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[T3] Newbie with alot of questions


Hi all!

I've been reading this newsgroup/email thing for a week or two now, it's
been quite interesting.  I bought a 70 Squareback with an automatic
transmission and weber carbs (and a cardboard box with misc. FI parts).
I've owned a couple of bugs before, but this is my first Type 3.  I am by no
means a mechanic, and so far I've been getting by with luck and a little
common sense.  I have the Bentley manual, but it hasn't answered all my
questions (they may be in there, but I can't find them), so I'd like to ask
you all for help.  On to the questions:

There is a screw-in sensor on the rear driver's side of the ?transmission
pan? (square and flat on the bottom, Bentley says there is a filter here and
lots of stuff that can fall out if you take it apart).  Does anyone know
what this is?  It has a single wire coming out of it, which I followed, to
find it was connected to nothing.  The PO's of this car have done some
interesting things with the electrics which I'm trying to set right.

I have the little chrome air filters, not the (I imagine) vastly superior
oil bath type.  There is a connector on the bottom of one for a hose, but
not on the other.  I think it should be connected to this thing on top of
the engine, rear-center, which has a plastic cap that you can remove (and
see oil residue) and a little pipe that blows hot air when the engine is
running.  It is currently not connected.  However, since the air filters are
not linked, I'm thinking it would be bad, balance-wise, to have it going to
only one side.  Am I correct in thinking this?  Should I get a 2nd filter
that has a hose connector and set up some kind of T-connection or just leave
it alone?

I took the car to emissions today and it failed the hydrocarbons part of the
test at idle.  The PO told me he had advanced the timing because it gave the
car more "pep", so I bought a timing light and went to set it myself.  Well,
the timing light burned out after about a minute (the box was taped shut, so
I think someone might have returned it before), so I need to get another one
tomorrow.  Bentley says to set it a 0 degrees BTDC, which is supposed to be
the 2nd mark you hit going clockwise.  I think I read somewhere on this
forum that you should set it at 5 degrees BTDC.  Is that correct, and if so,
which mark would that be?  Also, there is a mark that is much more
pronounced than the others, should I set it to that?  I'm going to get some
new Bosch plugs and wires too, is there anything else I should do before
retesting this thing?  When I went to check the distributor points, I found
that it has one of those electronic things instead, it's called compufire I
think, if that makes a difference.  I'm trying to get a tachometer and a
synchrometer off of eBay (because money is an issue), but I may not have
them by the time I have to retest (go go waiver!!).

I have to pump the brake pedal to get the rear brakes to grab.  I've bled
the system a few times (both by myself and with my wife pumping the brakes
while I did the open/close thing) with no real improvement.  They do work
okay after being pumped.  The PO told me that he had just replaced the
master cylinder.  Any ideas before I take it to the mechanic?

My car has been lowered.  It needs new tires, and I'd like to get the 135's
off the front and replace them with the stock 165's.  I examined the front
beam and I don't see any adjusters welded in, or any welding at all, so I
imagine it was done "on the cheap".  I've tried to find a website that shows
how this is done so I can attempt to reverse it, but I've just found sites
that mention a cheap method of lowering only to caution against it.  I
understand that people want to do things the right way, but since this has
already been done, does anyone know of a site that shows this process
step-by-step?  I did find one site that mentioned you could cut part of the
front beam, (I think the torsion bar), twist it with a pipe wrench and
reweld it, but I see no evidence of this.

I've got tons more questions, but I already feel bad enough asking for so
much with nothing to contribute, so I'll stop here.  If anyone needs help
with their computer, has some song stuck in their head that they can't
place, or wants to know about old video games I'd be glad to help.  =)
Also, I have a digital camera, so if anyone needs a photo to compare things
(I've been doing this a bit with the '70 manual Squareback that a co-worker
has) I'd be glad to shoot and host it.  Keep in mind that my starter was
wired to my backup lights, so I can't speak as to the correctness of
anything...


Thanks for reading this and for any advice you can offer,

Adam


----- Original Message -----
From: <type3-d-request@vwtype3.org>
To: <type3-d@vwtype3.org>
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 4:43 PM
Subject: type3-d Digest V2003 #209



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