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Mon Oct 08, 2018 7:54 pm

My wife and our 3 kids and one small dog and I driving our 1974 Weekender Bay down the Chilcotin plateau in beautiful but freezing British Columbia one December night.
I'm watching the gauge and figure with a slow and steady pace I'll make it to the last gas station before we head into our valley some 40 Kms. ahead. My kids are all cosy in the bed with sleeping bags. I have the gas heater on and Johnny Cash was on the cassette.
All was good until we get to the closed gas station.
We stopped and I shook the bus and could hear the gas sloshing around.

What the heck and shut off the gas heater and headed off going slow and steady. We went maybe 25 kms. and ran out of gas in a snow storm. I managed it pull off the road and the wife climbed in the back with the kids and while I sat up front wrapped in a space blanket with the dog beside me.

Maybe 30 minutes later I spot headlights in my mirror so I turned on my 4 way flashers. They stop ,2 Old friends from the valley. They were a bit cut and I noticed empty booze bottles fall out when they opened the doors.

I asked "Do you have any extra gas" they replied "look in the back of the truck". There were 5 Red 5 gallon Jerry cans- help your self he said - I grabbed the first one and poured it in my Bus.
They took off ahead of us -- about half way down the switch backs on the road into our valley they stopped and said they were out of gas.
OK I think they have 4 more 5 gallon jerry cans.
The jugs were all empty they gave us their last jug.
We pushed the truck off the road ( in a snow storm).

They got in with us and off we went.

The snow changed into thick fog at the bottom of the hill.
Still in the thick fog I turned off to the dirt road where their friends lived and had to do some fancy driving when we came upon 6 horses sleeping in the middle of the road on a blind corner.
I dropped them off after midnight and headed home. Passing the horses again.

Next day I met up with the 2 guys again and drove back up the hill with gas for them.
Must be a lesson in there somewhere
Hank

Mon Oct 08, 2018 10:05 pm

Maybe if you have 5 cans make sure 2 are full?

I thought it was weird they had 5 cans in the first place

Tue Oct 09, 2018 9:34 am

They had a damaged gas tank and a NFG gauge

Tue Oct 09, 2018 1:32 pm

"Ran out" only once during 1970 with my 61 Beetle (made w/o a gas gauge) while driving to college in East Tennessee from NJ near Winchester, VA while "cruising"I-81.

Pretty sure I had plenty of gas, but could not get it restarted. Had it towed to a local Texaco station and the guy puts in a new fuel pump. By the time he finishes it was too late to keep driving so a friend and I get a motel room for something like $8 per night.

Get on the road the next morning and it dies again. So we get it to a local VW dealer and he determines that the primary intake was blocked in the tank and just told me to run the gas through the reserve tank. He also checked and set the timing and charged me something like $1.50 for his troubles.

I ran the car on the reserve tank for the rest of its life, which was rather short, having blown the second engine about three years later on a bitterly cold day in NY City.

Looking back at that car, I really tempted death. Wholly underpowered with tiny, 6V taillights and re-capped tires all around. No seatbelts and virtually no heat. Eighteen wheelers would pass me going up hills on I-81 US-11 in the middle of the night.

But it did help me to sail. In strong crosswinds I learned to tack back and forth my chosen lanes.

Sun Nov 11, 2018 8:05 am

Grandfathers, now mine, 61 vert.
My mom using it for a daily 160 mile round trip.

Mom calls, saying that she is,out of gas.
Dad explains how,to use the reserve.
She,argues that she understands the reserve lever concept.

So dad and i load fuel, and drive 80 miles to meet her.
The reserve lever is on reserve.

Once home, we pull the tank and the fuel valve.
The tall fuel pipe had broken off, making the main tank a run to dry reserve.

And 45 years later, my mom still remind us that she was right.

Tue May 21, 2019 10:26 am

I never ran out of gas in my type 3's, the gauges always worked. but that damn 71 I had.... once you were at 3/4" tank the guage stopped working. I kept a gas can in the can at all times, living in a windy area sometimes you used more fuel than you thought you would , sure enough , always on the drive home usually in the same area , boom.... sputter sputter dead. no fuel, put the 2.5 gallons in and back on the road.
only ran out of fuel once in my el camino... and it was when I first got to Nevada.