Muir detrimental?

As a teenager needing to learn how to keep my bug running, I learned a lot from hotVW's magazine and, later, the Muir book. As long as you think for yourself, you generally are o.k.(goes for a lot of things in life). Supplement Muir with magazines, usenet, the Hoover articles and yourself for best results. I'd have to go dust off my copy to see what I think might be harmful though.

Actually, idling while "rolling your cigarettes" is less harmful to a VW engine than driving it off right away in the morning. Aircooled cars have to be warmed up properly to run properly, and they DO need some time to warm up properly when they're started. You CAN just drive off, but your performance will suck, and you will be cursing yourself when you stall at the first stop! Additionally, you will be putting excess wear on your engine and your piston rings will probably wear out faster. For the sake of the engine, I warm mine up until the idle smooths out every morning. Nothing huge, I don't rev it up or anything, just hold it at a fastish idle until she calms down. Takes about 2 minutes when it's REALLY cold.

On A different note, my choke is disabled as well. I prime the engine with my foot before I start it. I happen to agree with Muir's choke theory. However, I'm having my doubts about the stinkin' 009...it has been giving me alot of problems. THinking about replacing it with an aircooled.net Malory vacuum dizy. ~Anthony

As I recall he wrote of defeating the choke and said that he manaaged by starting the engine and letting it warm up at idle for about as long as it takes to smoke a cigarette. He died of brain cancer that migrated from lung cancer, and very quickly. It was the choke that did it, right? :)

Forgive the poor humor. I have the dreaded flu. Real sick. Take care out there.

I always intended to add a manual choke but never got around to it. In cold weather, I used a rubber band to close the flap on the intake in order to pull (the warmish) air that passed over the 1 and 2 cyls. Worked alright in my climate and for the type of driving I did.

If I did disable the choke, I wouldn't go anywhere! If I idle too long, the engine just cuts out when the choke goes off - it's still set for summer, and I plan to leave it that way as a happy medium between full chokage and none.

But Muir is wrong on completely 'breaking' the choke, and I was annoyed that he opinioned this enough to not tell how to adjust it. I might replace with a manual choke, anybody got any good links with clear novicelike instructions? Also, what parts might I need?

Cheers, Anto

The problem I had with my auto choke was that it would open up too quickly for my climate. In some seasons it would actually work o.k. if I really dialed up the spring tight. I got tired of always fidgeting with it though so a manual conversion seemed like the way to go. This was in the days before the internet and easy access to a variety of solutions and I didn't have access to an early model bug at the time to copy. Laziness won out so I just lived with the sputtering and stalling in the really cold weather.

That's exactly my situation...

I believe that Muir's guide would be a good one to consult if you were trapped two hundred miles from home with a failing engine and no funds. Some of his advice was shown to be pretty much dead-on, while other procedures could be questioned (taking a hammer and chisel to the gland nut comes to mind).

In cold weather I have always warmed up the trusty four banger on my bug. Although not for an excessive length of time. And my engines return many care free miles (because of or in spite of my maintenance practices).

I personally find Muir to be a good resource when used with other manuals, and also with comments from source such as ramva.

I'll have to disagree. The period of greatest wear occurs when the engine is cold. So getting through that period quickly minimizes the wear caused by clearances that are only right when the engine is warm. Prolonging that period would have the opposite effect. I think VW themselves recommended that the car be driven straight away.

In any case, I doubt the difference between the two techniques would be detectable to either of us.

Max

That should be fixable. Measure the electrical resistance of the bi-metal spring when cold, add a resistor in series of about the same value. The resistor wattage required is likely 5 watts. This will slow down the heating of the bi-metal spring, which opens the choke.

The engine needs to warm up EVENLY, and at a certain pace. Not too fast, not too slow. Because it's a complicated sandwich of different metals that have different thermal expansion rates. Aluminum expands more than steel when it gets hot. The factory setup makes sure that the different critical parts of the engine warm up in harmony. One of the worst cases is when the heads warm up faster than normal and the cylinders and head studs warm up slower. The head getting thicker because of the heat, will then apply more pulling force to the studs, and with some bad luck thrown in there, the studs begin to pull out of the case.

One reason why they went from 10mm studs to 8mm studs. The 8mm studs expand sooner. Plus you get the bonus of having enough space for case savers. (A must anyway with such fine, small threads)

Another symptom is that the four lower head nuts under the rocker shaft on each side of the engine start to see too great, uncontrollable heat cycles, sometimes making the nuts tighter than spec and then cooling back down, getting slightly looser.. eventually they work themselves very loose and your head to cylinder mating area begins to leak.

Jan

Another case for aluminum cylinders.

Simple, I like this idea.

Thanks Anto

I like his choke idea and I use the 009 in all my vw's....Must be some other part of his instructions . Bob Hoover is by far the best alive adviser we have but I understand the illustrations and comments of Muir as I am actually working on my bugs/bus much better.

href="

..............What kind of studs do you have to use with those fancy aluminum cylinders?.........just wondering.

You want even more pulled studs?

Jan