Bosch 034 Controversy.

[Tim Donahoe]

Xevin, you’re preaching to the choir. These guys are fluent—older—VW folks. They just have this weird aversion to 034’s. They don’t give a reason for their opinions, but I assume it has to do with finding a blown engine or two with an inoperative, or aftermarket 034, or one that wasn’t timed correctly. Who knows? They merely state their aversion and say it happens.

My purpose of starting this thread was to see if others had run into properly timed, but over advancing Bosch 034-caused blown motors. As I suspected, none of those replying here have ever heard of this occurring. I wanted to take this information back to my friend in order to settle his nerves a bit.

His Ghia has a strong engine, but he doesn’t have the proper carburetor/distributor. Hes currently running a 34 pict 3 with a German 09. He’s tried all kinds of differences, and admitted when I loaned him my spare Bosch 034 that the engine ran much better. Yet, he’s getting these other opinions and they’re confusing him.

Hopefully, I can eventually get him to bite the bullet and get the proper combination, regardless of what his gurus have been preaching to him.

And, Glenn, I’m sure that vendor is selling Chinese 09’s.

Tim
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Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[Xevin]

That’s the problem. A lot of mechanics in the 70s replaced OEM with OEM. Then the 80s rolled around and the fix was a 009. Which worked......kinda. Don’t get me started on a H30/31 carb replacement look it was a cheap fix in the day. And it works. But now us old fucks want buttery smooth OG stuff. Thank goodness we have Glenn, Tsab, Bill, Tim, and Nathan restoring the proper pieces for stock performance.

You passing out full size candy bars this Halloween?
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Keep on Busin'

[Tim Donahoe]

X 2. Amen.

Tim
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Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[wcfvw69]

[Glenn]

[Xevin]

[modok]

What happens if you connect it to a 32pict?

[Tim Donahoe]

Thanks, Bill. You gave good information that I can use the next time I talk to my Ghia friend.

P.s. This is the same guy that I tried to convince to buy one of your restored 034’s awhile back. Maybe now that I’m armed with some figures, he’ll begin listening to reason.

Tim
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Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[ashman40]

[Tim Donahoe]

The adventure continues:

My Ghia friend called again to ask if I’d come over and reinstall my restored German Bosch 034 in his car, to test it out again with his 34 pict 3 carburetor. I said okay, and when I got to his house, he had installed a 30 pict 3, 31 pict whatever (not an H 30/31)—I didn’t really pay attention to what it was, since it wasn’t a 34 pict 3, like I expected.

The German 009 was also still in the car. Hm? Why was I there? I told him there was no reason to install my 034 and conduct the test because he’d changed the carb from the 34 pict 3 to another type carburetor. He said that was okay, because he had another test in mind.

He wanted to advance his 009 to 32 degrees at 3000 rpm’s, and see if the car ran better. Apparently, it was only advanced to 28 degrees by one of his 009 adherent friends. All right. 4 degrees can make a difference, right?

Actually, it did. He advanced the distributor to 32 full advance and tightened the distributor clamp nut. We got in the Ghia, and the motor ran fine. No dead spot, nice acceleration.

There you go.

Now for a little FYI that’s off topic; although, if you’re having fuel gauge issues, it may be worth the diversion.

Recently, my gas gauge was only showing a little over half full with a full tank. A few years ago (and not with that many miles on the car since), I had replaced the gauge, the vibrator, as well as a new, $115.00 VDO sender. However, in the last few months, my gauge has steadily shown less than full, going to 3/4 when full, then, eventually, to a little past 1/2 when full.

Since I had someone to help, I pulled the the yellow power wire off my sender, attached a jumper wire with alligator clips to the sender wire, handed the opposite end of the jumper to my friend, and told him to touch a nearby ground screw when I gave him the signal.

I went around and started the car, gave the signal, and he grounded the sender wire. To my dismay, the gauge went almost all the way over to full. Great, I said. This test showed that the gauge was good. This also meant that the expensive sender with very few miles on it was the culprit.

I turned off my engine, reattached the yellow power sender wire to the sender, restarted the car and left for home. A city block later, I looked down and noticed my gas gauge move over to almost full (I had filled the tank a few days before and put some miles on the car since, so almost full meant accurate). When I got home, I turned off the engine, let it sit until the gauge returned to empty, then restarted the engine. The fuel gauge moved to almost full again.

Hooray! The sender was sunndenly accurate again. The only thing I could figure was that the connection at the sender was a bit corroded, and removing and reinstalling the spade connection had scraped up the connection surfaces enough to allow the proper amount of voltage.

This little miracle made my day—especially since it’s damn near impossible to find another N.O.S. VDO sender; not to mention that with a Super, you have to move the fuel tank back a few inches. Not a fun way to spend my time, since I’ve already do this a few times in the past, and I hate to redo what I’ve done.

I’m sure, my Ghia friend was just as happy with his achievement.

It’s nice when shit works out!

Tim
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Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[Deebs]

[Glenn]

[Deebs]

[ashman40]

Depending on the model year some senders have only a single wire that runs between the sender and to the fuel gauge. These can benefit from a dedicated ground wire.
Just use one of the sender mounting screw and run a brown ground wire to a good ground point at the dash. The normal ground for these types of senders is thru the tank body and the tank hold down bolts. Over time this path can become compromised with dirt/rust/paint.
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AshMan40
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'67 Beetle #1 {project car that never made it to the road }
'75 Beetle 1200LS (RHD Japan model) {junked due to frame rot}
'67 Beetle #2 {2019 project car - Wish me luck!}

[Glenn]

[Pruneman99]

I had one of those in my hands at a swap meet. It was cast iron or something not AL. But it was still cheap feeling. Everything just seemed a bit off. I was not impressed. I put it back down quickly.

When you pick up a cast OG distributor, you can really tell how much better quality they are. I wouldn't mess with that 009 010 wantabe.

[Glenn]