SNITCH!

[drscope]

O.K., it's time to snitch on your friends who have done stupid VW related things they didn't want anyone else to know about. Post them up so we can all enjoy their stupid mistakes....


My buddy was working on his 64 last weekend. New points and condenser, wires, plugs etc. When all done, he static timed it and was ready to go home from my place. The car wouldn't start.

Checked the points again for spark, all O.K., but nothing at the plugs. Must be the new spark plug wires!

Put the old wires back on, still nothing. Put the old plugs back in, still nothing.

Pulled the dizzy out and checked everything with a meter. Reinstalled, checked the plug wires were in the correct order and spark at points. Car still won't start.

It was about this time that I found the rotor sitting on the tool box where he left it when he went to get the test light to static time the dizzy an hour earlier.
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Mother Nature is a Mean Evil Bitch!

[67jason]

not a VW, but a porsche 914. long story short, a 30+ year VW and porsche mechanic did an overhaul of the 914's engine and trans. finished installing everything back into the car and went to take it out for its test run....oh damn 5 reverse gears and 1 forward gear.
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67 bug

[drscope]

You got to flip that ring and pinion!
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Mother Nature is a Mean Evil Bitch!

[shucklemoon]

The year is 1975. Our house is at the top of a hill about 75 feet tall, circled by a long driveway which joins the street at the bottom of the hill; alongside the driveway entrance is a drainage ditch between our property and the neighbor.

My father is leaving the house for work in the '72 squareback. The (rotary dial) phone rings; it's his office. Mom waves him back into the house from the porch, but in his hurry he leaves the car running, e-brake off. Yep, it rolls forward, straight down the hill, missing about 15 trees, swerves slightly to the right and thus misses the road, bounces across the driveway and into the muddy ditch nose first.

Damned if he didn't pull it out with the tractor and drive it to work that day, all in a 3-piece suit.
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'77 Sunroof "Daisy"

[fred69vert]

One's a VW story, one's not (just total stupidity).

VW - driving over 80 MPH downhill in a 65 that would do 65 MPH on the level. Engine didn't like that, broke the crankshaft.

Not VW - working on the exhaust system of a Spitfire (can you say no ground clearance) up on four jackstands. Needed leverage, kicked one of the jackstands out from under the car. I got out of there fast!!!!!
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I'm not losing my hair, it's just retired and relocating further south.

1969 VW convertible, "Heidi"

[Spanish Flea]

Friend of mine bought a bug. what a tool.


Spanish Flea
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Miami Vdubs
Alte Schule
Rare Vintage Air
"Mr. Ford, i don't think what we are being offered here is worth a damn!" - Ernest Breech (On buying VW, March 1948)

[Air-Cooled Head]

[maximan1]

Not VW, but we have a screwdriver collection from all the times our mechanic left them in the car. We hear crap sliding around the car when we turn, then we pop the hood and find a screwdriver or a wrench or somthing.
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1978 Transporter, 2.0L FI

[dlxcoupe]

Run-away Airplane!

Back years ago when I was daily driving my 63 rag bug, I stopped at the airport to visit a friend who owned an airplane. I parked in front of his airplane that he had just done the brakes on and he needed to run the engine for a check-out so he started it up (no chocks) .. the brakes were not pumped up from his previous maintenance and he suddenly found out he had no brake force to hold the airplane.. it propelled right into my bug and ate its way into the hood with the prop. never ever found one of the bumper guards...flew off somewhere? I took off running when I seen what was about to happen. terrible sound and did not do his prop any good either ... nasty!

[Dusty1]

At the last shop I worked at: We had a convertible come in that was poppin' and fartin'. It looked like the owner knew what was goin' on because he had replaced the wires with genuine Bosch, the points, the cap, the rotor... all genuine Bosch. But the plugs were black and wet and obviously old. SO I ran a compression check, I was 3/4 of the way through it when the old douche bag who owns the shop came out and asked WTF I was doin'. He said those plugs were good to go and to put 'em back in, "obviously" the valves were out of adjustment. Well that ain't likely 'cuz before I put the plugs back in I finished the compression check and it was FINE, all four were in the higher range pressure-wise and very even from cylinder to cylinder. SO ol' Douche Bag has me crank the car and sure enough, it's poppin and fartin'. THEN Our Fearless Leader decides that it must be timing so he jumps each spark plug wire forwards one hole on the distributer cap (I'm not makin' this up!) at which point the car is backfiring horribly when cranked on the starter (duh!) and won't run at all ( Double Duh! Duh, duh, DUH!!) Speaking of DUH it's at that point that ol' Douche Bag decides to set valve lash like he set out to do only instead of observing crank position he set it by assuming any cylinder that had the rotor pointing at it on the dizzy was at TDC. Of course he had just jumped the plug wires one hole forwards each so "TDC"... ain't. He's settin' valve lash with the lifters tight on the cam, by the time he gets done the lash is so loose the pushrods are just about fallin' out. Follow so far? Car won't run at all, can't, won't, no way, no how. I just shook my head and walked away, the boss is the boss, right?

Next morning I came in early before ODB showed up, I pulled four plugs out of inventory, put the plug wires back where they belonged, set valve lash correctly and the right way and timed the car. It ran smooth and sweet.

The big loser in all this? THE CUSTOMER. The customer got reamed because ODB billed out all the labor to screw it up plus the labor to set it straight. Which is SOP at that outfit and that's why I don't work there any more.

[Daddybus]

[arod]

well here is my story. i drive down to a friends house 40 miles away to get some dirt fill for my yard. while there he gives me a nice short block engine case, AS41 made in brazil dual relief for my westy project 1776. so we put it in the back of my truck, which was already loaded with two yards of dirt. on the way home i decide to take KROME ave. KROME ave is a 2-lane road that cuts through the EVERGLADES here in south florida. i am about half way through and hear a thump, i look back and see my tailgate dropped. my first thought was,"THE ENGINE IS GOING TO FALL OUT AND START AN ACCIDENT!!!' lucky enough there was nobody behind me for miles. i pull over and ....WHERE THE HELL IS THE ENGINE! i searched up and down that rural roadside for hours. at last all i could find was the cylinders and pieces of cylinders in the tree line. a shortblock just dissapeared into the everglades. i now call it "KROME AVE TRIANGLE"
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1966 VW Westfalia
2008 VW Passat wagon
Live to drive vw's. Drive vw's to live.

[1972super2110]

[Temo]

[i_am_cool_fred]

i gave parts from my old burnt motor to a friend for his 66 beetle he was building. he needed an intake and risers and i had just gone to a progressive so i had no need for my stock intake. he put it on i rebuilt the carb for him we stabbed the motor and started it up...it wouldn't run for crap. i tinkered with the carb finally put my hand on top of the carb and the motor just smoothed out like you wouldn't believe.

obviously it's a vacuum leak so i told him to check all his connections and check all bolts. came back the next day, still ran like crap. i asked him where he got the intake boots at that were on the car. he says, "those were your boots"

i said i didn't give you any boots "yea, you did, they were on that intake you gave me"

i said the intake? my intake? the one that was in a bus that caught fire 3 months ago?

"yea"

BUY NEW BOOTS DUMBA$$

problem solved
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59 mignonette "Lola" see it's build thread:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=495899



Brian Denning, as seen on Gearz TV

[KaferKnight]

Im helping a friend lower the rear of his single cab. Another friend of our who owns a bug stops buy and asks what were doing.

We tell him "lowering the rear"

He says "Oh yea? You puttin rear drop spindles on it?

Dumbass
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56 Bug
2187

69 Bus
1600

57 Oval Rag project

http://Kaferknights.com

http://Deluxeiron.com

http://www.norcalaircooledgroup.com/

[BSQUARE]

About 10 years ago, I bought my new wife a true Cal Look Beetle.
Dechromed, one piece windows, lowered on BRMs, T bars, those cheap plastic mirrors, etc. - the archetypical 80's Cal Look.
She wanted to do all the maintenence herself, which was good by me; who can know a car better than the driver/owner?
Besides, I like dirty women.

>FF> 6 months - My bus threw a rod (thanks, Quaker State ), so she let me take the Bug to get groceries.
I backed out of the driveway, stepped on the brake and the pedal went to the floor.
Pulled right back into the drive and went in to tell her the brakes aren't working.

- 'Oh, I forgot to tell you, the master cylinder went out about a couple months ago (her diagnosis - it may or may not have, I don't really know), so I took it out.
You have to use the parking brake to stop.'
She'd been driving it like that for 2 months!

I gave her an ear full of logic and told her I'd give back the keys when she replaced the Master Cylinder; I'd help her bleed the lines.
She was insistent that it was OK as it was, to the point of getting mad at me for taking awaythe keys to her Buggy.

I gave the keys to a trusted friend for safe keeping and let that car sit in the driveway for a few months, hoping she'd actually fix it, but knowing she wouldn't, before I sold it.

I still miss that car, it was a good one.
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65 & 71 Squarebacks.

[lonewolfone]

my buddy that i welded floor pans in for he and my brother put the rest of the car back together and it would run after that so go over there and find tht they had put both the positive and ground side wires that go to the points on the same side, fried the condensor and points.

[Jeckler]

[fred69vert]

Not a buddy but myself!!!!

Ignorance is not bliss, it's an SOB.

Didn't know that the rocker arm assemblies weren't supposed to separate like the ones did on an engine I was rebuilding, so I reused them. I sure looked like a total idiot at my local bugshop/mechanic when I took the car in for problems with my new carb linkage binding.
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I'm not losing my hair, it's just retired and relocating further south.

1969 VW convertible, "Heidi"