[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] [New Search]
Hi folks Just a short note to tell you about my VW weekend. Saturday morning saw me following up a lead on a 196? model Squareback that a friend spotted in a junkyard. This required me to make a 70 mile round trip to a little town called Malmesbury on our west coast. The trip there passed uneventful with my Variant purring contentedly. When I turned off the motorway I noticed that she was idling a bit rough. "No problem there" I said to myself as it had happened before from time to time. It always sorts itself out within a few miles or so. Anyway, got to the yard, found the Square - victim of a severe frontal impact, chassis buckled and all that, looks like the passenger or someting went through the windshield etc. I managed to salvage a few electrical bits off it, the rest being stripped already. Paid for it and set off for home. About 30 miles from Cape Town I catch up with a clapped out and smoking '57 (I think) type 2 panel van doing a little over 35 mph. I have to sit behind it for a while as there are double white lines and a truck approaching. Got to a stretch where a passing lane has been made for slower vehicles - bus doesn't move over. I flash my headlamps at it and get a rude sign waved at me, etc I got pissed off and overtook the bus at the next oppertunity, waving some other signs at the driver. Just as there was about a mile or so between us I was going over a rise and my car suddenly lost power, ran on three cylinders for a bit, coughed out some smoke and gave up completely. Beautifull!!!!!!! So I pulled off the roadway, switched the hazards on and went to have a look at the engine. No obvious damage, no oil dripping out from below, fuel squirting down the carbs as I open the throttle. Must be ignition then... By this time the old bus comes rumbling by - the driver having this smug grin on his face - and hoots as he passes. "F#ck you too mate! " I'm saying. Anyway, took the distributer cap off, Ignitor looks and smells fine, rotor arm looks OK, all the electrical connections are there, the coil gets power..... what the hell is wrong here? So I turn the engine over by hand a few times. Turns fine, nothing that indicates serious trouble so I turn on to TDC." Hang on here, why can't I find TDC? Why is this rotor pointing the wrong way?" Not only was it pointing the wrong way, but it could turn all the way around the shaft. Hmmmmm. Pulled the rotor off. Bingo! The tab that holds it to the distributer shaft had broken off. And you guessed it - I didn't have a spare rotor on me!!!!! "What are you going to do now genius?" I'm wondering. "Loctite - the stuff one uses to prevent nuts and bolts from working themselves loose. That should work - I hope!!!!" After a generous application of Loctite to the inside of the rotor I managed to get it to fit almost right on to the shaft. Gave it a few minutes to dry and tried starting the engine. Fired right up!! I set the timing by ear (Not recomended unless you are realy desperate!!!) packed up my tools and set off for home again. Managed to limp back to Cape Town at about 50mph. She just wouldn't do any more. Didn't catch the old bus again either. So there are lessons to be learned from all of this: 1.) Never laugh at someone else's clapped out VW. There might be a time when his is running and yours not. 2.) Always carry a spare rotor arm.You'll probably never need it but you never know. I have heard of points collapsing, distributer caps breaking but a rotor - wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it!!!!! Regards Adriaan Loedolff adriaan@norton.ctech.ac.za '69 Variant Automatic (200 000 miles + and still cruisin' after all of these years!)