Shag's back ?

Yes, I'm back. :-) Got a '64 Beetle that shows its age, but it's a California car and the rust on it is surface rust. Moved out to a TINY town (Duncan, NC) that is so small that if you search for it online it will point you to the neighbor town (Fuquay Varina). Smaller house, more land, can shoot my guns in my own back yard without getting in trouble (any more). heh heh. I love it out here.

3 acres and we're next door to 600+ wooded acres and they have a camp set up there. Wife just signed the kids up for summer camp today and they'll be able to walk to/from it. Drove the VW to/from work today (31 mile trip one-way) and it operated flawlessly. Now if I can just sell the "city house" then we'll be set up. :-) I intend to "be nice" to this car. Planning on buying a dirtbike and a go-cart and maybe a 4-wheeler in the very near future so I won't be tempted to start taking the VW offroad. Time will tell, so... stay tuned, true believers. ;-)

So which one is yours then Shag ?

Rich

Shag wrote:

I'm about 5-6 miles southwest of there. :-)

You will enjoy the country life. Or at least we do. Our nearest neighbor is about a mile away. Did your new place come with a big shop ?

Randy

It came with a slightly bigger garage than the last house. This one is 20X25. I'm planning to build a 20X30 shop/storage shed/office out in the back yard. The garage is pretty packed right now with boxes that we want to move into the storage shed once I have it built, but I have enough room in there that I was able to do a front brake job on my truck today. Tomorrow I'm going to try to figure out why both brake lights on my Beetle quit working. The filaments in the bulbs look fine and the fuses all look intact. I'll pull out my Muir book first thing in the morning and get out there and start poking around.

No inline fuse for the brake lights. I would check the wires at the brake switch at the master cylinder.

Mario Vintage Werks resto

That's funny. That's exactly what I was just doing and then I came in here to ask a question about that. I pulled both wires off of the switch on the master cylinder and then checked resistance between the two terminals while my wife pushed on the brake pedal. The switch appears to be working fine. I'm guessing that one wire that connects to the switch should *always* be hot but neither of them are so I'm pretty sure that's the problem. I just have to trace the wire back to wherever it's coming from and find out why it's dead. Sound right?

A better test is to cross the 2 wires at the switch with the key On.

Only hot when the key is On. Comes from one of the fuses. Even if the fuse "looks" good, it may not be making contact. Replace fuse and clean the fuse holder.

Speedy Jim

Gotcha. I loosened the bolts on the gas tank so I could lift it up a tiny bit and then could tell where the wires came out. I found only one fuse-block terminal that was always hot and was certain then that neither wire coming from the brake master cylinder switch was hooked to it but I did find a terminal that was hot only with the key on and one of the wires that was connected to it looked like it was from the brake master cylinder switch. But when I measured voltage down at the wire end next to the switch, I got flaky readings like maybe 2 volts and it wouldn't stay steady. I think maybe my ground connection on my meter was not the best. I'm getting there... Had to stop to come in to clean up a little bit because my sister and brother-in-law called to tell me they're on their way to visit. Thanks for the input/advice you guys. Good to see you're still hanging around, Speedy. :-)

Gotcha. I loosened the bolts on the gas tank so I could lift it up a tiny bit and then could tell where the wires came out. I found only one fuse-block terminal that was always hot and was certain then that neither wire coming from the brake master cylinder switch was hooked to it but I did find a terminal that was hot only with the key on and one of the wires that was connected to it looked like it was from the brake master cylinder switch. But when I measured voltage down at the wire end next to the switch, I got flaky readings like maybe 2 volts and it wouldn't stay steady. I think maybe my ground connection on my meter was not the best. I'm getting there... Had to stop to come in to clean up a little bit because my sister and brother-in-law called to tell me they're on their way to visit. Thanks for the input/advice you guys. Good to see you're still hanging around, Speedy. :-)

Shag:

Welcome to the country life. I was lucky to live on 5,500 acres of bluff-top overlooking the Mississippi River with no neighbors around for miles. I could, and did, fire a black-powder cannon off my front yard. Not that it's really important, but just shows you how much we appreciate our space.

Oh, the private 1-mile straightaway drive was also handy for testing acceleration. :)

You will need a bigger shop then 20X30 when living out in the country. We just build a 30X40 with a 10ft overhang and it's already full and I haven't even got it finished yet.

Randy