Idiot book no-no's

[morymob]

My thinking is u dooze it your way, i duz it mine! Nuff said.

[79SuperVert]

The 61-65 VW Maintenance Manual reprint by Bentley shows how to static time the engine. I follow that procedure twice a year on my stock engine.
_________________
Central Jersey VW Society

Wanted: Art Collins VW (Savannah, Georgia) items - license plate surrounds and other items. Also ivory "AM", "FM" and "SW" buttons for a US Blaupunkt Frankfurt.

[richparker]

[notchboy]

I like Cheese and Buses are cool.
_________________

[raygreenwood]

And all of these replies are precisely why I noted that that the Muir book is NOT a great one.

No one can "really" interpret what VW "exactly" meant in the manuals....when they say start the vehicle and drive immediately. There was no specific detail.

But regardless of type of VW engine, carbs, induction whatever....all of them have bearings and piston rings.

The greatest level of wear is incurred by poor oil flow on start up. The greatest level of oil contamination is created by immediate startup on a cold engine with cold start mixture enrichment....and piston rings that have not yet expanded from heat yet for best fit....but are only sealing from combustion pressure the instant you start up. Don't bother to start arguing these points as they are some of the hallmarks of the automotive industry...well proven.

By the way....the highest level of oil viscosity drop or thinning...is not created by heat (that is the second highest)....it is "shear-thinning" from being worked through the pump and having metallic parts forced through it at a high rate of speed.

What any engine needs to be safe to run....meaning oil flowing and at pressure in the bearing and the rings sealing....is for the vast majority of the oil to have made it through the pump gears at least once.....which drops the viscosity substantially. The rings only need a little heat to come up to a higher temp differential than freezing. Every car needs these things...not just VW.

So I doubt that VW meant....turn the key and IMMEDIATELY drop the clutch and start rolling.

In very cold weather with rings not fully sealed yet...it would be stupid to drive off so quick that the CSV has not stopped spraying and all of that fuel ingested...because with rings not sealed....alot of that fuel is just blowing past the rings.

All of the above comes and goes in about a minute.

Does this mean that the carbs or fuel injection are warmed up enough to drive smoothly and properly?...Uh...no. But that does not mean that driving it immediately after the oil has circulated and the rings have sealed...will hurt any of those systems or the engine.

Also....for those who do not or have not lived in climates that get below 0 like here is Iowa....your opinion does not count .

There are other reasons to warm up for juuust a little longer. In temps like this...is a very good idea to get SOME heat into rubber and plastic components attached to metal ...because if not...they CRACK quite easily.

The most alarming thing I have ever heard or felt....was last winter in my 2012 Golf....taking off to work with no warm-up...at 4:00 am at 14 below "0". The motor mounts and plastic shroud on the engine were like stone....it rattled over every bump and at every rev for about 8 miles. It cracked the corner of my air cleaner housing at the attachment points.

But much more than 5 minutes warm up is wasting fuel and doing worse because the fuel system is warming up too slowly and keeping you excessively rich for far too long.....which ends up in your oil.

And by the way...and no insults intended....but your 1776 engines, your 2052's your twin Kadrons ...etc....have no real bearing on the original question as to whether the Muir book is good for tech and has no-no's in it....because none of them are stock.

Each modified system can or will have different rules that it must live by.

And....that is the crux of my argument with the Muir book.

Both the book's author and the multitude of those who follow the books advice religiously.......do so primarily because they identify with Muir's attitude, lifestyle and the "only do whats absolutely necessary'...."dont fix it until it breaks"...........which is offered up as "THE RULES" for whats required to own and drive an ACVW........and many take them that way....and many have suffered because of them.

Most people who start with the Muir book, very quickly learn from "doing"...and from good mechanics....that the instructions provided in the Muir book are the BARE MINIMUM required to keep the car ALIVE.

If you want to be safe, have the car around for a long time and have it run better than just rolling...there is a lot more to learn. Not much of that is in the Muir book. Ray

[Bala]

[raygreenwood]

[Tcash]

Keep in mind that, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot by (John Muir) was first published in 1969.

This is for the Idiot that just flopped down their last fifty bucks for that 57 oval.
Timing lights and dwell meters where a luxury item. But everyone could afford a test light.

John Muir 1918-1977

To John Muir.
“One lives in the hope of being remembered.”
Tcash

[Wildthings]

[Tom Powell]

I let it warm up while I'm removing snow.

Aloha
tp

[Esher127]

I thought this forum was a HUGE fan of timing an engine at max advance with a timing light? (with a 009 of course)

Also, one thing Muir recommends in his book is that early bay folks use a bug muffler which I think is a TERRIBLE idea. Yeah it might breathe better, but getting a face full of exhaust anytime you try to tune the bus is awful. Not to mention the venturi trapping all the exhaust behind the bus. Mine had a bug muffler on it when I bought it.... I couldn't get rid of it fast enough.
_________________
1970 Westfalia Pop-Top

[OB Bus]

Was given my first Muir Book at age 17 in 1970. My father was a Universtiy Professor (in Education) and possessed absolutely zero mechanical skills. Tools were his nemesis.
Muir got me going working on that bug. The one story that that stuck out was not a "no-no" - it was a "yes-yes". In the Green Light section he talks about what to do with an overheated engine. After going through the trouble shooting steps he finished with "..if you have a bus - and a chick - now would be a good time to jump in the back and ball."
For a 17 year old that was close to an absolute fantasy.
Still have - and occasionally use - my second copy of the book purchased in 1972.
_________________
Larry in OB
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!
69 Westfalia and 2002 Eurovan Camper.

[Randy in Maine]

[ROCKOROD71]

[DuaneL]

[ZENVWDRIVER]

[Amskeptic]

John Muir did OK within his time frame along the arc of Volkswagen.

Remember that VWs were made by the millions upon millions during the Vacuum Only Distributor era, roughly 1960 through 1970. Every one had static timing specification, although there was nothing wrong with using a timing light at idle.
In 1971, Volkswagen reverted to centrifugal with combination retard and vacuum advance, and John Muir was confounded by "all that emission technology" which we find quaint today. A centrifugal distributor *should* be timed at maximum advance only to ensure that your engine is happy where it is working hardest. Of course you can time a centrifugal distributor at idle or statically, but why would you want to be in the dark about the critical parameters out on the road?

John Muir's sensitivity towards his target market should be treated with respect, truly, many VW owners were not springing for stroboscopic timing lights back then, and why would they with vacuum only distributors that cannot be timed stroboscopically?

His bias against technology was indeed an example of the blind leading the blind. He hated automatic chokes, rolling joints while the engine warmed up helped to ensure that he could not wrap his mind around how the technology worked in concert with the air preheater/heat riser/ thermostat.

I follow the owner's manual recommendations because I do have the full complement of functional original engineering. The engine starts immediately on the choke (foot off the clutch to save the #1 main bearing thrust surfaces!) and I drive away within 30 seconds and the engine has no driveability issues. The oil is clean, the car is a joy.

IF you are missing the original cold running engineering, then you do have to make allowances for your engine's cold-blooded lack of driveability, and it IS your responsibility to stay off the roads until you know your vehicle can clear intersections and railroad crossings without drama.
Colin

(Ray Greenwood, I was thoroughly entertained by your discussion of shear forces changing the viscosity of oil within one circulation of the pump)
_________________
www.itinerant-air-cooled.com

[DuaneL]

John Muir (1918–1977) was an aerospace engineer who worked for Lockheed so yeah he probably could not wrap his mind around how the technology worked in concert with the air preheater/heat riser/ thermostat. But he did know how to keep a V.W. running with out spending tons of money for the time his book was very good and a lot of things being done to V.W.s in the 70s and 80s by people with lots of experience in the field is now considered wrong my belief is as long as you are not anal about wanting every thing to factory specs his book is very good and if chokes are so important why do most dual carb set ups and some single carb setups such as the weber idf not use them?
_________________
____________
1971 std bug, 1776, ACN Super Stock 34-3, dvda dist, 27x8.50 14 tires

[raygreenwood]

Actually what I stated has nothing to do with whether the oil "lubricates" fine or not....which is what SAE was testing for.....they were not testing cold flow properties within specific engines and between specific parts. That fact I noted..... has nothing to do with what the SAE tested. It has been well established by virtually every car manufacturer that cold thick oil does not readily flow into the spaces it needs to very well especially in areas like lifter bores that dont see nearly as much flow as main and rod bearings and especially in splash oiled areas like piston pins. The SAE is correct that cold oil LUBRICATES just fine.....if it reaches the parts.

The sad part of oil viscosity testing (Snd the viscosity testing of many liquids for that matter)....is that is does not take into account "tack" level of cold oil. This affects flow Far greater than the viscosity index variation.

The SAE did virtually all of their lubricity tests for oil on machines that test film strength under load and at temperatures.....not in engines. The few actual tests they have done on actual engines over the years were on a narrow spectrum of engine types.

Yes...its true excess fuel blows past the rings even during idle.....and I noted that....which is why i noted that you dont let it idle very long. Warm it up as rapidly as possible to drop the enrichment levels down asap.

Yes....the CSV stops spraying when you stop cranking.....but have you ever, measured what it puts out?..... a crap load of fuel in those seconds of cranking. And...if your engine is drawing air on all four cylinders and your spray pattern on the CSV is good....I can tell you for fact that very little of that fuel "lays" in the plenum.

Most is in the runners and on the runner walls.....but the point is the same......a crap load of fuel running you very rich along with the CHT and IAT (on injected cars).....and the choke on carbed cars that have one. You get enough fuel and moisture in your blowby to start with. Dont let it idle so long getting even more.

Water/moisture in the blowby from pistons is only one of the contaminants to oil....and not even the major one as most of it will...as you noted...evaporate when the oil reaches operating temp.
However fuel vapor and soot does not evaporate. Fuel vapor readily combines with oil....changing PH and diluting film strength and because it combines as a solvent...it is "locked" to the evaporation point of the oil.

Ray

[CrRusty]

Another Monday morning quarterback here. Lets give the dead guy just a little credit. When the book was written the cars were practically new(meaning they would be more tolerant to less accurate repairs, than todays worn out vehicles). If his book was written like a bently manual, the hippie generation would have never bought the book. Its different approach offers the novice a vast insight to how most any vehicle would operate and how to easily approach fixing one.
The guy was a genius to be able to connect to the VW owners and sell the numbers he did. He was able to compose a repair manual in a style like no one has, either before or after. He was real original, standup guy.
Just think, in 40 years from now, will the things we say here today be all relevant? Let alone write an entire book of ideas! In every book the are many inaccuracies. Especially after the passage of time.
Maybe on the cheap and easy approach he was pretty dead on.

I'd like to think everyone is proud of this guy for not only being an American interested in vws but, His grandfather was one of the key founders of the preservation movement of natural lands in the USA. ie. National parks. (John Muir).