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Sat Jun 01, 2013 11:22 am

Shane - for what it is worth, on my 1977 there is an orange label on the engine lid backside that is the smog sticker they are supposed to go by. You should have one too. It reads - 7.5 BTDC with hose CONNECTED.

Sat Jun 01, 2013 11:28 am

SGKent wrote: Shane - for what it is worth, on my 1977 there is an orange label on the engine lid backside that is the smog sticker they are supposed to go by. You should have one too. It reads - 7.5 BTDC with hose CONNECTED.

Considering all the other errors with regards to smoging this vehicle I guess there should be no surprise that the smog book says to test with the hoses off.

Oh well. I just need my bus to be reliable while I figure out how to fix my other car which recently broke down:(

Sat Jun 01, 2013 11:52 am

ivwshane wrote: SGKent wrote: Shane - for what it is worth, on my 1977 there is an orange label on the engine lid backside that is the smog sticker they are supposed to go by. You should have one too. It reads - 7.5 BTDC with hose CONNECTED.

Considering all the other errors with regards to smoging this vehicle I guess there should be no surprise that the smog book says to test with the hoses off.

Oh well. I just need my bus to be reliable while I figure out how to fix my other car which recently broke down:(

Drive your bus 60 - 65 mph and it should last a long time. Steve

Sat Jun 01, 2013 9:17 pm

I pulled the vacuum hose and noticed no difference, however I might have another problem:(

While checking the timing I noticed my timing light wasnt showing my timing mark consistently and it coincided with the sound of my engine sounding like an idle hunt (it wasnt super noticeable and I could only hear it when I was close to the engine).

The timing mark should be a pretty consistent strobe with the mark being seen the while time (strobing of course), instead the mark would disappear).

What would be some causes for this? I highly suspect its my timing light and it might be picking up scatter. Would better plug wires help (I currently have Bosch wires).

Sat Jun 01, 2013 11:07 pm

if the light is inductive turn the pickup so that it faces the other way. Sometimes that makes a difference. Also lights will do that when they go bad. But if it is a miss for real then you have an ignition issue and you should feel it in the tailpipe too. It should have showed up as high HC in the smog test although the new cat could have hidden it.

Mon Jun 06, 2016 6:29 pm

I got the same issue that you have. Today I failed the smog test because of hi HC. I have the same missing mark issue when I do the timing adjustment. I overlooked it but I guess that causes the hi HC problem because it did not burn the gas in that cycle. My one disappears one out of 5 lights.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6...;start=180

Mon Jun 06, 2016 7:26 pm

Hi HC can be misfire for any reason from mechanical to electrical to mixture. It can be cause by a vacuum leak and too lean a mixture as well. Without seeing the full test results it is hard to make any suggestions.

Mon Jun 06, 2016 10:17 pm

I took my bus to a local shop who also does smog. After they adjusted the timing and changed the battery my bus passed. They said they didn't find any vacuum leaks either so.

It passed and hopefully I'll fix my oil leak before I'm due for the next smog test:(

Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:11 am

ivwshane wrote: I took my bus to a local shop who also does smog. After they adjusted the timing and changed the battery my bus passed. They said they didn't find any vacuum leaks either so.

It passed and hopefully I'll fix my oil leak before I'm due for the next smog test:(

read the post before mine by jung. :)