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Im back in Albany, And back to the real world of work, housework and a lawn that is 3 feet tall :) First off, best wishes to Anne Hall for a quick and successful recovery, so sorry to hear of your mishap, bummer that your trip has to end with a trip to the hospital. The trip out was the eventful part, as a 15 year old engine with over 100Kmi on it starting having a couple things loosen up, all was fine till Omaha when a ratty tat tatt was quickly diagnosed as a fan housing bolt that had backed out into the fan, and the realization that there is a couple places that loktite would have been a better choice over antiseize. Thankfully Russ knew exactly the process to remove the fan and housing without taking the exaust off and within 2 hours we were off again! Hint... an additional dab of RTV in the bolt recesses will keep them from backing out if they loosen up :-) 30 miles later one of the fresh air elbows fell off and fortunately Russ saw it and got me pulled over right away, a passing semi flattened the original but Jim A had one with him so I was set again, after installing them PROPERLY this time, the are CLAMPED to the rear heater boxes with the thin clamps, and I had put them on wrong 15 years ago and when things got disturbed the old rubber joint was not enough to hold it all together. All was fine again till an intermittent miss under load for 2 days finally left me on 3 cylinders pulling into Winnemucca NV. One of the spark plug ends had burned the resistor out and the tell tale spark jumping between the coil center and side terminal the night before should have told me that there was an excessive gap to jump somewhere. Jim had one and again, off we went across the desert. The Desert was more than my old engine was ready to take, at least at 70MPH when it was 103 in the shade. Ive noticed that my car runs approximately 20F hotter at altitudes of 4-5K feet. The gas mileage is around 4 MPG better because of the thin air so the engine isn't working as hard but it is running hotter, and an indicated 220F at the oil cooler outlet resulted in heads running too hot and started the exaust valve in losing all its clearance in around 1Kmi. This is about 20F hotter than it has ever run steady state. The rest of the trip the car ran fine and the weather was cooler. Fortunately Jim Adney encouraged me to check my valves (which hardly ever moved before)and I caught the sinking valve before it could have caused more serious problems. It has sunk at least .018 by the time I reached Cincinnati and I still have to check it again now that im home. Im thinking I have the same problem Jim did with an annealed valve seat, if it were a streaching valve it probably would have broken by now. The invasion itself was fantastic! Brian really put together such an action filled event that I had to be late to dinner so that I could fit in a quick trip to the Laundromat :) The cruise to Crater lake and the Redwoods were really beautiful, the park setting for the gathering was the perfect backdrop for such a wonderful gathering of Type 3's! It was great to see folks again and and meet new ones. A final thanks to Martin for bringing me that nice western sheetmetal for my 65, and for the awards. The invasion was the highlight of my year! Seems I have to calculate my gas mileage now and check the valves again, more to report tommoro. Ive washed the oil off the engine so maybe I can see where its leaking from but it isn't leaking badly enough to be a problem. Whew! What a great time! Keith Top Notch Restorations topnotch@nycap.rr.com 71 Squareback 65 Notchback "El Baja Rojo" 65 Squareback "Eggcrate" 87 golf "Winterat" 93 RX7 "Redstur" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~