter. I have to loosen the six nuts holding the bottom plate enough to let the oil drain, and there's no way to do it without getting oil all over your hand. Chloe thought it was pretty cool to see the oil running out when I let it go, though. Me, I was tickled I got her interested enough to get under and look.
The car started on the fourth round of cranking, which is exactly how it's been every year I've had the car in Indiana. That's its personality. Once warm I cut the choke and drove around the neighborhood for a while. She ran a little bit rough the first half a mile, and I had to ride the brakes half a block to clear a little rust out of the drums. After that she was smooth as butter. No flat spots when accelerating, and the idle speed is fine. I checked the valves last fall, so I don't think I need to do any more work on the car.
Now I feel like Spring is here.
Fro asked if I was still driving the bug. He hadn't seen it at work in a while. I'm driving it but not to work this year. That breakdown on I-465 last summer was a pain in the butt, and I'm not interested in a repeat.
Courtesy of Troy, today's Internet brings me the perfect combination: LISP and air-cooled VWs.
I wrote recently about the bug's vacuum leak. It appeared to be the left manifold boot. I got a new pair of split boots in the mail last week, and it's warm again. So I went out to change that puppy.
I started the car and went to double-check that it was the left boot leaking. I heard it, poked around a little, and noticed that if I pushed on the boot, the pitch of the leak's whistle changed. Wow! Another several seconds of fiddling, and I realized that the clamps were loose. Wow!
So I tightened all four clamps, two on each boot, and voila, the leak is gone. I went driving around for a little bit, and the car runs fine.
When I got back I was putting away some odds and ends and had the plugs from last week's plug change. I took a picture to show you the fouling, but I'm also curious about the burning outside of the plug (to the left of the gasket rings in the picture). I'm wondering if I didn't tighten the plugs enough when I installed them? I noticed this when I pulled the plugs, and I tightened the new set down a bit more. I've read that you're not supposed to wrench the plugs really tight, but maybe I didn't get it enough... Opinions on this are welcome.
It's warm today, up in the 50s. I picked up some plugs and points while I was grocery shopping, and after lunch wandered out to the garage to get the bug running. I put the battery on a trickle charge and spent a few hours getting some dirty work done:
- changed the oil,
- adjusted the valves (cylinders 1 and 4 were loose), and
- changed the plugs.
I was slow changing the plugs, since it was only the second time I had done it. The plugs all had heavy carbon fouling. That's not a surprise. It's been about 12,000 miles since the last plug change, and I was running with a vaccum leak at least half of that time.
Speaking of vaccum leaks, it looks like I have one again. There was a hiss coming from the engine towards the end of last year. I suspected a vaccum leak but couldn't find it. I heard it again when test driving the car after the plug change. I got home, left the car running, grabbed my starter fluid, and promptly found the leak. It appears to be one of the manifold boots. I don't know why I didn't find it last fall, but it was pretty obvious this afternoon.
My plan today was to do a full tuneup, but as long as there is a vaccum leak there is no point doing the timing and idle adjustments. I ordered some more boots today, and I'll fix the leak when they get here.
It was good to be working on the car. Smells mean a lot. The smell of the car interior, the smell of the oil, and the smell of the hot motor. I'm glad winter is over.
It's nice in Indiana this weekend, so I got the bug garaged for the winter. I pumped the tire pressure up to 30 psi on all four tires to avoid bald spots. I spiked the gas tank with fuel stabilizer and ran the engine to get it through the fuel line.
After starting the car, I backed off the choke but not completely. After a few minutes the engine quit when the throttle came off the fast idle cam.. By this time I was starting the mower to run the gas out of its tank, and I didn't think much of the engine quitting. It's been running rough and is past due for a tuneup.
My todo list for next Spring is a full tuneup and replacing the gas tank.
CompWrench has been reading past posts and wandered into my tales of tuning woe in 2005 when I had a still-undiscovered vacuum leak. He pointed me to a nice site that describes a basic tuneup procedure for bugs using a Solex 34 Pict-3 carburetor. It's a good read.
As an aside, I'm a new vox member, and it's kind of cool to see the tags and neighborhood thing working as designed.
During warmup, the bug has been running a little rough, and it's stumbling a little. I'm not surprised. It's been something like 10,000 miles since the last complete tuneup. It's late enough in the year that I will probably wait until Spring to do the work. It's getting cold and wet, and next month is when I usually garage the car for the winter.
Note to self: there was a noticeable hissing coming from the motor last Monday after not driving the car for about a week. I couldn't tell where it was coming from, and it went away after the car was warmed up. Is there a vacuum leak somewhere?
I did some regular maintenance on the bug this weekend. I checked the valves, changed the oil, and changed the fuel filter. It's been three months since the last oil change, and there was a couple of weeks in there where I didn't drive the car, so I am estimating 2,000-2,500 miles since the last oil change and valve check.
The valves usually run tight, but this time they were loose. The valves on cylinders 3 and 4 were very loose, and cylinders 1 and 2 were a little loose. I adjusted the valves on 3 and 4 and left 1 and 2 alone. I plan to check again in 500 miles and see what they look like.
