I was planning on taking my 68' bug out of town tomorrow, and so I laid down a couple bucks and had new tires put on it (standard 165R15). Sears did the job for me getting the tires within a day and a half, yet putting my on hold about three hours before starting to put them on the car. You can't rush quality work, right?
When I got the bug home, I parked it in the driveway, and put my wifes car in the garage. I proceeded to install a new seatbelt and flawed oxygen sensor in her Honda. All went well. Somewhere in the middle of the job, it began pouring rain outside. So my Bug got a nice shower. Since it's been garaged for a while now, I had kind of forgotten that she doesn't like to get wet.
I tried to take her for a spin up the road for some parts, and I was flooding it to keep her running. Not cool. I began reading smoe stuff that was posted to this group over the past year and a half. It looked like the blame was in my distributor cap. Having a look I could see it was a little moist inside, and there was some loose powder debris inside. I cleaned it up real nice, and then snapped the little spring loaded connector in the cap as I plopped it back down. Woops.
So I went up to the "International Parts" store on the east side of town. Their parts are a little on the pricey side, but you walk out with them and they stock quite a bit! They sold me a Bosch cap for $7, a new set of Bosch wires for $19 (not bad) and I also picked up a new carb' kit for $22. The kit seemed a little high. But then last year I bought a kit for $13 and it was CRAP (nothing fit my carb!). This $22 kit came with about 5 gaskets (all slightly different) so you were gauranteed a fit. It had the usual stuff too like the lower carb gasket, and a new floater valve. But, I also got new air idle screws. That's a bonus! I didn't mind that the needles were wrong for my carb, I needed the ring gaskets from them, and they fit mine just fine! Hell, I was just impressed that I could ask "is this for a 30-Pict-3" and they could say "YES!".
So anyhow, I spent the better part of the afternoon yesterday getting my new parts on, and then had my wife come out and gas it up while I adjusted my air idle screws. It runs like a CHAMP.
Now I was reading a response to tricks of using silicone spray or hairspray on your distributor cap which said "nothing compares to a new set of wires and a known good cap". I concur. I don't know that I will be 'running a hose into my engine cabinet' to make the point, but it was a hell of a tune up.
Now I can face this humid rainy weather Monday with confidence!
-Ray