VW - Getting It Home

.

There are a couple of tricks that can get you home, or at least off the freeway should your cable break.

If you advance the idle adjustment screw to about 1,500 rpm you can make about 30 mph. You gotta eat a little clutch to do it, but it will get you off the freeway.

Bailing wire or stainless steel safety wire can be used as a wildly dangerous substitute for an accelerator cable (BT,DT). The problem is, you can't get the stuff straight enough; all those lazy bends bind in the tube going through the tunnel. Push your foot down, engine roars. Lift your foot (as when bearing down on three Mexican women who decided to cross the highway at that particular instant) AND NOTHING HAPPENS! The throttle stays open, you keep doing 90mph, and the women keep sauntering along. (Hello sagebrush, goodbye road.)

The trick? A bungee cord. And grease. Two wraps around the fuel pump then wire the bungee cord to the throttle arm. Grease the dickens outa that sucker before you push it into the tunnel.

The problem? Your foot's going to get awfully tired fighting that bungee cord. And it ain't doing the carb much good, either.

Here's the drill: Fan belt, clutch cable, throttle wire, six feet of rubber fuel line, all in one package. Inside the package is an adjustable wrench big enough to handle the generator nut, a pair of vise grips, two screwdrivers (big & little). The 'package' is a piece of sailcloth about one yard wide by two yards long. Tie it up with about ten feet of light line. Tie it up tight; makes a bundle about as large as a big thermos. Lash it to the roll cage with bungee cords.

I've seen some rigs, the guys don't even carry a regular tool kit. They've got their tools distributed all over the rig, tools and spare parts taped, lashed or wired right beside where they'll be needed. Doesn't make much sense in a daily driver but comes in at the genius level when seconds count. (I remember one guy who appeared to be wearing his tool kit. DNF'd)

-Bob Hoover
-Aug 1995