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I keep giving Dad a hard time about his lack of posting. He keeps saying he's going to, but I know he's pretty busy with the end of the school year coming up and all. I'm sure once summer comes he'll be out-pacing me with updates here, right Dad?

Now it's time to stop for a moment getting my Robert Pirsig on, cut with the chautauqua crap and talk about the latest work I've done on the Ghia.

Last night I got my new parts order in from Cip1: a pair of valve cover gaskets, a new distributor clamp, new spark plug wires and an electronic ignition. I have yet to adjust the valves in the Ghia, but they're due for it as the last time was in October when Quality Coaches did it. Apparently they should be adjusted every time the oil is changed, but there's some disagreement among the VW community about that. Most do agree, though, that they need to be at least checked every 3,000 miles for proper clearance.

The original distributor clamp I had was actually bent out of shape, making it difficult to get a socket over the nut to tighten and loosen it and then making it impossible to tighten the distributor down sufficiently. My timing would be way too retarded, about 15* ATDC within only 100 miles or so. A new clamp was only $2.50, although you can get a billet clamp for $15 that isn't as prone to bending out of shape. I'll see how the stock chrome clamp checks out over time, though.

I have yet to install the new plugs. They're stock except for the pretty, yellow color. My current ones are probably OK but they just look old and at least one of them has a cracked boot where it attaches to the distributor. I've got the black tape solution around that boot for now but knew I needed new plugs ever since I did that. Only $10.

Of course, the real jewel of the parts order was my electronic ignition. You can really go all-out and get a high-capacity coil, electronic ignition, expensive wires and plugs and spend $150 or so. But, I went with the most basic replacement for my points and condenser for $40. The traditional point breaker/condenser system is electrical, so at first I wasn't sure what people meant by saying they upgraded to electronic ignition and why it was so great.

Basically, point breakers are just two little connectors that open and close as the distributor cam pushes on the arm. This triggers the coil to send a jolt to the distributor every time the rotor points to a new cylinder. The real problem with this system is the distributor cam rubbing against the point breaker arm. All that rubbing over time wears things out and you have to constantly re-adjust your point gap to get a good spark.

I'd been doing that and even purchased new points for only $3 but then noticed that when I reved the motor my dwell angle went from a good 44* to about 39-38*. That meant the point gap was expanding when I reved which meant the distributor shaft was a little worn and creating an erratic point gap. One solution would be to rebuild the distributor, get new bushings and all that and then you'd get a steadier point gap.

But, for a few extra bucks I was able to skip an all-out distributor rebuild and basically never have to worry about points again. It's pretty slick how it works. Instead of a condenser attached to the outside of the distributor you've got a sensor on the inside doing the condensing and sending the signal to the coil. Over that sensor you put this disc with 4 magnets on it. The sensor is triggered by the magnets as they rotate around the distributor.

So, it works more-or-less just like a modern bicycle speedometer which has a magnet you attach to the spokes and a sensor you attach to the fork. When I put the strobe on the pulley to time it I was amazed at how rock-steady the timing mark was compared to before. I never thought it wasn't steady before, but now I see that it was jumping around by .5* here and there. The little white notch on the front of the pulley used to appear blurry under the strobe but now it looks like the pulley's not even moving.

That is, I was able to time it once I got unconfused by the difference between the #1 and #15 ports on the coil. The old condenser had one wire connecting it to the #1 port but nothing else connected to the coil. The new sensor had two wires: red to #15 and black to #1. I had them flipped at first and the motor would not start. I could tell right away something was wrong because I didn't even hear a slight sputter meaning a spark actually happened and ignited a fuel/air mixture. So, I verified the ports, flipped them around and got better results. I did have to do a hit-and-miss job of getting the timing close at first to get the motor started.

I drove it around last night and didn't notice any difference in performance and that's expected. The real benefit can be a 10-15% increase in MPG, though, and longer spark plug life. Overall, just a more dependable system. I'm off now to finally replace the wires.

Abhorring a Blank Canvas

Reese and I drew up a budget a month back to finally get a handle on our rampant spending. Among the items, of course, was money spent on the Ghia for non-essential repairs.

I can bend the rules a bit and divert entertainment money or eating out money to Ghia parts. That just means fewer trips to Subway for lunch, fewer movies out or beers with the boys.

But, even before then I've been doing my best not to just throw money at any Ghia problem that comes along. I've stuck quite well to my self-imposed mandate to never take it to a mechanic except for oil changes. There's nothing wrong with paying VW Man $15 in labor charges for such a thankless DIY task.

It started with being told that I needed a whole new carburetor and distributor back in October by VW Man. I took his advice at face value and started pricing carburetors and distributors. Then, I determined that for just a little extra money I could get a perfectly acceptable set of dual carburetors. I'm already dedicated to spending $250-$300 for one new carburetor and distributor, what's an extra $100 when you're spending that kind of money, right?

Well, then the snow fell and that saved me a lot of money. I put Ghia projects aside and went skiing. In January I revisited the carburetor and distributor problem and decided to just rebuild them both and see what happens, spending less than $10 on a carburetor rebuild kit. The experiment worked and the distributor ended up not being a problem once the carburetor was cleaned out enough to send a vacuum signal.

So, I'd gone from believing I was quite rational in spending $400 on my car to only $9+shipping to actually fix the problem.

Amazing what you can accomplish when you put limits on yourself. I've always been like that. Read through the archives here and you'll find pictures of the Ghia chassis I made out of Legos. Those were really about the only toys I had as a kid. When all my friends had Transformers that changed from cars or radios into robots I just built my own Transformers out of my junkyard of plastic beams, gears and axles.

In college I studied English and Mass Communications, a general writing degree. Whenever I had to take a poetry writing class I did far better with a rigidly formatted, Shakespearean sonnet than more modern, free-form poetry. When I got into HTML and Web design I steered away from user-friendly, graphical Web page editors and did everything in raw code. Creativity flowed much better when I had boundaries.

Give me a blank page and say "Make something creative" and I'll be stuck, looking into a void. Give me a 10 page piece of writing full of red marks and comments on how to make it better and I can work miracles.

Now it seems the same is true for mechanics. Dirt Rag, a mountain bike magazine, recently said that 2006 is going to be the year of the 29'' mountain bike. Most mountain bikes have 26'' wheels, but in recent years companies have been coming out with their next big thing: an extra three inches of wheel.

Among the various models that have 29'' wheels in the front and back, Trek has come out with a "69er," which has a 29'' wheel only in the front with a traditional 26'' wheel in the back. This sparked something in me and I've been eyeing up my 1999 Specialized Rockhopper frame for a suspension-corrected, 26'' front fork with disc brake mounts that will have enough clearance for a 29'' wheel. The rest of the frame is too small to put a 29'' wheel in the back.

Again, I could just buy a whole new 29'' bike and be done with it, but the wife and I are on a budget. I am a grown up, of course, and I could very easily say "To hell with the budget!" But, I would honestly much rather just piece together an old frame and make something all my own.

The point isn't "I want it, so I'll buy it." The point is "I want to make it, and as a side-effect I'll have it."

Root Causes

I love cars. Why would I bother spending so much free time fixing up a 34-year-old car when my (currently) childless wife and I already have two perfectly good, newer cars unless I had a passion for cars?

Some of my more conservative friends give me a hard time for this because I also own 8 bicycles, am pro mass transit and anti suburban sprawl/car culture. Many of these friends are also car fans, usually American muscle cars, but seem to think that means buying into everything car-related. Suburbs, more and more highways, cheap gas and all that should therefore be good if you love cars.

It's flawed logic at best. I have a passion for cars and enjoy driving. I don't like sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway. An open road with few other vehicles is the ideal, is it not? Not only that, but an open road with great scenery all around you is another part of the idyllic picture. Nobody likes choking on the exhaust of thousands of other vehicles all going 5mph only to see billboards, cookie-cutter housing developments and big sound walls to protect the ears of residents living next to the freeway.

This is why I'm pro mass transit and pro bike commuting. Some of my liberal friends have bikes they ride year-round to get to work, even here in Minnesota where it can get into the double digits below zero in winter. They have stickers on their bikes like "one less car" and are considered die hard, anti-car culture activists by some.

If people were thinking, muscle car fans and year-round bike commuters would join forces. When it comes right down to it they both want the same thing: fewer cars on the roads and more room for them to enjoy their pastimes. But, both are afraid of admitting to this similarity because they don't want to be grouped together with "those people."

There's so much they agree on. From both groups I've heard complaints about bad drivers. Usually, bad or dangerous drivers are not picked on for being overly-aggressive. The worst sin is inattentiveness. Yeah, you got it: they're yakking on the cell phone.

If cell phone drivers aren't taking up the left lane and blocking faster traffic they're unwittingly endangering you on your bike because they're not paying attention. Every now and then they actually do cause harm to bikers for this very reason.

So, of course, everyone talks of legislation to outlaw cell phone use while driving or at least to increase penalties for drivers involved in accidents who were talking on the cell phone at the time. It's a band-aid fix, to evoke the cliché. The root of the problem, I believe, is the car culture itself.

The Minneapolis/St. Paul metro is one of the most spread-out major metropolitan areas in the country. Some figures have us rivaling LA in traffic congestion. We have a bus system constantly getting its funding cut and only one rail line. More rail lines are proposed, but the whole area is at a tipping point between finally getting its act together with mass transit or surpassing places like LA with a massive freeway infrastructure.

The result for many is a long commute by car. I worked with people whose normal commute was just over an hour one-way. If the weather's bad that commute would get stretched-out to over three hours or almost four. On days like that if they worked eight hours they only have enough time at home to get something to eat and go to sleep. One guy said his kids missed him as if he weren't living at home.

It's no wonder people talk on their cell phones, eat and even read in their cars. They're spending a significant part of their lives sitting in a car, and they're usually miserable during that time.

Why would anybody want this to continue? Even better question: why would anyone want this situation to get worse? Americans love their cars, so why would we want more sprawl, more freeways, more cars and more congestion when that has nothing to do with the enjoyment of driving?

That's what's been lost. For the most part people don't enjoy driving anymore. They can't because there's no room to enjoy it when you're always stuck in traffic. The pleasurable drive is an endangered species because in lieu of an efficient mass transit system cars are taking up the slack by packing themselves into as tight of a space as they can on the freeways. Many of these are single-occupancy and more and more of those are large SUVs.

Again, though, people misdirect their efforts and try to fix the surface issues rather than the root causes. Being anti-SUV doesn't get you anywhere. If you replaced all the SUVs with Civics congestion would still be just as bad. When you consider the following distance most people are comfortable with even at 5 mph the difference in size between an H2 and a Geo is insignificant. The H2 just has more cup holders.

Then I start to notice something about this cool little 34-year-old VW of mine. It has no cup holders. It doesn't even have a cigarette lighter or ash tray so I can't plug in a cell phone charger. I could buy an after-market center console with cup holders and more storage space if I really wanted, but that wouldn't be very historically accurate.

This was a car made for car lovers. It was made for people who just wanted to drive it and enjoy that experience. You shouldn't be drinking a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew, smoking a cigarette and chatting up a storm on your Nokia in this car. You should have both hands on the wheel, both feet on the pedals and very briefly move your right hand from the wheel to the stick to shift gears. Your whole body needs to be connected to this car and as aware of it as possible as if it were an exercise in Zen.

Then, once you're done enjoying it, you should park it in the garage, hop on the bike and make your way to the light-rail station so you're not late for work.

Brotherhood of the Boxer?

I've started a couple of threads at two car forums. One at the Ultimate Subaru Message Board:

http://www.ultimatesubaru.net/forum/showthread.php?t=56044

The other is at TheSamba.com:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=165194

I've posed the question in each: are fans of old, air-cooled VWs also Subaru fans? Not too many responses so far on TheSamba.com, but it looks like several on the Subaru forums chimed in almost surprised at themselves in a "I thought I was the only one!" way.

One guy listed all the old VWs and Porsches he's owned and showed a telltale picture of his boxer engine fixation:



Another guy asked if it had to be old VWs and Porsches or if it was just about the boxer (flat-4) engine. He currently has a Subaru but owns 4 Corvairs.

I thought of this after seeing more than a few photos on both sites showing people's Subarus with old VWs in the background or people's old VWs with Subarus in the background. Not sure what it is about the boxer motor that hooks people like this.

Is it nothing more than wanting to be different? Is it the unmistakable, throaty rumble? Maybe it's because cars with boxer motors tend to be not just solid and reliable but simple? I've started realizing that last one about my '97 Subaru Impreza Outback.

I asked around on the Subaru forums about what would be the ideal, used Subaru to own for ease of maintenance, thinking something in a mid-80s model would be the answer. What I found was people recommending I hold onto my '97 model because it's in good shape and really not that complex.

My assumption about newer Subarus came from what I know about newer VWs. Seems to me that VW lost its way a long time ago. A friend of mine calls them "The people's BMW" in reference to how pricey and upscale they've gotten in the last decade or so.

Beyond losing their simplicity and economy, new VWs have also tarnished a once venerable reputation of quality and reliability. Another friend of mine owned a 2001 Golf GTI and actually tried to get it classified as a lemon. Key welds in the frame were missing, the turn signal relay was replaced yearly and he was stranded in Rapid City, SD for a couple days when a coil crapped out on him. Those are just the highlights. There was always something wrong with his brand new VW.

His and my faith in VW as a reliable, good car was shaken. He loved the car otherwise: lots of power and great handling. But, his frustrations with reliability lead him to dump the car on his soon-to-be ex-wife and buy a used, 1990 Honda Prelude. After two years he hasn't had an issue with the Honda.

Naturally, I assumed Subaru at some point started making the same mistakes as VW. Therefore, though my Impreza is far more reliable than a 2001 GTI, doing my own work on it would be folly because over time Subaru's no doubt added a bunch of complicated junk classified as "refinements." In reality, it's just more stuff to go wrong.

Not so! Look under the hood of a brand new Subaru and you see hoses, wires, belts and all kinds of "ugly" parts just out in the open. My friend with the GTI commented on this once "Man, why couldn't they do something to make the engine compartment look better?" His GTI had this big plastic cover over everything with fancy-looking badges advertising "1.8L Turbo" and "16 Valves."

That's great, but if you've already bought the car you know how much engine displacement it's got, whether it's turbocharged and how many valves service the pistons. Why do you still need the advertisement when it's just getting in your way if you want to do repairs? The ultimate irony, of course, is the car in most need of constant repair is the one with the big, fancy piece of plastic getting in the way. The Subaru's engine bay makes everything easily-accessible for work; not that you'd actually need to do any work.

So, that's at least part of the puzzle and the reason so many old VW fans are also Subaru fans. Not only are the engine's pistons pointed in the same direction, but so is the spirit of simplicity and reliability.