Hey guys, it's been awhile.
A couple weeks ago, I was looking around Craigslist when I saw an ad for a '70 Bug the a guy was selling for $600. He said it needed a tune-up, and hadn't run since putting in a 009 on his 1600DP. I emailed him telling him my wife would kill me (she would) if I bought it, but I'd take a look at it for him to see what was wrong with it. I think he thought I was nuts (true). We trade emails for a few days, I tried to explain how to set the timing and get it running, but he said I may as well be talking brain surgery. So, this past Sunday (I missed the race, damnit), I drove up into San Jose and helped Jason with his bug. He had gone out and bought a new
34PICT-3 (he had a 30PICT-1 with an adaptor), coil, points, condenser, plugs, wires, valve cover gaskets, fuel line, 2 gallons of fuel (the car had been sitting in his driveway for two years), can of Starting fluid, can of Heet, and a battery. He'd drained the old gas a few days before. First thing I did was adjust the valves, all 8 were tight, fixed Then, set static timing. 1st, the points were closed, fixed Timing was within 5 degrees, ok. Change the plugs (Bosch W8AP's came out, W8AC's went in. Put the new carb on, hook up the cable, solenoid and choke, after making a new harness. Fixed the ground wire on the genny from the DF post to ground (oops!) Change out the coil simply because he wanted it done. Changed the fuel line from pump to carb (he'd already changed the small piece of rubber from the hard line to the pump), then cut out a piece above the axle and installed the inline filter. I used a turkey baster to fill the bowl with gas. Oil was 2 years old, but had no mileage on it. We put in 2 gallons of gas and the can of Heet. I stood off to the side with a fire extinguisher, and had him try it. It fired on the 3rd revolution, and stayed running. We let it warm for a couple minutes, then shut it down, let it sit and checked for leaks and also checked the oil. All good. Fired it back up and I set the timing to about 8 degrees BTDC at idle. He took it for a spin around the block (a few spins actually, he was gone so long I was getting worried he'd be pushing it back) and said when he got back that it ran pretty good. I took it out and thought it was doing good too, except for the classic 009 stumble, and the tranny grinding 2nd at every upshift. I told Jason that carbs were not my forte, and he might want to get it dialed in at Bugformance or VolksAuthority. I cleaned up my tools, and headed home after a little BS'ing. Jason emailed me the next day sayin he'd gone out for a spin the night before, got the bug filled with fresh fuel and had registered it that day (had non-op, so he wasn't dinged for back tags). About all he has to do now is get new tires, get the brakes done (the adjusters were frozen) and get the carb dialed in. He was very happy that I had helped him out, and frankly, it felt good to get to work on a bug again. I haven't touched a VW since I sold the Baja back in '01. My only payment for working on the car was 5 or six Vanilla Cokes. Jason told me that the only lookers for the bug had wanted to part it out. I guess I saved one.Later!
**************************** Andy 'Dubless for the time being ****************************