A friend of mine bought a '69 bus. It has a weird looking thing on the carburetor. I have a '71 bus with a 1600. His has a 1500 single port. Very familiar with VW aircools, but I have never seen this before. It looks like it should have a vacuum hose attached to the bottom, but it doesn't have one. It is also idling too fast. Does this have something to do with smog or what? Thanks, Randy
Does it look like kind of a cone shaped thing, with an adjustment screw on the back (remember back is toward the rear of the car) and a threaded shaft with an adjusting nut, going to the throttle?
If so it's a throttle valve positioner. An emission control device, which allows increased air to enter the carb when you lift the pedal. It supposedly reduces emissions.
It was on most '68 and '69 1500s, and all '70 and '71 1600s.
I just pulled it off and plugged the vac line on mine. (I know, I don't care about the environment, I'm a polluting pig, yadda yadda yadda)
In any event, it was froze solid and didn't really do anything. You can do without it.
------------------------------------------
It's probably a previous owner. Or did you mean something weird in a mechanical way?
-Bob Hoover
Sounds like a vacuum-operated throttle positioner - yes it is smog-related.
You can remove it with virtually no ill effects. It might possible be causing a fast idle, if the shaft is frozen, but I would look to more normal causes first...
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.