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Sat Sep 10, 2005 6:41 am

The more I dig into my Bus the more I loathe the previous owners lack of VW knowledge :!: They put new brakes in it and then never adjusted the manual adjusters, nothing was ever lubed, half of the fittings and adjustable parts were completely frozen :evil: I am sorry but if you do not know what you are doing then keep your wrenches away and get yourself a qualified mechanic :!: Thank You :!: :shock: Peace, Aaron

Sat Sep 10, 2005 7:35 am

I've seen POs do everything from rewire a car with only black wire to tin foil in the fuses to street signs used to patch holes in the floor.

Before you buy a car you need to determin if the PO was "sort of handy". If so... walk away.

Sat Sep 10, 2005 8:01 am

Brakes are all good now :D You'll love this instead of fixing the tracks for the front seats they tore the tracks out and welded the seat frame directly to the floor :lol: I replaced the tracks and drivers seat a couple of weeks ago and I am replacing the hooks and pass seat today. When I picked the bus up I noticed that it was running very lean and hot but that the carb was set very rich. Once I got a good look inside I noticed that they didn't have the intake rubbers on right :roll: Luckily they hadn't owned the bus too long before they realized it was too much for them to handle. Everything so far be it a pain in the ass has been fairly easily fixed. I'm just glad I was able to save the bus from an untimely grave. :D Peace, Aaron

Mon Sep 12, 2005 8:15 am

5-6 license plates welded to the hole in the floor board of my wife's 69 poptop when we bought it :lol:

I have also never bought a VW that had a properly working ignition switch.

Mon Sep 12, 2005 10:12 am

There are a lot of VW killers out there - folks who buy an ACVW because it's cool, drive it into the ground, then scrap it...or if you're lucky, sell it for $50. It's a shame how many I've seen like that...

Mon Sep 12, 2005 6:27 pm

The best stuff I have seen is wood screws (flat tip) used to hold headlight assys, and enough fiberglass to build a small bayliner.

Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:56 am

I also like the "Silicon fix" for leaks- a whole tube of the stuff that water can still get behind when a gasket would have been $20. :roll: Or the kind who use duct tape that quickly dry rots thus negating it's original purpose and leaves the most horrible mess to try to clean after it's dried out. I know I'll get crucified for saying it, but duct tape is not a good fix for much of anything in my opinion (the heavy duty military stuff is an exception for some applications).

Tue Sep 13, 2005 4:07 am

Bajatacoma wrote: I also like the "Silicon fix" for leaks- a whole tube of the stuff that water can still get behind when a gasket would have been $20. :roll: Or the kind who use duct tape that quickly dry rots thus negating it's original purpose and leaves the most horrible mess to try to clean after it's dried out. I know I'll get crucified for saying it, but duct tape is not a good fix for much of anything in my opinion (the heavy duty military stuff is an exception for some applications).

I don't know where the Corps gets their duct tape today but when I was in, in the early 80s, they got it from ShurTape in Hickory NC. The same old tape you could buy at Lowes.

Tue Sep 13, 2005 4:39 am

The PO of my vert covered the dash with felt, threw away all the dash knobs and replaced them with kitchen cabinet gold knobs, tossed the arm rests and used drawer pulls, and worst of all used a gallon of contact cement to glue down shag carpet. I cussed him for days fixing that shit.

Tue Sep 13, 2005 2:23 pm

I rewired my first bug with all black wire. I thought it would look "clean". I did a nice job of it too but looking back it was not a good decision.

Wed Sep 14, 2005 5:22 am

Major Woody wrote: I rewired my first bug with all black wire. I thought it would look "clean". I did a nice job of it too but looking back it was not a good decision. So it was you!

Wed Sep 14, 2005 7:05 am

Mark Evans wrote: Major Woody wrote: I rewired my first bug with all black wire. I thought it would look "clean". I did a nice job of it too but looking back it was not a good decision. So it was you!

Mine was wired with all RED wire.

"...To keep people from being able to hot wire it" -previous owner

Wed Sep 14, 2005 9:46 pm

My rocker panel on my bus has ridges all along it, so I suspect it to have been replaced with a gutter from a house and bondo-ed over :lol: For all that work, they could have just bought a replacement. The best was my old Mercedes. When my front brake locked up one day, I found out it probably had something to do with a large slice on the rubber line being repaired with a piece of electrical tape. It was caked with grease so I never noticed it. I can't believe the thing made it several hundred miles like that until it ran dry and locked up solid.

Thu Sep 15, 2005 6:37 am

ohhh, well if we are talking about POs of other makes of cars...

I once had a volvo with a slow oil leak... got underneith it and found the source of the leak... a ruptured oil line "repaired" with PART OF A SHOE with those plastic zip ties holding it on!!! I just can't believe it was a slow leak.

Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:34 am

IT's funny, the older these vehicles get, the more their Karma racks up. It's up to us, trusty VW Warriors, to return them to a state of grace! Be careful out there, people.

Thu Sep 15, 2005 11:04 am

AgentBehemoth wrote: Bajatacoma wrote: I also like the "Silicon fix" for leaks- a whole tube of the stuff that water can still get behind when a gasket would have been $20. :roll: Or the kind who use duct tape that quickly dry rots thus negating it's original purpose and leaves the most horrible mess to try to clean after it's dried out. I know I'll get crucified for saying it, but duct tape is not a good fix for much of anything in my opinion (the heavy duty military stuff is an exception for some applications).

I don't know where the Corps gets their duct tape today but when I was in, in the early 80s, they got it from ShurTape in Hickory NC. The same old tape you could buy at Lowes.

The stuff they use in the Army "100mph tape" sucks ass!! it soesnt hold anything. only sticks to itself. worthless. they stuff from the store is better.

Thu Sep 15, 2005 12:29 pm

Quote: I've seen POs do everything

POs and POS are spelled the same... cuz one usually causes the other :lol:

Fri Sep 16, 2005 7:28 am

good and bad with the PO:

my square was owned my a man whose daughter used the car as a daily driver; dad maintained the car pretty well. when the daughter hit something, damaging the rt front fender, he put the car into storage with the intention of fixing it. He changed the oil, plugs, set the points gap, etc...

then he died... and the car sat in storage for about 15 years....

while in storage, a cat was kept in the car.. the cat slept in it and someone fed the cat in the car.... 15 years of cat hair, cat food and cat piss...

now, the upside was that no mice made their home in the car, so no chewed through wires, nests or mice droppings....

it took several months of several different cleaning agents and airing the car out... but it finally smells much better, with only the occasional whiff of what used to be....

Fri Sep 16, 2005 10:01 am

And i make it i'm going to build me a Trike or sand rail out of the motor if it makes it. I don't think i can ever sell mine, just get more and more later on.

Laterz
Ozone

Fri Sep 16, 2005 8:22 pm

Glenn wrote: I've seen POs do everything from rewire a car with only black wire

If everything works right , thats like a work of art ! Do you know how hard that is , and to get it all right. I had a jigsaw puzzle , like that very difficult when it's all the same color. :twisted: