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Thu Jul 16, 2009 9:18 pm

Well after restoring another distributor the customer and I found that I had installed the wrong vacuum can on his distributor :oops: . I installed the one that came with the distributor but quite frequently a previous owner had swapped out vacuum cans. They do look very much alike so how do you know if you have the correct vacuum can on your distributor?

From the front they look almost identical. From the back they do have some subtle differences. The Vacuum can that gives 7.5 degrees of advance and is found on the 113 905 205 K used on 1967 beetle and bus has a ribbed star pattern on the back. The little yellow piece of paper was a template that I made. The two marks are closer together than the other set on the right. also the resting distance between the advance arm and the mounting bracket is greater on the K distributor.

The vacuum can on the right does not have the ribbed star pattern but it does have a rectangular indent. The markings on the yellow paper are farther apart showing the longer throw of 32 degrees and meaning that this vac can is put on distributors timed at 0 degrees static like those found on beetle and bus 1968-1970. The correct distributors for this vacuum can are the 113 905 M and T.

I also notice a "trend" and it may or may not help to distinguish the two vacuum cans. All of the 7.5 degree cans I looked at had the "Germany" on the front of the can right side up while the later 0 degree cans had the Germany upside down.

Some of the 32 degree 'style"cans did not have the same throw distance as others and more research will need to be done in order to determine why.

I had to put the kiddos to bed so I missed getting the pic in this post or the edited version so the pic will be in the post below :lol: .

Thu Jul 16, 2009 9:49 pm

Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:18 pm

tasb wrote: The Vacuum can that gives 7.5 degrees of advance and is found on the 113 905 205 K used on 1967 beetle and bus has a ribbed star pattern on the back.

You meant the one that is timed statically to 7.5°BTDC right, and that gives 24-28° advance? :wink:

You know, now that you are talking about it, it made me look.... I have an new vacuum can here and I'm wondering now what it is?? I don't see any ribbed patterns on it, and Germany is upside down. Now, I "think" it's an 07017 - it's not got a Bosch short number on it. Just the long one, 1 237 121 210 - and that's not listed in my Bosch igntion manual's cross-reference chart. But a lot of numbers aren't. However, it does fall in place where it you'd think it should fit in between the gaps:

But - it doesn't have any kind of "star" pattern on it. I bought it some time ago, I think off of eBay. Someone had written 66-67 Type 1-2-3 on the box. And after looking it up on the chart above I thought it would be the 07017, I even wrote that on the box. When you stated this type should have a round hole for the condensor I checked mine and it does have that.

Also, I just checked the "throw" of that canister with a ruler and compared it to a used 07024 on a 205T/035 distributor I have here. The 017 had about 4.5mm of travel, and the 024 had about 5.3mm of travel.

Also, above you were talking about an oval slot for the 024 canister, but the two "T" distributors I have here, neither of them have it, they are both round like the 017. But I noticed the end where it attaches to the breaker plate pin was squared off, not angled, but I think that's a later-production of the replacement part.

Until your posting just now, you never had an 07017 (or #017 using your nomenclature on the first page of this thread) photo. So I just took this one and put it in the Gallery:

Thu Jul 16, 2009 11:03 pm

For not being a "recognized" part, I found a couple of hits when searching for "1 237 121 210", including one in the Classifieds! http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=768426 (Note the alleged VW part #311-905-271...)

Perhaps they were a short-lived replacement part that wasn't installed in new cars, but show up for sale now and again? :lol:

I wonder if/when there will be enough demand for people to tool up and start rebuilding the vacuum cans. Thankfully, there's some info out there on how much advance you should get with a certain amount of vacuum, so it's possible to test one's work against the spec...

- Scott

Thu Jul 16, 2009 11:25 pm

Yeah, I remember doing some searches on that part number before I bought it, to make sure it was very likely an 07017. I didn't mean to imply that it was some "mystery" part - unrecognized and all that. It's just that by the 1996 date of the Bosch catalog I have here, they didn't have a lot of older information in it.

As for the type 3 part number in that ad - it's entirely possible. Again, my 1996 Bosch catalog here is far from complete, but it does show a 311905271A as being the 07022. Which was used in 1968. The year before, the canister the type 3 used was the 07017, so 311905271 is pretty likely a correct VW number for it.

-Andy

Fri Jul 17, 2009 7:53 am

This is fascinating stuff! In fact, I just returned to my desk at work after checking to see whether the 205K on my '66 has star shaped-ribs and a right-side-up Germany. (It does, thank God! Whew! =D> )

Fri Jul 17, 2009 8:08 am

As my customer found out shortly after installation, you'd know it if you didn't :!:

If you tried to set your timing as per factory spec your engine would not run correctly. either advanced too much or not enough depending upon which distributor/vacuum can you have mismatched.

Fri Jul 17, 2009 8:48 am

Andy: The writing on the box for that NOS vac can is accurate. According to my 1976 Bosch catalog:

1 237 121 210:

113 905 205 K 1966-67 Beetle
131 905 205 1966-67 Bus
311 905 205 G 1967 type III
315 905 205 B Type III service replacement

interesting and- back to the drawing board on the star pattern for the K as that one does not have it... :?

Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:02 am

Thanks for checking the cross reference. I seem to recall searching I think and finding another one for sale that had both the long and short numbers on the box - I should have saved the photo.

I'm thinking then that the star-pattern might be something they were doing only certain years or times, then dropped it later.

However, what do you have to say about the "square end" vs the "angled end" difference that posted the photo of above? Both of my 035/T distributors have the angled.

EDIT - forget that!! I'm going to remove that photo above as well. That's all part of the how Bosch was making replacements. Argh.

I have two 009/K distributors around here too. One is on my Baja, and the other I tried to find last night, to no avail. Now that it's daytime and light outside I'll go and look at the one on the car and maybe find where I've done with the spare.

-Andy

Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:46 pm

Okay, I'll post fresh rather than edit the above ones....

I found my spare 009/K distributor. And went and looked at the one on my baja. They both have the star pattern, plus they both have angled attachment arms where they hook to the pin on the breaker plate. So there goes my theory about that aspect of the design. I edited my post above and got rid of that photo I took.

I guess for original parts, look for the star!

And check the travel, this original style canister did have the same 4.5mm of travel like the replacement one I posted the photo of above.

Fri Jul 17, 2009 8:34 pm

I have enough cores to make a representative random sample. here is the data:

8x K distributors 6 of them had the star ribbed pattern safe to say the ribbed pattern vacuum cans go with the 113 905 205 K, the other two had the wrong vacuum can installed. 311 905 205 G and the bus only 131 905 205 also utilize this vacuum can. .

3 of them had the "Germany" right side up
2 had the "Germany" upside down
1 had an upside down "Germany" but oddly had the Bosch logo on the right!

I have 19 loose star ribbed vacuum cans. 17 have an upside down "Germany" Two of them are right side up.

All of these distributors have the angled attachment arms.

T & M distributors:

I have 4 T's and one M. All of the T's have upside down "Germany" labels. The M was also upside down. The arms are all angled attachments. I have 23 loose saucer shaped no star vacuum cans. 22 of them have upside down "Germany" and and angled attaching arms. One has an upside down Germany" and has a squared end.

The data suggests that an upside down stamping is most common and it probably cannot be used to identify the exact part# for vacuum cans.

I wil have to look more closely in the future at the non ribbed star vacuum cans to see if there are other subtle differences that were not included in this survey. Examples include vac cans with oval condenser support holes vs. round ones.

Later

Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:01 pm

Cool, thanks for the little survey there!

I think though, as I mentioned above, it all boils down to how far it pulls the advance plate. So measuring the throw of the canister will be (my) final determination as to which is which. I checked both of my "T" units, and they were both just under 5.5mm. The K - both the replacement one with that squared end and the factory ones on my two distributors are 4.5mm.

tasb wrote:
1 had an upside down "Germany" but oddly had the Bosch logo on the right!

One of my originals is like that too.

Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:40 pm

This is an excellent thread. I've not considered before if my can was correct. It's on there, it works. I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Sat Jul 18, 2009 4:29 am

I'll be interested in going over the two 211-905-205Q dual-vacuum distributors I have coming from tasb and comparing them to the one I have now. After disassembling, cleaning and reassembling it I put it on my '71 bus last week and it seemed to be over advancing. But I don't think its necessarily the vacuum, because that's only good for 2-5* and it seemed to be over advancing even with the vacuum hoses disconnected and only the mechanical advance working. I also didn't have much time to mess with it, so I need to look at it again more closely.

BTW, I checked my spare 205K and it also has the star pattern on the back of the can, but "Germany" is upside down. I have not measured the throw yet on any of these.

Sat Jul 18, 2009 12:28 pm

Agree 100% with Andy:

@4.5mm throw = 7.5 degrees @5.5 mm = 0 degree

for static timing.

The other data presented above was just in the pursuit of knowledge even if it leads no where.

Of course with this knowledge we can now Frankenstien distributors as long as we know what we are doing :twisted: just kidding.

Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:04 pm

It's been a while since we've posted to this thread. But a couple of months ago it was suggested to me that a comprehensive chart of all the VW/Bosch vacuum canisters, part numbers and cross references would be nice to have. So I spent a day and made one up.

It's a work in progress. There are two errors on this chart - I was getting conflicting data between my various books and online resources regarding the 1969 Autostick distributor 113905205AA and forgot to put the "AA" on that entry. And then I found the 07223 is a superseded part number, originally it was 07091-1237121851 on 1971 manual tranny US cars.

So this chart in the image below, is a photo taken of a work in progress. Whenever I stumble across more info I put it into the chart, and a version of that is here, a MSWORD DOC file - and unlike images stored on Samba's Gallery I can update this file whenever I want to with the most current changes, (if I remember to!)

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/info/glutamodo/temp/BOSCH%20VW%20VACUUM%20CANISTERS-A.doc

edit - I changed the image link here:

Thu Jan 20, 2011 11:37 am

Andy, you da man. You should compile all of your awesome charts and diagrams into a handy reference book.
(after you correct the misspelling of "application" at the top.) :wink:

Thu Jan 20, 2011 11:47 pm

That's the thing that sucks about using the Gallery for images, once they are in there, they can't be changed or edited. That's a big part of why I put so few photos there.

Fri Jan 28, 2011 6:57 am

I disassembled a "small" vac can, and a "big" one, so here are some pictures (I didn't want to overload this thread):
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5097445#5097445

I hope it could be of some use :D

Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:13 am

babarogue wrote: I disassembled a "small" vac can, and a "big" one, so here are some pictures (I didn't want to overload this thread):
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5097445#5097445

I hope it could be of some use :D
Please repost them in this topic so everything is in one place.