[T3] Test drive!!

[Daniel Baum <daniel@type34.info>]

<x-flowed>Hi all,


I drove my car 35km this evening! It went _really_ well, the only 
letdown is a nasty chatter in the brakes. It is not life threatening, I 
think, but definitely needs seeing to asap.

The most impressive thing was the way it cruised the motorway 
effortlessly at 90kph (that's 65mph). It felt like I could have got more 
out of it, but given the state of the brakes I thought it best not to.

It feels a bit heavy going up steepish hills in third (i.e. top). If I 
manually downshift to second the revs go way up but it felt happier. I 
found that I had to let off the throttle a bit while upshifting back 
into third otherwise it stayed in second until it reached what felt like 
about 7000rpm but was probably only about 4000. The kickdown doesn't 
work yet, so I manually downshifted. It never downshifted by itself.

So, tomorrow I'm taking it for its test (!). It only has to get there 
(65km) in its present state as the first stop is a garage who will look 
at the brakes.  Once the brakes have been seen to (and possibly 
ball-joints etc.), it's off to the testing station, so wish me luck. 
Having seen how it goes, I am not particularly concerned about getting 
there, as it is flat motorway the entire way.

This is probably the first time the engine has been properly heated up 
since I got it. I'm pretty sure it didn't overheat (I could still touch 
the engine even after we got home), but there was some smoke from crud 
and oil burning off the exhaust. The stuff in the rear boot was warm, so 
I won't be putting ice cream in there on the way home from the supermarket!

I should add for those of you who are not familiar with my life story 
that I have been working on this car for the last three years, and this 
is probably the first time it has seen a road for about seven years.

Daniel Baum,
1969 Type 34 Karmann Ghia automatic
www.type34.info


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