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Re: [T3] Lesson learned



Shad Laws wrote:

> Along the same lines, be careful of hot items on the engine!  Sounds stupid,
> huh?  Yah... then maybe I'm just thickheaded at times...
>
> 1.  I was driving my grandpa's bug (he's owned it new with A/C since '71
> :-), but he'd installed a crappy gen. pulley at one time.  It dug into the
> gen casing, ground some material away, and froze.  Then, it snapped the
> belt.  I notice the big G light (gee, so that's what that snap was about 30
> seconds ago!) and quickly dart over to the side of the road.  I see a
> snapped belt, and figure that I'm fine: I have a spare.  After pulling off
> one half of the pulley, I realize that the gen is frozen.  But, just to
> double check, I grab the shank with my thumb and forefinger to try and turn
> it.  What an idiot - I got the threads of the shank engraved into my
> fingers!  Luckily it eventually healed and the scars went away...

Hmm, I've done the very same thing after the pulley failed on my friends 64 Bug.
That pulley also dug itself into the alternator casing, and was hotter than
he**. Luckily, I didnt burn myself so much that I got blisters.

But my experience, and I am shamed of this, as I was very very stupid. I had a
71 1302 Superbeetle as a parts car here. I looked at the front stabilizer bar
and thought that it might fit on the lower trailing arms on the 3. So I thought
I'd cut it off. I didnt need the length of the bar, as it is made to reach down
to the lower susp. arms. Armed with an angle grinder, I started to cut through
the stab. bar at the right side of the car. What I didnt think of was that the
bar was under pressure, as I had jacked one side of the car up. As soon as the
angle grinder cut through the bar, it snapped and threw the grinder into the
ground, with gravel flying everywhere and a very severed cutting disc as the
result. I was very lucky that it didnt hit my legs, as I was sitting on my
behind close to the working area.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

PerL
73 Variant L

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