The Druckenmiller Karmann Ghia Blog

Sold! (Long time no post)

2008-10-28T09:09:00.001-07:00

I sold my Ghia this summer to a friend of mine who lives in Shanghai. It was a hard decision but we had four vehicles, a new baby, moved to a small town and one of the classic VWs had to go. I decided to keep the Bus because with Dad's Ghia we've still got at least one in the family and the Bus is actually usefull as a mountain bike support vehicle.

However, the Ghia is still in my possession. My Shanghai friend, Philippe, isn't in any rush to ship it over and just got married this summer. He's got time to figure out how/if it's feasible to ship the car to China and if he ultimately can't do it I'll help him re-sell it to someone in the US.

This whole transaction mirrors what's been going on in the US for the last few years: Chinese investors buying our property. Of course, Philippe is actually Taiwanese but I've always thought he was more French/Belgian than even he may wish to admit.

I also hold out hope that eventually I'll be at a point where I could buy it back from him. That, of course, would take some serious negotiating with Reese. We've been pretty poor since the move but our long-term plan shows us actually being able to pay off our debts and start saving money for once.

We've recently moved from Minneapolis to Wells, MN. The goal of the move is primarily for our daughter, Oona, because just about all of Reese's family lives in this small town of 2,500. We're both earning significanly less money but our expenses are, proportionately, even more dramatically reduced. I'm actually self-employed now and I'm able to do that because almost 100% of my income can go toward paying off debt, savings and investments.

Hopefully, one thing we'll be able to "invest" in again will be a blue, '72 Karmann Ghia.

Out of Storage!

2007-03-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

I got the Ghia out of storage today and took it for a couple of drives. Started right up and still running like a champ. I cut the wires I was using to hold open the heater flaps and re-adjusted the timing, too.

I learned a little bit more about how to properly set the timing for any VW thanks to my experiences with the bus. Apparently, as long as you're setting the timing to somewhere between 28 and 32 degrees before top dead center at 3000 RPMs you're good. It doesn't matter where your timing is at idle as long as your timing at speed is good.

Before putting it away for the winter I had VW Man fix what I couldn't figure out on my own after installing the new intake manifold: it needed a new fuel pump. When they installed that they also took out my second vacuum line to my distributor which retards the timing at idle. They told me a year ago that part of the distributor wasn't working right and I guess they decided to just get rid of it and block off the port for it at the carb.

That's why I wanted to check and re-set my timing. I wasn't sure if they'd gotten that right.

Well, of course, they appeared to know what they were doing but the timing was still a little bit too retarded. I used a handy little formula to figure out where to put timing marks on my unmarked crankshaft pulley. I based all my measurements off the little notch in the pulley that was at 5 degrees after top dead center. From that I measured 7.4 mm (approximately) to the right for top dead center. Then, I measured 11.5 mm (approximately) further to the right for 7.5 degrees before top dead center. For the last mark of 30 degrees before top dead center I measured and marked about 45mm to the right.

I just wanted to make sure I was getting good advance at high RPMs because you can miss out on some of the motor's power if your spark is a little late. Seemed to do the trick although VW Man's fixes were the real key. The car idles more solid than it ever has.

Of course, it was fun just driving the thing around today, too.

Illogical Pricing Fears

2006-10-30T10:11:00.000-08:00

Everyone reacts the same when I tell them about the cracked intake manifold. They usually gasp and then say "That souds bad!"

Interestingly, I'm not stressed out about it much. I know exactly what's wrong, have ordered a $50 replacement manifold (exchanging that for the $70 manifold I initially ordered because the $50 manifold has removable heat risers making for easier installation) and will fix it.

I have a good idea the point of view people have when they react so strongly to the words "cracked manifold." I know most don't understand VW mechanical issues nearly as well as me, so hearing that something "cracked" and it caused the car to not run certainly sounds "bad." I'm also sure they assume such a thing will cost at least $1,000 to fix. They're also doing their best to empathize with me, assuming that I'm distressed about the situation.

I appreciate the heartfelt concern folks show when I tell them about it. But, it's a reminder to me of why I'm glad I've forced myself to do all repairs to this car myself. Had I not bothered to do that I'd be just as nervous as everyone assumes I should.

The approximate time I spent worrying about my car was five minutes. That's the time between when the car initially lost power on the highway and when I spotted the big crack in the manifold. Once the source of the problem was identified I knew exactly what was wrong, how to fix it and, within $30, how much it would cost. Much of fear and anxiety comes from the unknown.

On the opposite end, I get worried, anxious and nervous when I think about scheduling my next dentist's appointment. It's not so bad now because I've been to my current dentist's office twice before so I know where it is and what to expect. But, when I had to switch offices due changing insurance companies I called Reese for help because she deals with medical institutions all the time for work. Until I successfully made the switch from one dentist's office to the next I was anxious and nervous about it: too many unknowns.

I worry that I'll have trouble finding the new office, perhaps spend an extra five or ten minutes searching for it. I worry that the new dentist won't know my history as well as my previous and will mis-diagnose something. I worry that I'll have some really bad cavity that my previous dentist didn't see and I'll have to schedule another appointment. I'm not worried nearly as much about having my teeth drilled or novacane shots, I'm worried about scheduling.

So, from that experience, I understand why people react the way they do when I say the words "cracked manifold." I also understand I can't stop them worrying for me any easier than I can stop worrying about scheduling my next dentist appointment.

Nobody fears the known nearly as much as the unknown. I do have some apprehention about fixing the Ghia, but they're really minor: I may need to put Liquid Wrench on the generator pulley nut to break it free, I may have to get a new nut and bolt for my hacked-together distributor clamp or I may need to locate better hose clamps for new fuel lines. These are just little challenges I know I'll face but they make the experience enjoyable and I'm confident that in the end the Ghia will run at least as well as it used to; probably better.

Most people are just full of dread when their cars break down because most people don't know what's wrong with their broken cars nor how to fix them. There's a lot of anxiety also about how much money their mechanic is going to charge for the fix and then anxiety about finding the money to fix it. Of course, if given the choice between an expensive fix and a "cheap" fix that would work just as well, some people would still go for the expensive fix.

This particular phenominon was discussed in Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He talks about his friend with a brand new BMW motorcycle that had a loose grip. All the grip needed was a shim and the friend wondered where they'd get such a part. The narrator holds up his beer can, indicating that once it's empty it's perfect shim stock.

His friend didn't take to that lightly, feeling insulted that someone would suggest fixing a fancy, expensive BMW motorcyle with a beer can. It's a logical fallacy: appeal to common practice. Just because the proper way to shim a loose hand grip is to use genuine BMW shims (if they even exist) doesn't mean that a cut up, steel (the book was written decades ago before aluminum cans) beer can won't work just as well.

I was reminded of this just a few days ago while visiting with relatives passing through town. They were staying with old friends and these old friends had neighbors over visiting as well. The husband of the neighbor couple had a '76 Alfa Romeo and once he saw my '72 Bus we got to talking vintage cars.

His Alfa has a fuel injection system that's stock and he talked about some day installing dual Webber carbs. A few times he'd chuckle as he talked about how expensive it is to do any fixes on his motor. Then he said a dual Webber carb setup would put him back at least $1,500. I wondered how that could be because you can get dual webber kits for VWs and old Porsches that run you no more than $1,000 and as cheap as $600. It's all the same carb, just needs a different manifold to mount them onto a different engine.

So, unless he's going to spend $500-$900 on small, aluminum pipes, I didn't understand from where the extra cost came. It was obvious he was falling prey to the appeal to common practice. His reaction to my question was to say that the prices in the catalogue were "probably over-inflated" but I'm guessing he's still going to overpay for parts that work just as well as their 1/2 priced cousins. It's an Alfa Romeo! You don't install $1000 carbs when you can find identical ones for $1,500! The car demands more expensive parts and won't run right unless it knows you've overpaid for everything.

But, in his defense I had only just met him. He very well could follow my advice and look online for a better deal. I'll side with my instincts, though, and guess that won't be the case.

Perhaps that's one thing that sets old VW owners apart from the rest? Only a few people on TheSamba's forums recommended I buy a new intake manifold. The rest just said "JB Weld will fix that. You don't need to buy a new part."

And, they're right. There is no hole in the intake manifold itself. It's completely separated from the heat risers, but all I really need to do is "glue" them back together with JB Weld. Heck, I probably could have fixed it on the fly with a pair of hose clamps! The current theory is that as the upper part of the manifold had broken completely loose when I pushed on the gas it just pulled the carburetor forward, tipping it and closing the float needle valve which robbed the carburetor of gas. If I'd just use hose clamps to hold the pipe on the heat riser I could probably have driven the car another 50,000 miles that way.

But, in this case I'm not practicing what I preach. I'm appealing to common practice and installing a new part. I can do that, can't I?

Upper Engine Dismantled

2006-10-28T14:17:00.000-07:00

Just had to snap some pictures of the upper part of my engine taken completely apart. Also a nice picture of my intake manifold cracked completely in two!

The naked engine bay. I've stuffed rags into
the cylinder head ports to keep debris out.

Pretty cool, huh?

The rest of the engine in pieces.

Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Storage

2006-10-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

Five blocks from home my intake manifold cracked:

Sounds and looks real bad! But, prices for new centermount manifolds like this one range from $40-$80 depending on new, used, rebuilt or what have you. Last winter I already took the topside of the engine apart so I know how to get in there, remove the manifold and install a new one. Guess I've got a new project!

The real loser here is my poor wife. She was looking forward to her usual garage parking spot that was supposed to be available today after I stored the Ghia at my friend Shad's unused, underground, heated parking space.

Two cool things about this:

1 - This is very likely a crack that formed over time and probably from the inside out, causing an ever worsening vacuum leak. That's why I could never set my idle quite right on the carb, if that's true! So, a new manifold should make the car run even better.

2 - I had to get towed home when the car wouldn't run and the quickest, most convenient way I could think of was to beg a huge favor for Jamie of Sunrise Cyclery just a block from my house. He towed my Ghia with his '66 VW Bus!

Here Jamie's hooking up the rope to his van

Making sure the knot is good and tight.

Brakes!

2006-10-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how well the brakes work on the bus now.

The brakes were the first major thing I knew needed to be fixed when I got the bus. I had to pump them two or three times to get good pressure in the brake lines plus the brake fluid reservoir wouldn't hold anything. Fluid would just leak out the master cylinder onto the floor.

I considered doing the work myself but with all the hydraulic lines and unfamiliar territory plus the safety issues of brakes I figured it was a job best left to a trusted professional. So, Friday Quality Coaches did a great job installing a new master cylinder, new rear slave cylinders (they came with the bus, stored under the back seat!) and new rear brakes.

That worked great, and I didn't need to pump the brakes anymore. But, my right leg was getting pretty tired pushing so hard to stop the thing. That made sense because it's twice as heavy as the Ghia and the brakes aren't much different. But, I did know it came with a brake booster and that was likely disconnected.

Sure enough, when I inspected the engine I found a big, fat vacuum tube coming out of the intake manifold plugged with a large bolt. I just didn't know where it was supposed to lead to.

This morning I started searching for a fuel leak issue and found the other end of the vacuum line to the brake booster just sitting on the engine. I invested about $10 in parts between a new vacuum line at Napa and a brass coupler from the plumbing department of Home Depot. Once it was hooked up in the Home Depot parking lot I started it up, fearing there was some leak in the vacuum line that would make the engine run like crap.

Good luck so far, the engine ran just fine. Then, I drove it out of my parking space, down the parking isle and tapped the brake.

I felt like I was going to fly through the windshield! I couldn't believe how well that booster worked.

Now I have to use my leg muscles to keep the weight of my leg from pushing too hard on the brake, otherwise I'm screeching to a halt!

I've been told by the Bus experts at TheSamba to keep an eye on it. There could be a reason the brake booster wasn't hooked up. If the vacuum canister/servo unit that is the brake booster has a leak that could show up over time and the booster would need a rebuild. Some place in Texas does rebuilds, apparently, for only $90, so that wouldn't be a big deal.

I'm betting (hoping) that the line was not so much disconnected as it was just not reconnected when the engine got rebuilt. I've heard of problems with the brake booster such as the vacuum line leaking and therefore causing the engine to not idle/run right. That may have been the case before the rebuild and one of the quick, hack job fixes to make the engine run better was to disconnect and plug the brake booster line.

Time will tell on this one. Until then, It's nice to know I can stop exactly when I want.

A day for tinkering

2006-10-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting a 12V power recepticle for my cell phone, so I picked one up at autozone for $2.50~ and installed it on the dash. There was an existing accessory hole at the spot between the radio and the Clock. I had to ream it out though to make the thing fit. Works great, now I just have to create a holder for the phone.

I also was having a problem with the right headlight. The high beam was out. So I bought a new headlight figuring that was the problem. Got the lamp, installed it and still no high beam. I was worried then that I did something to the switch when I dissasembled the steering column to pull out the ignition lock cylinder. But the left light high beam was working as well as the indicator light. The switch had to be working, maybe it was the relay? I finally decided to get some help and did a search of the Samba for clues. Duh..I forgot that each headlight both high and low beam are independently fused. Suggested repair twirl the fuse. So I twirled number 6 fuse and voila, now I have a high beam on the right headlamp. Need a new halogen headlight? I've got one.

The other repair I did saturday (which was my birthday, my gift to myself was a day of tinkering) was to fix the right side door. It didn't close tightly. I readjusted the latch so it would close tighter and now that annoying door rattle is gone. Hardest part - getting the bolt that holds the latch in place loose so I could adjust its position.

Last repair was to tighten the oil sensor on the engine. It was loose and as a result oil was leaking into the engine compartment. I'm slowly finding and fixing those pesky oil leaks. A Ghia doesn't have to leak!

Karmann gets a boyfriend

2006-10-10T21:37:00.000-07:00

The only thing better than owning one 1972 VW ...

From the front

From the back

It even came with psychadelic magnets! (No way I'm driving around with those on.)

Fall color drive to Galena

2006-10-08T19:21:00.000-07:00

Last fall we drove to Mississippi Palisades park to see the fall colors. This year we wen with our neighbors Steve and Vicky to the park and then up to Galena for the annual country fair.
We stopped first at the park where you get a great view of the river from the top of the palisades.

Saturday was a beautiful day and the Ghia was really running smooth thanks to the valve adjustment and oil change. I figured I was getting 30 mpg. Performance that I had expected but hadn't been getting. Then of course It happened. When we went to leave, I couldn't get the key to turn in a lock. Finally after wiggling the wheel and inserting key in again and again, it turned and I was able to start the car. This has been happening recently on occasion and I've not paid a lot of attention to it.

We got to Galena and since the place was packed and we couldnt get to the park for a picnic, Steve and Vicky took us up on the bluff overlooking town and we laid out a sidewalk picnic. Great food and a wonderful view of the town.

Only problem, I couldn't get the key to turn again. *&^%*&& damn Ghia!

So we went for a walk and decided to locate some WD-40 to loosen up the lock.

Galena is full of great houses. What a beautiful place.

Well we found WD-40 and that worked with the lock. But when I got home and took out the key I couldn't turn it easily and obviously needed a more serious repair job. So when we got home I did some searching on the web and found several posts discussing stuck lock cylinders. The main recommendation is to remove the cylinder and clean it with WD-40 (or better yet liquid wrench) to get the old gunk out. This sounds easy but involves several tricky steps.

1. Remove the steering wheel:

To do this you have to first pry off the horn pad and disconnect the horn wire.

Next use a 27mm wrench to undo the nut

2. Remove the turn signal and wiper switch assembly:

You have to first unscrew a hex bolt that is accessible from the bottom of the steering column. This is not mentioned in any of the manuals but if you don't remove the bolt you can't get the switches out. The wires are all plug connected so you just pull them off and then you are ready to remove the switches. Four screws hold them in place.

Once your remove the four screws the switches will just pull out.

With the switches gone you can now remove the bracket that holds the lock cylinder in place. Just remove the two screws and expose the cylinder.

Now you can remove the cylinder assembly. Make sure the switch is unpluged at the back then insert the key and turn to the right to release the wheel lock and the whole thing will just pull out.

There is a hole in the cylinder housing that you stick a nail in that presses the release spring. The key has to be in the lock and turned to the left (off position). You can then just pull the cylinder out of the housing.

A lot of liquid wrench followed by WD-40 and the lock is as good as new. Key works smoothly and doesn't stick anymore!

I used some white silicon grease on the steering lock components and reassembled everything.

Everything worked great except the headlight dimmer switch. After removing the steering wheel again and on inspection I found that the switch was not making contact. A little piece of rubber and some glue and it now works just fine.

An awful lot of work but now I can start the car again.

I too am a mechanic

2006-10-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

Well Chris finally convinced me to do my own maintenance. It took a while to get everything ready but Friday I finally was ready. Total cost for a tuneup $9.97. This was because I got a discount at foreign car parts for valve cover gaskets and a gasket set for the oil screen. The total cost for the gaskets - $1.97. I had to laugh when I handed the guy two dollars and said keep the change!

I was somehwhat surprised when I got under the car and found the right valve cover was a bolt on cover. It was caked with black gunk and it was obvious the oil leak that has been appearing on the floor of the garage was due to a leaky gasket. Some degreaser and elbow grease revealed the beauty pictured here:

The one on the right isn't nearly as pretty. I wouldn't mind finding another one some where so I have a matching set. I think sometime in the past the bail must have rusted and broken off. Anyway the valve adjustment was fairly easy with no major problems. Number 1 cylinder didn't need any adjustment. 2, 3, and 4 were all too tight and had to be adjusted. The oil change went smoothly and there are no leaks now!

Thanks Chris for making me do it!

Fall Color Drive, 2006

2006-10-01T18:03:00.000-07:00

Finally got the Ghia out among the fall colors. Didn't get to that last year but Reese and I spent a nice day in Sillwater, MN and along the St. Croix River Valley. Here are some pictures:

Here's a nice shot of Reese at this little Italian bisro in Stillwater where we had lunch. Only $20 for a really nice lunch.

Reese gets carsick if she does anything in a car like reading or operating a camera, so I had to snap a drivers-eye-view picture.

A nice picture of my old girl. Note that nobody's standing in front of it blocking the view.

Here's me blocking the view of a really nice car.

A panoramic I put together of the St. Croix River Valley.

Has it been a year?

2006-09-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

I got my new tabs in the mail for '07 and realized I've had this cool little car for a year now! I've barely put 5,000 miles on it and yesterday I adjusted the valves for the first time. It runs like new now, especially as the carburetor's been rebuilt and the oil bath air cleaner's been cleaned out.

I avoided the valve adjustment for a long time due to this irrational fear of it being more difficult than it really is. Everyone told me adjusting your valves was easy but I didn't listen, and assumed I'd be fighting with rusted-out this or that and waste a whole lot of hours.

Reality was much nicer: a true 15 minute job. Just use a screwdriver to pry the brackets down to remove the covers and then the adjustment itself is very easy. I won't go into details about the procedure as there are plenty of sites and books out there that cover it just fine.

First thing I noticed with the adjustment was the sound of the motor. It's actually louder than before. That's because the valves are actually seating into the heads so there's that extra "tapetta-tapetta-tapetta" sound of them closing. I can't believe the car run the way it was before. How did I get any compression to get any power?

Something about the extra rattling sound is satisfying. That's what Dad's ghia sounds like as well as a Porsche 356 and 914 I saw last week. So, right there I knew I was doing something right because there was a good, strong, loud valve rattle.

Well, that and the motor runs a hell of a lot smoother now. I have the carburetor adjusted much closer to spec (about 3 1/2 turns out on the volume screw as opposed to 8 or 9) and it doesn't want to die at idle for the first 10 minutes of running.

Also, just wanted to follow up about the electronic ignition upgrade I did at the beginning of the summer. The module crapped out on me, but partially due to my hack job of it. The disk that contained the four magnets rubbed against one of the wires through the insulation and must have shorted the unit out when the bare wire touched one of the magnets. I replaced it with the good, old points-and-condenser combo and haven't looked back.

Another distributor fix to note is my improved distributor clamp. For $2.50 I bought a brand new chrome distributor clamp and it broke after only a few timing adjustments. What I did to fix it was hacksaw away the old bolt that had only been tack-welded on and replaced it with a good, heavy-duty allen bolt and nut combo. I have to use both an allen wrench and 10mm socket to tighten and loosen the distributor, but now I can tighten it down as much as I want without fear it's going to bend or break. No more gradually retarded timing due to loose distributor. That's good!

Other than that, no issues with the car this summer. I'll need to keep an eye and ear on the valves. If they tighten up again I could be in for a header replacement or overhaul. At that point I may as well do an entire engine overhaul. Then, as long as I've got the engine out of there I may find I want to replace the tranny and while that's out of there take the whole body in for a complete restoration ...

... I'll wait a few years on all that, I think.

Back to Business

2006-04-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-11T08:50:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-04-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Rumor Has it ...

2006-03-31T12:49:00.000-08:00

I heard somewhere that Dad finally got new tires for his Ghia and is pleased with the tuneup done on it two weeks ago. But, interestingly enough there's nothing on this blog about that. Curious, very curious...

As for me, I've got a pair of used, complete rear axles on the way from a TheSamba.com member who was selling them for $25. With shipping it was $50 and he couldn't guarantee the condition of the CV joints. But, he did say they were removed from a 1970 Ghia to make way for upgraded driveaxles and not due to any problems.

At the very least I bet I could make one rebuilt CV joint out of the parts and sell it for the same $25. Hopefully, everything's in great condition and I'll be able to clean, regrease and install them on my car. For the time being, though, I'm trying a temporary solution to my dreaded grinding rattle sound.

I did find out that the CV joints on the right side are both worn out with pitting on the races. But, the pitting only occurs on one side of the grooves in the races because the axle only torques in one direction to drive the wheel forward. So, I cleaned them up (sorta), packed new grease in them and installed the axle back on the car but in reverse. In other words, the old wheel-side CV joint is now on the gearbox-side and vice versa.

This way the balls of the CV joint will push on the non-pitted side of the races. Tomorrow I'm going to a VW swap meet in the morning and then some sort of hot rod show in the afternoon. My neighbor invited me to the hotrod show. He's got a '70s Ford Ranchero (Ford's El Camino) and has seen me often in the alleyway fixing my Ghia. There will be plenty of freeway driving between each event and lately that's been the sure-fire way to make the rattle act up. So, if flipping the drive axle doesn't work as a temporary fix I'll find out for sure tomorrow after 5 to 10 minutes at 60mph.

In other loosely-related news I made my last student loan payment today! That frees up $265 a month in our budget. A friend of mine was excited for me because nowI can take all that money for the first couple months and buy either new mountain bike stuff or Ghia stuff with it.

I told him I tried that same logic with Reese last night. I believe right now she's still laughing about it; getting weird looks from the 10-year-old kids at her job.

Dad's Kar is a Mess!

2006-03-17T07:34:00.000-08:00

Well, maybe that's a bit strongly worded. He does desperately need new tires, though. But, on the bright side his timing is finally set right and he should have an easier time starting the thing.

I'm down in Iowa this week visiting Mom while Dad's off in stupid Paris. He and I should be skiing down The Peak at Big Sky right about now (well, a couple hours from now if you wanna be really picky about the whole Moutain vs. Central time and when the lifts actually open out there). So, I'm working from here this week and while in the neighborhood thought I'd do Dad a favor and give his car a look-over now that I've gotten wise in the ways of timing and carburetor tuning.

He's got a dual vacuum distributor just like mine and they need to be set at 5 degrees ATDC. That's before top dead center and not after. I get the two mixed up all the time because ATDC = retarded and BTDC = advanced. In my mind the two that start with "A" should go together when in fact they're opposite. Must be a mild dyslexia of form.

When I hooked up my $60 of diagnostic equipment I found that his idle speed was 1000 rpms and his timing appeared to be around 5 or 7.5 degrees BTDC. Like my car he's got the stock crankshaft pulley so the only timing mark is the little notch painted white on the front side (remember, folks, we're talking about front of the car here. That can seem a little counter-intuitive, I know.) But, that's it for timing marks. It's so you can time the car with the stock distributor and carburetor. If either of us were to put a different distributor on our cars we'd have to get out a measuring stick and figure out where the new timing mark(s) should be.

Whoever last set the timing probably treated the motor as if he had an SVDA or any other single vacuum advance distributor. Those are correctly timed at 7.5 degrees BTDC at idle. Mine appeared to be timed the same way when I first checked it, but I think that's because the guy at VW Man in Minneapolis thought my vacuum retard line wasn't working.

Yet I digress. Before re-adjusting the timing on Dad's car I turned the throttle positioning screw in until it just touched the fast-idle cam and then turned it 1/4 turn in even more. It wasn't even touching the cam when I first looked at it. That can muck up the idle by itself. Next I turned the bypass screw in 1/2 a turn to set the idle to 850rpms but the timing was still too far advanced. So, I retarded the timing to 5 degrees ATDC which mean the idle speed dropped to 700. Turn the bypass screw out 1/2 a turn to where it was before and the car idled steady as a rock at 850rpms.

I must say it was pretty nice dealing with a brand new carburetor. All the little adjustments and fine-tuning I did really made a difference. The idle was steadier and even the timing seemed steadier. I obviously need either new points, new wires, new coil, all of the above or some combination for mine to get it as steady. Mine's pretty good, but not that good.

Next up for Dad's car is a brake adjustment and new tires. I now know how to adjust the rear brakes but don't have time this trip. But, it's easy enough that even Dad could do it! =) But, more important than that are new tires. Currently he's riding on a set of "Starlite Poly Sport" tires sized at 6.00-15. I Googled them, looked them up at TheSamba.com and even Coker.com and found nothing. Finally, I posted on TheSamba.com asking if anybody knew about these tires and everyone agreed: they're ancient and need replacing. They're also most likely bias ply because they don't say "Radial" anywhere on them.

I figured something was amiss the couple times I've driven it this week around the Quad Cities here. Whenever I'd change lanes and cross over a seam running the length of the street I'd get this worrysome floaty feeling. It must be the tires folding a bit as they get torqued side-to-side. That probably means the rubber is so old the sidewalls are just too soft to support anything. The psi is good and even a bit too high for bias ply, about 23 front/30rear. So, there's no reason for them to feel like they're about 10psi each!

So, there you go, Dad. Your starting problems are most likely fixed but you've got to make an appointment with the tire man when you get back. They don't make tires in 6.00-15 anymore unless you order them special from Coker.com but you can use any 165/80/15 tires. I got a set of Republic Ultra Metric 165R15s. They're the proper size to replace 6.00-15s. Good luck!

Thinking about Suspension Issues

2006-03-05T13:18:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago I noticed my Ghia is sagging a bit in the rear-left side. It's about 3/4'' lower there than the rear-right. The front wheels are similarly off but only by about 1/3'' lower on the left side.

I'm pretty sure it's all about the rear-left sagging more than it should. The solution will be to invest about $60 on a set of two jack stands and a floor jack with wheels. You can read up about it here. No new parts should be needed to fix this and I really should get a real floor jack and jack stands to work on the car whenever the wheels need to be elevated.

I've been using the emergency jack from my Subaru for the time being and a couple of bricks stacked on top of one of my wheel ramps for a make-shift jack stand. It works fine, but things will be much easier and most importantly safer with real jack stands and "trolley jack" as the wheeled jacks are called.

When I get the suspension leveled out properly I'd really like to swap out my rear shocks for a pair of these. They're one-piece coil over shocks and some of the guys at TheSamba.com recommend them. I'm waiting to find out if I can just adjust these shocks in lieu of adjusting my tortion arms to compensate for the lop-sided sag. But, I most likely just need to do that job right and then augment the rear suspension with the coil-overs. Seems like the rear suspension on old VWs can get a bit "swimmy" as that's where so much of the weight is so a little stiffer support there would help the car handle a lot better.

I'm also still trying to troubleshoot the worrysome rattle. I keep closing in on what it could possibly be and I don't believe I've fixed it yet but I did spend some time recently taking apart the outer roller bearing on the rear-right wheel. I also did a brake job on that side while I was at it. I really need to adjust the brakes on the left side now that I've done that. Rather easy procedure once you've got your first time out of the way.

I believe I may need a new inner ball bearing on that wheel, though. The way it all works is you've got a drive axle with a CV joint at either end that delivers power to the wheel. There's a "stub axle" that connects the wheel to the drive axle and that stub axle has two bearings on it: an inner ball bearing and an outer roller bearing. The roller bearing is where just about all the weight is applied and the ball bearing handles side-to-side torque while cornering.

So, that's why I'm thinking the ball bearing is the problem because that rattle happens when cornering. Some have said they thought it was actually my rear-left bearing that was bad because the grinding/rattling gets worse when I'm turning right. Trouble is I'm hearing it distinctly from the rear-right. If it was a grind due to pressure and weight then yes I think it could be the roller bearing on the left side. But, It seems very related to cornering and I bet when that rear-right wheel becomes unweighted the stub axle suddenly has more freedom than it should and rattles the balls in the cage of the ball bearing.

It's either that or things were just getting knocked a little out-of-whack because the rear axle nuts were not tightened on fully! That's a distinct possibility. The axle nuts need to be torqued to at least 217 ft/lbs. I'm pretty sure they were under-torqued because when I removed them with a 2' breaker bar the effort required was considerably less than it should have been. I've read about people needing to use 4' cheater pipes on their breaker bars and then standing and bouncing on the bars to break the axle free. I just applied moderate pressure to about the middle of the breaker bar and they came loose.

To put them back on and ensure they had enough torque I measured out about 14'' on the breaker bar and then stood on that spot with the ball of one foot. I carefully lifted my other foot off the ground and my hands off the car to balance for just a second. That made sure the axle nut was at least 217 ft/lbs. Then I had to torque them on a little tighter still so I could line up the castellations with the cotter pin hole.

So, everything's put back together and I'll just keep driving it, but not too much, and see if I can figure out some more rhyme or reason for this rattle.

Arg! Rattle!

2006-02-22T11:09:00.000-08:00

Over lunch today I enjoyed a sunny, mid-30s day driving the Ghia out to the suburbs just to get a sub. On the way back I heard a horrible sound on the highway. It was a fast, rhythmic "ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka!" sound very obviously keeping pace with wheel rotation from the rear-right of the car.

I pulled onto a side street and drove 10 nerve-wracking miles home getting very familiar with the sound and symptoms. It was just as I've experienced before: only during acceleration and more pronounced when turning right. This time, though, it was still pretty damn loud going straight and even a little turning left. I'd hardly hear anything coasting or braking, although every now and then I'd hear a little *bump-scrape* even then.

Got home to the garage OK, jacked up the rear-right and took the wheel off. For the second time I checked for evidence of bad bearings or CV joints and everything still looked OK. If I had bad bearings or CV joints and it was only showing up after those parts heated up from driving then I should have easily felt something amiss. I poked around some more for anything else such as the clip holding the emergency brake cable to the diagonal beam and found nothing until I wiggled the heater box.

There was a good inch of free play with the heater box around the exhaust pipe right by where it connects to the rubber accordian ducts that provide cabin heat. I figured it was loose enough to hang down onto the drive axle and scrape on it. I wired it up to keep it out of the way, replaced the wheel and took another test drive. No more rattle.

I'll have to figure out a plan to patch up that heater box as I'm no doubt losing a lot of heat out that gap when I could really use it in the cabin. But, for now I'm just glad (again) to know there's nothing seriously wrong with the car.

Easy. No, Really!

2006-02-21T18:11:00.000-08:00

Got the new thermostat in the mail and just installed it. It was a 30 minute job with no complications. Car runs great.

I said before "It should be an easy job" and usually that's the kiss of death meaning it's a full weekend and a half project. For once I was right!

Apparently, I Need a Thermostat

2006-02-16T11:40:00.000-08:00

My car won't idle well when cold. And it's cold lately, just in the teens during the day today and about 1 degree tomorrow. But, hey, it's an old VW, they just run kinda crappy in the cold, right?

Yeah, and they smell like a dangerous gas leak, have doors that droop, drive rough ... gotta stop thinking like that! The thermostat is apparently quite insturmental too good, cold weather operation:

http://www.vw-resource.com/vanes_thermostat.html

The mechanic at Quality Coaches here pointed out to me that my thermostat was "blown" adding that it wasn't really needed and they don't make them anymore so don't worry about it. Well, they dont' make the OEM thermostats, but I did find this:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=265325

There's a new, better thermostat I could get for my Type I engine that isn't the old "bellows" style which had a habit of rupturing after a while. You know, they'd become "blown." The effect is the engine will actually run too cold in winter which not only wears the engine out quicker but it promotes carburetor manifold icing. Basically, fuel will either condense or even freeze to the walls of the intake manifold if it's too cold.

That's basically what's happening to me. I think this qualifies as a necessary part, so I'll probably just order one and blot it on. Removing the old one and installing new is quite simple from what I've seen. Drive the car's rear wheels up on the ramps, get underneath and remove the single bolt from the old thermostat, take it out, put the new one in and tighten the bolt down. Done!

Might want to find out about your thermostat, Dad, just in case. Any idle problems below freezing for you?

New Parts Wish List

2006-02-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

My wife Reese has put a moratorium on parts purchases for the Ghia except for items of absolute necessity. At first I thought I'd be putting in an order for new bearings or CV joint repair kit but yesterday was glad to discover none of that is needed. Of course, that means I'm not ordering anything for a while unless I con her into letting me get a couple things "for my birthday."

Here's what I'd like to eventually get:

New door checkrods, pins and rollers.

These would make getting in and out of the Ghia easier for driver and passenger. As with most cars the doors are supposed to prop themselves open at a few points and keep them from opening too far and buckling the front quarter panels. Right now I've still got the original metal checkrod only for the driver's side. At first one of the rollers on that side wasn't connected properly but I've since fixed that so the door doesn't open too far.

The original checkrod I have is all metal but it had a tiny bit of old, dried and cracked rubber still on it. When I took the 0ld rubber off I found three round holes that used to hold the rubber in place. I tried to hack together a solution with a cut up old bike inner tube. That would probably work OK if I could figure out just the right amount of inner tube needed for each spot and how best to secure it to the checkrod through the holes so it wouldn't slide around. Well, for about $13 each a new set of checkrods is more worth the money than the time wasted trying to fix the old one.

New lower, driver's-side door hinge

I do have a pretty good temporary fix in place for this, though. My driver's-side door does droop down more than my passenger's-side and sometimes you hear that horrible creaking sound of the lower front corner of the door rubbing against the front quarter panel. The paint is scraped off on that spot now, too.

At first I passed it off as "Eh, it's the driver's side door and they just get used more so it's worn out more. My old Beetle was the same way." I should really stop saying that. It's no different than "Eh, they just smell like gas" or "Eh, they just don't idle well" for that matter. After further inspection I discovered weld marks on the lower hinge. It also looked to be welded a bit off from where it should have been, causing the lower front of the door to sit more forward than it should.

So, I cut up a can of Mello Yellow and put six layers of aluminum can between the hinge and the door frame to shim it and position the hinge more toward the back of the car. It could use more shimming, but it no longer scrapes and the door doesn't drop nearly as much as it used to.

I most likely won't be buying brand new as someone at TheSamba told me he had a reconditioned hinge he could sell me for only $25 with shipping included.

Instrument bulb socket(s)

I just need the one to replace the green parking light indicator in my dash but it would be nice to have a few extra on-hand just in case. The only place I can find these currently is California Import Parts and they've been out of stock for a few months now.

"Olympic Blue" touch-up paint

I believe this is my color. It's VW Code 58 and paint code L51P for whatever that's worth. My car has been re-painted but I don't believe completely. I think a lot of the paint on it is actually original with a lot of touch-up work already done to fix rust areas around the front and rocker panels. I've got a lot of little scratches here and there such as where the door was rubbing against the quarter panel. A touch-up of those areas would be nice.

Dream on, Chris

Fun to dream about and only $300. My current carburetor is original to the car and therefore restoring it to perfect condition might cost almost as much in time and parts. Why not just spend the same money for a dual carburetor kit and get a little extra power and fun?

Of course, I would want to put a brand new, higher-flow exhaust system on to really get any benefit from dual carburetors and not over-heat the engine. That would probably mean no more heater boxes unless ...

Just be happy with what you've got, OK?

High performance heater boxes? Mid America Motorworks' site doesn't have too much info on what makes these high performance compared to stock, so I'll have to ask around if someone knows more about them. It does state "1.5 inch OD pipes" for whatever that's worth and they're supposed to have "better flow." A new set of them is $50 cheaper than stock. *shrug*

And then, of course, why stop there?

To go with high performance, high flow heater boxes I'd need a muffler that fit it. I dunno about the four pipe look of this one, though. I think I have seen some cheaper that had just two pipes so it wouldn't look quite so different as stock.

Old Cars Rattle

2006-02-14T07:09:00.000-08:00

I've been posting a few questions on TheSamba forums lately as I've been narrowing down issues with my Ghia. But, I didn't want the blog to go ignored, so I'll post a summary here for posterity.

The Interesting Case of the Continually Calibrated Carburetor

After finally getting my BTDC and ATDC straight and knowing for sure that I was setting my timing exactly right I was able to get the motor running about as well as can be expected in winter. Once it's fully warmed-up it will idle solidly enough at 850 RPMs, has good throttle response, low-end power and on-par fuel economy (23 in-town, 30 or better highway).

I have to accept the carburetor is 34 years old, though, and probably will never run 100% properly ever again. But, it's pretty good. The only issue seems to be the volume control screw needs to be 8-9 full turns out to keep the engine from stalling when I come to a stop. Standard for a brand new 34 PICT-3 carburetor is 2 1/2 to 3 turns out for the volume screw. My setting sounds common, though, compared to others with carburetors just as old.

It does stall at idle, however, when the engine isn't quite fully warmed-up. That seems not much different from my '72 Super Beetle from 15 years ago, though. Cold weather and center-mounted carburetors don't mix. You need to allow 10 to 15 minutes of warm-up before the engine will operate properly in winter. What happens until such time is the intake manifold is simply too cold and fuel actually condenses on the walls rather than getting to the pistons.

Worrisome Rattle Fixed with Brute Strength

I'd been hearing a disturbing "tock tock tock" sound coming from the front end sometimes when I was turning right and accelerating. It seemed to correspond directly with wheel rotation, so I'd stress out every time I heard it. At first I thought it was a rattling bumper as the right side of the front bumper seemed a bit looser. I tightened that down but the rattle persisted.

My theory of the sound being the bumper even though it corresponded with wheel rotation was because I'd heard that sound before and it was the metal end of a strap on my bike messenger bag in the trunk. It was hitting the top of the gas tank (I don't have a trunk liner like Dad) and the road vibration must have made it tap in-time with the wheels. Because of that I was convinced it was something equally minor just making a racket and not something serious waiting to turn one of the front wheels 90 degrees and kill me dead.

One guy on TheSamba thought it could very well be a loose tie rod ready to come off, turn one of my front wheels 90 degrees and kill me dead. If not that, it was perhaps bad bearings, bad CV joints or lose brake shoe. Other motor-inclined friends of mine thought it sounded like bad bearings, too. There were no other signs pointing toward a loose tie-rod ready to turn a front wheel 90 degrees and kill me dead. But, a bad bearing could seize up a tire and that's not good either.

I read up in the Muir book and the Bentley manual about how to check bearings and CV joints and then spent 1/2 an hour yesterday jacking up each wheel, removing it and checking for just those things. From what I could tell, and someone with more experience might give me a better 2nd opinion, all bearings and CV joints seemed just fine. The tie rods were also nice and tight. No play of any sort in any of those systems.

I did find the source of the noise, though, with about 94.32% certainty. On the left-front disc brake the splash guard was a bit bent at the bottom right by the brake caliper. The splash guard is just a flimsy piece of metal on the inside of the disc that keeps water and dirt from getting on it. The dent in it was close enough to the disc that it looked to be touching at first glance. I imagine that while turning right the wheel gets torqued enough to bend the disc into the splash guard that extra couple millimeters to make a "tock tock tock" sound that corresponds with wheel rotation.

After bending the splash guard back away from the disc easily by hand and replacing the wheel I took the car for a 1/2 hour test drive and never heard the noise again! May all your worrisome car noises turn out as innocuous.

I'll never pay for a tuneup again

2006-01-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

Success!

Around 2 p.m. today Dad called me at the worst possible time. He wanted to talk about our stupid skiing trip to stupid Wisconsin and stupid Michigan that we're doing in lieu of glorious Montana. I had a hard time concentrating on what he was saying about where we should get a hotel near Mt. Bohemia because when he called I had my hands full with a tach/dwell meter. It was the last step before declaring my Ghia's motor finely tuned.

I asked Dad to let me call back in half an hour or so and got back to hooking up the tach/dwell. Once warmed up the motor was idling at 900-950 rpms, so I turned the volume screw in about one full turn to make it 6 total turns from bottom. Any more turns than that and the idle would drop and make the mixture slightly lean. I turned the bypass screw in until the idle dropped to 850, double-checked the timing with the strobe and happily verified it was at 5 degrees ATDC (After Top Dead Center).

A simple procedure, non? Thing is I'd been working at the whole thing since 8 this morning. Last night between 10:30 and 12:30 I was getting bloody knuckles wrestling the intake manifold off the cylinder heads after removing the sheet metal trim that runs along the bottom rear of the engine bay (it was oily and dirty!) All this week I was spending 1/2 an hour here and there with other preparations: removed the carburetor over lunch Tuesday, dismantled it and cleaned the small parts on the shop table in the basement that night, cleaned the carburetor body Thursday evening and finally reassembled the carburetor Friday evening with the rebuild kit ordered through Cip1.

The engine bay stripped of manifold ends, carburetor, bottom-rear trim, air cleaner and heater hoses

This morning I ran to my local Ace Hardware for, well, hardware: spare 10mm, fine-thread bolts to replace the rusted-out ones holding the heat riser tube and spare 13mm nuts. I also got a gallon of some Castrol super cleaner/degreaser stuff and muffler repair putty to patch the heater boxes (a later project). I then went to Sears and picked up the timing light and tach/dwell/ohm meter. Those two pieces of equipment cost just under $60, or the labor charge from VW Man for adjusting the timing and idle. In other words, they more than pay for themselves the first time you use them.

When I got home I took to cleaning the manifold ends and engine bay trim pieces with the Castrol degreaser stuff. Worked great! Just dipped an abraisive brush into a bowl of the stuff and scrubbed. Rinse with water and the gunk comes off practically by itself. Once the cleaning of those parts was done I started getting excited: time to put it all back together again!

Clean manifold ends on garage floor and brand new red boots and clips on bumper

Freshly-cleaned, albeit rusty, bottom-rear engine bay trim

My disassembly and reassembly of the carburetor didn't present any obvious causes for my tuning issues. To recap, I couldn't get my car to idle unless I had the throttle positioning screw turned in about 4 or so turns from where it was just touching the fast idle cam (I later determined 7 turns was overstating it). This screw is only supposed to be 1/4 turn in, so something was certainly amiss. I adjusted the volume and bypass screws as best I could and the car idled and drove OK, but I knew the carburetor needed to be looked at and rebuilt.

VW Man said I needed a new distributor because the vacuum unit wasn't working right. At the time, it was looking like a $300-$400 job in parts and labor if I had them do it: brand new carburetor and brand new distributor. Then the snow flew and I was able to sit on it. Now we're at the end of about the warmest January on record and I got back to tinkering with the Ghia.

At first I thought the fuel cutoff valve was faulty, but I tested that part and it worked just fine. My current theory is there was a leak or clog in the carburetor's vacuum signaling system. My distributor is a dual vacuum distributor, so the carburetor needs to send information out two ports about how much air is going through it so the sparks will fire at the right time. I used a can of compressed air to blast out all the passages in the carburetor and replaced all the diaphragms and gaskets. So, if that was a problem, it isn't now.

The rebuilt carburetor. Not spotless on the outside, but good enough.

The next clue came when I finally had it all back together again. After all that work I started it up, it idled high just as it should for a cold engine and then idled slower and slower as it warmed and the throttle moved down the ratchets of the fast idle cam. I was ready to tear my hair out when the motor warmed up fully and died. It wouldn't idle with the throttle arm screw only 1/4 turn in. Crap!

I adjusted the volume and bypass screws in the basement per the instructions: 2 1/2 turns out for volume and 3 or 4 out for bypass (guessing on that one). After the engine died I started counting the number of extra turns out on the volume screw before it got to a point where it idled. Eventually, I was back to Square 1: throttle position screw 4 turns in and volume screw 8 turns out. OK, calm down, time to use that timing light you just got.

The timing light's pretty neat, and ultimately really easy to use: red clip to positive battery terminal, black to car frame and sensor clipped around #1 spark plug wire. Just pull the trigger with it pointed at the crankshaft pulley and you see the paint marks! And, what do you know: about 7 degrees BTDC (B is for before!) Ah ha! At idle the spark plugs were firing way too soon, so no wonder it was dying.

I loosened the distributor nut, started rotating it back to 5 degrees ATDC and sure enough the idle picked up speed. Cautiously and nervously I turned the throttle position screw back out. I was ecstatic when I saw light between the end of the screw and the fast idle cam and the motor was still idling! I turned it in 1/4 turn from touching the cam and then played around with the volume and bypass screws.

In the end, I had to keep the volume screw out a full 6 turns. I'd heard about how this can happen, and apparently it's to be expected with a 30+ year old carburetor. It's just not as perfect as it used to be so you can't have the volume screw at the standard 2 1/2 turns out. Oh well.

Only one thing left! Just got to hook up the tach/dwell and find out if my idle is right and- yep, that's when Dad called. :)

First parts order in months

2006-01-24T13:28:00.000-08:00

I ordered a few things from Cip1.com today. The parts I ordered were certainly needed, but I think the purchase itself was due to the weather and Powers that Be curbing my skiing season. Not only is this one of the warmest Januaries on record but Dad decided he's going to stupid Paris for his Spring break and not Montana.

It sucks being me sometimes. Here's the loot I got:

* Carburetor rebuild kit for Solex 28-34 PICT carburetors
* Manifold boot kit - red rubber with clamps dual port style engines
* Feeler gauge with .006 blade

I took 1/2 an hour this afternoon to remove the carburetor from the manifold. After reading up on the procedure enough times in the various books I have including the new Bentley manual I got for Christmas I knew pretty well what to expect. Removal went without incident and gas didn't spray out of the tube when I pulled it off the top of the fuel filter. I kind of did that once when I replaced that filter. I did a few things wrong then and promised myself and my blood pressure not to do them again.

For one, the car had just been running 1/2 an hour before, so it was a little warm and fuel pressure between the pump and carburetor was pretty high. Then, I didn't do anything to relieve fuel pressure before yanking the hose off such as pumping the throttle arm several times or unscrewing the main jet plug. I also didn't expect fuel to spray at a frightening rate onto a hot engine with the negative battery cable still hooked up. Based on stories I've heard, I was very lucky.

I did all the right things today and all I need now is the rebuild kit so I can take apart the carburetor, clean it out and replace the gaskets. I'm going to take the manifold out to clean it up, replace the gaskets and the boots and clamps so I can be assured of no vacuum leaks. While things are taken apart I'm also going to clean the whole engine compartment. It'll be nice to have it all sparkling before reinstalling the manifold and carburetor.

Next I took the vacuum advance pot off the distributor to have a look at it. The mechanic at VW Man told me I needed a whole new distributor because the vacuum advance wasn't working. The mechanism is only a diaphragm that gets sucked in one direction by the vacuum in the carburetor to pull the point plate on the distributor. This makes the car run better at lower RPMs. Based on what I've read it appears to be working just fine, so I'll see how everything runs with a rebuilt carburetor.

Lastly I got the .006 inch feeler gauge because I'm just crazy enough to try doing my own valve adjustment. You need a .006 inch gap between the rocker arm and valve stem top when the piston it's on is all the way to the top, so the feeler gauge tells you if you've got that gap.

I'm glad for the advice to do this stuff in winter. It's really nice having patience on your side rather than rushing it and the problems that go with that.

Birth Certificate

2006-01-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

Well it finally arrived! I sent an email to the Stiftung Volkswagon AutoMuseum in October requesting the birth certificate and Today it finally arrived. I had my doubts!

Interesting birth date: February 26th, 1973! Chris is just one day older. Guess I'll have to celebrate them together. I've checked the engine number against what's in the back and confirmed that I have the original engine. Amazing how well it runs! The Carburator has been replaced but that's to be expected. The other item of interest is the original color scheme: Bahia red with black leatherette upholstery and a black top. I like the current red and white scheme but it might be interesting to consider a return to the origninal color scheme when I redo the body.

Let Me Count the Ways

2006-01-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

Someone at TheSamba.com started a thread on why we love our Ghias. I'm just re-posting here what I wrote there:

* It has magical powers that render expensive, brand-new Porsches invisible when you park next to them.

* It tells me I'm 17 again, driving my '72 Super Beetle around to my friends' houses an hour after passing my driving test while listening to my LL Cool J "Radio" cassette from '85.

* When kids ask me "Hey, is that car fast?" I can say with confidence "Not at all!"

* Your S.O. becomes your 1st Officer as you give orders to coordinate the heat and defrost systems.

* I drive a slow car that looks fast, ski downhill without locking down my heels and ride a mountain bike with no suspension and 1 gear. Difficulty is directly proportionate to fun.

* The electrical system is the simplest part of the car.

* The electrical system is the most complex part of the car.

* If I spy a minivan out the corner of my eye by the time I turn my head it's magically transformed into a Toyota Matrix.

* Middle-aged guys in Hemi-powered Durangos think they're hot s*** when they blast right by you. Golly, he's got way more than 60hp!

* I can drive 1/2 as fast in my Ghia than in my '97 Subaru Impreza along a winding, twisting 2-lane highway and have 10X more fun.

* Posters to TheSamba.com's forums honestly believe it when they tell you "It's an easy fix!"

The Difference Between Men and Boys

2005-12-30T07:46:00.000-08:00

I was raised on Legos. They're the perfect toy, especially if you're parenting on a budget. All you have to do is buy your kids a few Lego kits with enough parts and they can just build all those expensive toys they covet. As a side-effect Legos have certain educational qualities.

When Transformers were all the rage I built mechanical dinosaurs that changed into gun platforms or hovercraft that converted into robots. I could do it because since the age of seven I'd been collecting Lego Technic sets and had enough interchangable and versatile pieces to make just about anything I wanted.

Thing is, this didn't stop with my first childhood. In fact, ever since getting the John Muir "Idiot" book at the age of 17 I've been studying the cutout views of the transmission and motor and trying to replicate that in multicolored plastic.

Rather than discarding the toys of youth for the tools of manhood, I was using one to have a better understanding of the other. And, beyond the lessons in engineering gained from a Lego childhood, I continue to prefer tinkering over throwing money at something. I didn't need to buy new toys as a kid because I could build them out of Legos, so why should I buy a brand new dual carburetor setup when I can piece it together with spare parts from my neighbor?

So here it is, a VW chassis made of Legos.

It has a "body" in the minimalist sense. The front sports the "towel rack" bumper and the roll-cage structure is an attempt to capture the Ghia roofline. But, styling is only an afterthought; I wanted it as functional as possible, starting with a 2-cylinder, 4-valve boxer engine.

The chain runs the generator and fan, of course. The big gear on the bottom, driven by the crankshaft, turns the cam shaft.

I couldn't replicate the rocker arm assembly with spring-loaded valves, however (what do you expect, it's made of Legos!) But, I reproduced the valve action well enough. When the pistons, camshaft, pushrods and "valves" are all moving together it even sounds a bit like a real engine.

Of course, the motor just provides power. You need to transfer that power to the rear wheels and you need multiple speeds, so I created a 2-speed manual transmission hooked up to a rear differential. Sorry, no clutch and you actually slip the gears off one set and ratio onto the other. A real transmission actually has all ratios connected at all times and you simply connect one ratio to the drive shaft at a time. But, as already stated, these are just Legos.

You can also see in this photo that the bucket seats installed on the floor pans recline and move forward and back. The shock absorbers connected to the rear wheels do, in fact, provide suspension and note the universal joints connecting the differential to the rear wheels.

The steering wheel is just as functional as the gear shift.

The four wheel independent suspension I've made is also not the same as the real VW. However, they do manage to create cambered wheels even to the point where the rear wheels have negative camber and the front positive.

Now, in the past decade Lego has come out with Technic sets for building car chassis but with far more sophisticated parts than mine here and even their first of the line. The latest actually have CV joints, "collars" to connect gears to axles for better shifting and ball joint connections for front suspension. I don't know. Seems an awful lot like cheating.

Now my turn signals are cool, too

2005-11-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

Just got done wiring the dashboard signal indicators just like Dad's. The only difference in how I did mine was that I used the tab that normally connects with the clock housing. You can actually pull that tab through a space in the bulb socket and get it to stick out enough to attach a small terminal to it.

For the terminal attachment I just did the same hack job I did for dad with the existing "red" female terminals. Then I wrapped it all in electrical tape to keep it together. Sweeeet. :)

How to make your dashboard signal lights independent

2005-11-25T16:01:00.000-08:00

I have a theory that Karmann wanted to make the Ghia with independently flashing in-dash signal lights. That's why there are two in the clock. However, that idea never materialized because the folks at VW didn't fulfill their end of the bargain by making it possible for the lights to flash independently.

But, Dad and I just got his '73 vert's signal indicator lights to flash in accord with which direction you're signaling. Here's how we did it:

We started by studying the hell out of the wiring diagram. And those of you out there familiar with it know that it begs to have the hell studied out of it if you hope to get anywhere. But, to give you a newfound appreciation for the complexity of this diagram it took myself (a Web page developer), my dad (a professor of Management Information Systems who last year finished his dissertation on artificial intelligence) and my grandpa (a retired chemistry professor who recently published a book on Valence Bonding) an entire afternoon to make sense of just the turn signal wiring.

Here's a screenshot of the original turn signal wiring:

And here's how we modified it. The key to the new wires is the usual red=pos black=ground:

As you can see (take your time if you need) it really is as simple as disconnecting the dash indicators from the flasher relay and hooking them up directly to the exterior signal light wires. We, of course, ran into some sticky spots.

The first test we did was to just hook a test wire up from the signal wire to the small male terminal on the bulb housing. It proved at first that you could, indeed, get the bulbs to flash in correspondence with the exterior lights. However, the interior lights would stay on solid when you weren't signaling.

This was because the wire was essentially acting as a ground for the interior bulbs, grounding it through the exterior lights themselves. But, when you did signal the bulbs did blink. So, we just needed to figure out how to keep them from coming on when the signals weren't blinking.

The trick was to keep the bulbs from getting their positive connection from the clock housing. There's a metal tab next to the light bulb that makes that connection. We snipped that tab off and then soldered a wire up to the other end of that single piece of brass, then we had control over where positive and negative were coming from.

That was the key, it turns out, and the rest of it was a simple matter of using the exterior signal wires as positive and then another wire for ground. Easy! Well, except for the three hours of swearing Dad endured soldering together tiny brass fittings onto 18 gauge wire. Here's the modified bulb housing:

And here's a pictoral overview of the wiring for further reference:

Save money: buy premium!

2005-11-23T06:44:00.000-08:00

Just tried a tank of 87 octane (here in MN it has no ethanol) and the MPG difference is very significant: 17 mpg as opposed to 22-23! So, even though it costs more per gallon, it seems quite obvious that the milage gains are significant enough to make running the Ghia on high octane fuel cheaper than low octane.

ADD indeed

2005-11-17T08:48:00.000-08:00

My name is Chris, and I suffer from ADD.

Now, don't imagine me saying that in some solemn, morose mood as if I'm admitting to a serious affliction. I've joked about my having ADD for some time but only recently had it officially diagnosed.

As this post demonstrates, I'm not too secretive about it. It's not really shameful or debilitating. In fact, one classic trait of ADD is what's commonly referred to as "hyper focusing." It's a curious duality of a condition most think of as strictly the inability to pay attention.

In addition to being easily distracted, people with ADD conversely find themselves unable to be distracted if their attention's gotten particularly fixated on something. As with everything, it's a source of great strength and great weakness.

I credit my ability to hyper focus with some of my most creative writing and my ability to learn new technology quickly. I also fault my mind's tendency to hyper focus on the wrong things at the wrong time.

I got a job right out of college because I luckily hyper focused on learning HTML and Web design during my spring 1996 college semester. I took no classes; I just read a few on-line tutorials and viewed a lot of page sources. However, four years later I was unluckily hyper focusing on 3D game design right around the time I landed a new job programming ASP, SQL database-driven Web pages.

I did some amazing 3D work for my hobby in game design, but I progressed and performed only average at my paid job. Being average isn't anything to be ashamed of, but it is a huge source of frustration for me. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty damn smart and an average performance is just not acceptable to me.

That's where ADD got bad for me. I didn't lose my job over it, but I was very frustrated and got several lectures from bosses who expected more. They were right to expect that and I continued to be frustrated at myself for not being able to simply "shape up."

Of course, that's the line you cross that turns a personality quirk into an actual mental illness that's negatively affecting your life. So, I got tested and diagnosed with ADD and they gave me drugs!

They really do help, and I can actually choose to concentrate and think about something. However, I still can be distracted by something new, shiny, blue and low to the ground with electrical issues. But, my prescribed narcotics keep my head clear enough that I know when to say when.

Interestingly enough, when I'm hyper focusing on Ghia repairs or upgrades and it gets busy at work I end up being very productive in both at the same time. I know that's just natural with anybody as when you're excited about something your energy level is higher so you'll be more productive. But, I think ADD makes it even more so with me.

Dad gave me a hard time on here about ADD being the reason I was suffering from post-fix depression. But, of course, he's prone to the same depression and most likely due to the same condition I inherited from him (and Mom). And, in classic ADD fashion, he's been curiously silent on the blog here for the past week. I wonder what he's hyper focusing on these days?

Dual carb experiment: this could work!

2005-11-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

Had some fun taking apart the free carburetors last night. Really not too complex inside when you get down to it. Of course, at its simplest a carburetor just sprays fuel into a stream of air in the right proportions to atomize the air and make it as combustible as possible.

The rest of what the carburetor does is regulate the air and fuel mixture depending on the variety of conditions a motor encounters. There's a float chamber where the fuel initially dumps into. If too much fuel is being pumped into the carburetor than it can use the float raises up and cuts off the flow of fresh fuel. Inside that float chamber are a couple valves here and there that seem to accomodate that process.

Then there's a fuel pump injector tube that points right into the "bowl" under the butterfly valve that's part of the automatic choke. That tube's really thin and can be easily twisted up and off for cleaning and replacement.

Then there's a gasket between the top and bottom portions of the carb and a gasket at the bottom for where it fits on the manifold. Overhauling is really just goin to be a matter of completely dismantling it, cleaning each part in solvent and making sure there are no obstructions in any of the tubes and then piecing it back together again with new gaskets and parts where needed.

The complicated part will be, of course, tuning them. I read about terms like "jetting" at TheSamba.com and still have no idea what exactly that is or how to "properly adjust the jetting" of these carburetors. I think I need to add a book about VW motors and carburetors to my Xmas list. Dad? :)

A good way to test, of course, is to slap one of the rebuilt carbs onto my existing manifold in place of my current carb, turn the key in the ignition and see how well it all works. If both check out, then I'll start on putting them both in on top of Solex Kadron manifolds (there might be a pair that will work with modifications at TheSamba.com's classifieds for pretty cheap) and plot how to link them together.

My initial reaction to dual carbs was that balancing them or getting them to work as synchronously as possible would be tricky. But, the more I learn the more straightforward it seems. As long as they're both working properly you just need to make sure the throttles are being pulled equally with a linkage bar and then hook up a "balance line" between the manifolds. From what I understand, a balance line is just a vacuum tube that connects the manifolds together so any imbalance in vacuum, fuel or air can be minimized by one manifold sucking from the other via this tube if need be.

There's still a lot to learn and figure out, but I've got months to do so.

Christmas come early!

2005-11-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

Finally grabbed the three old carbs from Jamie's garage. Here they are!

From left-to-right they're a 28 pict-1, 30 pict-1 and another 28 pict-1 (with the air cleaner on top).

My plan is to use the one on the left to learn on. It's the first to be taken apart, so I'll make my first mistakes of carburetor rebuilding on that and won't hold my breath for it ever living again. But, depending on how that goes I'll either make a serious effort at successfully rebuilding the 30 pict-1 and installing that on my car or I'll try rebuilding the other 28 pict-1 and follow my dream of building a dual carb setup with that and the other one.

Best part, of course, is it's all free! Jamie doesn't need them and would like to see what I end up doing with them. They're predicting up to 8 inches of snow by tomorrow night, so it looks to be that time of year when I won't be driving the Ghia until Spring and I'll have time to really study up on these complex little things.

As a bonus, I found a leather shifter knob in the stash of parts with the Wolfsburg symbol on it!

I asked more than once if Jamie didn't want the shifter knob for himself. He didn't seem to mind letting that one go for nothing, either. Sweet.

First road trip and possibly last before Spring

2005-11-13T17:09:00.000-08:00

Drove our American bulldogs, Boris and Natasha, to their grandparents this weekend for Festivus. Reese joined us later driving her Subaru separately as she had class to finish up and the Ghia would have been a tight fit with both of us and the dogs in there.

The poor dogs don't quite like the Ghia as well as the Legacy, though. Only one can really lie down at a time in the back seat and the front seat is just a tad too small for either of them to comfortably curl up in. But, Natasha can do the front seat at least. Boris can only sit up in it.

Of course, I got lots of thumbs up from people on the drive down. I'm never really sure if it's the car, the dogs or the combination thereof that people admire.

I did a couple speedometer tests on the way down, too. I timed myself around 57 seconds between mile markers while keeping it at 60mph. So, the speedometer's reading a little slower than actual.

Most of the way down I kept it right at or a little below 70. When I checked my milage it was just shy of 26 mpg. Seems to me for that speed (and it could be closer to 75 as my speedometer seems a bit off) that's actually pretty decent mpg. I should be able to get around 30 if I cruise at 60.

I also made sure to check the oil level as there's a very slight leak in the motor. Since the oil change several weeks and about 1000 miles ago I've had to put about 1/4 of a quart of oil in just to make sure it's near the full mark. Not to bad at all. Also impressive is the look of the oil when I checked it yesterday: remarkably clear! Dad's Ghia has just under 50K miles and mine has just under 70K. I'm thinking both of our odometers are reading accurately based on the condition of the motors.

Birth certificate ordered

2005-11-12T07:59:00.000-08:00

I spent some time looking at the sticky topics on thesamba's ghia forum last night and found a few interesting items:

I ordered my Ghia's birth certificate last night. You email the VW museum in Germany and request a "birth certificate" which will tell you the original color, options, engine #, shipping delivery point in the US, etc., what ever they have in their records on your car.
Specifications for a '73 included: fuel consumption- 24mpg, and top speed- 84mph.
Original color? I'm guessing Phoenix red with a black interior and top. That's the color on the parts of the body that weren't repainted. I'm tempted to take off the custom vinyl job that is covering up the original dash and instrument panel. I wonder what's underneath? The BC should tell what it shiped with.
Engine number: AK xxxxxx This looks like the original engine and leads me to believe that the odometer is correct in reporting 47,000 original miles. The AK model engine shows up on the 74 model year cars but other sources show 73 as well. The VIN number also indicates a late '73 production, possibly during the changeover to the 74 model.

I'll be interested to see what the BC tells me.

Gas milage report

2005-11-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

Well I think the accelerator cable and tire pressure adjustments have helped with the milage. I now seem to be getting more like 22-23mpg for my daily commute, part city and part freeway. Now that the fuel guage is stable, I've been making some checks to see how much gas is used at the 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, and R points. I've developed the following scale that reflects where the guage reads and the gas consumption at that point:

3/4 - 3.0 gal used
1/2 - 5.5 gal used
1/4 - 7.75 gal used
R - 9.3 gal used

I have to verify the 1/4 and R levels yet but I did fill with the needle just above the R mark and put in exactly 9 gallons. It looks like at that point there would be just 1 gal left. That's about right so the guage seems to be working properly and doesn't fly around anymore since the new wire to the sending unit was installed. Knowing these points will help keep a spot check on milage without having to actually fill it.

Hey Chris when you come down for Thanksgiving how about helping me give the Ghia a tuneup? Adjust the valves, timing, points, plugs, etc? True father - son bonding and all that stuff. Better'n football!

Realigning the Ghia and my thinking

2005-11-10T09:44:00.000-08:00

Just got back from Mr. Tire where they charged me $70 for an imperfect alignment job. They were good an honest about it: the car is aligned now as straight as it's going to get and the tires won't wear wrong. It's always pulled to the right and now it doesn't pull to the right quite so much.

The real fix is to install a new front axle beam. The one on there now has been welded in a few spots to fix rust. Yeah, you read that right! Kind of scary, but they say it's solid enough, it's just never going to allow the car to be aligned right unless I replace it.

A quick search of mamotorworks.com's catalog showed that a new font axle beam with ball joints and linkages for the wheels is about $300. Not too bad, considering. From the looks of it, installation should be quite simple for the boys at the shop. I briefly tossed around the idea in my head of installing a new one myself some day, but I would need to take it to an alignment shop after that anyway. So, I'm guessing the real way to go is make an appointmen to have a new one installed and have the front end aligned all in one shot and one bill.

Reese was giving me a hard time about how much money this car was costing. She loves the car, and has no problem with spending the money on it we need to keep it alive. I struggle myself, though, with spending money on it. But, that struggle is just a reaction to typical automotive economic thinking.

Usually, a car is a money-losing item. You can buy a brand new one for $20,000 and sell it two years later for $13,000. And, in those two years you've made payments, so you really end up losing money in the end.

With a 33-year-old classic car like a Ghia, the economics are different. The MSRP for the 1972 Ghia when brand new was $3,099. I bought mine for $3,100. The car stands to only appreciate in price if I keep in in the condition I received it. If I spend money on it, and especially if I spend money on body repairs, the value of the car will appreciate. Just put "had an off-body restoration done" in your classified ad and you can up the price a couple grand.

In that respect, the car is more like my house. Sure, it costs money to fix, but it's actually money invested not money wasted. I've never owned a car like that, so I'm having to realign my thinking. Well, I should say I've never owned a car like that to my knowledge.

I once owned a '93 Honda Civic 3-Door (hatchback). I bought it for $5K and sold it three years later for $2,500. Two years after that I sold my money-hogging 2002 Subaru and thought "Hey, maybe I could get another '93 Civic hatch?" To save my life I could not find one for less than $5,000. That's The Fast and the Furious selling small, Japanese cars for ya.

It's only a scratch!

2005-11-08T16:00:00.000-08:00

I took the Ghia to Auto Artists to get touchup done on some of the paint chips and scratches. The problem is that the current paint job was a custom color and I don't know what it is. Auto artists tried to match the color as close as possible but it has a metalic fleck in it that is difficult to match. Oh well, it's only a scratch...

My dad's Ghia was his pride and joy. How I managed to get to take it out on dates I'll never understand (see "Tales of Ghia head turners" October 24th post.) Especially after I managed to wreck the family station wagon the first time I drove a car all by my self.

In Salmon Idaho in the early 60's you could get a drivers license by just showing up at the county court house with your parents. They sign an affadavit that you can drive and you're issued a license, no questions asked. So I got in the family station wagon and went cruising. First stop was at a friends house to show off my new status. This particular friend had long driveway lined with a picket fence. The problem was I turned into the drive too close to the fence. The fence's corner post was a lot stronger than all the trim, door handles and paint on the right side of the station wagon.

I knew I was in trouble. So I went home, parked the car out in front of the house, fessed up to the deed and tried to calm my now angry father. He had a temper, especially with autos. Mom called him an autoholic, an epithet she now applies to Chris and I. I told him "It's only a scratch." After inspecting the car dad yelled at me, "Only a scratch! You scrapped off half the side of the car!" My driving days were over for quite some time.

My father was of the "trust but verify" school. After a year he decided to trust me with the Ghia, but he would verify that trust the next morning everytime I had the car out the night before. I decided to get my revenge when I discovered the fake paint scratches at the local novelty store. As an insurance policy I let my mom in on the plan in case dad would be so enraged that murder would ensue. So after a late night date I carefully removed the adhesive backing from the fake scratch and pasted it on the right front fender.

The next morning, true to form, my dad went into the back yard driveway to inspect the car. Mom and I watched from the kitchen window, quietly laughing with anticipation. My dad started with the left front fender and then around the rear of the car and up the right side. He was like someone from CSI taking in every possible clue no matter how small. By this time mom and I were outright laughing.

Then dad saw the scratch. It is difficult to describe, but he was like a volcano building pressure leading to a final outburst of molten lava, hot and red. Steam escaped from his ears and he began to pump is fists and turn in circles stoping at each turn to look at the scratch. My dad was in the throws of an autoholic fit with an eruption bound to hit 8 on the richter scale. Mom and I howled with delight. Dad then turned and got closer to see just how much damage was done. As he rubbed his fingers along the scratch he could sense something wasn't right. The scratch had an edge to it. On closer inspection he found he could lift the edge and as he pulled the scratch pealed right off the fender! Dad realized he'd been had. He went from steaming righteous anger to an embarrased silence.

Dad never mentioned the paint scratch and he never inspected the Ghia again after I had been driving it. I try to take the same approach with Pat, she has had a habit of putting scratches in our vehicles, until this summer when I was the primary culprit. I'm still working on fixing that one.

Learn to walk first

2005-11-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

The initial high of "Ooh, dual carbs would be so cool!" is starting to wear off and after a talk with Jamie about the 30 pict carb in his stash I'm thinking of starting smaller.

A couple weeks ago I was asking about what the bypass valve on a carb was. I can really see getting in over my head attempting to install a completely new carburation system. I could get a 30 pict rebuild kit for under $20 (I believe) and learn myself a thing or two about the things tearing apart that old carb, cleaning it and putting it back together.

Then, swap out my old one for the rebuilt and see how I did. The car is currently running a lot better and I dare say it even feels somewhat punchy in 1st and 2nd. The stock performance I'm getting out of that motor may be all I need for the first couple years.

So, new plan: rebuild a used 30 pict carb and install it in the ghia. Depending on how well I do with that I'll think about dual carbs someday. Guess I'm learning about the wisdom of "wait until winter to do major repairs/upgrades."

Post-fix depression

2005-11-08T08:26:00.000-08:00

I notice Dad isn't posting quite as much in the past few days since he proclaimed just about all of his electrical issues as fixed. He said he was almost sad to achieve that because it's so much fun troubleshooting and fixing things.

My wife, of course, doesn't understand this mentality. In fact, every day I learn more about the radically different mindsets between her and me on the Ghia.

We both love the car and have both wanted one since we were teenagers. Lately, I've been feeling guilty that I'm always the one driving it and working on it. Now, I know she has absolutely zero interest in working on it, but I was waiting for her to say, "Uh, hon, when do I get to drive the Ghia?"

So, I would occasionally offer her to take it to work or class or drive it with me riding if we go around the lakes. Last night she finally told me to stop pressuring her and she'll drive it when she feels comfortable with it. I had to get her to explain this concept, "Uh ... you don't want to drive it?"

"No," she said, "My 2000 Subaru drives better and more reliably. I can take it anywhere without stress!"

And then she said something I understand about as well as antique interior decorating: "I just like having the car, I don't need to drive it."

I decided I didn’t need to understand it too deeply, just to the level that it means I don’t have to feel guilty about always being the one driving the car! I can live with that.

But, as Dad can attest, for him and me it’s not good enough to just drive it. We’re happiest when something’s broken on it, we spend time, thought and energy fixing it and then drive it around again to try out the fix.

So, what are we to do now that our electrical issues are nearing completion? Luckily, electrical issues are probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to work to do on these cars.

First off, they both need rust holes patched and protected on the underside. Mine even has a few small scratches on the top here and there that show rust and a little bit of bubbling around the bottom here and there.

I’m considering either taking a welding class or getting lessons from a friend and trying my hand at repairing one spot behind my driver’s-side rear wheel. Based on how that goes I’ll decide whether I want to continue doing the rest of the body work myself bit-by-bit or just get an estimate from a reputable body shop/individual and pay them instead.

I’m actually not too concerned about my ability to repair the scratches on the top that I can see. What I really won’t know how to do and am afraid to touch are the ones on the undercarriage. Hopefully the rust I see on the floor pans are only on the very surface and I won’t need to replace those, just sand ‘em down and repaint.

Still, it does seem that “body off” restoration is the recommended route as then you’re certain to repair otherwise unreachable problem areas. I’d also like to really look into the possibility of sealing up the body work to the point where I wouldn’t have to worry about rust even in winter. If I could do that, then this car could be driven year-round and we’d sell the 2nd Subaru. As it stands, we’re a 3 car, 2 person household.

So much for my “peak oil” pontificating. I just classify myself as an enigma and end the debate there.

The next area is, of course, engine, transmission and suspension. I do need a new carburetor and distributor, according to VW Man. And, for a few extra dollars I can replace both of those with higher-performance parts. So, I’m going to do it!

I’ll wait until the snow is actually on the ground and am therefore no longer tempted to drive the car. Then, I’ll start the task of taking the old carburetor/manifold off and installing a dual carburetor and manifold system with linkage bars for the throttles and a new distributor.

My long-term plan for performance upgrades is identical to my approach to mountain bike upgrades: one small change at a time. That’s the only way to keep the post-fix depression at bay. You install one piece of a performance upgrade, try it out, enjoy the new toy and then when it gets old you plot the next upgrade.

It also helps that it’s more affordable that way. I’m being careful that by waiting on other upgrades that I don’t do harm. Sometimes a big dual carburetor setup can overheat your engine if you have the stock muffler, for example. So, I’ll be doing research on all this before starting in on stuff.

I’m going to lurk around TheSamba.com’s classified section and probably get a dual carb setup on there. Someone is selling a used dual Solex Kadron setup for $225 there. They say it’s in good working condition and are getting rid of it because they recently bought a more powerful system.

One consideration to make about the dual carbs is that you’re going big enough to get a performance boost and to accommodate other enhancements in the future such as less-restrictive exhaust and bigger heads. But, if you go too big for the motor you have now that can cause problems unless you upgrade all that other stuff immediately. Solex Kadron keeps coming up as the recommended system for the 1600 dual port motor in my car, so that’s what I’ll keep an eye out for, and $225 is a good deal on them.

So, here’s to a long winter full of patient research and planning to pace ourselves and ensure there will always be something to fix on our cars.

Now that smells like a Volkswagen

2005-11-07T08:24:00.000-08:00

Visited VW Man this morning for the appointment to check on the idle. I took with me a sense of adventure as I had no ride back home, just my laptop. For those out there who don't know me, I'm one of the lucky few who work from home. There's this great coffee shop called Wilde Roast just two blocks away with free wi-fi, so I got some of my morning's duties done while waiting for the car.

They determined that the vacuum advance and retard on my 009 distributor is bad and the distributor needs replacing. Trouble is no supplier carries those currently. They said in a couple months some suppliers will have them again, but for now that just can't be fixed. My carburetor is also leaking, and they recommended just replacing it for the $210 parts and labor they'd charge as a rebuild wouldn't be much cheaper.

I asked about my plan for a pair of 28 pict carbs and the guy winced. He said when they're tuned properly and working right dual carbs work great. But, when they aren't perfect ... yeah, sorta what I thought. I asked about going with a single, bigger carb like a Weber 44 or something and he winced again.

Seems he prefers a good, old, solid 30 pict (a step or two down from the one I've currently got) as it's the most reliable and actually has better throttle response than a bigger carb. Have to think about that one. Jamie's got a 30 pict in his stash, so perhaps before any dreams of cool-looking dual carburetors I'll play around with getting a decent, reliable single carburetor.

But, they advanced the timing (I sorta know what that means, like they rotated the distributor one way or the other to make the cylidars fire sooner rather than later) and the car really drives better! I actually have low-end power and throttle response rather than gently feathering the gas until the motor revs higher. I knew these cars were under-powered, but I also remember my '72 Beetle having better response and power than this!

While they had it in I requested they see about working my heater box levers loose and they tried, but snapped one of the levers in the process. The final solution there, they said, is new heater boxes ($200 or so from what I've seen, not too bad). But, they asked if I wanted them just "wired on" and I said "sure!" Heat!

Reese and I are driving the car down to southern MN this weekend, then, now that we won't freeze in it. We'll be hauling nearly 200 lbs of American Bulldog with us in the back seat (poor Boris and Natasha! They love it, though). We'll buy a big kennel while we're down there for the two of them to sleep together in and just keep. Even when we take the Subaru and are able to strap the collapsable kennels on top it's just such a pain. It'll be nice to not have that hassle anymore. Plus, it's a nice excuse to take the Ghia for our first road trip in her.

And, yes, as the title of this post suggests, with the heater ducts open she smells like a Volkswagen finally! That hot exaust pipe flavor! Most people who've never been in a VW with the heater on don't know what hot exaust pipe smells like. It's not hot exaust (I hope) it's the metal of the pipe itself when it's hot and the air that gets passed by it. Quite distinctive.

I still have to tighten up the hose in the back from the passenger's-side heater box to the heater channel, though, so it's parked in the garage up on ramps at the moment. When it cools down I'll slide under to tighten that up.

Rear window defogger repair

2005-11-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

The rear window defogger now works. Primary replacement part was a new relay from RadioShack. The relay is the same type that runs the horn. Thanks to Chris for finding the RadioShack source. Funny thing is it is a standard part that all stores carry. The relay simply allows one circuit (the switch) to control another independent circuit (the window defogger). I had to replace some terminals to make solid connections and the fuse (in the engine compartment near the relay) was blown.

This now completes the electrical system repairs, except for the passenger's side door switch. Now that I've gotten the hang of troubleshooting the circuitry, I almost wish there were more things to fix! Most all of the electrical repairs boiled down to: loose terminals, blown fuses or relays and reversed polarity from previous repairs.

I also repaired the rear defrost/heat control. There is a tube that the cable runs through under the rear seat. The tube is welded to the wall that seperates the rear footwell from the area under the seat. The weld had broken and the tube was loose, so the cable couldn't push the louver closed. I just had to use a metal strap to secure the tube in place and the cable now works just fine. Since there are no vent covers in the front, I've rolled up some extra pieces of interior carpeting to stuff in front of the vents. I've now got a small bit of warm air at the windshield on both sides. Of course this is only to be expected, the system even in perfect repair never would deliver much warm air to the windshield. May have to investigate sometime one of the booster kits.

The adjustment on the accelerator cable that Chris recommended really improved the operation of the engine. It now idles at a lower rpm and starts easily everytime. I think it was flooding before and this made it hard to start and lowered the mpg. I'll see this week if my overall milage is improved.

Winter project: dual 28 pict carbs!

2005-11-05T14:23:00.000-08:00

Well, the gang at TheSamba.com thinks it's a splendid plan to replace my single 34pict carb with a pair of 28 pict. I will see a performance increase if I do it right. The only question (beyond whether the used 28 picts still function) is how to set up a linkage system and how to get manifolds for each side.

But, that may end up simpler than I'm thinking if I can just get someone to weld together old manifold pieces.

Best part is the carbs will cost me a total of $0! Jamie said I can just have 'em as he's had them sitting around for 10 years and never used them so far. I told him if it works pretty well for me with his dual 28s he should look at what carb is in his bus and we could maybe fashion together a similar setup there. If he's got a 30 then he can just use the 30 he's got in the box. If he's got a 34 he could probably use mine. Or, better yet, I could trade him his 34 for my dual 28 setup and make a dual 34 setup for mine!

Yep, I'd have some serious power to contend with. Perhaps 80 or so horsepower. Woo ... wow ... heh heh ...

Rich neighbor!

2005-11-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

My neighbor, Jamie, is another VW head. He's got a mid-'60s bus that came with a few boxes of spare VW parts! I got to take a mental inventory of his stash last night. Here's what I remember:

* 3 Carbruetors - 2 28 pict and one 30 pict. I've asked on the performance/engine thread at TheSamba.com if it's worth, as a winter project, attempting to hook up the pair of 28 pict carbs in my Ghia, or if they won't be any better than the single 34 pict I have in there now.
* A bundle of distributor wires! One of my wires has cracked housing where it connects to the distributor. Might just pop on over and grab an appropriately-sized replacement.
* Practically brand-new distributor cap. The points are shiny and brassy and the cap looks clean except for cobwebs.
* Power regulator (could have used that two weeks ago)
* 2 fuel pumps (ditto!)
* Coils
* Wiper motor
* Starter motor
* Beetle Speedometer. Ooh, I didn't check to see if there are any insturment light bulb housings in it! I need one more for my parking light indicator.
* Beetle speaker grille. Whoever owned the bus before Jamie must have owned a Beetle, too.
* Hazard switch
* Headlight switch
* Pump-action windshield washer bottle cap (for bus it looks, wouldn't fit mine).

I told him he could sell a lot of that on eBay, but I think for his and my sake he's holding on to it. I'm very curious to hear back from the motorheads at TheSamba.com about the 2x28pict vs 1x34pict carb issue. It'd be kind of a fun winter project, I'd learn a lot about carbs and motors and even if it doesn't get more power I've heard that dual carbs get better throttle response and make the motor operate smoother in general.

A good night of fixes

2005-11-04T19:12:00.000-08:00

While Dad's killing brain cells driving around with a leaky heat exhanger, I fixed the following tonight:

* Dome light wiring
* Rear defrost
* Car idles again (but not perfectly)

I used an old bike brake cable to thread through the windshield frame housing. Then, I took a look at this bundle of wires that used to be floating around free in my trunk and noticed it was just right for connecting the dome light to the fuse box. Hmm!

I had to splice some extra wire on here and there, but eventually I just taped the end of the bundle of wires to the end of the cable, pulled it all through and wired it up. Let there be light.

While I was cleaning up the wiring I took a good look at where the various bundles were coming from and noticed one particular loose wire. It was the only loose one that came with a big bundle from the back of the car. I was able to isolate that bundle by isolating the bundle next to it that I now know is for the door switch. I need a new door switch, by the way.

That one loose connection had one of those small female terminals, the kind that's usually plugged into the insturment lights. I couldn't help notice that the back of the little defroster switch had tiny, male terminals it would fit just as well. Plug that wire into the switch, plug another small terminal into the other side that was already hooked up to the fuse box and I've got a rear defogger.

I'm still keeping the appointment Monday with VW Man to fix my idle right, but after tightening a couple hose clamps on the silicone joints between the middle and outer intake manifold pieces my car doesn't die at stop ligths anymore. I'm going to invest major bank in a 13mm socket this weekend and use that to tighten the bolts on the intake pieces where they connect to the engine block and see where that gets me.

That, and a session with the heater boxes and a can a WD-40 and I've got a happenin' weekend shaping up for me!

Heat and Hazzard: Yes!

2005-11-04T15:08:00.000-08:00

Well, true to form, MAMotorworks parts arrived today, just one day after placing the order. Those guys are good! So I got the heater cables connected and now I've got heat. Just in time too by the looks of the weather report. Today was nice though and I drove around town with the top down, what fun!

The new flasher relay did the trick for the hazzards, so now most electrical problems are fixed. The seatbelt warning system was dismantled long ago, so I'm not worrying about it. The rear window defrost still needs to be fixed though and the Dome light only goes on when the door is open. You should be able to switch it on in the opposite direction but no luck yet.

While attaching the heater cables I noticed the heat exchanger has rusted through on the driver's side..... Oh well, its only a small hole right now and I am getting sufficient heat... so later...

Monday I'm taking the Ghia to a touchup paint place. They'll see if they can match the paint. The current paint job is not the original color and of course I have no record of what the color is. They should be able to match it pretty close but probably not perfectly. Anyway there are some chips and scratches that need to be covered.

When Dome lights work (finally)!

2005-11-04T11:03:00.000-08:00

Well I've had some success solving the minor but nagging electrical problems that have been little mysteries since I got the car.

Dome Light.
The domelight wiring in my case was attached to the mirror. The problem has been that when I test the voltage on the hot wire, it was varying between 2 - 8 volts. I thought maybe this was a short in the channel that was causing some of the other problems. So I connected a know good wire to the fusebox terminal and connected the wire to the terminal on the mirror. The dome light worked! The driver's side door switch also worked, and the light would go on and off. So I thought then that I'd need to thread a new wire through the windshield channel. Chris is right you need a stiffer wire, like an old heater cable or something to thread it through. Having chopped up my old heater cable for reaming out the heater control cable channel, I had nothing to use. So I did a continuity test on the existing wire. The wire tested fine. I wiggled the wire at both ends and everything seemed fine. Then I reattached the wire to the mirror and the dome light worked fine. So I figured problem solved and put the mirror back in place, but then the dome light wouldn't work again. I removed the mirror again and detached the wire, this time the wire connector broke. Hum...maybe was part of the problem. So I attached a new connector, but still low voltage again. I decided to check the end where the wire attaches to the fusebox. When I wiggled it, the voltage would sometimes hit 12 volts and sometimes would drop to 0. One of the problems with this connection was that a Y branch had been attached to this fuse terminal to allow for connecting the memory wire for the radio ( more about this next.) So I redid the wire connector on this end, took off the Y and attached the wire directly with a good solid connection. Now I have a good 12 volts even with the mirror attached. So the dome light now works just fine.

Radio Memory
Now the radio has sometimes had a memory (channel presets, and especially the radio clock) and sometimes not. With no apparent reason everything would reset, it would loose its memory. The memory wire is seperately fused and was attched to fuse #9 along with the dome light. So I decided to use the clock wire from the old clock (which doesn't work anyway) and connect it to the radio memory wire. (The old clock wire had a good solid connection direct to the battery terminal wire.) Now the radio has a good memory. The big problem for both the radio and the dome light was the Y connector's poor connection to the terminal.

Fuel guage
The fuel guage has been jumping around sometimes reading high and sometimes low. Got to be a loose connection somewhere! So I tested the continuity on the sending unit wire. Sure enough when you bent the wire a little bit the ohm meter would jump. In fact it would jump just like the fuel guage. Problem solved, just replace the wire. Now the fuel guage seems stable and accurate but I'll have to watch it over the next week to see how it goes.

The multitester has really paid for itself. Being able to test continuity and voltage levels is a great aid to troubleshooting. Basic rule of thumb is don't assume anything, and test, test, test.

When dome lights don't work

2005-11-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

Funny thing, but if the wires coming out of the dome light are snipped off after about 4 inches your dome light will not work! That's what I found out last night.

I'll be spending some time tonight and this weekend threading wire through the windshield housing/channel so my interior light finally illuminates. I tried a little bit of wire threading last night but, as always, found myself ill-equiped to do it properly. I think I'll need to use a cable or something else stiffer and more substantial to start the threading.

The window channel is accessible through the trunk in the front near the outer panel. I'll take pictures of some of this if Dad ever needs to do something similar.

Eventually I'll need new door switches so the light goes on and off when the doors open and close. I'll probably get those in an order with some new rubber seals as I threw some weather stripping on various spots of the doors last night.

I'll also consider getting a can of WD40 to spray the hell out of the joints for the heater duct valves to see if I can work those loose. A couple nights ago I tried hammering them loose but I think all I did was bend the arms a bit. Heh heh ... oops! If that fails I'll as VW Man to see what they can do about 'em. Reese and I would love to drive this thing with heat to her family's annual Festivus dinner (pre-thanksgiving for the retirees who migrate south before real Thanksgiving.)

Time to leave it to the pros again

2005-11-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

I can't adjust my carburetor to save my life.

However, I don't believe it's user error. Something else is keeping the car from idling properly. So, I made an appointment with VW Man for Monday morning and I'll let them wrench with it.

The forum folks at TheSamba.com thought I might have a vacuum leak. To troubleshoot they recommended getting a can of starter fluid and then spraying some around the various connection points of the intake manifold when the engine is cold. If there's a leak, when I spray starter fluid at the problem area it should cause the engine RPMs to surge noticeably.

The fix could be as simple as tightening the bolts that hold the intake manifold to the engine and the carburetor to the intake manifold. Of course, getting to the screw on the front side (remember, front side of the car) of the carburetor is anything but simple! If that doesn't solve the leak, then you'll need to remove the manifold and replace gaskets. You may even find the engine block and manifold fittings aren't totally flat, which would involve machining them down so they are and ... yeah, after reading that I decided I could spend a lot of time, energy and frustration on a project like that.

Instead, I'm sure I could spend a bit of money to have someone better at it do it for me in much less time.

Beep beep, mmm, beep beep, yeah!

2005-11-03T21:30:00.000-08:00

The horn works!

I bought a new "auto relay" from Radio Shack for $6.50 to replace the horn relay. Here's what I did to troubleshoot thanks to advice from TheSamba.com:

1. Test the horns - At the horn relay, I unplugged one of the red (hot) wires and touched it to the wire connecting the relay to the horns. *spark!* *BEEP!* Ow ... that was loud. So, OK. I knew my dual horns were good and there was electricity going to the relay.

2. Test the steering wheel button - I pulled off the relay the brown ground wire coming from the dash and wired it in series to a terminal on each horn. I then wired the red live wire in series to the other two terminals. I hit the pad on the steering wheel and hear *punk!* Yeah, you heard me. It didn't beep, it went *punk!* like a dent in metal being pulled out. If I held the steering wheel *just* right, I could get the horn to beep sort of subdued. So! all the wires were good, that meant the problem was at the horn relay!

3. Install new horn relay - I installed the new one exactly the same as the old, hit the pad on the steering wheel and ... nothing ... What the!?!?!?? I re-read the post from TheSamba.com and it looks like everything's hooked up right. So, time to randomly and carelessly cross wires around! Eventually, I figured out I had two terminals switched on the horn relay, got them hooked up right and BEEP! Woo hoo! I can re-join the fun game of road rage!

Now if I can only get the carburetor to idle right *and* have the proper air/fuel mixture ... ugh ...

Heater Cable: part duex

2005-11-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

Parts arrived today from KarmannGhia.com so I've been busy most of the day getting things put together. The passenger side door is now complete. I needed a trim plate for the door latch release. Got the right part but no screw to attach it. Menards has a selection of metric screws, so I got what I needed there. The only problem was the screw was about 5mm too long. It would screw in all the way but then it would interfere with the release mechanism. I couldn't get the door open! So cussing I had to crawl over the emergency brake and gear shift into the passenger seat to get out that door. (I should have just rolled down the window and opened the door from the outside.) A hack saw shortened the screw to the right length and now everything works just fine.

I finally got the new heater cable installed (after 3 hours of work) but still NO HEAT. :( The clamps on the heater levers are rusted and I broke one trying to get it loosened. So back to the parts catalogue and order more parts. While I'm at it I'll order some fuses (8 and 16amp), a new flasher relay (I've decided that the problem with the hazard lights is the relay), a pedal repair kit (I need the spring to hold the accelerator pedal in place) and a cap for the window wiper arm.

The cables almost went all the way through the channel before getting stuck in the tight spot. After some reaming out I could get one through but the other one just wouldn't budge. More reaming...no luck.....more reaming...no luck....etc. I finaly bent the channel (where the cable emerges) a little bit to straighten it out some and that did the trick. Then in the euphoria of success I was stopped cold by the frozen cable clamps. Curses, it's always something.

I also recieved with this shipment of parts a new hose to connect the heater control box to the body on the driver's side. This went on without too much trouble, although I'm getting tired of having to work with my hands in tight spaces. I decided to check out the passenger side hose while I was at it and good thing I did. It was loose on one end so I reattached it and tightend the clamp. I found the same problem at the other end of the car with the driver's side window vent. The hose that brings hot air was disconnected from the vent, so I reconnected that hose as well. I then noticed that the fresh air cable on that side was loose and attempted to reattach it but the cable sticks and it just comes off again. I'll have to take the cable off and see if it's salvageable.

Now that all the hoses are connected, if I can just get new clamps and get the cables attached to the heat control levers I should be in business.

Closing in on a properly-tuned carburetor

2005-11-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

As I've said before, the last mechanic who worked on my VW kind of botched the carburetor adjustment. I've spent a lot of time re-reading the deceptively short and simple instructions and then finally driving around with a long, thin flathead screwdriver and stopping every few miles to turn screws this way and that.

Currently, I've got my flow control screw turned out about 3 turns, which is within the range it *should* be and not nearly all the way out like it was when I first got the car. The bypass valve is about 4 or 5 turns in from being flush with the housing. That one I'm still not sure of where it's supposed to be, but apparently it's the only screw you should adjust to set the idle.

The setting I *know* isn't quite right is the throttle adjustment. I've got it backed out a good 4-5 turns when it should be *just* touching the automatic choke cam on its lowest setting. The carb is probably in need of being completely dismantled and cleaned to get it to run 100%.

But, as-is it's running pretty smooth in low RPMs, the throttle response is better and the last MPG check had it at just under 23 with mostly freeway driving tonight and today but fighting a LOT of wind.

It's supposed to get up to 5 mpg better, from what I've read. So, once I get the motor to idle fine with the throttle screw set right that may make all the difference.

Heater cable replaced but no heat

2005-11-01T18:54:00.000-08:00

The vents are kinda siezed/rusted in place it seems. I think I'll have to put some Liquid Wrench on them or something and let it sit there for a while to get them to move.

Replacing the cables was, more-or-less, a simple affair. I did have to try the power drill hooked up to a cable technique to bore out a rusted cable housing, but other than that and the very greasy nature of the job it was just thread the new cables through, tighten the screws and you're in business!

New tires make all the difference

2005-10-31T17:16:00.000-08:00

Spent $250 at Samaritan Tires this afternoon to replace the positively ancient and crappy tires that came with the car with some Republic Ultra Metrics. The rear were actually snow tires and had several bald spots on them. They made horrible noises at any speed and especially while cornering and I could just imagine them having a blowup on the highway. Not good.

I knew the car would ride a lot better with the new tires, but it almost looks like the guys at the tire shop did some work with alignment because the passenger front tire isn't as cambered-in as it used to be, the steering wheel is a bit straighter and it doesn't pull as badly to the right when I brake. Bonus!

On the way there and on the way back I stopped several times to tweak my carburetor, too. Ever since getting it back from Quality Coaches Friday it hasn't quite driven like it should. Specifically, it's been hesitating and missing at low RPMs and not idling as smooth as it should.

After studying the idle adjustment instructions in both the Muir book and the Haynes manual and reading up a bit on-line it looks like the mechanic confused the flow control with the bypass valve! I turned the flow control valve a lot further in and turned the bypass valve a lot further out and the car drives quite a lot smoother. I'll need to use my skinnier flathead screwdriver to really tweak that small flow control valve correctly.

I really should get a tachometer to adjust the idle on the car, but I think I've got it pretty close just playing it by ear.

I also came home to parts! I got the clock and speedo mounting brackets, windshield washer container with hose and heater cable. I'm still waiting on the backordered windshield washer hookups, however. I'd really like to know how to hook up the spray control to the hose and all that. Hmm ... Dad? Picutres? =)

Happy Halloween!

2005-10-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

My wife and I (guess which is which!) send our warmest Halloween wishes.

Driving the Mighty Mississippi

2005-10-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

Pat and I just got back from a beautiful drive up to Mississippi Palasades State Park in Savannah Illinois. What a great day: 68 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We took the top down when we got to the park where we stopped and had a picnic lunch.

Unfortunately Pat doesn't like the car much and I had to pry her away from her studies to take a drive with me. Well it wasn't that hard!

This would have been a great shot of the car if Pat hadn't gotten in the way. This is a fun place to drive, lots of hills and curves.

I checked the gas milage when we got home. We are getting 28mpg. About half of this is city miles and the other is highway. Problably 25mpg in the city and 30mpg on the highway. Not bad for an old girl.

Driving is believing

2005-10-28T23:22:00.000-07:00

Well, the carburetor seemed to be adjusted properly, but the fuel filter has always looked a bit dirty to me, and I keep hearing mention of old gas tanks and the rust they can produce. So, I spent $5 on a new fuel filter. Of course, I wasn't expecting a quick, 2 second spray of gasoline mist when I unhooked the old filter! Gosh, I guess those old, simple push-rod fuel pumps really pump!

After I recovered from my heart attack, fire extinguisher in hand (remember, keep it at your side when working on fuel stuff!) I determined enough time had passed for the gas to have evaporated off the engine parts. It really wasn't much, actually, just enough to surprise me and freak me out!

The car didn't seem to really improve after that, but over time it started driving better and better. I may still want to check the timing myself, though, based on what I've read about how to do it with a simple test light. Still, I drove the car a LOT tonight (about 170 miles around the Twin Cities ... wow, I was jonesin'!) and it's not doing too bad now. Give it 5 minutes to warm up and the throttle is responsive enough. And, like Dad, my fuel economy is finally where it should be! I'd guess anywhere from 22-24 right now just based on tonight's drive mixing freeway and city streets. Hey, better than the Subaru!

It's also nice having good, decently-illuminating headlights. As the generator was flaking out and the headlights were basically running on battery power they were a bit dim before.

It's fixed!

2005-10-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo!

Just took it for a drive with a big grin on my face.

I'm going to go re-adjust the carburetor now. I think the guy set the bypass valve in a little far and perhaps even the idle a bit low. It's dying every now and then at stops and missing a little at low RPMs. With all the work done on it the culprit has to be the carburetor (in my obviously expert opinion ... heh heh ...)

Hey, you two

2005-10-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

This is your wife/mother. Don't you have any work to do? Both the women in these families are in school. Have you done the dishes? Fed the cats? Walked the dogs? And what about the money you're spending on these "cheap" cars that were supposed to save money? Huh?
Pat

One for the idea book

2005-10-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

Every day I spend some time at Sunrise Cyclery, a bike shop just one block from home (where my office is also conveniently located.) When I got my Ghia I told the owner and only staff member Jamie about it, only to discover he's a VW fan, too. He showed me the '65 bus he's got buried in the carriage house of his old victorian just five houses down from mine.

The thing's got some good rust spots on it, but apparently it runs ... just not that often. Right now it's kind of piled in there with the myriad bikes that are his overflow stock.

He gave me an interesting idea for an alternative to the standard VW heater: a hair drier.

Hear me out on this one. I had tried something similar with the Beetle back in Bismarck before figuring out that I had to first fix the huge draft problem before having any hopes of warming it up inside. It was a little electric heater with fan I got from Target for $20, and I immediately regretted the purchase as it just did not have enough power to do diddly-squat for warming up the cab when you've got some serious air leaks in your trunk and it's -20.

But, I don't intend to drive the Ghia at any temperature within at least 60 degrees of that! So, that plan may need revisiting. Yes, I know, fixing the cable to the main heater duct should be so easy even Dad could do it ... but I distinctly remember trying to rub soot out of my windshield in the Beetle because of the stock heater. I didn't do drugs in college, I drove a VW with its heater on.

Yet I digress. Here's what I'm thinking:

---=== Simple plan ===---

Find another one of those $20 electric heaters with fan from Target or wherever. Plug into cigarette light ... OK, install cigarette lighter and plug heater into cigarette lighter ... or, I could just hard-wire the stupid thing into the fuse box. Boom: a little bit of heat for those chilly 40-50 degree spring/fall days.

---=== Less-simple plan ===---

Buy a pair of cheapo hair driers and immediately commence with the fun part: take them apart! Well, not completely apart. Perhaps only take the handle apart and see about removing the switches and other controls from the fan and heating element of the driers so they can be mounted somewhere on the dash board ... or on a new plate on bottom-middle of dash, sort of under the radio/non-functional (decorative) vent controls.

Wire power to the fuse box, mount blow driers in trunk. Attach duct work from each drier to each side of the fresh air vents after the valves that open the fresh air. Voi la! Right and left independant heat controls for the windshield! He likes it cool, she likes it warm. They can both have it as they like it in the '72 Karmann Ghia.

It would have everything modern heaters have: temperature control (warm or hot), a fan with variable speeds (fast or slow ... my Beetle had a fan for the fresh air vents, why not the Ghia? Weird ...), fresh air or recirculate (open or close valves that control fresh air vents).

Of course, first I gotta slove this draft problem in the trunk ... :) (here's a hint, I believe I need to put together the dual horn boot properly!)

Ghia insomnia

2005-10-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

There's this great picture in the John Muir "How to Keep your Volkswagen Alive" book of a guy lying in bed with his wife. She's asleep but his eyes are bugged out and above him is a thought baloon full of every single little piece of a VW motor completely taken apart.

That's how I feel these days.

The ghia repairs are basically done, according to Quality Coaches. I stopped by there at 5 today feeling like an expectant parent waiting to find out if it's a boy or a girl.

The generator seems to be in good shape, but the power regulator got burned out. Apparently there's a ground terminal on the unit that you're supposed to ... well ... connect the ground to. Instead, whoever installed the last power regulator connected the ground to one of the bolts that holds the regulator to the chassis.

Trouble with that was that once those bolts worked themselves loose the ground connection became loose, too. That made complete sense as when I first noticed the generator light it was flickering and really only so that you would notice it at night but not in the day. More importantly, it would flicker on and off seemingly unrelated to engine RPM. I knew there was a wire loose somewhere bouncing around, but had no clue where. Again, glad I've had the pros take a look at it.

I do intend to start doing tuneup and maintenance myself as much as possible, and that will be a lot easier now that someone with more experience has gone over it pretty well and fixed trouble spots I would have probably just made worse. Of course, because I have to wait yet another day before I get it back I'm just overly-full of nervous energy! It should be done tomorrow morning, though. He wanted to tweak the timing one last time and give it a final checkup before sending it out the door.

But, that's been nearly a whole week of sunny, nice weather without a Ghia I just purchased! It's been so bad that I dusted off the old Lego Technic set the other night and built a VW chassis complete with flat 2 motor, two-speed manual transmission, fuel line and pump, air cleaner, carburetor, throttle control, rack-and-pinion steering. I might even start building up some rear suspension for the thing ... unless the car really is done tomorrow morning, then I'll just display the model on the shelves in my office. I'll post some pics.

And yet again - more parts

2005-10-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

Sheesh....I sure glad I'm now getting great gas milage. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford all these parts!

Items :
1 x 837-239 71 74 U - Door Latch Oper Lvr Cover Plate; Blk Pla - Used @
$7.86
1 x 711-717 73 74 RP - Heater Control Cable - Reproduction @ $4.80
1 x 255-355 66 74 RP - Hose; Htr Box to Chassis; 60/60; Left - Reproduction @ $19.95

This time I ordered from KarmannGhia.com so we'll see how they do re: mamotorworks. Their shipping policy is certainly more reasonable.

I did get the first order of parts from mamotorworks all installed. Still have to figure out why the interior light doesn't work. The new door stops work great and went in without much trouble. Only problem is those really tiny spring pins that hold the main pin in place. Now the doors open and stay open without going too far and damaging the paint on the door when it runs into the front fender panel. Things are really starting to shape up.

My gas milage is way up now that gas is not running out the back. I filled the tank yesterday and so far have put 50 miles on the car. The gas guage us just now begining to move off of the more than full position. This is more what I expected. Along with the new gas cap there is nary a whiff of gas in the garage.

Parts arrive!

2005-10-26T17:08:00.000-07:00

Well the first order I placed with Mid-America Motorworks arrived today. Not bad, 2 day delivery. So I put on the accelerator pad and replaced the worn-out gas cap. The accelerator still flops back, which is a nuisance, and I noticed on closer inspection that there is a spring that is broken. I did a temporary fix with some steel wire but next order I'll get the spring. Now the fuel system should be complete. New hose, new gas cap, and functional accelerator, what could be better? No more gas smells thats what. Otherwise my spouse will banish the unruly Ghia to the driveway, garage privlages revoked. I've got several days of work to do to get the other parts in place. So far so good and better yet the fuel guage isn't droping like a rock when the car is standing still.

Should get better gas milage now. Near as I can figure from discussion on www.thesamba.com actual milage for a stock 1600cc engine is around 25mpg city and 35mpg highway. This is somewhat lower than optimistic reports of 30-40mpg that some people claim. Still even at 25mpg I'm doing a lot better than my V10 Dodge which gets 10mpg city driving. I figure daily driving at 125 miles per week for my commute. I save enough to pay for the car over driving the truck. But I have to admit I would own this car even if it wasn't saving me money.

One more day

2005-10-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Quality Coaches where one of the gentlemen over there gave me a good, thorough look at my car and its issues. The new fuel pump is in place and looks good and he said the rest of the fuel hoses are reasonably new and don't need replacing. Hopefully I won't be smelling gas in the garage again for a good while.

They adjusted the timing and cleaned/gapped the spark plugs, in addition to re-tapping some of the threads where the plugs screw in to. Apparently they were pretty hard to get out of there, so I'm glad I didn't try that one myself. The car starts good and runs pretty good now, but they're going to fix/check on a couple more things yet tomorrow:

* Valve adjustment - Like with the spark plugs I'm sure there will be a fair amount of rusted/hard to move parts in there. So, I'm glad they're doing it first before me. I'll try my hand at checking/adjusting the valves myself in 6,000 miles ... I guess that'd be about a year from now, eh? =)

* Clutch adjustment - Very simple fix: just loosen or tighten a wingnut at the end of the clutch cable. It's a bit rusted-on, though and can't be turned by hand, so they'll take a vice grip or something to that tomorrow to give me a bit more play in the clutch pedal.

* Oil leaks - The motor's underside's pretty oily, but it doesn't seem to be major. They'll do the cardboard test to "get a roadmap of the oil leaks" tomorrow. It looked to him like it might be in a few places: where the tranny meets the motor, the push rods cylendars or the oil pump. Doesn't sound too bad to me.

* Generator light on - Either need generator work, new generator or new power regulator. New generator would be the priciest of them all, about $200 I think, but not horrible. The car kind of needs a working generator, so I won't mind. Heh heh.

* Muffler cracked around pipes - They'll just weld them back together a bit and do some other quick, easy repairs there. The muffler is relatively new and in OK shape, so it's worth a quick patch.

Here are some things that will need done later, either next summer or even later depending:

* Rust issues underneath - Yeah, Ghias get rusty. The car's been re-painted and the topside looks pretty good, but there are some rust problem spots underneath and in a couple of the wheel wells that will need to be addressed.

* Need new tires - It's got snow tires on the back and cheap tires on the front and the snow tires have lots of nasty-looking smooth spots on 'em. I might bite the bullet and pay $103/tire for some nice BF Goodrich 3/4 inch whitewalls for sale at coker.com. Considering how little I plan to drive this car every year, I may not need to buy another set of tires for it for quite some time.

* Check alignment - This car has either been in an accident or something else caused the passenger's-side wheel to be angled in *just* a little bit. Evidence of welding there that may explain a slightly out-of-line frame. Might be a simple alignment adjustment thing or more major. The car doesn't seem to pull to badly on the highway as-is, though.

All things considered, not too bad I think. The rust issues are the most concerning, obviously. The guy said it's not in the shape he'd like for a collector car, but it'll be fun to "tool around" on. That sounds fine by me. I've seen how people completely restore old cars and whew ... that looks like a lot of work! Then again, I do live in an 1887 Victorian home, so I think restoring old stuff is going to be my lot in life. We'll see what the next few years have in store for the car as for how it continues to hold up and if I make any progress on fixing rust spots.

I wanna drive it, dammit! :)

Now for my mechanic stories

2005-10-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

I finally heard from the mechanics at Quality Coaches here in Minneapolis. Was going to post a link to their site, but it looks like cyber squatters have swipped quality-coaches.com! Oh well, they're good at fixing vintage, import sports cars, not Web site management.

Actually, they're mostly known as the place to take your vintage MG, but my wife and I have our new Subarus worked on there as they came highly recommended for just about every import new and old. I figured they would do good work on the Ghia, too, despite a couple recommendations I've had on taking it to Volkswagen Man. I've got maintenance records that show it's been there several times and had its last work done there, but the wonky wiring in the car kind of made me hesitate and I thought I'd just compare them to Quality Coaches.

Earlier I thought I'd fixed a gas leak by using SuperWeld, recommended for metal repair. But, gas was still leaking into the engine itself, so they've ordered a new fuel pump which should arrive today. I'm guessing the real leak in the fuel pump was internal, which would explain why it was leaking out of a hole in the bottom of the pump that looked too pefect and round to be accidental.

They said gas was leaking into the crankshaft part of the engine, mixing with oil. It probably found its way there by way of the push rod that's connected to the cam shaft which provides the pumping action. After I "fixed" the old pump and mounted it back on the push rod some gas trickled down onto the push rod as soon as it pushed the pump lever up. Now I know that's not normal fuel pump behavior.

Like Dad, I also had some fuel lines in pretty bad shape, and I of course tore them to pieces during my first attempts to investigate/fix the fuel leak. I wonder if these were the original, braided-exterior fuel lines as they were pretty brittle both on the braided part and on the rubber inside. What's cool is I found the perfect replacement hoses for connecting the fuel pump to and from the fuel cut-off-valve from AutoZone for $2.50. They were part of a fuel filter kit (I threw the cheap fuel filter away), were exactly the right diameter and length and came with very convenient clips (note the putty-like SuperWeld on the bottom of the fuel pump. Not a permanent fix, folks!):

So, if you do need to replace fuel lines, it's good to know you can find them and get them for cheap from your corner auto parts store.

But, of course, the moral of this story really should be don't attempt to fix fuel leaks yourself: leave it to the pros! I kept our chemical fire extinguisher within reach the whole time I messed around, nervously, with my fuel pump and fuel lines! But, in a pinch, if you know it's a leaky hose and you can get a replacement with clips, it's not too tough.

I'll report back later with more info from the mecanics on my generator light being on and possibly ignition system/timing repairs.

The price of a good mechanic

2005-10-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

Well I got the Ghia back from the shop this morning. It was a simple fix. For some reason when they replaced the gas tank, carberator, fuel pump, fuel filter, etc. they didn't also replace the rubber hose that connects the line from the gas tank to the engine. The mechanic put a new hose on, adjusted the brakes and charged me $0. Mainly because he missed the heater problems in the inspection.

I asked about difficulties in replacing the heater cables. Shouldn't be a problem. Pull the old ones out and shove in the new. The cables are fairly stiff wires so they should shove through the housing tube easily. The main problem is that there is a low spot in the tube where water can accumulate and therefore rust. Sometimes it can be a problem to get the wire through because it has a larger metal tip for connecting to the heat box lever. He said in this case they would take an old clutch cable, flatten the end, and attach it to an electric drill. The flattened end would work as a drill bit and ream out the channel. Alternatively you can cut off the larger end of the new cable and once it is through the channel bend it into an s shape to attach it to the heater box lever. The other issue is that one of the cables is longer than the other. Their are two tubes, one on top of the other, and the longer cable goes in the bottom tube (he thinks). Anyway if it is wrong just pull it out and put it in the other one. Or instead of using heater cables some people would just permanently wire the levers in the open position: year round heat! Might be a bit hot in the summer though.

In any event I'll have to place another parts order.

Major gas leak discovered! (Among other things)

2005-10-25T15:36:00.000-07:00

Well it was good that I got the gas guage fixed because it demonstrated that I wasn't getting as good a milage as I should. Also the strong oder of gas in the garage should have been a major clue that something was amiss. So this morning I looked under the car and sure enough a big wet spot. The Ghia had peed on the floor overnight. The smell test, yep its gasoline. So off to the mechanic this morning for inspection.

The leak was about level with the oil drain plug where the gas line comes out of the central tunnel. There is a rubber hose that connects the metal gas line to the engine at that point. When the mechanic touched the hose to see if it was tight it came apart in his hands. Leak found. We'll let it sit overnight to see if there's any other problems.

While he was at it I had him check the heater cables. The previous owner reported that the heat was on during the summer and it couldn't be shut off. I noticed I only had heat on the passenger side in the back and didn't seem to be able to control the flow. Turns out both cables are busted. There is also a missing hose from the heat exchanger to the body on the driver side. No wonder the heating system doesn't seem to work.

Parts shipped!

2005-10-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

Here's my recent parts purchase from www.karmannghia.com. Last I heard the "Washer Container Hose w/Hookups - Used" was on backorder, however. They say I should receive the in-stock items by Monday. From what I've read about replacing a broken heater control cable, it's pretty simple. I've replaced plenty of bike cables in my day, so it all looked familiar enough.

I may or may not make full use of the four speedo/clock mounting brackets. One of the threaded posts on the back of the speedo is bent about 45 degrees, so I'm not sure how well the bracket and bolt will fit on that. As for the clock, I was able to brace it in fairly tight with a $1.50 metal ring bracket from Home Depot. I do wonder if the stock brackets act partially as more electrical grounding for the insturment panel.

Order Total : $52.03
Shipping Total : $4.73

Items :
4 x 957-010 72 74 U - Speedo/Clock Mounting Bracket - Used @ $1.35

1 x 711-717 65 72 RP - Heater Control Cable - Reproduction @ $3.60

1 x 955-453 68 74 U - Washer Unit Container - Used @ $14.50

1 x 955-985 68 74 U KT - Washer Container Hose w/Hookups - Used @
$23.80

Added links

2005-10-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

I've added customized links to the blog. We'll keep these links as updated as possible including removal of dead links and addition of new ones we find useful.

Tales of Ghia head turners

2005-10-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

My dad had a Karmann Ghia that he purchased 2nd hand from A local vetinarian, Dr. South, in Salmon Idaho. As near as Mom and I can figure, he got the Ghia in the summer/fall of 1966. Since it was second hand we are guessing that it was a '59 or 60. It was my senior year in high school and the Ghia was a great date car. I was very keen on dating one of the high school cheerleaders at the time - Linda. Once she saw the Ghia she was anxious for a ride. I picked her up in North Fork and we went to the drive-in in Salmon. One problem dating in a Ghia, its difficult to sit close together. Besides, I think she was more interested in the car and the movie than me.

I met a girl in Hamilton Montana though at a church event. This girl was VERY fiendly and liked to have a good time. I asked her out to the Sweet Heart Ball and she accepted. Problem was I had to drive to Hamilton and pick her up. The Ghia was the solution to the problem. So I drove to Hamiltion (90 miles) and then back to Salmon for the dance. She stayed overnight with friends (properly chaparoned of course) and I took her back to Hamilton the next day. Only a 360 mile drive for one date. I was the quarterback of the Football team at the time and as luck would have it I broke my hand that year and missed out on several games. I didn't find this out though until after the drive. So make that 360 miles with a broken hand. This VERY friendly girl was not so friendly at the dance however. Turns out between the time I asked her to the dance and when the dance actually happened she got engaged and didn't tell me. The Ghia can lead them to water but it can't make them drink!

Parts order

2005-10-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

Well I put in my first parts order from Midwest Motorworks http://www.800luvbugg.com/

They have a very complete catalogue with online shopping and reasonable shipping via Fed-Ex. Their main website is http://mamotorworks.com but the link from the main page to the VW parts store seems to be broken (Now it works?). You can download an adobe PDF catalogue which gives complete parts and pictures.

Here are the order details:

300-848
Gas Cap, threaded, non-locking
In Stock
1
$5.99
$5.99
300-872

Accelerator Pedal Pad, rubber
In Stock
1
$4.99
$4.99
306-081

Interior Dome Light, w/bulb
In Stock
1
$24.99
$24.99
301-814-WH

Rectangular Sunvisor ClipsColor: White
In Stock
1
$5.99
$5.99
390-969

Seals, headlight body to housing, LH & RH (2pcs)
In Stock
1
$9.99
$9.99
379-978

Pins Set, clips rollers for door check strap, LH & RH
Low Stock
1
$29.99
$29.99
313-075

Checkrod Strap, door stay
In Stock
2
$14.99
$29.98
Sub-total
$111.92

Shipping viaFedEx Standard Ground
$14.99
Illinois Sales Tax (6.25%)
$0.00
Order Total
$126.91

A cheap head-turner

2005-10-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

My Ghia is currently at the shop getting a checkup and figuring out why it just won't start now. I'm sure it's a plug/wire/distributor issue. That problem, of course, has been exacerbated by generator issues. My generator light has been staying on solid the past few days and I tried a few tricks for cleaning the brushes and troubleshooting it based on the John Muir "Keep Your VW Alive" book but to no avail.

So, I was constantly jumping my car to get it started so I could monkey with the engine.

Before these problems, though, it seemed like the generator light was staying off and only flickering on intermittantly and dimly at that. Last time that happened I went for a drive to charge up the battery and, well, to go for a drive for driving's sake.

I stopped at a gas station and immediately drew the attention of two people walking in front of it. They had big grins on their faces as they pointed at the front end and were obviously enamored by that unique Ghia look.

In the next stall there was a brand new Porsche Carrera (or something like that. They all look so similar these days at first glance to me.) These people who couldn't tear their eyes away from my Ghia barely noticed it.

I couldn't help but feel for the Porsche owner having spent so much more money than me on an invisible car. Sure, that car could smoke mine any day ... not that anyone would notice, though. ;)

Fun read for the day: 1972 Karmann Ghia vs. 1956 Porsche Speedster.

Oh, and here are my and my dad's head turners. First, my '72 coupe:

Dad's '73 vert:

Fixing the Clock

2005-10-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

Found this usefull discussion on fixing a clock:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=128809&highlight=clock

Evidently there is an internal fuse that can be blown and must be repaired. Complete instructions found here:

http://www.aircooledtech.com/vdo_repair/

Looks like quite a project!

DAD

Usefull online electrical help

2005-10-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

Found this useful little list of links to PDF files of VW manuals complete with pictures of how to install clock, speedo, sending unit and more!

http://www.type-14.com/electrical.htm

Good information in there ... although I'm not so sure on what copyright laws have to say about posting such complete info from books like this. Oh well, that's the Internet for ya.

-Chris

The trouble with wiring diagrams

2005-10-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Dad and I have discovered that not many know how to properly re-wire a Ghia. Part of the problem may lie in these widely-popular wiring diagrams. Don't get me wrong, they're immensely helpful. But, you have to understand some quirks such as how some of it is shown to you from the point-of-view of the driver's seat.

Therefore, the clock/fuel gauge diagram should be reversed if you're looking at it from inside the trunk. Otherwise, you may end up reversing your wires, and that's precisely what happened to my dad's Ghia when someone installed a new gas tank:

Note in that picture that the black "hot" wire is connected to the left terminal and the brown wire to the sending unit on the tank is on the right. On mine it's reversed:

Of course, I've replaced the old, brown sending unit wire with a brand new one that isn't all chewed up. Dad's fuel guage registered empty all the time until he reversed his wires to be hooked up like mine. Now, it reads accurately. Mine works, but it's not accurate.

It was far worse when I first had the Ghia, but I suspect it's still not reading quite as it should. I think the main culprit in my case is proper grounding. So, I hooked up a ground wire to the little round peg on the sending unit. The peg looks like this:

I hooked it up to a wire with a standard male terminal:

It seems better but it still jumps around a bit. Perhaps the ground isn't connected as well as it should be. I really should find some round "clip on" terminal perhaps?

Next up for troubleshooting and repair is our pair of non-functioning clocks. I have a feeling these clocks just seem to wear out over time as I've read about others having clock issues. But, hopefully one of you out there is looking at these photos and saying "Hey, you forgot to hook up X terminal to Y connection, that's why your clock's not working!"

The Force is strong in my family

2005-10-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

My grandfather, Russel Floyd Druckenmiller, owned a blue Karmann Ghia in the mid/late '60s. It was either a '58 or a '59 model, my dad's not exactly sure.

Ever since, it seems our family's been in love with these cars. Recently, we both did something about it when I bought a '72 blue coupe (apparently the same color as my grandpa's) and Dad bought a '73 red convertible.

We're both familiar with old VWs in general and had some fun starting in on fixing all the little problems with them (mostly electrical for now). We took digital photos of things like the backs of our insturment panels and our motors to compare and help each other track down how to fix things.

It's immensely helpful to have photos showing you where things should go and how they should be put together, and we found so little of that information on the Internet. So, from now on we'll be communicating to each other with help for fixing our cars on here and you're welcome to post your comments and help, too.

The next posts will have some photos and descriptions of how some of the first issues were solved such as non-operating gas guages and loose insturment clusters.

We'll also post fun stories about Karmann Ghias and the story of my grandpa's Ghia from the '60s. Enjoy!

-Chris Druckenmiller