VW - TULZ Part Eight

TULZ – Part Eight

Getting Your Shift Together

With your tranny at one end of the vehicle and you at the other, selecting a gear can be a bit of a bother. Volkswagen came up with an elegant solution to the problem using only two levers and a torque tube. One of the levers is your gear-shift. The torque tube is the shifter-rod. I'll tell you about the second lever in a minute.

The shifter-rod is a long piece of light-gauge steel tubing that runs from the gear-shift lever to the tranny where it connects via an elastomeric coupling. It is hidden inside the central tunnel in a bug. On the bus it's hidden in that tube just above the heater duct under the cargo bay floor. The cockpit-end of the shifter-rod is fitted with a socket. The gear-shift lever fits into the socket and is indexed by a pin.

The socket is the second lever in the system. It pokes up perpendicular to the line of the shifter-rod. It doesn't poke up very far and most folks overlook the fact it functions as a lever but it is crucial to the system, allowing you to rotate the shifter rod. It is the rotation of the shifter rod that selects the particular gate, 1-2 (no rotation) 3-4 (to the left) or R (to th right). It rotates when you push the gear-shift lever left or right. Once you've selected one of the three gates, to select a particular gear the shifter rod must move forward or aft, again controlled by the gear-shift lever.

As with all levers the secret to success is in the fulcrum; the pivot point. For the gear-shift lever the pivot is a spring-loaded ball & socket arrangement built into the fitting that supports the gear-shift lever. For the shifter-rod, the pivot is a nylon bushing in a bracket concealed inside the central tunnel.

To prevent selecting reverse gear by accident there is a lock-out plate under the fitting supporting the gear-shift lever. A flange on the gear shift lever rides above the lock-out plate for the four forward speeds. To select reverse you select the reverse gate then push DOWN on the gear- shift lever. This defeats the lock-out plate and allows you to input the down & back motion that selects the reverse gear in the tranny. (The motions are REVERSED at the tranny because of the lever arrangement [ie, pushing forward on the gear shift causes the shifter-rod to push backwards, etc.]. You need to keep that in mind when you're checking out a replacement tranny at the junkyard.)

Thanks to just three friction points and a superb balance of lever-arm ratios, Volkswagens are noted for their crisp, precise shifting. It takes only finger pressure to flick from gear to gear, giving the experienced driver a distinct advantage over anyone wrestling their way through the changes on the typical American gearbox. That was then.

Today, the typical Volkswagen's gear shift is about as crisp as mush and finding reverse can become a snipe hunt. There are a number of reasons for this woeful degradation but the most amazing part of the puzzle is that, never having driven a new Volkswagen, a majority of VW owners believe such poor shifting is normal!

Why is the shifting so bad? That's a good question but here's a better one: When was the last time you greased your gear shift? Howzabout the nylon bushing in the tunnel? Whadabout the lock-out plate? (See? Now you know why :-)

Another common maintenance fault is failure to replace the tranny mounts. They're made out of natural rubber that breaks down when it gets greasy and trust me here, yours are greasy. The same problem attacks the shifter-rod coupling.

Up on the other end of the system, it is a LACK of grease that causes the problems. Without periodic lubrication the shifter-rod eventually wears out the nylon grommet and begins rubbing its way through the steel bracket. Once it wears far enough the shifter-rod drops off the end of the gear shift lever and you're stuck, literally, in whatever gear you happen to be in. By the time that occurs both the shifter rod and the bracket will have to be repaired or replaced but in a lot of cases the vehicle ends up in the scrap heap. 'Tranny's locked up,' the guru tells the kiddie. Which isn't incorrect but it's sure as hell inaccurate.

So what's the cure? Easy. You pull the shifter rod and replace the nylon bushing, grease things up, put it back together and promise to keep it greasy thereafter. Of course, if the bracket is worn to an oval, putting in a new grommet won't help very much. In those cases you need to drill out the spot-welds securing the bracket to the tunnel and repair the bracket. Or just cut the top off the tunnel, do the repair and weld it back on as a complete assembly, being careful to NOT install the nylon grommet until all the welding is done. (Nylon melts, right? And gasoline explodes. Your fuel pipe is also inside the tunnel.)

Repairing a worn shifter-rod is a bit more difficult. You can't use a sleeve; it won't fit through the grommet. And it takes a pro to do an inline repair of thin-wall steel tubing. One method is to do the repair with a sleeve then to fabricate a new grommet from a block of Teflon to match the larger diameter of the sleeve. This is a good fix because the Teflon block will last about ten times longer than the nylon bushing. This is a more permanent fix and it's doable but it's a lot of work. The smartest method is to simply pull the gear-shift lever about once a year, clean things up and apply fresh grease. But nobody does that. Too much trouble or something.

Doing the tranny mounts (most folks call them 'engine mounts') is a no-brainer; the instructions are in most of the manuals. And the shifter-rod coupling is mother's milk; you can get at it from under the back seat of a bug. (Ah ha! I'll bet you've been wondering what that inspection plate was for!)

Buses are a little different, easier in some ways, harder in others. The grommet on the shifter-rod can be gotten to from under the vehicle so it's pretty easy to replace. But the shifter-rod is a bear. On the bus, they use a two-piece shifter rod. (Because the gearshift lever is in FRONT of the front axle.) First, you separate the two then you pull the engine, pull the tranny (and the rear axles if it's an early bus) THEN you can remove the shifter-rod, which pulls out to the rear. Inside the tube running under the cargo bay the shifter-rod is supported by two nylon grommet-thingees that clip onto the shifter-rod. They come in two sizes so be sure you get the right ones for your ride. Don't trust the clerks here. A certain after-market retailer kept sending me the wrong size, insisting there was only one type. I finally bought them from somebody else. Here again, you can machine a better, more durable part from a block of Teflon… if you happen to have the Teflon. And an engine lathe… and know how to twirl the knobs.

It goes something like this: You gotta have good tranny mounts because that's what holds the tranny in alignment with the shifter-rod. Soft or rotten tranny mounts, the nose of the tranny kicks up & down, wears the hell outta things and makes it very difficult to select the proper gear. You gotta have a good coupling because once the coupling starts to go you lose radial motion; you can't select the full range of gears. It might work fine in first & second but you can't get it to rotate far enough to pick up third & forth, or over the other way to catch Reverse. You gotta keep the gear shift greasy or you'll wear out the lock-out plate, preventing you from finding the right gear. Like the man said, keep her greasy, she'll go a long time :-).

Big mistake in tranny mounts and couplings is to use those hard urethane jobbies. They were designed to handle the high-g loads imposed on the mounts & couple by off-road racing, where the vehicle catches a lot of air-time. They transmit more of the load – and more of the noise – into the chassis. They have no place on a street machine. (But kewl, right? Peek under there, see those big chunkies of red urethane! Macho, eh?) This'll come as a big surprise to the kiddies but mechanics notice stuff like that. It tells them they can sell the sucker anything at all :-)

Another cruel joke is trying to cure a shifting problem by installing one of those kewl gear shift kits. All they do is alter the lever ratio of the gear shift lever but in doing so they can mask a lot of problems. The wiser course is to return the system to spec and then decide if you really need it. In most cases, you don’t.

If, once the system is returned to spec, you find your life simply isn't complete without a speed shifter, take a look at the one sold by Gene Berg Ent. Like most of Gene's stuff, the shifter is well made and priced accordingly. But at least it works. The typical 'speed shifter' is a lo-buck piece of Taiwanese crap aimed squarely at the kiddie market. Some are difficult to install and tend to come adrift while others don't work as well as the stock system.

Recently I've been seeing an increasing number of VW's with shifter problems. By the time it gets to me it has usually been through the gauntlet of local experts, meaning I see a lot of bailing wire & sheet- metal screw fixes. The coupler is liable to WELDED to either the hockey stick or the shifter rod and finding the remains of a bungee cord or block of wood(!) inside the tunnel no longer comes as a surprise. By the time things have gotten that bad you really don't want to know how much the repair can cost; often times it's more than the vehicle is worth. Unable to shift gears and unable to afford the repairs, the vehicle often ends up on the junk pile to be salvaged for parts. This is really unfortunate since the shifter is a very simple system, easily maintained. Which begs the question: How's yours?

You've gotta be able to stop. You've gotta be able to steer. The engine should start every time, all the time, regardless of season and you have to be able to shift your gears. You need certain lights, a horn and wipers. Those are the minimums. The bitchin' sound system and the three thousand dollar paint job and all the rest of it is just so much junk if you don't have the basics underneath. The record shows most have paid more attention to the junk than the basics.

-Bob Hoover
-30 April 2K

VW - TULZ Part Seven

TULZ – Part Seven

Dead Whales on the Moon

Lubrication as a concept is an interesting subject and an area of study in which mankind still has a lot to learn. Natural lubricants such as sperm oil and castor oil continue to reign supreme for certain applications; some instruments in the lunar lander were lubricated with sperm oil.

Lubricants are typically made up of 'long-chain molecules.' When I read that I got a mental image of ropes or strings. That's wrong. What I'm about to say is also wrong in the technical/chemical sense but it will provides a better illustration than does 'long-chain molecules.'

Liquid lubricants are beads. Thin lubricants are little beads, thick lubricants are big ones. Grease is a special case. Grease is a necklace; beads on a wire. The wire is usually lithium, molybdenum or some other metal. The beads in grease are typically smaller than the beads in liquid lubricants. The thickness of grease comes from the fact the beads stick together whereas in oil, the beads are free to move around.

Oil wears out when the beads get broken into smaller beads. Grease wears out when the wire holding the beads together gets broken, when the long strands become short strands.

Oddly enough, we don't change our oil because it wears out, we change it because it becomes contaminated. (Large marine and industrial engines, which may use a thousand gallons or more of lubricating oil, don't change their oil, they simply filter it and periodically adjust its chemistry.) The usual contaminants are water and by-products of the gasoline combustion process. These combine with the oil and create new compounds some of which are corrosive and others, mostly carbon granules, make good abrasives. While some combustion products get into your sump by sneaking past your piston rings, most arrive there via your exhaust valves, which in the Volkswagen are not fitted with seals.

While combustion products are something of a problem in all engines, In older engines such as Model-T's or Volkswagens, a more serious fault is that the crankcase is open to the atmosphere. Particulate contaminants such as sand, dust, pollen, chicken feathers or whatever you happen to be driving through get sucked into the crankcase, along with plenty of moisture.

We change our oil to get rid of those contaminants. This wasn't always the case. The normal oil consumption for many early engines was as much as a quart every hundred miles. Early motorists considered an oil- change to be rather foolish since they were replacing the entire contents of the sump every five hundred miles. Back in those days you didn't change your oil, you simply 'topped-up' the sump.

Up until the late 1940's all motor oils were of the same type and the sumps of all engines of that era were open to the atmosphere. As moisture and combustion products reacted with the oil, a thick, jelly-like sludge was formed. This wasn't entirely bad since the sludge trapped most of the particulate contaminants. But eventually the sludge would fill all of the void-space within the sump and valve gallery, reducing the oil capacity by as much as 80%. To get rid of it, the engine was periodically 'slushed-out', a steam engine term transliterated into 'flushed-out' when applied to automobiles.

Slushing-out an engine meant removing the sump and valve gallery covers and scraping out the sludge. It was a messy chore, usually assigned to the youngest apprentice. (Ask me how I know :-) Flushing out an engine meant filling the sump with an oily solvent such as kerosene or fuel oil, running the engine for few minutes then draining the oil. Unfortunately, dissolving the sludge in this manner released all of those trapped contaminants. You got rid of the sludge but in doing so you did a lot of damage to the engine.

Another alternative was to prevent the sludge from forming by adding a detergent to the sump. The detergent prevented the formation of sludge, other than for heavy particles, which would settle out of the oil when the engine was stopped. Of course, that meant the chemical contaminants would remain in the oil but you dealt with that by draining the sump -- replacing the oil every five hundred or a thousand miles.

When compared to scraping out the sludge and flushing the engine every couple of years, the strategy of adding detergent to the oil and dumping it out at frequent intervals prolonged the life of the engine. The oil companies, who owned most of the service stations, began adding detergent directly to their motor oil and promoting frequent oil changes. The drained oil was then recycled by the oil companies using the same processes of settling, filtering and chemically 'overhauling' used for marine engines but on a vastly larger scale. The oil was then and sold back to the motorist. Changing your oil instead of merely topping up quickly became the standard procedure.

The key point here is that old motor oil can be 'overhauled' by simply removing the contaminants. Passing the oil through a filter gets rid of some of the contaminants but a real overhaul requires that the oil go back through a refining process to get rid of the chemical contaminants as well. Re-refined motor oil is just as good a lubricant and the brand name stuff.

Synthetic lubricants are more durable because their beads are smoother, in the chemical sense. They do not combine with the products of combustion as readily as do natural lubricants. This greater durability is of no benefit in early Volkswagens because the crankcase is open to the atmosphere, forcing us to change our oil every couple of thousand miles just to get rid of the contaminants sucked into the sump. You might want to keep that in mind the next time someone tries to sell you the latest flavor of sooper-dooper synthetic lubricant at thirty-two bucks a gallon, justifying its higher cost by how well the stuff worked in New York City cabs or Florida patrol cars in which the oil was never changed for years at a time. The fact the sump of those engines is not open to the atmosphere is never mentioned.

Remember the sperm oil and the lunar lander? There are some applications where traditional lubricants work best and your antique Volkswagen is one of them.

Multi-grade motor oils use small beads plus a plastic additive that is sensitive to temperature. When the temperature rises, the plastic additive pulls the beads closer together causing the oil to act as if it were made up of large beads. But if the temperature rises too high the plastic additive breaks down, leaving you with a sump full of small-bead oil when you need big-bead oil. For example, 10W-50 means the oil is 10W but has plastic additives that make it act like 50-weight oil as the temperature rises. But if the additive breaks down you're left with a sump full of ten-weight oil.

Multi-grade oils don't break down until the temperature reaches about 350 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, well above the highest temperature in any water-cooled engine. But in an air-cooled engine, in the area nearest the exhaust valves, it gets hot enough for multi- grade lubricants to breakdown.

There are high-temperature multi-grade additives but their cost is quite high, causing them to be used only in multi-grade lubricants used in aircraft engines.

Oil Filters

Steam engines didn't have oil filters. When internal combustion engines came along, they didn't have oil filters either. If it was good enough for grandpa it was good enough for me, right? Nineteen million Model-T Fords and twenty-two million Volkswagens didn't have oil filters, proof that you don't need such things, right?

On the other hand, the service life of the Model-T was 20,000 miles. And its normal oil consumption was one quart per hundred miles. The Volkswagen was a phenomenal improvement. The VW was designed to last for sixty-two thousand miles (100,000 kilometers) and to use no more than a quart of oil every six hundred miles (*) Amazing improvement, eh?

(*) That's right, up to 3.4 pints per thousand miles. Most veedubs use a lot less but that is the spec for normal oil consumption. See the manual.

Today, the only thing we find amazing in such specs is how poorly they compare to modern automobiles, most of which can be expected to deliver up to a quarter of a million miles of service and measure their oil consumption with an eye-dropper instead of a bucket.

A major factor in this remarkable improvement in durability is cleaner oil, achieved by passing the output of the oil pump through a treated paper filter before any oil is delivered to the engine. This is called 'full-flow oil filtration,' meaning the total output of the pump is filtered even though only a few ounces of that are used for lubrication. This repeated filtering of the oil supply prevents most contaminants from doing any harm. Then too, all modern-day engines use some form of Positive Crankcase Ventilation in which the sump is not open to the atmosphere except under controlled, filtered conditions.

Ford Motor Company published the results of a formal study of full-flow oil filtration in the mid-1950's in the Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers. Their report offered conclusive evidence that full-flow oil filtration reduced all modes of engine wear by a substantial amount, up to 600% in some cases. On the basis of that report, full-flow oil filtration systems were immediately adopted by all major automobile makers… except Volkswagen.

Hot-rodders, whose engines often represent an investment of thousands of dollars, were among the first to appreciate and to use full-flow oil filtration systems. Following publication of the Ford study, Volkswagen enthusiasts came up with a practical means of adapting full-flow oil filtration systems and found that doing so doubled the life of their engines.

The Type IV engine was designed around a full-flow oil filtration system but it took the Mexican engineers at the Puebla plant to come up with a retrofit for the early model VW engine. Their add-on filter-pump adapter was introduced in 1992 and copies are widely available from after-market sources. Unfortunately, a high percentage of the copies do not fit correctly. Unaware of the problem, many VW owners hoping to improve their engines ended up destroying them by bolting on the poor quality filter/pump adapters.

Keeping It Greasy

'Keep her greasy, she'll keep going,' was the punch line of a hoary old joke having to do with a misunderstanding between a bridegroom named Ford and a deaf mechanic named Doc. It was a real thigh-slapper. But like most folk humor it contains a nugget of wisdom. With regard to cars, keeping her greasy does make her last a long time.

Mention lubrication and the first thing folks think of is changing their oil. That's okay. But when it comes to Volkswagens, most folks do about as much harm as good because they remove the sump plate. Remember the thing about old-fashioned non-detergent oils and sludge? That's why the VW engine has a sump plate. So they could flush out the sludge. See that void space under the strainer? That's part of your sludge collector. If you are using non-detergent oil then you must remove the sump plate and get the sludge outta there. But if you use modern high-detergent oil all you need to do is remove the drain plug; you should leave the sump plate alone. And stop calling the strainer a filter. It's there to keep chunkies out of your oil pump, not to somehow miraculously clean your oil. Oil filters remove particles so small they are measured in microns. A micron is a millionth of a meter and a meter is 39.37 inches so a micron is about .00003937 inches. The mesh of the strainer is about sixty thou (ie, .060)

That's like trying to catch fleas with a chain-link fence!

The main reason VW owners do so much damage changing their oil has to do with the design of the sump plate and strainer. The sump-plate is part of a five-layer sandwich consisting of the crankcase, a gasket, the oil screen, another gasket, then the sump plate. To insure a leak-free assembly you need to start with all of the surfaces being flat and clean then use high-compliant oil-proof gaskets, non-hardening sealant and the proper torque values for the six nuts. Things go awry right off the bat because typical sump gaskets sold today are permeable cardboard instead of resin-coated non-permeable gasket material. In plain language, they are unsuitable as oil gaskets; they leak. That means you have to spray the cardboard jobbies with a non-hardening sealant. Most folks don't. So the sump drips oil. So they over-torque the nuts which bends the hell out of the sump plate and the flange of the oil pickup screen and after that, it leaks even worse. Go figger.

The other thing folks do wrong is to not replace the crushable copper washers on the sump studs and drain plug. The copper washers are designed to do two things. The first is to form an oil tight seal, the second is to prevent the drain plug & acorn nuts from coming loose. Crushable copper washers are a one-time-use item. On installation, when torqued to the proper value, it gets crushed. The crush is what keeps the oil in and the drain plug or acorn nut(s) from coming loose. Re-use the copper washers and you have to over-torque them to form an oil tight seal and by that time there isn't any 'crush' left, meaning things are going to come loose. Loose acorn nuts, you got a leaky, messy sump plate. But a loose sump plug can cost you an engine.

Over-torquing the drain plug also strips it out. The proper fix is to replace the sump plate and drain plug but most folks just get one of those expanding rubber plugs and torque it in there and give themselves a pat on the back for being so smart. A fair percentage of the Volkswagens I see have those IQ tests installed.

The crushable copper washers you need to do a proper oil change are part of the oil change gasket kit. Unfortunately, some outfits charge up to five bucks for the kit, making an oil change a rather expensive proposition. Which is why so many people re-use the same old gaskets and washers, over-torquing the hell outta things in a wasted effort to stop the drips.

Usta be, you could go down to the VW dealer and buy just the crushable copper washer for the sump plug. Cost something like eight cents. But since Volkswagen has abandoned their aircooled vehicles don't expect to find the drain plug washer at a VW dealer. Some FLAPS carry them (look in the Dorman trays) but most don't. Fortunately, Toyota and Nissan both use crushable sealing washers on their sumps, including one size that fits the VW drain plug. So take your drain plug to your Toyota dealer and pick up a baggie of washers. Cost is presently (circa 2000) about half a buck each. Cheep, compared to five bucks for two cardboard gaskets.

Another major part of keeping her greasy is your tranny lube. It's good for two years of normal use, less if you do a lot of driving, ford creeks, dusty, unpaved roads and so on. The tranny and differential holds 85 ounces of lube, same as your engine (ie, 2.5 liters or 5.3 pints).

To change your tranny lube you begin by removing the FILLER plug… cuz if you can't get it out, you don't wanna remove the drain plug until you can. The tranny filler and drain plugs are tapered so you have to be careful when you torque them in. Too much muscle and you'll crack the tranny. The plugs are socket-heads, they accept a 17mm Allan wrench or you can make up a tool using a 17mm nut or the head of a 17mm bolt.

Once you've drained the tranny you refill it by PUMPING the 90W lube. FLAPS will sell you a suitable pump. But they may not have a suitable lubricant. You need GL4 type for old Volkswagens. Most folks will try to sell you GL5, which is the present-day standard. Unfortunately, Volkswagens started using cheap aluminum-phosphor-bronze synchro rings about 1958 and GL5 contains additives that cause the synchros to corrode. So be sure to use the right stuff. Every two years.

The axle boots are part of your tranny. If they are leaking, replace them. If you have a 4-joint rear end (All Volkswagens have 'IRS' rear suspension. The problem is that the magazines don't know the difference between the different types of independent rear suspension.) …if you have a 4-joint rear end, use CV lube and your needle to top up the CV joints. Or dismantle & relube them every two years. (Hell of a chore.)

The third most common category of greasy is lubing your front end. Here again, most folks make a serious error.

You know enough to periodically change your motor oil. And you know enough to replace your tranny lube. So will someone please tell me whythehell all the kiddies simply top up their chassis lube?

To lube your torsion bars and spindles and anything else that uses grease you count the strokes until you see grease coming from the vents. Then you give it that many strokes more. The whole idea behind a grease job is that you are trying to change the grease, not merely topping it up.

Your front wheel bearings are the last common 'greasy' item. And the specs for packing Volkswagen wheel bearings are different than for American cars (those that still use unsealed bearings). The difference is that the design of the Volkswagen's front brake drums requires you to fill the void-space with new grease, after removing all of the old stuff. A lot of folks just grease the bearings and let it go at that. Doing so insures early failure of the wheel bearings due to lack of lubrication. Don't take my word for it. All of this is in the Volkswagen manual. The real one, not that 'official' joke from Bentley.

And right about there most people stop. Engine, tranny, chassis and wheels. All done, right? Not quite. Most Volkswagens use an oil-bath air-cleaner, which is good; they work better than filters made of treated paper. (Treated paper filters came into use not because they are better but because it costs less to replace the filter element than to clean an oil-bath filter.) Each time you change your oil you're supposed to scrub out your air-cleaner and replace the oil. In addition to the oil bath your air-cleaner incorporates a labyrinth-type filtering element made of coir. Once a year or when otherwise needed, you flood the coir element with solvent, slosh it out, let it drain than soak it with kerosene. The kerosene serves to glue particles of dust to the coir fibers.

Now you're all done, right? Actually, you're just getting started :-)

Let's begin with the steering gearbox. Same rule as for the tranny; change it every two years. Now lets look at your tie-rod ends. Do they have Zerks? If so, lube them. But many of them are 'lifetime' parts, meaning they'll only last about half as long as they could. So you get yourself a 'boot needle' and squirt some lube into them anyway. (Boots gone bad? Sorry Charlie. If the boot is bad, so is the tie-rod end. Plan to replace them.) Ditto for your ball joints and CV joints; the boot is a necessity. Once it has failed the joint becomes contaminated.

How's your hood latch? It gets a different kind of grease but it still gets some. Or should. Ditto for the cable, which you are supposed to remove, clean and re-lube periodically (or discover the thrills of breaking into your own trunk).

Door hinges. Door latches & striker plate. Door lock (dry lube only, please). Window regulator. Wiper shafts. Wiper motor (it has a gearbox too, you know). Ignition lock(!) Wind-wing latches & pivots. (Ditto for push-out quarter-windows.) Gear shift, including the Infamous Grommet. Glove box latch & hinges. Heater valves. Emergency brake lever. Pedal cluster. Clutch cable & throttle wire. Heater wires. Seat tracks. Seat backs. Visor pivot. Deck hinges & latch. Throttle shaft & linkage. Graphite or other dry lube on the air flaps & thermostat linkage (oil or grease collects dust).

Got a radio? Does the antenna extend? Then it gets lubed too. And if it's a powered antenna you've got another motor & gearbox to deal with.


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Back in the good old days, whenever that was, most of the items above were checked and lubricated every time you took your Volkswagen to the dealer for service. They used a check-off list to be sure they didn't miss any of those 'unimportant' items and they used the proper lubricants for each case, about a dozen different ones and several different applicators. They did the work so neatly that you couldn't tell it had been done. All you knew was that you took your bug in for an oil change and got it back as good as new, or nearly so.

Today, we hear a constant litany of broken hood latch wires and sticky brake pedals and doors you have to slam nine times and bad wipers and wacky steering …

Now you know why.

Your antique Volkswagen is a high-maintenance vehicle. If you must pay someone to do all of the required maintenance according to your vehicle's original preventative maintenance schedule, you'll find it costs more to own & drive and old veedub than a modern luxury car. But if you fail to give your veedub the maintenance it requires you'll soon find yourself driving a piece of shit. For most of us that means the only option is to buckle down and learn how to do the maintenance ourselves.

It's up to you. You're the Mechanic-in-Charge.

-Bob Hoover
-25 April 2K

VW - TULZ Part Six

TULZ – Part Six

FIRE!

Gotta fire extinguisher? No? Howzabout a bag of marshmallows? Cuz if you own a Volkswagen you really should carry one or the other. Your choice.

On average, it takes a 15 lb dry-type fire extinguisher to snuff an engine fire on a Volkswagen. That's assuming you know what you're doing and jump right on it. Assuming you've got one on-board. And can get to it. Bus owners should carry two, one reachable from the driver's seat, the other from the cargo-bay door. Jump on it quick and the damage can be limited to the wiring, fan belt and hoses. But if you dawdle the fire will ignite the magnesium crankcase and tranny. Ever tried to put out a magnesium fire?

Come to think of it, have you EVER used a fire extinguisher? Old sailors like me know how; firefighting and damage control is part of Navy boot camp. (Why? Cuz you can't walk home.) If you've never donated eyebrows to the Maltese Cross it wouldn't hurt to check with your local Fire Department. Most of them will be happy to show you how tackle a gasoline fire. There's a bit more to it than Point & Shoot.

(Funny-Sad Stories: Woman's westy catches fire. No problem, she has a big extinguisher. Lugs it around to the smoking vent… and finds she can't pull the pin, unaware that particular extinguisher requires the handle to be partially depressed to allow the pin to pull free. Marshmallow event. Similar but different case: Plumber in his service truck sees a VW bug smoking on the side of the road, pulls up to help. Discovers the safety pin on his extinguisher has had the end peened over. Has to find a pair of pliers to free the pin, by which time it was too late to do much good.)

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Volkswagens like to catch fire, mostly because of you; because of the things you do and because of things you don't.

A fire stands on three legs, fuel, air and a source of ignition. Chop off any one of those legs and you don't have a fire. With a car, you can't do much about the air or the source of ignition so you focus on the fuel, the gasoline.

Pound for pound, gasoline has more potential energy than dynamite. Toss a kid a two-pound stick of 20% Hercules and he's liable to crap his pants. But give him an even more dangerous quart of gasoline and watch the foolishness begin.

Here's a good example. See that cute little fuel filter? The one between the fuel pump and the carb? You probably paid about two bucks for it even though it only cost a nickel, wholesale. When you installed it you thought you were doing your ride a favor but the truth is, those two bucks can cause your Volkswagen to catch fire. Herez how: The added mass of that little filter, combined with the normal vibrations produced by the engine and the surface of the road, is enough to loosen the brass ferules in your carb and fuel pump as the hose wiggles up & down. And once they come loose, they pop out. The engine keeps right on running of course – there's plenty of fuel left in the carb. And so long as the engine is running, so is the fuel pump. The gasoline gets sprayed all over the engine compartment and is ignited by the sparks from the generator or the distributor (there's plenty of sparking going on inside your distributor and it's open to the atmosphere).

That little fuel filter can be the dumbest two bucks you'll ever spend.

Volkswagen provided your fuel system with a strainer in the fuel tank and a fine-mesh filter – finer than any orifice in your carb – in your fuel pump. When they went to the non-rebuildable pump they put the filter under the fuel tank.

The filter in your pump is supposed to be cleaned every three thousand miles. Nobody does, of course. Too much work or something. Instead, they buy one of those kewl two-dollar filters that everybody sez is such a smart idea. The only smarts in this equation is the 2000% mark-up on that crappy little filter :-)

So why'd folks start putting filters between the pump & carb? Because either the gas tank or the fuel pipe was starting to rust. The VW is a cheaply built car, the fuel tank is made of plain carbon steel. It loves to rust. When it does, you don't add filters, you deal with the rust. You pull the fuel tank, etch it with acid then slosh it with PVA sealant. Bingo! No more rust. Or you replace the fuel pipe. Or both. (See the real Volkswagen Workshop Manual for the repair procedures.) [Roland Wilhelmy replaced the fuel pipe in the tunnel of his '57 with a single piece of stainless steel tubing. He put threaded fittings on either end. Neatest bit of plumbing I've ever seen on a bug.]

The punch line to the joke is that lotsa kiddies will spend thousands of dollars getting rid of the rust on the OUTSIDE of their Volkswagen but ignore the cancer in their fuel tank, even though they know it's there. That's why the bought the filter, right? (And if you haven't figured it out by now 'kiddie' has nothing to do with age. It has to do with acting in a childish or immature manner.)

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So you check the brass ferules on your fuel pump & carb and, big surprise, they're loose. Now what?

The best fix is to replace them with threaded fittings. There is some aircraft stuff that is small enough to fit the casting yet provides adequate flow.

Or you can knurl the ferules and reinstall them with a dot of sleeve retainer. And then safety the hose. Herez how.

To knurl the brass tube you use a mill-cut file as a knurling tool. ( A mill- cut file has just one row of teeth across the face of the file.) You put the brass ferule on a piece of smooth wood then press the file down on top of the brass tube then ROLL the tube by pushing on the file. The teeth of the file will EMBOSS grooves in the brass and in doing so, increase the OD of the ferule. Making it larger in diameter makes it fit tighter in the casting. (No grooves? Press harder. The hardened teeth of the file WILL emboss the softer brass. Just be sure to use a block of hard wood, leather or plastic for the 'anvil' on which you do the rolling. If you roll it

on metal, the metal will simply flatten the grooves out again, as fast as you make them.)

So go clean the casting (ie, the carb or the fuel pump). Chuck something into your Makita, put a wisp of fine steel wool on the tip and polish the bore in the casting. When it's shiny, swab it out with MEK and a Q-tip. Now the sleeve retainer will bond to the pot-metal casting.

Got your sleeve retainer? Sleeve retainer is high-strength loctite, the green stuff. Use MEK to clean the ferule you've just knurled, put a dot of sleeve retainer on the knurled part and drive that sucker into the bore with a well aimed tap of a hammer. Then let it cure for 25 hours. 24 if you're in a rush.

Install the fuel hose with clamps on both ends. To safety the hose, use light-gauge safety wire, the same stuff you use to safety the set-screw on the shifter-rod (I think it's .028; mebbe .016. Either size is commonly available. See the Harbor Freight catalog.) Make a double wrap around the hose BEHIND the clamp then secure the wire to the carb or fuel pump. Now even if something comes loose, the worst it can do is leak; it can't blow off and spray gasoline all over the engine.

The other common cause of engine fires is due to your failure to replace the grommet isolating the fuel pipe where it passes through the forward breast tin.

Back in the good old days, whenever that was, every time you took your Volkswagen in for service they'd check the grommet. (You check it with your thumbnail.) If it was hard, they'd replace it. And it got hard pretty quick since it's only inches away from the #3 exhaust stack, which runs red hot at highway speed. The rubber grommet soaks up the radiant heat from the cherry-red steel and cooks itself harder than a bride's biscuits in no time at all.

Once the grommet gets hard it cracks into pieces and falls out, leaving your fuel pipe to rub against the .025 edge of the sheet metal of the forward breast tin. Now, you wouldn't think a piece of sheet metal would make a very good saw but remember, it only has to cut far enough to let the fuel spray out. And that don't take long at all. So now you got raw gasoline dribbling out the fuel pipe just inches from the #3 exhaust stack.

See why you need to carry those marshmallows? No sense letting a good bonfire go to waste :-)

So what to do? You can just keep putting grommets in the hole but that's sorta lame. It was okay back then; cheap car, inexpensive service, only takes a few minutes to replace the grommet. And so long as you had the vehicle serviced by the dealer there was never a problem. But times change. Nowadays, the whiz kid at the local quickie lube emporium wouldn't recognize a grommet if it ran up and pee'd on his leg. And even if he did, he'd want a zillion dollars to replace it, being a highly trained technician and all.

So you install a bulkhead fitting, which actually isn't. Bulkhead fittings are threaded on both sides. What you'll make up looks kinda like a bulkhead fitting but it's actually a 'pass-through'. Easy to make. Cost you mebbe two bucks. No more grommet, no more fuel-pipe failure and no more fuel-pipe-related fires. You can leave the marshmallows at home. (But keep the extinguisher in the car. Shit happens.)

To make your bulkhead fitting you begin with a piece of Volkswagen fuel pipe, three inches long. Quarter-inch tubing (that is, non-metric SAE stuff) is a little bit too large for the stock VW fuel hose but a SAE brake line stock, which is available from most FLAPS, is close enough to work.

The three-inch long piece of fuel pipe must chamfered on the ID at both ends and then the ends must be carefully smoothed with #600 paper. Finally, you need the flare the ends just a tad to create a SMALL lip to secure the hose. Be careful here. Small means exactly that. You can feel the flared lip but it isn't obvious to the eye. The important thing is that the hose will feel it too.

The other parts for the bulkhead fitting are down at your local hardware store, hanging on the rack with the other ELECTRICAL repair parts. Ask for 'lamp repair parts.' A common brand-name 'Angelo' (ie, Angelo Brothers Co., from Philadelphia). You want a threaded barrel one-inch long. It will probably come in a blister-pack with an assortment of barrels of other lengths. The 1/8-IP thread is standard for all lamp stuff so don't worry about it; lamp nuts fit on lamp barrels.

Once you have the barrel you need two nuts to fit it. They'll be hanging on the same rack. If they have internal-tooth lockwashers for the nuts, get some.

The other part of the kit is a pair of fender washers having an ID large enough to accept the threaded barrel.

Lamp hardware comes in both brass and steel. Brass will work but the steel stuff is stronger. If you live in the rust belt, brass might be a better

choice. I assume you'll paint the steel stuff.

To assemble the pass-through you want to bed the piece of fuel pipe in the threaded barrel. To do this, insert the fuel pipe into the barrel for about an inch then slather RTV on the exposed fuel pipe for a distance of about an inch. Now insert the slathered fuel pipe into the barrel using a twisting motion. You want to end up with an inch of fuel pipe projecting from each end of the threaded barrel and the fuel pipe firmly bedded in RTV inside of the barrel. Once you've achieved that, put the thing aside to cure.

To install the pass through you spin a washer (and lockwasher, if you have it) onto the barrel, about half-way down. Then slide a fender washer onto the threaded barrel so it comes up against the nut (or lockwasher).

The object is to insert the threaded barrel through the hole in the forward breast tin and form a sandwich of fender washer – breast-tin – fender washer, secured by nuts on either side. That's the goal. And it works. But the first few of these I made, the nuts came loose. I used lockwashers and even two nuts on each side but given the heat from the exhaust stack and the vibration, the things eventually loosened up.

So I glued it together. I used some high-temp (red) RTV and liberally buttered the washers & nuts before tightening the thing down. That was in 1981. It's still tight. So use the RTV trick to keep it from coming loose.

Stock VW fuel hose will push over the SLIGHTLY flared ends of the fuel pipe. You should then install hose clamps but do so LIGHTLY. You don't have to tighten a hose-clamp very much. The combination of the clamp and the small flare effectively locks the hose to the pipe.

There are some details here you should be aware of. The old fuel pipe will need to be shortened. I use the stock bracket on the end of the blower housing to secure the stock fuel pipe. On some vehicles the bulkhead fitting can be difficult to install with the engine in the vehicle. I

think it's a mod worth dropping the engine for but then, I drop the engine just to wash the engine compartment.

One thing you should do IMMEDIATELY is go out to your car and check that damn grommet. IF it is hard or missing, replace it NOW. A quick but TEMPORARY fix is to slit a section of suitably sized hose, clip it around the fuel pipe, slide it into the hole in the breast tin and slather it with high- temp RTV. In theory, that should work at least as well as the grommet and maybe as well as the bulkhead fitting. But in practice, the thing tends to come adrift, possibly because it gets gasoline on the RTV or mebbe from the heat or… something. The metal barrel works best. But you're the Mechanic-in-Charge. Your ride; your decision.

The grommet problem isn't new. It was first identified as a cause of Volkswagen engine fires about 1958. In the 1960's I used aviation-grade bulkhead fittings on my Volkswagens, replacing all of the stock fuel plumbing with higher quality aviation stuff. That's when I was working for Uncle Sam and he didn't mind if his nephews diddled the system a little, so long as the planes didn't fall out of the sky. Not too long after leaving the Navy I needed a bulkhead fitting, saw how much the silly things cost and came up the lamp-parts arrangement as a substitute. It works.

-Bob Hoover
-20 April 2K

VW - New Rings vs New Jugs

>How can you tell if you need new pistons or if just the rings need to be replaced. The motor has low compression like 75's on a couple of cylinders and smokes pretty bad. It's a 1300CC case will 85.5 pistons just drop in like I hear?

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Dear Jim (and the Newsgroup)

Easy question. You don't replace the rings. You replace everything... you install a set of NEW pistons & cylinders (they come with new rings... which you still must dismantle & check).

(Ed.Note: Why dismantle the rings from your new pistons? Three reasons: They need to be cleaned of all cosmoline before they can be balanced, you still need to check that the ring-gap is correct, and finally, the edges of the ring-gap need to be stoned to remove the fine feather of hardened metal left by the gapping operation. It is that tiny feather of metal that produces those vertical scratches in the freshly honed barrel.)

The reason you need to replace the jugs as well as the pistons has to do with an idiosyncracy of horizontally opposed engines, be it Franklyn, Corvair, Onan, Lycoming, VW or what-have-you. The problem is that the cylinders do not wear in a perfect circle, they wear more on their downward-side, ending us as a measurable oval. Since the typical cylinder hone, which was designed to be used on monobloc engines, follows the bore of the cylinder, honing does nothing but smooth your already eccentric, oval-shaped bore.

To achieve a properly centered, truly round cylinder you must re-bore. But before doing so you must install the jug into a special fixture.

Back when Volkswagen overhauled their engines at the factory they spent millions trying to get the same service from overhauled jugs... and finally gave up when some bean counter pointed out it was less expensive to simply melt down & recast the old jugs rather than try to re-machine them. (A factory overhauled engine had the same warranty as a new one. But the ones with used jugs had a habit of crapping out early forcing VW to honor the warranty... and spend millions trying to figure out why the reconditioned jugs failed.)

The fact the cylinder walls kept getting thinner had a lot to do with this too -- 85.5's are just bored-out 83's (which are just bored-out 75's!). The thinner the wall, the more difficult to maintain alignment during the re-bore.

You'll hear all sorts of tales to the contrary -- how someone threw in a set of rings and ran another zillion miles. Such stories are usually bullshit. Hone the jugs, throw in a set of rings, it'll run nice... for a while. Easy way to make a quick buck, if the customer is some kid; kids seldom keep their bugs or buses more than a year or two.

As to your pistons, the wear-surfaces are the ring-lands. That’s where the top & bottom of the piston rings form their seal. Putting in a new set of rings doesn't make any sense unless you overhaul the pistons. That means having the grooves re-machined to be perfectly perpendicular to the axis of the piston. The tricky bit here is that the inner corner of the groove must have a subtle radius. Cut a square corner, as you see all the 'experts' doing when they use an old piston ring as a carbon scraper, and you create a stress-riser -- the piston will crack right there in the corner. (BT, DT :-) Usta be, all automotive machine shops overhauled pistons. Nowadays the cost of labor is so high and the price of replacement pistons so low, the only slugs that can justify being overhauled are high-buck forged racing items.

All of that should give you some idea why the smart money is on a new set of P&C's rather than overhauling the old ones.

-Bob Hoover

VW - TULZ Part Five

TULZ – Part Five

Gimme a Brake

Howz yerz? Brakes, that is. Block your wheels with something then jump in, release the parking brake and step on the brake pedal. How far down does it go? How far down SHOULD it go? (See the manual.)

Set your parking brake. No, do it again, this time counting the clicks. How many clicks? Make a note of that. Now step on the brake pedal again. How far down did it go with the e-brake set?

How'd it feel when you stepped on the brake? Hard is good. Springy, spongy, bouncy is bad; spongy brakes means there is air in the system; they need to be bled.

You need to change your brake juice every two years, more often if you live in a damp climate. If you haven't done it, go do it. And if you've just bought this wreck, do it anyway… the last guy probably didn't change it either. Brake fluid is hygroscopic; it absorbs moisture from the air. The brake fluid reservoir is open to the atmosphere. Every time you step on the brakes the level of the fluid goes down then comes back up. That slight up & down motion makes a very effective air pump. And the fluid absorbs moisture from the air (didn't I just say that?)

Changing your brake fluid every two years is vital because the master cylinder and wheel cylinders are made of cast iron, which loves to rust. Replacement of the master and slave cylinders on a Volkswagen is almost always due to 'pitting'. And it is plain old-fashioned RUST that makes the pits. (Modern vehicles use aluminum brake cylinders and some use synthetic brake fluid that isn't hygroscopic.)

Even though bleeding your brakes is very easy, you have to get to the backside of the wheels to do it. If the only way to do this on your vehicle is to jack it up that puts the task into the 'Major Repair' category, not because of its difficulty but because of the hazard. Any time the vehicle's wheels are not on the ground and you have to work under it, you must support the vehicle with jack stands. Major Repairs should be done in the company of another person. They don't have to be a mechanic, anyone who can use a fire extinguisher and telephone will do.

Brake work calls for a few special tools. To loosen the bleeder valves you need a special bent-neck six-point box-end wrench. See the Harbor Freight catalog. They sell assortments of brake tools. I don't know if the assortment they sell is suitable for a Volkswagen but the illustration will give you an idea of what you're looking for.

This whole series of articles is about tools. You can't maintain a vehicle - ANY VEHICLE - without the proper tools. Proper tools are kinda like an IQ test. You can do the job – once – with a hammer or pipe wrench or vise-grips or whatever the instant experts say is kewl but that's it; you've buggered the part. If it survives long enough to need maintenance again you'll find yourself worse off than you were before. The smart way to do it is to buy or make the proper tool.

Early Volkswagens used bleeders with 7mm heads on the rear wheels and 11mm heads on the front. Later models used… whatever the hell it is. Crawl under, find out what size your vehicle requires and procure the proper tools. These become part of your Brake Tool Kit and should reside there, apart from your regular tools.

If any of your bleeder valves have been buggered up or are rusty, clogged or whatever, replace them. Bleeder valves are fall into the category of 'consumables,' items that require periodic replacement. And since bleeder valves are a standard maintenance hardware items, most good auto-parts stores carry them in both metric and SAE flavors. But the secret of consumables, which also includes Zerk fittings, ignition parts, generator brushes and so on, is that you don't buy them as you need them, you buy them BEFORE you need them – you always keep a few on hand, replacing the bad one when you come upon it and using the old one as a memory aid. Lotsa guys just put them in their pocket. Next time they go to the parts place, when the clerk sez 'Will there be anything else?' you dig in your pocket and there, along with your pocketknife, a dirty hanky, a hunk of wire and a piece of string about… that long… will be the bleeder valve.

"Yeah," you say. "Gimme two of these."

To bleed your brakes you'll need a bleeder hose that fits over the bleeder valve. Here again, find the size that fits your vehicle and buy about eighteen inches of it. Common vacuum hose works fine but not for long. Cheap hose is made of natural rubber. Brake fluid eats it up.

To turn a length of vacuum hose into a bleeder hose, find a SHORT screw or bolt that is a force-fit in the hose and use it to block one end. Using a pointed Xacto knife or the corner of a single-edge razor blade, make a penetrating cut in the side of the hose just above the end of the screw or bolt. The slit will act as a flapper valve; you can force brake fluid OUT through the slit but it will not allow anything to come back IN.

The last item you need is a glass jar.

Start with the wheel farthest from the brake pedal and end with the wheel closest to the brake pedal.

To bleed your brakes, fit the wrench to the bleeder valve, slip the open end of the hose over the bleeder valve and put the end of the hose with the screw into the jar. Pour enough brake fluid into the jar to cover the slit then loosen the bleeder valve, go around to the cockpit and pump the brake pedal ten times, refilling the master cylinder as needed.

To CHANGE your brake fluid you simply keep pumping until you know that circuit is charged with fresh fluid.

While the symptom of spongy brakes usually means the system needs to be bled, it can also reflect an incipient failure of a brake hose. To check for this you must visual inspect each hose while someone pumps the brakes. Look for any swelling or unusual motion in the hose. If you've got a bad hose, you'll have to get it out of there. This calls for a couple more wrenches unique to brake work.

Use standard replacement brake hoses rather than those kewl after-market jobbies. The standard hose is good for twenty years service. With the after-market stuff, dirt gets into the exposed metal braid and normal flexing is enough to wear them out in a surprisingly short period of time.

Another no-no is those kewl suction-type bleeders. Avoid them like the plague. Your brake system uses a type of chevron seal. A chevron seal works when the pressure is behind the seal, forcing it tight against the cylinder wall. The more pressure, the better it works. When the pressure is released, the elastomeric seal retracts allowing the piston to slide back into battery. But if you apply SUCTION behind the seal when the piston is already retracted (as is the case when bleeding brakes) air will be pulled past the lip of the seal. You can suck all day and you'll still

see bubbles in the brake fluid… because YOU are sucking air into the system through the wheel cylinder. (The little hand-suction kits are handy for checking the vacuum canister on your distributor, for systems using O-ring seals or for do-it-yourself abortions but they should never be used to bleed the brakes on a Volkswagen.)

Another no-no is those ohsokewl after-market wheels that conceal the brake-adjusting hole on the older style drums. You should adjust your brakes WHEN NEEDED. For younger drivers, that can be once a week. I've seen plenty of bugs in desperate need of a brake adjustment that wasn't done because the owner couldn't remove the over-torqued after- market wheels.

Adjusting your brakes is sooper-simple. But the devil is in the details. For an early bug or bus you need your jack, a flashlight, a medium-size flat-bladed screwdriver and your hubcap puller, if you got pullable hubcaps. Plus you need to know where the adjusters are. Buses are different from sedans and front wheels are different from rears.

If you got something with 4-lug drums, such a 1968 or younger sedan, then you need the floor jack and a pair of jack stands. Why? Because the adjusters are on the back of the wheel. And any time you have to put any part of your body under the overhang of the vehicle when the wheel(s) are not on the ground, you support the vehicle with jack stands. (Macho types always ignore such 'silly' rules. Don't worry about it. It's the type of problem that creates its own solution. Darwin was right, you know :-)

The brake adjusters are sleeves that are threaded on the inside. Turn the adjuster one way, it spreads the shoes apart. Turn them the other, the internal springs pull the shoes closer together. To adjust the brakes you turn the screw until the shoe is touching the brake drum then back it off until the wheel can be easily rotated with no sound of dragging.

The Idiot book offers a good how-to on adjusting your brakes, mit pitchers yet.

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Doing a Brake Job…

…is pretty easy. And since all of the manuals tell you how, I won't. Read the manuals. Study the pictures.

The hard part is removing the rear drums. I've already told you how to do that (see Part One). Whatever you do, don't go banging on things with a hammer. Through a process called 'brinelling' the pounding creates micro-flats on the race & roller (or ball). Once the roller & race are no longer true, the thing wears out quick like a bunny. So don't do it, no matter what you read in Muir and all the magazines. (For the straight dope check the Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers. The cause of premature roller- and ball-bearing failure was identified in the early 1950's.)

Another thing often overlooked by the novice is the need to LUBRICATE your brakes. Not the shoes but the adjusters and wherever metal parts move against each other. They make special grease just for this purpose.

If your wheel cylinders are leaking they need to be overhauled or replaced. And if you have leaky wheel cylinders, odds are the master cylinder has gone bad too. Why? The slave cylinders go bad because you've allowed water to build up in the fluid. If there's enough water in the system to cause pitting of the slave cylinders you can bet your bippie the same thing has happened to the master cylinder.

Overhauling a brake cylinder means honing out the pits, polishing the bore and replacing the seals. A wheel cylinder kit typically costs only a couple of bucks. But if you've never overhauled a hydraulic cylinder, this isn't the place to start. Buy rebuilt or new replacements and plan to overhaul the old ones.

The best cure for leaky brakes is to not let it happen. You can prevent the rust that causes the pits by replacing the brake fluid every couple of years. Easy.

Often times I find VW slave and master cylinders so badly pitted they can't be honed, they need to be re-bored and sleeved. (Unless you've got a shop full of tools and a lot of spare time, you can't afford that.) When the cylinders are that bad there's a good chance the hydraulic pipes are also rusty. There's no way to heal a rusty brake line. It must be replaced.

Oddly enough, one of the most frequent results of rusty brake lines is conversion to disk brakes, which cures absolutely nothing. The logic here is slightly baroque so follow me through. The rusty brake lines are restricting flow and the vehicle's braking performance is poor. The vehicle has a history of brake problems and no amount of bleeding or cylinder replacement seems to help. For some reason the owner decides the problem is in the brake DRUMS (disks are better, right?) and off he goes on a very expensive trip down the slippery slope.

Volkswagens have pretty good brakes, as numerous tests have shown. Before you decide to 'improve' the braking system, make sure it really needs it.

Another oft-seen error is failure to replace the grease seals on the front wheels when doing a brake job (or even when repacking the front wheel bearings). I had a kid come by the shop after replacing his front shoes twice in six months, wondering what he was doing wrong. His left front brake drum didn't have a grease seal. He was using the Muir manual which mentions the grease seal only in passing, putting no emphasis on the need for periodic replacement. But the 'official' Bentley manual isn't any better. The grease seal isn't even mentioned in the brake section. Under the section for the front end it mentions only 'Seal for disc.' It is illustrated in the exploded view of the drum-type brake but there is no nomenclature associated with it. Haynes also ignores the seals. Which is probably why I see so many bad front brake jobs.

When grease or oil gets on the drum it will contaminate the shoes. Since none of the common sources of information put any emphasis on the need to insure the seal is doing its job it comes as no surprise to find a lot of bad seals out there… and a lot of bad brakes… and a lot of Conventional Wisdom that sez veedubs don't have good brakes. (But buying that expensive disk brake kit will fix EVERYTHING, right? :-)

Front axle grease seals are inexpensive. The old style used a fiber seal; you had to replace it pretty often. Later versions are made of synthetic rubber and last a long time (your wheels don't rotate very fast). But on a rotating shaft even the best seal needs to be replaced now and then.

The oil seals on the rear axle are a different case. Since the rear axle seals remain in place when the wheel is removed they are normally replaced only when you R&R the bearing.

Ready to do a brake job? Then read your manuals. Be sure to arc the shoes and to keep things clean. Ignore the kewl instructions in the Muir manual for burning the oil off a contaminated brake shoe. That's an old Model T Ford trick. It only applies to asbestos linings installed with rivets. Modern brake lining material does not contain asbestos and the lining is bonded to the shoes with special glue that will be destroyed by burning (when bonded brake shoes are overhauled the first step is to bake them at a temperature that causes the glue to breakdown, allowing the old lining to be easily removed).

Brakes are easy. Keep them adjusted and replace the brake fluid every couple of years, you'll always have good brakes.

-Bob Hoover
-16 April 2K

VW - TULZ Part Four

TULZ – Part Four

Soldering and On-board Spares

SOLDERING

To maintain your Volkswagen you need to know how to solder. Get yourself an inexpensive soldering iron (30W to 40W), some rosin-core electrical solder, some wire and have at it. As with all of the manual arts, soldering involves sensokinetic skills – muscle memory – as in riding a bicycle or touch-typing. It is a skill which can be learned but which can not be taught in the usual sense of the word. In effect, you must teach yourself. With rare exception this applies to all of the manual arts.

You need to know how to solder and desolder in order to repair your starter solenoid, replace starter brushes and repair certain types of alternators. But your most common use of soldering will be to replace aging connectors.

The Volkswagen was an inexpensive car. They used the cheapest type of brass connectors. Over time, these connectors age-harden and break. (Better quality connectors are plated with tin, the best ones with gold.)

In a production environment such connectors are crimped onto the wires using a tool that generates several tons of force in order to produce a gas-tight junction. The enormous pressure virtually welds the wire to the connector, insuring the junction will not corrode. When using the typical hand-crimper even the strongest man generates no more than a few hundred pounds of force. The interface between the connector & wire tends to corrode since the joint is not gas tight and the connector will come loose in time. There are better tools for this task, aviation stuff that allows you make a suitable repair in the field, but they cost hundreds of dollars and you need a different set of jaws for each size of fitting.

For automotive work the solution is to use a crimped and soldered connection. Herez how to do it. You solder the lead, trim it to length, crimp it into the fitting THEN solder the tinned lead to the fitting. This sequence insures the strongest possible mechanical joint (ie, crimping to the soldered lead) yet needs only minimum heat to solder the already tinned lead to the connector.

The result is a connection that is gas tight and has adequate mechanical strength. Unfortunately, soldered connections tend to fracture when subjected to vibration. To make them survive in an automotive environment you must provide some means of strain relief at the soldered connection.

A suitable strain relief can be formed using two pieces of heat-shrink tubing, one about three-quarters of an inch long, the other about an inch and a quarter in length. You slide both pieces of tubing onto the wire BEFORE you install the connector. Slide the long piece on first, then the short piece, then crimp & solder the connector. Now slide the short piece over the soldered junction, shrink it into place, allow it too cool then slide the long piece over the long piece.

Most spade type connectors sold for automotive repair come with a ridiculous little plastic collar. Remove the plastic before using the connector. (The easy way to do this is to heat the connector while holding it with a pair of needle-nose pliers. The plastic sleeve may be twisted off when hot.) You can buy high quality spade-type connectors without the plastic collar from electrical distributors (Mouser, etc) and from the better automotive electrical shops.

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MAKING A TIMING LIGHT

Your static timing light is nothing more than an automotive lamp (ie, the 'bulb') to which you've soldered a pair of leads fitted with alligator clips (crocodile clips for the Brits). The tricky part of this soldering job is how do you hold the bulb. Try using modeling clay. (If you do much head work you'll have a lump of modeling clay around the shop.) If you don't have clay, try using candle wax.

Once the leads are soldered to the lamp, insulate the thing with vinyl tape. You might also give the bulb a wrap of tape so as to protect it from breaking as it knocks about in your tool bag.

The Muir manual suggests using a replacement light socket & bulb as your timing light and keeping it in a folksy Bull Durham bag. You'll find such sockets bubble-packed in the electrical section of most franchise- type auto-parts stores. But John shows the timing light with only one lead, which greatly limits the utility of the lamp. Replacement sockets with two leads are available. Of course, if you drive an old bus you already have such a device onboard. It is your license plate lamp & socket.

Your timing light also makes a handy trouble light. And a voltage indicator(!).

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TEST LEADS

Your electrical kit should include an assortment of test leads of various lengths two of which should be long enough to reach from the front of the vehicle to the rear. Among the shorter leads you should make up some only an inch or so in length with a spade-connector on one end and an alligator clip on the other. Make a pair of such leads, using both male & female spade-connectors. These are actually adapters but the object here is to give you some soldering practice so I've lumped them together with your test leads.

Other adapters you'll find useful are 'gender benders,' in which you have the same 'sex' connector on each end, and 'Y' adapters, in which two leads are soldered to the same connector on one end (ie, the base of the 'Y') but the 'arms' of the 'Y' are fitted with M-M, M-F or F-F connectors. These are very useful when you need to borrow a bit of power from a circuit or which to monitor the state of a circuit while debugging a problem. If you'll examine the in-line connectors used by Volkswagen you'll see why a lead fitted with an alligator clip can not be used on certain circuits.

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SPLICING WIRES

Your second-most common need for soldering skills is in splicing wires, a woefully frequent chore with any older vehicle but one carried to extremes with Volkswagens, many of which have enjoyed the inexpert attentions of as many as twenty (!) different owners over the years. (Does your State's department of motor vehicles offer registration history? Most do. For a fee, they will provide you with the name & address of a vehicle's past owners.)

To make a splice you strip back the insulation for about an inch and a half on each wire. Slide two pieces of heat-shrink tubing onto one of the wires. One piece should be about an inch long, the other about two inches long. You want the short piece closest to the splice. (You put the heat-shrink onto the wire because the piece you are splicing in usually has the connector already installed.)

Inspect the stripped wire carefully for corrosion or contamination. If the wire is corroded, cut it back another inch and try again. On some Volkswagens, aging of the plastic insulation produces an acid that causes the wires to corrode. In those cases you need to replace the entire wire. As the years roll by this problem has become increasingly common. Eventually, you'll be forced to rewire the entire vehicle. (This is why replacement wiring harnesses are so widely available.)

To make a soldered connection you want clean, bright copper. If that's what you've got, go ahead and twist each wire into a tight pigtail. Herez how: About half an inch from the insulation, bend each wire at a right angle. Hook the angles together so the leads are pointing in opposite directions. Holding the hooked area, twist (ie, 'wrap') one of the leads about the other wire, making three turns. Now do the same with the other lead. You want the wraps to be tight and close together.

When the wires are twisted together, use your dykes or toenail clippers to trim any excess then twist the ends hard down against the wire to make a smoothly tapered wrap in the space between the last of the three turns and the start of the insulation. You don't want any 'sharpies' sticking up to puncture the heat-shrink tubing.

Solder the splice. Keep the iron on one side of the bundle and the solder on the other, allowing the wire to heat fully. Shake off any excess solder, allow the joint to cool then inspect it BY TOUCH. If you can feel any 'sharpies,' deal with them. You can file them off or crush them flat with smooth-jawed pliers but you have to get rid of them.

Slide the SHORT piece of heat-shrink tubing over the COOLED joint, center it over the splice and shrink it in place. Let it cool for a minute then feel it to make sure a 'sharpie' hasn't penetrated the tubing. (If it has, cut off the heat-shrink, deal with the 'sharpie', insulate the splice with ELECTRICAL TAPE and continue.)

Slide the long piece of heat-shrink over the first (or over the tape) and shrink it into place.

You're all done. Tin the tip of your iron, allow it to cool and repack your electrical kit.

Here's a couple of common-sense rules: When making a splice always use the same size of wire. (Don't go by the outer diameter, strip it back and gauge the size of the copper conductor.) Always use the same COLOR of wire as the original. You are just a bead on a string. Others will come after you. Your legacy is to demonstrate to future mechanics and electricians that you were a competent craftsman. (Maybe this is a guy-thing. Or a pride-thing. But most of all it's a common-sense-thing. Wiring is always coded by color. A competent mechanic always maintains that particular vehicle's color-coding when making electrical repairs.)

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ON-BOARD SPARES

On-board spares are, logically enough, those spare parts carried onboard the vehicle. They are easily replaced parts, the failure of which, immobilizes the vehicle or renders it unsafe to drive.

Spare fan belt. The value of carrying one (or more) should need no explanation.

Fuses. Volkswagen used an inexpensive Siemans-type fuse having the fuse-metal exposed to the atmosphere, a handy way to start a fire (and which are illegal in some locales). Buss (brand name) manufactures conical-tip fuses in which the fusible element is contained within a glass envelope. They are not only safer in use, they also hold up better knocking around in the door-pocket. Better auto-parts stores carry them.

Spare lamps. If you have two of something – headlights, taillights, etc – you can generally get by without carrying a spare but a lot of older Volkswagens are owned by youngsters, a lot of youngsters attend college and a lot of college-town cops prey upon students, seeing even the most minor infraction as a source of municipal income. You decide. Personally, I carry a full set of lamps, from headlight to license plate.

(Ed.Note: In the six years since this was written LED lighting has become so common-place that the local auto-parts store has reduced the size of their automotive lamp display by half. If you have not converted your running, brake & turn-signals to LED's it might be wise to add those lamps to your on-board spares.)

Throttle wire & clutch cable. Most folks don't bother to carry these. That's a mistake. The availability of air cooled Volkswagen parts is becoming more difficult, with mail-order being the only option for many VW owners. This situation isn't going to get any better. Indeed, those of us who depend on our antique Volkswagens for transportation are forced to maintain a considerable stock of spare spares on hand, either carried onboard the vehicle or kept at home in ready-for-issue condition.

A common mistake is to carrying spare parts but fail to adequately preserve them. The throttle wire should be painted (!) and the cutch cable greased, then wrapped in several layers of heavy plastic sealed with tape.

The reason for painting the throttle wire is because you can't paint it after it's installed and grease alone isn't enough to protect it. So you paint it ahead of time. Just soak a pad with some paint and pull the wire through the pad, then let the paint cure. To lube it, wipe it down with silicon lube rather than grease.

Replacing the clutch cable on the side of the road can be one hell of a chore. So teach yourself how to drive without using the clutch. Find yourself an empty parking lot, push-start your bug or bus, jump in and… Awful, huh? :-) But you can do it. It's just a matter of coordination… and rolling through the stop signs. Being able to drive without using the clutch will allow you to reach a safe refuge where the repair can be done.

To do an emergency replacement of either the throttle wire or clutch cable, roll that side of the vehicle up onto a curb or dig a trench and back over it. You have to work under the vehicle and you NEVER do so using only the jack.

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ON-BOARD TOOLS

The need to carry certain on-board spares means you must also carry certain tools, the one dictates the other.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that you need a jack and a lug wrench if you want to change a tire, or a 21mm wrench and a screwdriver if you want to change the fan belt. And a source of light so you can do those things at night. And some form of protection so you do those things in the rain or snow or mud or desert heat… just common sense. I'll leave you to figure out which tools you need. (I drove a '65 bus. The type & amount of stuff I carry wouldn't make much sense to someone with a Ghia or bug.)

Your on-board tool kit is liable to be different than mine but there are a couple of things everyone should carry, such as duct tape. Ditto for bailing wire. (Yeah, I know, nobody uses wire to bale hay any more.) Go down to the hardware store, back where they've got cement and rebar and ask the guy for a roll of 'tie-wire'. He'll sell you a five-pound roll of the stuff for less than the cost of that cute little half-pound roll of 'Repair Wire' they sell to the yuppies.

Your on-board tools are a part of the vehicle, not a part of your regular tool kit. They go where the vehicle goes, all the time, every time. If you don't understand the logic here, re-read this Part until you do.

One of the more useful on-board tools is a piece of canvas about three feet wide by six feet long. I keep it folded & wrapped around the tools, secured with about thirty feet of light rope. I use it to lie on if I have to work under the vehicle but mostly it's to keep the tools clean and things organized. If I lived where it rained I'd also carry a big sheet of heavy plastic. And I mean HEAVY. Five mil stuff. Instead, I carry a roll of plastic garbage bags. (And a throw-away rain suit.)

Wherever I go, there I am. I try to schedule my maintenance so I can do it in a place of my choosing but weather or circumstance may force me to use the next wide spot on the road. And of course, when you breakdown, you don't have a lot of choices; wherever you are becomes your shop for the duration of the repair. So I do what I can to make my roadside shop as comfortable and convenient as possible, knowing the work will go faster for having spent a few minutes to insure my safety, comfort and convenience. Here again, common sense should be your guide. You erect some form of roof to protect you from the sun, rain or snow, and you put down some form of floor to keep you from having to lie on the ground. And you always protect your tools.

Cardboard and plastic makes a good floor – you can discard it and pick up new stuff at the next town. A tarp becomes your 'sky', secured with duct tape and bailing wire, using the corner of a fenced parking lot, a tree, picnic table or what-have-you as the other 'wall.' (In Baja you carry a couple of poles… or travel two-by-two and park the second vehicle so as to support the tarp.) When the work is done and you're ready to move on, you clean up after yourself. I carry a leaf rake, a broom and some trash bags; I leave no sign of my passing. It's not that big a planet.

-Bob Hoover
-14 April 2K

VW - TULZ Part Three

TULZ – Part Three

What do you want to do with your Volkswagen? Fix it up? (whatever that means..) Paint it? Build a new engine?

Go on, make a list. Define your car in terms of the things you want it to be or that you want to do with it. Put the thing you consider most important at the top of the list then work your way down.

(WARNING: #1- 'Bitchin' Sound System' gets you an F for the course :-)

A fancy name for making this list is 'Prioritization.' It's what you gotta do to maximize the effectiveness of your limited resources. But that ain't all. It is also a sly way to introduce you to the 'Divide & Conquer' concept of automotive management in which we first decide what has to be done then break the task down into doable bites that match your resources. In this case, 'resources' means your skills, tools, time and the availability of working space.

Whatcha wanna bet your list is not the same as everyone else's list? See, that's a bit of a problem for me, because if I'm going to be telling you about how to maintain your Volkswagen I need to lay out a plan; I need to prioritize my time & work. But what if the most important thing you need to do is fix a broken window… and I don't get to that until Part Eighty-seven or whatever. Odds are, you'll be long gone and I'm sitting here boring everyone to tears.

So I'm not going to do things that way. I'm going to get you your own teacher. In fact, I already have… it's you. I'm going to hang out under that tree over there and let you work up the syllabus for your vehicle. That's the purpose of the list. Those are the things that you feel are important. So go ahead and get busy. If I see you doing it wrong, I'll throw rocks at you :-)

The lesson here is one most will fail to appreciate. You are in charge of your life. The secret of Life, The Universe and Everything is not '42'. The secret is to keep your priorities straight, to break tasks down into doable chunks and then to actually do them; to progress along your chosen course. Most folks don’t. Most mistake activity for progress, fill their lives with busy-ness and end up with little or nothing to show for it. Knowing how to maintain your vehicle is something of lasting value, well worth your time and effort.

But before you get busy fixing your Volkswagen I'd like you to do me a favor. I want you to add three items to the very top of your list. The first item is 'The ability to STOP.'

Stopping – good brakes – must ALWAYS have the highest priority. Making a car go is easy; you don't even need an engine. But when a sixteen hundred pound bug starts rolling, no matter how slowly, it represents one hell of a lot of energy (and a bus weighs twice as much). The ability to stop MUST be your first priority.

The second item, #2 on ANY list of priorities is 'Steering' and the logic is similar to that for stopping: Once a vehicle is in motion you must be able to steer. So before we get to the Bitchin' Sound System lets make sure you can get the thing out of the parking lot without hitting a pole.

Finally, as item #3, I'd like you to add 'Safety' and yeah, I'll be the first to admit it's probably a waste of time to put it on a list, because if you haven't learned by now that safety, not only around cars but in EVERYTHING YOU DO has to be a HABIT then you probably never will. But I want it on-record. And I want the record to show two sub- heads, the first is 'Personal Restraints' – that's your harness and the seat you sit in. The second is 'Fire' and under 'Fire' I want you to open two sub-sub-heads: 'Fuel' and 'Electrical'.

The safety thing turns off a lot of guys because they simply aren't bright enough to Get It. We probably should have called it Free Money, Good Sex or mebbe Long Life because 'safety' is all of those things. Safety is Positive Force, something you channel for your personal benefit. The way you channel it is by being cryogenically cool and totally professional. That skews the odds of success 'way over to your side of the board; you leave nothing to Chance.

Pretty dull, eh? Brakes. Steering. Safety. Nothing totally kewl. So here's a pop quiz for you. Who wins the race?

Come on. Think it out. What defines the winner?

It's the guy who finishes first. No, not the fastest car in the race, the car that FINISHES FIRST… no matter what he averaged.

So chew on this: You gotta finish to win. (And not just in a car race.) Brakes, steering and safety are fundamentals. Then comes making it durable, so you know you'll be able to finish the race. Only then do you devote any resources to making it go fast, 'Bitchin' Sound System,' 'Kewl Upholstery,' and other necessities of life :-)

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Can you solder? Do you have a soldering iron? Go find one. A good mechanic is also a pretty good electrician. You will eventually be both. Get yourself some rosin-core ELECTRICAL solder to go with the iron. And a pad of fine-gauge steel wool. And a pair of toe-nail clippers. The toe-nail clippers are for clipping wire, not toe-nails. You may use diagonal cutters if you wish but the toe-nail clippers are a lot more fun. Avoid Radio Shack if at all possible. Their quality is awful and their prices too high, in my own personal humble opinion.

Have you got some spade-lug connectors? You're going to need some. Get the kind that are coated with tin; they look kinda dull silvery. Buy the ones WITHOUT the plastic sleeve. If that's all you can get, be prepared to remove the plastic sleeve. Volkswagen was a cheap car, very cheaply made. They used the cheapest electrical components. The unplated brass connectors suffer from age-hardening and corrosion. Much of your maintenance work is going to be replacing bad connectors so let's make sure you start out with good replacements to begin with. Try Home Depot or order them via mail from Mouser.

You also need some heat-shrink tubing and a pair of crimpers for the spade-lug connectors. And some wire. Mebbe fifty feet or so. That is, TWO colors of wire, fifty feet of each. Sixteen gauge will be fine.

And some alligator clips. And a roll of vinyl electrical tape. And a pocketknife.

What's all this leading up to? Old Volkswagens have a high incidence of electrical problems. Most electrical problems are easily diagnosed and simple to fix. We're going to make some test leads and a timing light. These are basic tools, something you'll use the rest of your life. In making up the test leads you will learn how to solder and install fittings onto wires, a skill you're going to need to keep an old Volkswagen running.

Now figure out where you're going to keep all this electrical stuff. You want to keep it separate from your other tools. Later on we'll add a multi-meter and a strobe-light to the kit so find something big enough. A .50 caliber ammo can will work, except nowadays they cost more than a real toolbox. Those canvas tool bags from Harbor Freight are handy and not very expensive. The tool bags come in large & small plus they offer a Rigger's bag that is about the handiest thing since beer in cans.

Word to the Wise: IF you live where folks frown upon mechanics, DON'T use a regular toolbox. Fake them out.

Gym bag works great. So does an old bowling bag. Go down to the Salvation Army and pick up a couple of awol bags or small suitcases. Use a backpack if you gotta but your full kit of tools is going to be a pretty heavy load and a major pain in the ass if you have to keep hauling them back and forth. So don't. Haul them. Roll them. One of the smartest ideas since pre-sliced bread is those suitcases with wheels & a handle. The alternative is one of those fold-up carry-on carts from Wal- Mart or wherever. Anything with wheels is worthy of consideration. Baby carriage. Office chair. Golf bag carrier. Shopping cart. BICYCLE. (If you have a home with an attached garage and lotsa shop space all of this will sound pretty silly but it's Mother's Milk for someone living in the barracks.)

I'll let you work it out. You are the Mechanic-in-Charge.

-Bob Hoover -10 April 2K

PS – Got the 'official' Bentley manual? Then read Chapter 10, the Electrical System. Pay particular attention to the explanation of Ohm's Law.