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Tue Dec 09, 2025 2:06 pm

None of the items in this topic listed by me are for sale, please do nor ask.

Ater a bit more than twp decades of restoring Bosch and Garbe Lahmeyer distributors for VW and Porsche I have been blessed by having some rare and oddball distributors across my workbench. I've saved a few for my collection. My son Stephen and I built a display for them which I am featuring herre Besides the distributors there are a few gems like a working coil encased in a glass jar. I ran it once for 520 to Lake Havasu AZ to. CA and back, or the engine souds diagnostic cassette tape narrated by The John Muir.

Middle shelf left to right:

May 1937 F4VE4AS66. As the story goes the former owners grandfather was one of the first employees what would become VW. He salvaged this distributor from one of the VW 38 prototypes. It looks identical to ones pictured in time period photographs but the badge faces the fan shroud. It bears a Lavalette/ Bosch badge wich is in old

script

April 1942 VEK 4 BS 276 as is found on original Kubelwagens used during the war. It features the correct for the time period, raised finger distributor cap.

September 1950 VE 4 BRS 383 with its original thin coat of paint and tune up parts.

October 1953 VE 4 BRS 383 The earliest shiny badged distributor I can recall. Besides being rare it is unique in that it represents only a 23 day production run from September to October 1953. during. those 23 days Bosch experimented with an internal condenser riveted to the points plate.

April 1944 VEK 4 BS 343 T. Getting close to the end of the war with this one. The T designates that it originaly had a points dust cover and this one still has it's cover along with original paint and tune up pieces.

June 1956. VJ 4 BR BR 3 This is a very early example of a Bus distributor dated shortly after the Barndoor was superceded. It hasa tall flat cap as found on other makes like the Goliath. It has all ofits original tune up parts installed at the factory (except the cap).

Bottom Shelf:

1954 VI4 BR 8. An unusual distributor in a couple of ways. First, the badge identifiers are all individually hand stamped. The badge is stamped with an I instead of the expected J. Might simply mean that the J stamp was missing? In any case a very early Bus distributor.

This is a Garbe Lahmeyer distributor, not Bosch. It is mechanical advance only so intended for a Bus originally. There has been a suggestion’s that the green paint designates it as a military or police vehicle. 1955, March

December 1953 This VJR 4 BR 2 was factory installed on Buses for one month until January 1954. That’s 28,000 Buses from seventy-three years ago.

December 1953 This is a brother of the distributor above. The U in the badge indicates that it has a vacuum canister. This would be one of the first vacuum canister Bosch distributors for VW. This one is date stamped JIV 1953 fourth quarter. These were installed on Beetle engines.

1964-1966 113 905 205 J:The later Garbe-Lahmeyer distributors do not have any date codes on them. Being a vacuum only advance it is a more common piece except that this one is NOS. The J version narrows its production date to August 1964 through July of 1966.

Tue Dec 09, 2025 6:43 pm

Nice!

Wed Dec 10, 2025 6:47 pm

Thanks but, I’m still building this topic. It’s complicated with multiple steps and messages like “invalid session. Please resubmit” scare the heck out of me.

More to come.

Thu Dec 11, 2025 6:38 am

tasb wrote: Thanks but, I’m still building this topic. It’s complicated with multiple steps and messages like “invalid session. Please resubmit” scare the heck out of me.

More to come.

An easier way to "build" big threads with lots of pictures and nice spacing etc.....than doing it live on the Samba.

First make yourself a file in your computer document section. Fill it with all of your pictures so you have them in one place.

1. Open a word document. Name it..."TASB's museum document" :D
2. Type your document...do all of your spacing, make headers bold or larger type as needed. You are mocking it all up. Save the master copy in your file folder above.

3. I open a second word document. Go to the top bar and change the document direction to landscape and make the margins narrow.

On this word document, you copy and paste each of your photographs one at a time. Scale them smaller or larger by drqgging the corner or under view at the top bar you can change the page size you see with just a click. In Microsoft word you can insert arrows, colors sketches and captions in text boxes with background and borders set to no border or background. Just drop them under the picture you are working with or over the top of it.

You make the pictures as large as you possibly can on this page. Like full size

Then for each picture....use the snipping tool to highlight it at this real full size....and click save that to your folder.....I simply name it "1", "2", "3" etc....numbered in the order you want to use them in your document.

Then.....once the document is written....I drop in copies of each picture where I want them to appear in the document and use the cursor and mouse/track pad for scale them down to little thumbnails by dragging the corner....these are just to remind/show me the position and picture number of where they will appear next to what text.

Because you have the pictures full size but copied them as "lossless" jpeg snips.....you do not have to resize them. They are now already "small" in megapixels and load right up in the Samba.

4. When you have the document complete with qll of your type and numbered picture thumbnails.....open up the Samba to the gallery...add image. Upload the pictures from your numbered list in your file folded in the order you want to use them...10 at a time. Upload.
Then once I have done that....I copy the code for each picture and place it under that picture in my word document and then delete the little thumbnail picture. In the end the document will have no visible pictures....just my copy and picture codes.

Open up your posting page and name the post. Highlight and copy that whole word document and paste it in the new post.

Lastly go through and correct any spacing and make any type bold, larger or colored like you have on your document.....then click post.

Your complete document with nice pictures posts and opens up.

With this method you can do all of the complicated time consuming work offline on the word document and not with the Samba page opened up.

Ray

Sat Dec 13, 2025 10:17 am

Thank you for the instructions, Ray. They will be useful in the future Unfortunately, I don’t currently own a computer, just my phone.

Sat Dec 13, 2025 10:52 am

tasb wrote: Thank you for the instructions, Ray. They will be useful in the future Unfortunately, I don’t currently own a computer, just my phone.
I bought one of these for my older Smart TV that's not so smart since I can't install apps.
$85 PC
https://www.ebay.com/itm/366054125439?

$35 monitor
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267420171402?

$15 keyboard/mouse
https://www.ebay.com/itm/366031871655?

Sell one of those distributors and you'll have a computer and folding money left over.

Sat Dec 13, 2025 5:39 pm

A couple of friendly Sambanista’s have reached out and asked me to share information about some of the other items besides distributors, here goes just for fun:

I acquired this boxed set quite a few years ago. I’n some editions of this manual this diagnostic tool was advertised. It has John Muir himself narrating and the included flow chart has been quite useful over the years.

Bulb boxes apparently were a popular access back in the day. This first one is actually quite large and must have been issued during the war. The top half of the box still contains black out bulbs labeled “N”. Not that some of the bulbs have pointed glass tips.

This is an older item based on the fact that the Bosch script is in an old stylle font.

An example of an early oiling can from a time when art met function squarely.

A memento of the first VW Club that I belonged too- now defunct.

A very unique dual license plate. Issued by the Federal government and the State of California at the same time. When I worked with the U S Forest Service I conducted some maintenance on their Ford model A and was gifted this plate for my service.

A frisbee from the very first VW show of the New Milenium.

Remember when VW would poke fun at itself? A simpler time indeed.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everybody!

Sun Dec 14, 2025 2:58 am

That’s a history book on that shelf, tsb.

Thanks for sharing.

Wed Dec 24, 2025 12:31 pm

Hi tasb - please consider putting the Muir flow chart and maybe the box in the literature section. People ask for a scan of it from time to time. Ratwell has a color version he did on his site, but the originals don't seem to be out there on thesamba

EDIT - realized you might not have a scanner, so i finally found my image of the flowchart:

Thu Dec 25, 2025 4:18 pm

Yes that’s the one.

Thu Dec 25, 2025 5:12 pm

Wasn't sure if they were the same... my box is later; plastic clamshell. No 'order blank'.

i also have the 'rebuild kit' rubber band. If only it worked...

Thanks for sharing your treasures.

Thu Dec 25, 2025 5:46 pm

You want the old school Royze and not the EMPI one.