Re: Mini Cooper fails

Well, I did remove the 'vw aircooled' one. I thought that was the problem. Still, as I 'don't have a life' I'm probably wrong!

Take care,

John.

I needed a new air filter as it was getting dirty. So I dumped out the old oil and poured some new oil in. Easiest and cheapest air filter ever. Generator was dying. Left me stranded as the battery wouldn't charge. I could get it pop started but as soon as I hit the lights the engine would die. I knew I read somewhere about how the generator would get gunk on parts of it exposed. Fix: take screw driver (or fork and knife if you perfer) insert it into the part of the generator where you can see in. Get it to a nice shiny copper. Generator has worked perfect since. ^- That was on the 65 Splitty I'd say a good 75% of bolts on my A2 are 13mm. I carry the bare essentials of tools in the car for bad incidents. I think I can do the whole timing belt with a 10mm socket, 13mm socket, 15mm wrench, screw driver, and custom tensioning U thingamajig.

I don't know what you're driving... but they sure as hell are easy to work on for me.

As a VW/Audi owner of more than two decades, AC, WC, etc, you are, of course, full of s*it.

But don't let facts get in the way of a juicy anecdote.

BTW, I have done plenty of routine work on my VW/Audi cars, and never have required a special tool for any of the jobs. The special tools

The CIS injection of the original Rabbits was quite robust. THe only ones I ever saw that had a problem were ones that came from Westmoreland, and those could be put to rights quite easily. The rest of the car? Total s*it. The German made ones of the same era last forever. The Westmoreland experiment was an utter failure.

Spider

That's brilliant! Judging a marque by a car that hasn't been made for almost 20 years. I guess I should judge Dodge by the Omni then, eh? Or Honda/Acura by those tiny little civics they used to make. There's nothing wrong with not liking a marque, but that's got to be the dumbest reason I've ever heard.

And was that the one that uses the gigantic big ass-ed wheel nut that holds on the rear wheel that you have to take off to replace the rear brakes? The one that you have to go out and buy some big socket that you never had, then a big breaker bar, then a pipe that fits over the breaker bar, then sprain your ankle jumping up and down on the pipe, then buy a newer bigger stronger breaker bar to replace the one that broke, then buy an impact socket to replace the one that you broke?

And then if you finally get the damn thing off when you put it back on you will never know if it's torqued properly because nobody carries a torque wrench that reads up to 300 foot pounds which is what the manual rates it.

Is that the one you mean?

Ted

Big deal. You spend $20-40 once for a socket and a breaker bar. You stick your floor jack under the socket to support it while you jump on the breaker bar. I have worked on a few aircooled changing out brakes or clutches. I never hurt myself in the process and I never broke any tools. Just me, a socket, a 3/4" ratchet, a piece of pipe and a support for the socket. When I started working on VWs I weighed 130 pounds. Torque back to the proper torque is easy enough. Just remember your math. 2 foot lever time 150 lb person equals what?

When was the las time you changed the brakes >

Jim B.

I had a Westmoreland Wabbit GTI. Damn thing would have run forever if it hadn't been a rusty POS. Only real problem I had was a sticky parking brake cable that boiled the grease out of my LR wheel bearing. I finally sold it when the alternator packed it in and I found that someone had stripped the allen head bolt that mounts it (under the timing cover.) If I'd had a shop to work on it I could have just pulled the timing belt, fixed the alternator, and kept on driving I'm sure, but I got a good deal on a '84 Scirocco the same week so it was a no brainer what to do.

My mom still has a Westmoreland '86 Golf and loves it.

nate

1. Buy quality tools. (Use them properly, they don't break).

1. A 150 lb. person on the end of a one foot breaker bar = 150 lb., stand on a two foot breaker bar = 300 lb..

Plat with Trolls on the Internet- Priceless.

TBerk

No. = 150 ft-lbs.

No. = 300 ft-lbs.

Units matter. 8^)

Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")

Ask NASA!

Yeah - you mean on the Mars Lander. That was an expensive "Oops!"

When I worked in aerospace on the Space Station proposal, one thing that has stuck in my mind was that we would have our conceptual designs done in inch units per NASA direction. We would have a presentation to make to NASA a week or two later, and we were told that they changed the requirement - so we had to convert all our view graphs to metric. Then two weeks later, for the next presentation, we had to convert them back to inch again per new direction. This happened over and over again. I got so I habituually made two sets of all my viewgraphs, one set in each system so I was always ready. I asked program management if we couldn't please use a dual system (inch/(metric), or metric/(inch) for example). The answer was "No!" every time.

When we heard what happened to the lander on the car radio, my wife and I burst out laughing - neither of us had to say a word.

Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")

Thx Bill,

btw, anybody ever see the original poster ever again?

TBerk

Hey, my '49 Plymouth has those! And you need God's own puller to get the break drum off.

the old tapered axle Dana 44? You can still get that puller. Several of the Studebaker parts vendors sell them for less than $100 (BFH not included)

nate

Its the Chrysler corporate axle. The ancestor of the 8-3/4. If I live long enough, I'll restore that car. And I *might* switch it over to later flanged axles in the process. The puller method is just a tad barbaric for my tastes.

Most tool rental shops still have one of those big pullers also.