1977 Fuel Injected Standard Project Page

[busdaddy]

[dopeboat]

[busdaddy]

8 thou. difference in valve heights isn't much to be concerned over (yet), and did whoever did the valve grind put in the extra effort to make them all even in the first place?, casually monitor it over the summer if you get the time and track the change (if any).
The difference in adjuster tip profile is interesting, if it's changing that's likely where your clearance is coming from, if the cylinder bases and head joints are clean then let's call the adjusters the #1 suspect. I have never seen anything regarding push rod orientation, the knurled stripes seem to go either way.

Any idea what brand your muffler is?, some aftermarket ones from long ago have different sounds, it could just be a lack of a baffle in that Midas economy special unit.
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[Root_Werks]

At this point, I'd consider swapping out pushrods. It'd be a decent test.
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When I set my timing, why do I flush, then take a pee?

[dopeboat]

My muffler just says “TESH” on it, no idea if it’s the stock unit or not. It’s not super duper rusty so I’m guessing not. Didn’t even think about the possibility someone had slapped a crappy muffler on it.

I went looking for my old adjusters and discovered I’d thrown them away. 45 minutes later, magnet fishing in my dumpster, I had all 8. They definitely sound different than the newer adjusters, but time will tell.

However, my new temp sender arrived. Installed and plugged in, I started the car and went for a drive, expecting temps to shoot up quickly, given I also have my thermostat adjusted to flaps full closed at cold. And I got…..basically the same results. Maybe 140 after driving 30 minutes. Hard to tell if that’s a real delta or not, because we’re having a bit of a heatwave right now in New England. My next step will be to try a different gauge, as I ended up with two identical ones through an annoying twist of fate with JEGS. Then I’ll pull the sender and put it in some hot water to see if it reads right. The reason I’m not jumping on pulling the sender is that the oil wastage is getting seriously ridiculous.

I’m tempted to swap pushrods as Root suggests but I don’t have any laying around. Also if the oil temp is truly only 140, I’d bet the pushrods are fine.
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'77 FI Bahama Blue Type 1

[busdaddy]

Clean engine and clean pan means you can re use the oil you drain.
140 is a little low, 180 would be more like it after 1/2 hour of driving, test that sender. Also if it's in the drain plug it's really 160 at the pump since all of my testing showed a 20 degree difference at the sump plate.

Your muffler sounds like an off brand, some are good, others may be louder, if it's solid leave it alone.
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[Root_Werks]

My thought with swapping pushrods was to test and see if swapping out just two on one cylinder made a difference. Used ones can be had fairly cheap:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2429736

Are there different grades of aluminum push rods? Ones that might act more like chromoly push rods? That's what your current pushrods are behaving like.
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When I set my timing, why do I flush, then take a pee?

[dopeboat]

Hello all! Yes, I'm still alive - somehow. Now that spring has sprung in Maine, I'm back at the beetle with a vengeance.

Right now I have a few main concerns I'll be looking to address over the next month or so:

1) Clutch adjustment - This beetle now has a brand new clutch, pressure plate, clutch cable, and TO bearing. The pedal, when properly adjusted for free play at the wingnut, grabs EXTREMELY high on the pedal stroke, like 1-2" from the top of the stroke. There's a litany of threads out there concerning free play, but not so many concerning where the friction zone sits on the pedal stroke. At this stage I'm worried about overextending the arms on the pressure plate with how far the pedal goes after the clutch is already disengaged. I believe it's general knowledge that when a car gets a new clutch, it grabs low on the pedal stroke. That may only be for hydraulic clutches, though, so I'm not sure. What I know is that if I adjust the wingnut on the transmission arm to put the friction zone closer to the firewall on the pedal stroke, the clutch pedal is flopping about for basically 3/4 of the stroke, and I'm worried it'd actually be loose enough to drop the cable inside the tunnel. Having once had a slave cylinder go out while driving an old Cherokee in stop-and-go traffic, suddenly not having a clutch is not an experience I wish to repeat. I'm looking for photos of the engine and transmission before I put them back in the car, which I thought I had plenty of, though it seems I got excited towards the end of the process and stopped documenting everything well. From the few photos I do have, everything looks right, though I'm certainly open to hearing that the only thing which could cause my situation is that I installed the TO bearing backwards or didn't charge the new flux capacitor before reinstalling.

2) Oil temps - Still a nagging sight in the corner of my eye is my oil temp gauge, currently reading 120F after 30 minutes of driving. With local daytime temps averaging in the 50's, this seems very low to me. The gauge and sender have both been replaced, and the sender is in the drain plug location. As I ran the wires for oil temp and pressure right next to each other, and it's a circuitous route from the engine up to the dashboard, I'm wondering if the oil temp wire is seeing some kind of induced voltage along its route which is affecting the final readout. When rebuilding this engine, I did add a hoover bit. Is it possible I've increased the effectiveness of the oil cooler TOO much, and now it just can't even get up to temp? I'm also still running my thermostat, which seems to be doing what it's meant to, so I'm just perplexed. Either the oil is actually up to temp, and the temp sensing system isn't working right, or the oil is really that cold, and the cooling system is somehow working too well. Either way I've reached the end of my knowledge on how to troubleshoot it.

3) Sticky Accelerator - My gas pedal is sticky at the top of its stroke, as in it takes more force to press than it should, and then it moves very quickly! This makes the accelerator behavior unpredictable and can lead to embarrassing low-speed maneuver situations. I've pulled the pedal assembly, replaced the roller, pin, accelerator cable, greased the throttle assembly, nothing seems to do it. It's just not as smooth as it should be. One thing I haven't replaced, and I can't seem to find the part to replace it with, is the accelerator bowden tube between the chassis and fan shroud, and the one that's on the car has a break in it. I would naturally assume that's the issue, but I've shored it up in a way that it should not affect the cable or guide tube inside. I would like to replace it, but it's a specific part for the late model F.I. cars and nobody seems to have it. I've ordered what some salesperson thought was the correct part before, and found that it either didn't fit over the tube on the chassis, or over the tube that comes through the fan shroud, so I'm perplexed. Looking at the throttle body, the way the linkage works seems counter-intuitive to me. When the throttle is closed, the angle between the linkage arm and the direction of pull on the cable is very low, thus it does not present significant mechanical advantage to be able to easily open the throttle a LITTLE. In a perfect design, in my opinion, the throttle cable would initially pull at 90 degrees to the linkage arm, in order to present maximum mechanical advantage to precisely modulate the throttle at low throttle positions, then mechanical advantage would decrease as the throttle opens more and more. Just a thought.
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'77 FI Bahama Blue Type 1

[busdaddy]

Set up the clutch however you like it, as long as there's around an inch of looser feeling pedal before you start to encounter resistance it's good.

The oil temps sound a bit odd, you do have a thermostat and flaps in the cooling shroud, right? What weight oil are you running?
A $20 laser thermometer gun pointed at numerous places on the engine will confirm or debunk your temp gauges readings, generally the drain plug reads 20 degrees low, but it would be better to get to 180 or higher. You'll find yourself using the laser gun on everything, not just car stuff.

The sticky throttle is usually a worn throttle body, Bill was rebuilding them a while ago, maybe he still does? https://www.sparxwerks.com/
I had a Honda that got named Lurch for it's sticky throttle, I tried every lube known to man in the throttle cable sleeve, none helped until I washed it all out and went with spray graphite (the stuff that dries up), the difference was night and day, can't hurt to try some.
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[dopeboat]

[busdaddy]

Oil temp is most reliable when measured on the RH side of the oil pump on the pickup tube gallery.

The TB shaft doesn't wear, the butterfly digs in to the sides of the inlet bore and binds.
_________________
Rust NEVER sleeps and stock never goes out of style.

Please don't PM technical questions, ask your problem in public so everyone can play along. If you think it's too stupid post it here
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[dopeboat]

Put the beetle up on the lift today to take a peek at a few things. First up was the clutch free play. I adjusted the wingnut waaaaay back off from where I had it, the clutch now grabs almost all the way at the bottom of the pedal stroke. Free play adjustment be damned.

I also dug into the throttle body a little to try and diagnose what was causing my sticky throttle. I found that the lower pivot arm assembly for the linkage (kind of an intermediate linkage bolted separately onto the intake) has quite a bit of wear on it, almost to where it wants to be sleeved. I was at first convinced this was where the binding was coming from. Then I removed the throttle body itself and found that, while a little dirty inside, there isn’t a ton of wear on the casting in way of the butterfly, at least not in a way that would cause it to bind up. I then discovered that some ignoramus (possibly me) had backed the throttle stop screw out far enough that it wasn’t even touching the stop when the throttle was closed. This allowed the butterfly to basically jam itself shut in the throat of the throttle when the accelerator is released. I adjusted that screw in to where it JUST doesn’t allow the butterfly to jam, but still allows full closure of the butterfly. Reassembled everything, and what do you know. Gas pedal glides like a dream right from idle. Of course this is pretty typical for me, to put the effort into disassembling something just to find out afterwards the issue could have been fixed by turning an easily accessible screw.

The idle had been sounding a little high to me for a while, so I adjusted the idle down to right about 920 with the bypass screw on the side of the throttle body.

I also broke out the borescope in hopes of confirming my flaps are actually fully closed, and was able to confirm absolutely nothing. I’m having a hard time finding a place to snake the camera into that will give me a view of the flaps. Definitely open to suggestions.

I’m also experiencing a glowing generator light, regardless of rpm. The glow gets brighter if I turn the headlights on or shift into reverse. Measuring output right at the alternator, I’m about 14.4v. Measuring voltage at the fuse box, engine running, about 12.6v. Womp womp. So I’m dropping two volts between the alternator and fuse box. Open to ideas on where to start. Grounds (including transaxle strap) are clean.

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'77 FI Bahama Blue Type 1

[busdaddy]

Good work on the TB!
The flap position is observed by looking at the levers and links on the front side of the shroud, or feeling around there using braille. To the right when closed and left when open IIRC.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=705328&highlight=works+thermostat

The fat red wire connection at the starter could be part of the glowing light issue, after that it's fuse box terminals that contribute to the drop.
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Rust NEVER sleeps and stock never goes out of style.

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[dopeboat]

Complete departure from previous topics, I've decided to take on the punishment of fabricating my own headliner, and I'm looking to source some black windlace for the b-pillars. I'll have to sew it to my headliner material myself, not a problem, but for the life of me I can't seem to find anything but the white stuff at the usual suppliers. Check out this WCM listing:

https://www.westcoastmetric.com/i-22965116-windlac...CBULuK3u-z

My car has the white on it now, but with the new interior colors I'll be doing, the white will make no sense, so I'd really like some black stuff. Does anybody have a good lead on where I can get something like this? These suppliers must get the stuff from a plastics manufacturer, there's no way they're making it themselves, which suggests that somewhere some plastic manufacturer has a die for the stuff, which would in turn suggest that they occasionally push different colored plastics through said die, which would suggest...
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'77 FI Bahama Blue Type 1