Tune-up from a newbie, seekin' critiques

You got it all right!! Next time you might want to drop the valve lash to .004 wich was the original measure recommended by VW.(Not critical, gives you a theoretical power increase thought(helps believe in Santa Claus aswell... :0) ))

J.

aiee, as I was finishing up the oil change I was wiping the underside of the engine down, and as I was poking around, this beastie fell out:

It was resting on top of that little "shelf" of metal underneath the seam where the transmission and engine meet. No clue how long it could have been there, I don't drive this beetle over terribly rough terrain so it could have been resting there for months, stuck in the sludge that was built up there.

Is it a part of my car, or did it somehow bounce up there from the road?

The point furthest away from the camera is jagged, like it snapped off of whatever it used to be attached to.

Based on this, it looks like it COULD have come from the return spring for the clutch. However, my clutch feels fine, it has the proper amount of play, and the clutch returns just like it's supposed to.

It's dark out now and I own no garage, so it will have to wait until morning to identify if my return spring is intact.

Opinions?

On 22 Sep 2003 00:07:11 GMT, Seth Graham ran around screaming and yelling:

that is exactly what it looks like to me....

do that...look at teh clutch lever...if it is your spring you will be missing the part that comes up the arm a bit and wraps around...if it

*is* missing(meaning broken spring) the clutch pedal returning is a function of the pressure plate....this can keep the release bearing(throwout bearing) in contact with the pressure plate and cause rapid wear.... J

that sounds reasonable, and a few minutes of google searching produced a wealth of text on what you're talking about. to make sure this is straight in my head though:

when people say "x advance", they're basically saying you spin the engine up to X rpm, and turn the distributor until the desired degree on the pully lines up with the crack in the engine? I assume folks achieve this by measuring and filing more notches into their pully.

Does that then mean that the adjustments I did at idle are of no concern, or is there an adjustment in the distributor that I'm ignorant of that is used to set the idle timing and the advance timing?

At what RPM do I set the advance? Google searching gives results that range from 2500 to 3500 RPM.

A lot of what I've read seems to assume the reader is already a career mechanic, an advantage I don't have. ;)

Can you quantify this at all?

I don't put a ton of miles on my beetle, but if I've been tooling around the past few months ignorant that I was destroying my clutch, I'm gonna need to do more than buy a new spring and hope for the best if this is a sufficiently serious problem.

Most of the clutch was entirely replaced a couple years ago, with less than 3500 miles on it right now. If a ballpark average for clutch lifespan is 60k miles, how much could this mistake have taken off the life?

Reason I'm so paranoid is because setting up a place for an engine removal is no minor task for me, I have no garage and no friends sufficiently equipped that I can recruit to help.

On 22 Sep 2003 02:43:54 GMT, Seth Graham ran around screaming and yelling:

the "rapid" wear i was refering to is to the release bearing...you are more than likely okay....don't get too excited...check to see if it is indeed a broken returnspring, because as you speculated in your earlier post it could have been there for a long time...maybe it had broken in the past and has been repaired....if not, then put on a new return spring, drive the car and be happy....if you have a release bearing problem down the road, then deal with it then....don't get worked up now... J

....actually many of us now achieve this with schmancy dialback timing lights. You turn the nob to whatevber number you want and use the notch at TDC....if you do not have this handy dandy option...then yes you can file another notch.

that is precisely what it means. Because of tghe build quality of the

009 and the variance I talked about you cannot achieve perfect timing at all RPM's so what you have to do is set it for worste case senario. That is the timing at full advance. This will assure that your engine will not self destruct.....however at any time other than full advance you will be less than optimum....this includes idle. This is why performance and mileage will improve when a stock vacuum advance distributer is used.

...thats really it ther eis no set this is it....whrn the rpms are sufficient that the distributer stops advancing....set the timing....you will be able to see the advance with the timing light...I usually just push the fast idle cam on the carb under the throttle in its highestr step and it will usually hold rpm at a sufficiently high rpm and allow me both hands free.

..Gareth

As Joey says, this may or may not do bad to the release bearing. I had no spring in the clutch lever, free play in the pedal was ok, the release bearing did not brake. But eventually the pressure plate claws did wear out so that I had to replace the plate and release bearing last time the engine was off. =20

Replace the spring, it can be put on without remowing the clutch lever although the manuals tell you to remove it. I hear the lever usually is there very tight with all dirt and corrosion. Then check the release bearing and clutch pressure plate claws next time=20 you remove the engine.

The TDC is in the half way of the points that the piston stops rising and where it starts falling again. The TDC is not there where the piston stops rising. So use your method to feel where is stops and=20 where it again starts to fall. The TDC is approx in the middle there.

And if your TDC mark moves significantly in the pulley after this, re-check the valves and timing.

...thats precisely what it comes down to. The build quality ioos consistant. You would set timing at idle. You would , yes, then be able to re-adjust your carb back to sipping less fuel. Also you will have better acceleration (no hesitation from start) and you will use less gas on the highway. The iming will be less advanced at idle...and more advanced on the highway...and will be about the same under hard load (where you have to set the 009 for...remember worste case scenario) Whether these improvemnts will seem "night and day" or subtle to you I cannot say...but they will be there. Is it worth the $120 ...well with the mileage improvemnt it will eventually pay for itself...I and many others think it is...but its something you will have to decide for yourself. Here is a listing for a stock style distributer...

..Gareth