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airschooled
Air-Schooled
Joined: April 04, 2012
Posts: 12721
Location: on a bike ride somewhere
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 Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| TwistedGray wrote: |
| This thread not only didn't put me asleep last night like I anticipated but it kept me up all night thinking of where to go...Thanks a lot! |
Thank you! I started it as a visual journal so Kate and I could have a record of our adventures. Of course I made it VW-centered for the readership here. As this thread, my bus, and I evolved, this became more of a documentation of what is possible when you ignore the catalogs trying to sell you chrome "upgrades" and enjoy a time-tested and proven design of a worthy car. If we, as a population of VW owners, spent as much money and time on fuel and maintenance, as we do on aftermarket garbage,* everyone could have a thread like this.
*By aftermarket garbage, I mean, all those chrome and bolt-on "upgrades" that are being pitched at us by retailers and magazines. They never fit without extensive modification, and often fail before they rust out completely. I literally just built an engine of as many NOS and OG parts as I could find. Once the machine work was done, 98% of my measurements were "yep that's in spec." The other 2% were from bad machine work or my personal error. There is nothing wrong with the original design, and I'd rather be driving than calculating ratio rockers and grinding a case to get more displacement and heat.
Robbie
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Last edited by airschooled on Mon Mar 23, 2015 5:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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wcfvw69 
Samba Purist
Joined: June 10, 2004
Posts: 13389
Location: Arizona
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| Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 4:55 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="asiab3"]
| Brian wrote: |
Now, the carb fitting is a different story. Many people/gorillas who don't know how to properly remove braided fuel line yank at the line until it comes off. WONG! Take a screwdriver or narrow pliers, and push it off. (Chinese finger trap, remember?) This neglect causes the fittings to work loose over time with engine vibration. It is not a design flaw, it is a maintenance flaw, but it is still best fixed with a barbed and threaded fitting like the one Volkzbitz puts on his carbs. I'm trying to acquire the tooling to do it myself for my cars and family/friends' cars.
TL;DR? No clamps on good braided line for me.
Robbie |
Just a suggestion, to Robbie's point, that fuel line does grab hard and I've never seen it come off in 35 years of VW ownership. My suggestion is to not even use plyers or a screw driver to push the fuel line off. That still put's a lot of pressure on the press in fittings on the carb and fuel pump. When I install fuel line, I usually add a couple of inches of extra. I do this incase I need to remove the fuel line from either component. When I do remove the fuel line from the carb or fuel pump nipples, I simply snip it off in front of the nipple. I then get a razor blade and slice through the remaining rubber fuel line on the nipple.
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Decades of VW and VW parts restoration experience.
The Samba member since 2004.
**Now rebuilding throttle bodies for VW's and Porsche's**
**Restored German Bosch distributors for sale or I can restore yours**
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**Restored Porsche distributors or I can restore yours** |
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airschooled
Air-Schooled
Joined: April 04, 2012
Posts: 12721
Location: on a bike ride somewhere
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| Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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| wcfvw69 wrote: |
Just a suggestion, to Robbie's point, that fuel line does grab hard and I've never seen it come off in 35 years of VW ownership. My suggestion is to not even use plyers or a screw driver to push the fuel line off. That still put's a lot of pressure on the press in fittings on the carb and fuel pump. When I install fuel line, I usually add a couple of inches of extra. I do this incase I need to remove the fuel line from either component. When I do remove the fuel line from the carb or fuel pump nipples, I simply snip it off in front of the nipple. I then get a razor blade and slice through the remaining rubber fuel line on the nipple. |
I totally agree. I do this with the threaded and barbed fittings. I just haven't had Tim T&B my current carb. Just no line-chafing allowed…
Or any other chafing for that matter… 
Robbie
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Bala
Samba Member
Joined: December 04, 2003
Posts: 2613
Location: Austin, TX
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:29 am Post subject: |
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Engine looks/sounds great.
Where are you getting your braided line?
The last time I used braided line ('63 beetle) it cracked and looked like the actual rubber was breaking down (black residue left on fittings). It was so bad that gas was dripping from connections. German braided line that I purchased at a local VW specific shop. This is after a little over a year.
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1966 Beetle |
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Stuartzickefoose
Samba Post Whore
Joined: February 07, 2008
Posts: 10350
Location: SoCal for now...
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 9:25 am Post subject: |
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so where is the go pro in the engine video? 
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Stuart Zickefoose
2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual
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Amskeptic
Samba Member
Joined: October 18, 2002
Posts: 8568
Location: All Across The Country
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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Hello Robbie,
I noted your re-routing of the fuel line, good call. See if you can dress your ignition wires and fuel pipe for no-touch passage. On the left, the fuel pipe is in the lowest groove of the spark plug wire holder, then #4 wire then #3. The #2 wire leads along the bottom of the two wire clips that go to the right side of the engine. You can dress the engine to have no high tension wires touching any other object or wire.
I look forward to driving your bus free of vibration. Let's see what 4,400 rpm looks like in 3rd gear.
Here, 52,515 miles since I bought this car (fuel clamps? I don't see no fuel clamps), Chloe's engine is ready for another 25,000 mile cross-country marathon this summer :
Here is a shot of the bending I did to get the tailpipe brackets sorted out. I like to have this area seriously buttoned down:
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airschooled
Air-Schooled
Joined: April 04, 2012
Posts: 12721
Location: on a bike ride somewhere
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Bala wrote: |
Engine looks/sounds great.
Where are you getting your braided line?
The last time I used braided line ('63 beetle) it cracked and looked like the actual rubber was breaking down (black residue left on fittings). It was so bad that gas was dripping from connections. German braided line that I purchased at a local VW specific shop. This is after a little over a year. |
Thanks Bala. I have a full stock of things like fuel lines, filters, vacuum lines, vacuum caps, points, plugs, caps, and such in my garage. Whenever I run out of something I put it on my list on my phone, and whenever I'm at any parts store, I pull out my list and buy whatever I need as long as it's not junk. So that's why I'll have a mixture of grey and black lines on my bus. I'm sorry I've never had an issue with either of them, so I wouldn't know the difference.
Stuart, my GoPro has been dead for a few months. It's going to need a few charge cycles to recover.
Colin,
I got the ignition wires all no-touchy last week before startup, but I think the metal fuel line is resting on a plug wire. I had some of the 3-channelwire clips break on me, so I currently only have the plug wires in a holster on the fan shroud.
I'm 35,000 miles fuel-clamp free. And that dang throttle positioner really helps the tight engine not drop too quick when letting off the gas between gears. 
There is some vibration in the fan. This Gene Berg "welded and balanced fan" left off the balancing part. There are no balancing marks, and there is a slight bit of axial runout.  4,200 in second and third gear is nice. I did it twice in second with a light load the days after ring break in, and I had a 4,200ish run in third up a slight hill this morning.
It's great fun to run out of induction before blowing out one's eardrums.
RobbieOptomisticTach
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richparker
Samba Member
Joined: November 24, 2011
Posts: 6980
Location: Durango, CO
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Brian
Samba Moderator
Joined: May 28, 2012
Posts: 8340
Location: Oceanside
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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Looks like 4th gear in a short drive going down College blvd.
Or a tach with the wrong dip switch?
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airschooled
Air-Schooled
Joined: April 04, 2012
Posts: 12721
Location: on a bike ride somewhere
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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| richparker wrote: |
What's going on here? |
Two things:
1) The CHT gauge is clipped onto a head cooling fin with a tinnerman nut. My plug wells will not support the sender around the spark plug- too narrow. I'm not going to deal with leaks on this engine.
| Brian wrote: |
| Or a tach with the wrong dip switch? |
2) The tach worked perfectly with the Mallory optical trigger on the old engine. Now it bounces and stays logarithmically ahead of the engine. So around idle the tach shows 1,200 at 1,000 real RPM. At 3,600 real RPM, the tach shows 5,000. DougB was kind enough to send me a diode, so when it gets here I'll be sure to report back. SGKent found, in an old thread, that his tach worked fine in the engine bay but fluctuated in the dash, and I think the reasoning was something about signal interference or the length of wire run being an issue for the pulsing signal. My portable tach works fine in my engine bay, and I used that for break-in.
On the plus side, I was given a no-name fuel gauge sender for my birthday last year (do my parents know me, or what?) and my fuel gauge reads rather accurately now! It used to work between full and half tank only. Now it's about 90% accurate for the whole volume. I feel bad for people like Skills that went through five or six of them to find a good one though they do take a few bumpy miles for the float to come to life. So you can't bench test them.
| Brian wrote: |
| Looks like 4th gear in a short drive going down College blvd. |
78 West to 5 North - my favorite onramp in the world, if the motorists in front of you give a damn about corner exit speeds. If the punks in front of you decide to ride their brakes down the hill and accelerate at the base, you'll be stuck in third for a mile uphill on the freeway. Not good. If you're lucky enough to be at the front of the line on a red light, I can eat any turbo import for breakfast if my engine is warm enough to stand on.
Then they can pass me going up the hill when I'm cruising at 58…
Robbie
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Last edited by airschooled on Tue Mar 24, 2015 10:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Brian
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Joined: May 28, 2012
Posts: 8340
Location: Oceanside
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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Man getting on the 5 north or south between the 76 and 78 means going 60 - 5 real real quick.
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richparker
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Joined: November 24, 2011
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Location: Durango, CO
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airschooled
Air-Schooled
Joined: April 04, 2012
Posts: 12721
Location: on a bike ride somewhere
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 10:38 pm Post subject: |
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| richparker wrote: |
I was asking about this.
[img] |
Aahhhhh the "impaled tachometer!" I don't have the tach mounting ring to get it to sit in the instrument cluster. So it sits proud for now. Plus, it's coming out in a few months when I get used to this engine.
Will trade gauges for clock,
Robbie
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airschooled
Air-Schooled
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| Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:12 am Post subject: |
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So after reading the horror stories of people going through six fuel senders to find one that works, I was a little nervous about mine when it didn't show full after my first fill up. It did take almost a mile of driving for the needle to read full, but now it works flawlessly. It hit R with about two gallons left in the tank.
I know I need a larger gauge generator D+ wire. I'm hoping to find a red/white wire like the original. Anybody?
And I can't figure out why my reverse lights work. It was late at night when I hooked up all the wiring, and I distinctly remember putting the key power, choke, and idle cutoff on three distinct coil terminals and leaving the reverse lights off for now.
I FINALLY found some grey fresh air heater hose for the engine, now I can be rid of chrome shit once and for all! It didn't make as big of a difference as I'd hoped, but the yellow coil sticker sure appeased my stock boner. (Shhh, don't tell anyone; it's a NOS blue coil that I PAINTED!! The horror! )
Robbie
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Xevin
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Joined: January 08, 2014
Posts: 7624
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| Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:34 am Post subject: |
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Nice touch on the black coil
Really nice work on the set up.
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Keep on Busin'
| 67rustavenger wrote: |
| GFY's Xevin and VW_Jimbo! |
| Clatter wrote: |
| Damn that Xevin... |
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I respect Xevin and he's a turd  |
| SGKent wrote: |
My God! Xevin and I 100% agree  |
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scrivyscriv
Samba Electrician
Joined: October 04, 2011
Posts: 2922
Location: Memphis
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| Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 3:02 pm Post subject: |
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| asiab3 wrote: |
| Card-carrying member of PITApan block list. |
anyway, looking great. I'm about to fire up my engine for break-in in the next two or three days too, hoping and praying it goes as smoothly as yours! It's amazing how much measuring, checking and prep goes in to building just a stock engine, but it definitely pays off. It's good to see you go back with so many stock-ish parts... Anyone can buy chrome and wacky parts from MAMW and throw a "custom" bus together, but it takes some real interest in VWs to do the research and spend money in the right places to make/keep/restore to stock look.
Hey would you also mind posting a few photos of the fuel line routing? I was a little curious about how you ran it.
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Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
If you're ever in the Memphis area, you are welcome to stop by for advice and help. |
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airschooled
Air-Schooled
Joined: April 04, 2012
Posts: 12721
Location: on a bike ride somewhere
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| Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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| scrivyscriv wrote: |
Hey would you also mind posting a few photos of the fuel line routing? I was a little curious about how you ran it. |
Thanks for all the kind words. I could have spent less money and got a slightly leaky long block and dress it up with chrome for cheap. But every time I went "more stock" with something on the old engine, I was rewarded with lower temps, better efficiency/performance, better roadability, or a combination of the three.
I'll be pulling the engine this weekend some time to address a few things, can you wait for detailed photos or would you like a diagram now to help out?
Robbie
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scrivyscriv
Samba Electrician
Joined: October 04, 2011
Posts: 2922
Location: Memphis
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| Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| asiab3 wrote: |
I'll be pulling the engine this weekend some time to address a few things, can you wait for detailed photos or would you like a diagram now to help out?
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No rush, I was just curious. Thanks!
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Robert in Memphis
Dünkelgrügen 1967 Java Green bug thread
Engine rebuild thread
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airschooled
Air-Schooled
Joined: April 04, 2012
Posts: 12721
Location: on a bike ride somewhere
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| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:28 pm Post subject: |
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| scrivyscriv wrote: |
| asiab3 wrote: |
I'll be pulling the engine this weekend some time to address a few things, can you wait for detailed photos or would you like a diagram now to help out?
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No rush, I was just curious. Thanks! |
So I ended up driving all over Southern California helping my cousin move. No engine pull this weekend, probably later this week. Because of the urgency, I just pulled the entire exhaust system and enjoyed a calm and beautiful day in the sunshine. Here's a still life portrait:
"Clicky Clacky gets shut up: a metaphor for reducing exhaust leaks caused by Shit Parts."
I absolutely had to take it for a beach day where I can now enjoy a quiet, beautiful, and beautifully slow Volkswagen that won't poison me when the heater is on.
You're never lost with a full tank of gas,
Robbie
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Wasted youth
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Joined: July 06, 2012
Posts: 5134
Location: California's Hot and Smoggy Central Valley
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| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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| asiab3 wrote: |
I absolutely had to take it for a beach day where I can now enjoy a quiet, beautiful, and beautifully slow Volkswagen that won't poison me when the heater is on.
You're never lost with a full tank of gas,
Robbie |
Total fuggin' wood. Money shot. |
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