Das Volks Vintage Volkswagen Gruppe

Ha - Brooklyn chapter is still here! We've been so fatigued by the other guy (Type 3) that we've been annoyed by having to spend time fixing our "reliable" car! To make things more complicated, Daniel is back at work after a 3 week vacation (during which we dedicated every day to working on the T3 ...

Put back in the 1/2 carb today, with the addition of Permatex Aviation at the seams. Pulled the plugs and found that 1 & 2 were black and sooty! However 3 & 4 were oily. Changed all four.

Now, we can cut off the engine when 1/2 is choked. Just for fun, tried choking 3/4...and the engine kept ...

Raj, we devoted most of today to tinkering with the Squareback - and had some good luck. We're hoping to be able to drive it to the Air Raid!

When we covered the 3/4 carb the other day, the engine did sputter, so we definitely have a problem at 1/2. Took the carb inside to clean it and blow it out ...

Thanks for the tip Audrey. The Squareback has a set of dry rotted deathtraps on it that we're gonna have to replace real soon!

Jessica

Y'all have a good source for tires? (noticed the new ones on the wagon)

Jessica

Here's our new buddy upon arrival in NY: Many more pics & posts to follow as we figure out the fuel injection & electrical wonkiness!

Had a lovely day in the sun struggling with suuuuuper annoying rocker shaft shims (rather sorry we decided to go with ratio rockers because of the time lost to little stuff like that)…took a break to watch a soccer match & get a few provisions for dinner, then finally got the engine ready for ...

We got a little bit of work done yesterday but Daniel's hard drive crashed in the middle of the afternoon so we caught the blues and slowed down a lot but here are some pics if anyone's interested. And some questions too.

#1: Our modified Hoover bit arrived just in time to be painted and added to ...

Speaking of new members of the family and letting secrets slip out...we're now the proud owners of a 69 Squareback, which we're trying to get shipped from MN to Long Island. There's a shipping sticky on the Samba we're checking out, but does anybody have any experience with a shipping company they'd ...

I like that idea a lot Glenn! Thanks!

If we lived in California we could throw a rock and probably hit a guy selling a used longblock. Any tips on where to look around here? I guess we could post in the "parts wanted" thread on this site?

So we've now gotten enough $ together to begin seriously thinking about our engine. We've got a million questions about cases and cranks and stuff but before we get all wrapped up in that, I wanted to ask some questions about "rescuing" the engine we have.

Before the good compression test results ...

So...after I went to work and before he went to work, Daniel went outside and found TDC of the compression stroke, adjusted the valves and no more noise! I don't know how we F'd it up before, but he said you could "drive a truck" into the gap b/w the adjusting screw and valve stem on the #2 intake ...

check this out for reading plugs

What would concern me is that the one plug looks very different from the rest.

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

Yeah...I thought they should all more or less be the same. If an engine is running rich or lean or whatever else it runs that way in all ...

#'s look good. Nice and high.. and even. But whats up with #3? Why cant you get the gauge screwed in? Is that the same model number plug as others? When you pulled the plug another plug fit in the 3 hole? I wonder if you have a timesert or something that came out... and is on the plug. ( my ghia ...

I was reading about ways to tell if you're at TDC for the compression stroke of #1 and it seems that when rocking the pulley, both valves of #1 should be still and the exhaust valve of #2 should be moving. That sound right?

I guess our method of just finding TDC and then adjusting only gives us a ...

Huh...we've been doing it the way it says on the Rob & Dave site and our notch in the pully and our rotor and notch in the distributor are lined up right. When we turn the engine counterclockwise, the rotor points at the corresponding plug wire.

I looked again at Rob & Dave and it says 1, 2, 3, 4 ...

Sounds to me like the problem you have with the head stud is it is pulling out of the case. That is why it won't torque properly and more and more of it is showing.

Just listened to the video and it sounds like noisy valves. Are you sure you are setting each the valve when its piston is at TDC ...

Jessica here with a little P.S.

When we started the car yesterday, we heard a really annoying and loud ticking sound. We thought it might be the valves on 1/2 so today we checked them and found that one of them was actually a little tight so we re-set it to .006

We just went to park the car (who ...

Hi there. We got snowed out last weekend and didn't have time all week but we were kind of busy with the car this weekend. Yesterday I (Daniel) took off the rocker arm on the 3/4 side and tried to tighten down the loose nut we posted about a few weeks ago. It tightens but won't torque beyond about ...

It'd be fun making a weekend of pulling the engine and torquing the studs but like Brown pointed out there's that sheared off looking one that just spins when you try to tighten it which means pulling the head, looking at the case and seeing what's up, and then getting a time-sert and the time-sert ...

I hoped that the engine was the one big thing we wouldn't have to worry about for at least a few years and a lot of miles as long as we kept up with maintenance...Darn engine only has 15K miles on it altogether and we've been good to it as far as tune ups, oil changes, not over-revving or lugging ...

Hi Raj and Brown...thanks for the replies.

We didn't even try to torque the nut down because we were away from the house, the engine was warm, and we didn't want to adjust the valves with the engine warm after taking off the rocker arm or risk stripping those damned rocker studs again. But we were ...

Well, NAPA never came through with our studs but Airhead Parts did so on Saturday we took a ride to grandma's uninsulated and unheated garage in Bay Shore to do our tapping and re-studding and stuff.

On our way to pick up enough beer to make it a smooth operation we started hearing another type of ...

I was actually of thinking about your bug , Jess, as I typed that..... but as you mentioned, your car is truly daily driver status as its left to defend itself all by its lonesome from the savages (other drivers) in brooklyn day after day. My wife drives to queens everyday and leaves her truck ...

Persoanlly, if your car is already a 7 or 8 out of ten and you want a driver, I'd leave it alone. Driving a ten in NYC after months of paint/ body and all the cost would be nerve racking.

Not just driving in NYC but parking too. You'd think people who had to parallel park all the time would be ...