Jan 28
On a leisurely drive out to Guadeloupe, just after finishing my wheel, I began to experience a wobble. I kept driving to get a better feel of where it was coming from, to the point that my horn button popped off in the worst of the shaking. Having read horror stories on the Samba where lug nuts could not grip into the surface of recent powder-coat jobs, my mind went to my wheel. I popped off the hubcap and found this.
luckily I caught it in time. Though it may have done damage to the drum... oh well. It was a beautiful day at the beach and I happened to run into another Volkswagen enthusiast, Tom from Santa Maria, a really cool guy out fishing
We talked and I reminded him of the upcoming Meet in the Middle BBQ/Bus Raffle an Najoqui Park.
Feb 18
I took a much needed day off at work for the Meet in the Middle VW BBQ. It was great, lots of cool people. I met up with Steven ("Grasshopper" on Central Coast VW Club) who I had arranged to buy a fuel gauge and two half baked Bosch 010 distributors, really cool guy, but drives water-cooled ; ) I also ran into Tom again and his father, and ate lunch with them and talked, really cool guys, funny too. Of course I am always so goo-goo eyed at these events that I only take the least amount of pictures and of the least cool things. But there are tons of pictures here. In fact I got in one of them!
See? thats my blue bug and Im reaching in the window doing something, maybe fixing my parking brake which broke when I got there. =D Anyway it was a fun event. And I'm looking forward to the next one.
Feb...
While driving, my speedometer cable suddenly broke. I bit the bullet and bought the expensive German one. A week later I install it and no more than a 100 feet later it breaks again. This is one more example of the lesson I have learned that "what is broken is not what's wrong." I reluctantly tore into my speedometer for the mole (6.022 X10²³) time. I found a seized gear, I replaced it with a new gear from my other speedometer, went to Perry's Auto Wrecking to buy an overpriced used cable, and put everything back together, it's still working great.
Around the same time, I decided to do something with my running boards. Instead of painting them I wanted to put new vinyl on them. I drove over to Belluz upholstery and bought some leathery material that came very close to matching the white of my bumpers and wheels. I ground down the rust off the running boards, cut out the material, and used generous amounts of contact cement and well placed clamps. It all came out very well, and it looks great. I thought I had taken pictures while I was doing it but I guess not. This picture is from today and the running board is dirty from driving past flower fields during a rain.
While I'm in this ambiguous time frame I'll add that I fixed up one of the Bosch 010 distributors and put it in. It reduced the flat spot dramatically but its not a miracle worker. I also bought that new fuel gauge from Steven which I installed at the show. My sweet lovin' bug is continually improving.
April 1-8
Worse than the flat spot of my old distributor was the front transaxle mount that was shot dead. The combination of these two formed a tag team worthy of American Gladiators. For a couple of weeks I had planned on using my Spring break to park the bug and dig into the tranny as well. Before doing this I wanted to take a compression test, considering the engine had developed a vibration and there has been metal in the oil twice now.
Cylinder 1: 120
Cylinder 2: 105
Cylinder 3: 125
Cylinder 4: 125
Well I found the offending cylinder. I squirted in oil and did it again.
Cylinder 1: 150
Cylinder 2: 145
Cylinder 3: 150
Cylinder 4: 150
So the rings on #2 are going bad. This makes me hate the guy I bought this engine from, that was his only responsibility and he screwed it up somehow. oh well it will survive a while. Back to the tranny.
I can not come close to explaining how my little "rear hatch" made this project so much easier. Things like clutch cable, engine-to-tranny bolts, starter motor, putting on axle boots, refilling tranny oil, heater ducts; all of these things that would have taken a considerable amount of time each were done in minutes.
In three hours I had the engine out, and the tranny (drum to drum) up on a table. With the engine out, I put on the engine tin that I forgot the last two times to do. While I was taking out the transaxle the front mount fell off in two pieces, it was bad. I spent the rest of the day and half of the next just cleaning the 43 years of buildup, nasty work.
My plan was to fix the oil leak from the side plates by replacing the gaskets, but curiosity had me tearing into the retaining plates also, for more thorough cleaning. For this job I bought: 2 tranny gasket kits, 1 set of axle boots, axle seal kits, gasgacinch, 10 beach towels (from the lost&found at work), 2 cans degreaser, 2 cans brakleen, all three mounts, and a can of black paint.
The side plate nuts would have been finger tight if the gunk had not prevented them from moving, which is why they leaked, and which is good to know. This was a fun project since I'd never really done much with a tranny or axle before. Here are some pictures I took. No real order here, or story, just interesting.
I put a new gasket on the nose cone, mostly so I could re-torque the bolts incase the bad mount had damaged it at all. I also replaced the main seal, but did not replace the t/o bearing or clutch. I bled and adjusted the brakes.
When I finally pulled it out of the garage the new mounts made such a difference! and it hasn't leaked a drop! But as I pulled mine out, I pulled my moms mustang in to replace the clutch and a disintegrated t/o bearing. I spent 6 hours trying to remove a pilot bearing, and I don't mean prying with a screwdriver. I tried everything from hydraulic extraction, to 4 or 5 fabricated bearing pullers!
and here is my beard after 4 months!
