The Used Car

"Buy a used car and you're buying someone else's problem." I've heard that line and said that line many, many times. I suspect the same thing was said about buying a horse in the years before there were cars. Sometimes it's worse than that, though, sometimes you buy a "disaster waiting to happen."

I own one of those. When my wife's 1967 VW Beetle was stolen from in front of our house, I needed to get her another car right away. Rule #1 in buying a used car: Never get in a hurry. Do your research, take your time, have the car checked by a competent mechanic, and don't get pressured into buying. Be willing to let the deal go and know that another car will come along. If you hold firm to Rule #1, you'll minimize the unknowns and likely be aware of potential problems in time to correct them before they become dangerous.

The first thing I did when I bought the replacement car was to violate Rule #1. The car I found looked good sitting there in the lot of the VW shop. The paint was in fair condition and the engine had been cleaned up and looked good. When we started it up it ran well and made no unusual noises. It had custom seats and a custom instrument panel. Heck, the gas gauge even worked. I figured we had a winner and bought the thing.

In my haste to violate Rule #1, I missed several important clues. The first was that any VW shop in the Los Angeles area that does good work should be busy. This place was not. The second clue was that any old VW that is that clean probably has something to hide. It did. Since the car's registration had expired, we weren't able to test drive it and had to take the seller at his word with regard to the safety and road worthiness of the vehicle. It was neither safe nor road worthy. Given the above, it was overpriced as well.

Right away we noticed that the transaxle wouldn't stay in gear when you let off of the gas pedal. My wife discovered this right away as she was driving the car home from the VW shop after we bought it. It was at this time that I violated Rule #2 which states: "Try all the cheap ways to fix a problem before you try the expensive ones." The car came to us with a fancy-looking after market shifter, so obviously that couldn't be the problem, right? No, it had to be the transaxle that was worn out and needed to be replaced. After the newly rebuilt transaxle had been installed, we discovered that the fancy shifter had been the problem all along. I replaced it with an inexpensive, used stock shifter and the problem was solved.

The very next thing I did with this not-so-very-fine used car was to violate Rule #3. Rule #3 applies to all mechanical, electrical and philosophical aspects of the universe and, simply stated, is: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." My justification for ignoring that very important rule was my conflicting belief in the K.I.S.S. rule. "K.I.S.S.", of course, stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. I had been told for years by a variety of Volkswagen car enthusiasts that the simple 009 Bosch centrifugal advance distributor was the ultimate in state-of-the-art simplicity. This belief was in accord with my own belief in the K.I.S.S. rule so I accepted it without question. My blind faith in this consensus of the masses has resulted in all my VWs performing poorly, while I constantly adjusted other systems to make up for the inherit fault in the distributor. So, with all this in mind, and on a car that was running just fine, I purchased and installed a new 009 Bosch distributor. Soon after that, I got a call from my wife who complained that the car was sputtering and losing power. Just as I was ready to get in my car to go rescue her, she called to say that the car was now running fine. I had her bring it home and park it so that I could figure out what was wrong.

Now I violated Rule #4: "Only change one thing at a time." Since the only change I had made to the car so far was installing the new distributor, what I should have done at this point was re-install the old distributor and see if that solved the problem. Instead, I began to carefully and systematically replace every other part and system that might cause hesitation in the engine. This eventually included the fuel pump, the ignition wires, the fuel filters, the carburetor and the ignition coil. Of course none of these replacements had any effect on the problem at hand, but I did discover that this car had an electric fuel pump, which certainly was not the way the car originally had been equipped from the factory. I also discovered, two fuel pumps later, that the fuel system was working perfectly, especially after I replaced the pump that came with the car, which, though it was apparently working just fine, was located in the left rear wheel well and held in place by a couple of lengths of mechanic's wire.

If I may digress for a moment, the proper location for the electric fuel pump is, ideally, close to the fuel tank where it can push the fuel into the carburetor, rather that at the engine (or in the left rear wheel well) where is has to pull the fuel from the tank and then push in into the carburetor. So, not only was the pump at the wrong end of the car, it was hanging precariously near the left rear tire where it was exposed to the possibility of being destroyed by flying debris picked up from the road by said tire and thrown around inside the wheel well. Certainly not the best choice of locations for hoses, a pump and a filter full of flammable liquid. I relocated the fuel pump to its proper spot under the fuel tank at the front of the car and tested the system. It worked exactly as it should.

Believing the problem had been solved, I took the car for a test drive and, at long last, it seemed to run just fine. Sadly, the very next time I drove it, the problem was back - loss of power, sputtering and no acceleration. By this time I knew that there wasn't a problem with the fuel system - all of that was working - so it had to be electrical. It is amazing how far down the wrong road I have to drive sometimes before I realize that I've taken a wrong turn.

I checked over the wiring, replaced connectors, changed spark plug wires and still was unable to resolve the problem. Having now violated all the rules of auto repair, I stepped back from the whole situation and started analyzing it logically. The engine lost power, sputtered, wouldn't accelerate, yet it would start and idle perfectly. The problem was intermittent. Sometimes the thing worked perfectly. I thought about all the parts I had replaced and, at last, realized that there was only one part I hadn't yet replaced - the condenser. the condenser is a $3 part that stores electricity like a little battery and releases it all at once when activated. Could that be the problem? The part in question had come pre-installed on that new distributor which I had replaced at the beginning of this story. How could a brand new condenser not be working? Still, I'd tried everything else, why not try that? I keep several condensers around the work shop, so I found the correct one, removed the possibly defective one, and installed the new one.

Problem solved!! And lesson learned. Learned the hard way, but learned well and thoroughly and at great expense. Of course, this was only the beginning of my problems with this car, but I'll save those stories for the other chapters of this saga.

Dreams

What do you get when you take with an old Volkswagen chassis, shorten it, add a fiberglass body, a custom-built engine and transaxle, lights, wheels and tires? If you said, "A dune buggy, of course," you'd only be partly correct. The phrase, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts," applies to dune buggies, as well as culinary creations, successful groups, or anything else imagined and built by human beings.

What you get at end of your dune buggy project is an idea brought to mechanical life in the real world. You've taken something from your imagination and made it real. You've made your own dream come true. You've made a decision and then acted upon that decision, time after time as each phase of the project was executed. You've altered the material universe and created something unique, something which has never existed before in its present form.

Sure, you had lots of help along the way, but the idea, the motivation, the creative spark is yours. You decided to go forward and create your own car. You made sure that any work done by others was done correctly and in accord with your concept of what the final product should be. You took control, you were in charge, you build your own car. In doing so, whether you realize it or not, you have learned a whole new way of thinking and you have gained a sense of self-worth that only a scant percentage of modern humans possess.

Don't stop here. Keep building, keep taking control, make things happen, continue to learn, teach someone else what you have learned, do things, imagine something else you want to create and then go ahead and create it. That's what dune buggies really are, they are the dreams that someone has made come true.

Distributor vs. Carburetor: Choosing a Leader

When you press the accelerator pedal on your dune buggy, you open up the butterfly valve inside the carburetor to allow more air into the engine. Usually, this creates more vacuum pressure inside the carburetor which draws more fuel into the engine and causes the engine to turn faster. If you have a centrifugal advance distributor, the ignition timing advances as the engine rpms increase. In some cases, this works just fine, but, in many cases, there is a noticeable "dead spot" in the acceleration response of the engine. This is caused by fact of the ignition timing lagging slightly behind the increased fuel/air mixture entering the engine when you press the accelerator. When that occurs, you also have a drop in vacuum pressure which causes the "stumble" you feel. If you pump the pedal a bit, it tends the minimize the lag, but it's still there, very annoying and potentially dangerous if you're trying to climb a hill or get through a busy intersection.

For some reason, centrifugal advance distributors became very popular some time ago and still remain so to the present day. I suspect it was largely a created demand generated by the marketing department at the manufacturer's headquarters. I can't think of any other reason why this type of distributor became so popular since it really doesn't work very well.

The idea situation would be one where, as the fuel/air mixture increased in volume, the ignition timing would advance right along with it, or even slightly ahead of it. I think of it as either leading with the carburetor or leading with the distributor. That's a simplification, of course, but that is essentially what happens. To put the distributor in the lead, you need to install one with a vacuum advance. There are lots of them available in the used market and there are new ones available in the after-market as well. With a vacuum advance mechanism on the distributor, the above sequence of events is altered. As you press the accelerator creating more vacuum pressure in the carburetor, the vacuum motor on the distributor advances the timing of the ignition simultaneously with the increased fuel/air mixture that is entering the engine. With these two elements working together, the acceleration lag disappears, acceleration increases and, not surprisingly, fuel economy improves.

You would think that this relationship would be intuitive with air-cooled VW engine mechanics, but that doesn't always appear to be the case. It took me a long time to figure out for myself, what should have been obvious from the beginning, but conventional wisdom said that centrifugal advance distributors were simpler and, thus, better and more reliable. It's not true. With the installation of a vacuum advance distributor on my 1776 cc motor along with the 2-barrel progressive Weber carburetor, the power curve is smooth, the acceleration is excellent and I'm getting better gas mileage. I also find that my high-altitude performance is better and that the engine doesn't load up and foul the plugs like it used to.

You probably have an old vacuum advance distributor laying around in your garage right now. Try it, I think you'll be pleased with the improved performance you will experience.

The Fuel Line Fiasco

One of the worst disasters that occurred during the build happened on the day I thought I was ready to put some gas in the tank and attempt to start the car. I had carefully hooked up the rubber hoses up to either end of the steel line that runs through the tunnel down the center of the vehicle. I had even put in an in-line fuel filter so that any residual crud that had built up in the steel line would be caught before it got to the engine.

I had siphoned a gallon of gas out of one of my other cars into a plastic gas can I had acquired. I attached the pour spout and upended the can into the tank. Suddenly there was gasoline everywhere -- inside the pan, on the floor, running down the driveway -- everywhere except in the fuel lines. The one thing I had forgotten to check was the steel fuel line hidden inside the tunnel. In the years since 1957 when it had been installed at the factory, or at the time it was shortened when the pan was cut, or both, it had become more of a sieve than a line. The gasoline was running out of the holes just as fast as I poured it in. The car was saturated with fuel. There was nothing to do at that point but leave it alone and let it dry out.

While I waited for the gasoline to evaporate, I thought about how to solve the problem. I needed a new fuel line. There's no easy way to replace the original line inside the tunnel. To do so would require cutting holes in the backbone of the frame and then re-welding the holes to restore its structural integrity. I could run a fuel line under the car, but that would expose it to whatever rocks I might drive over if I ever took it off-road. No, the easiest thing to do would be to drill one hole at the front of the pan and another at the rear and run the new line inside the car along the floor. I started rummaging through all the stuff I had in the basement to see if I could find anything that would work. There was a small roll of flexible copper tubing that I had acquired somewhere, probably something I got from my dad. I remember him hooking up a water line for a refrigerator ice maker some years ago. The copper must have been left over from that job. It was 1/8" copper tubing, pretty small inside, but a Volkswagen motor doesn't need much fuel volume to run. The copper line wasn't long enough for the whole run, but if I cut it in half and used copper to get the line though the body at the front and back and filled in the rest of the run with rubber fuel line, I could do it.

The next day after the gasoline flood had evaporated, I drilled the holes and installed the new fuel line. When I tried putting fuel in the gas tank this time, the gasoline stayed where it belonged. I ran the car that way for several years. Recently I bought a longer piece of copper tubing and replaced the pieced-together line inside the car with a contiguous piece of copper and replaced all the rubber fuel lines with new ones. It was just a precaution, though, as that cobbled-together fuel line I had made was still working just fine.

When Turn Signals Turn on You

I'm a great believer in reading, understanding, and following instructions. Usually, that works out just fine. There are rare occasions when it doesn't. This is the story of one of those rare occasions.

When I was planning the wiring of the dune buggy, I remembered that my brother had used an aftermarket turn signal switch on the Jeep we used to kick around in when we lived in Idaho Springs, Colorado. That switch was a big, shiny chrome box that attached to the steering column with an adjustable strap. It had a nifty little green light on it that would blink when it was flashing the turn signals. I thought that would be the perfect item for the dune buggy, but it had been quite awhile since our Jeep days. It was the early 70's when my brother had that Jeep and I wondered whether that switch was still being made nearly 30 years later. When I went to the auto parts store in Los Angeles in 1999 when I built my dune buggy, I found that same switch right there on the bottom shelf, nifty little green light and all. Of course, I bought it.

In the picture above, you can see the wiring diagram and instructions for installing this marvelous little device. It's really a shame that this wonderfully simply diagram is completely wrong. I carefully following the diagram and connected all the wires as indicated. When I switched on the power, nothing worked. Lights were not flashing. I check the diagram. I traced all the wires to make sure I had it right. It just wasn't working. As I said, the wiring diagram was wrong in every way. The colors of the wires just didn't correspond to the functions of the switch.

Anyone else probably would have taken it back to the store and demanded a replacement. For some reason, I don't do things that way. First of all, I knew that there wasn't another switch in the store. I had purchased the only one they had. Second, I wasn't going to let some simple little switch keep me from getting my turn signals working, so I took it apart, got out my continuity tester and started tracing circuits. Eventually, I figured out which circuit was the right side and which was the left. I reconnected all the wires to the correct circuits, powered up the vehicle and it actually worked. It's worked just fine throughout the entire the ten years since I fixed it. It really is a good switch, I guess whoever was working on the assembly line the day it was built was hung-over, drugged or asleep.

The moral of the story is that, as good an idea as carefully reading and following instructions is, sometimes it's just not enough. Sometimes you just have to dig in and figure things out for yourself. When you've done that, when you've taken things apart and figured out how they work, then you really get a fundamental understanding of what is happening when you turn the ignition switch, start the engine, and pull away from the curb. Fundamentals are especially important when something doesn't work, because if you know your fundamentals you can more easily isolate, diagnose and correct the problem. Without fundamentals you waste a lot of time fixing things that aren't broken.

Parts and People

These are the hands of a woman that I have know for nearly 25 years. She owns the Volkswagen parts store where I have been buying things since I first came to Los Angeles. She doesn't like having her picture taken, but she let me take this picture of her installing a seal on a windshield. She works very hard at keeping her little shop going and she is ably asssisted by Steve who works with her as mechanic and counterman. I was in her shop twice this week. I have to stop myself from driving over there and just hanging around. I love being in her shop. I feel at home there, and other than here in my actual home, there aren't that many places where I feel that way. I was thinking about how much I treasure her and her shop, how precious they are to me. Sometimes I stop by, just to say hello. Sometimes I go there to buy something, even though I don't really need it, just to make sure that she is still there.

I believe in supporting small, family-owned businesses. I like going to places where I know the people. I like it when they sometimes even remember seeing me before, even though it may have been weeks or months since I've been there. I enjoy talking to people who are good at what they do and who enjoy doing it. In a city the size of Los Angeles, there are still places I can go where the people like what they do, care about the people they meet, and have time to share a story and a laugh or two. It makes me happy to know that such people still exist.

As a general subject, I don't think I like "people" very much, but one-on-one and face-to-face I find that there are some that I love.

Wires, Wires and More Wires

For me, the most difficult part of building the dune buggy was the wiring. Before I even started, I had to decide how much wiring I wanted to have in the car. This meant I had to decide what I wanted to include in the project in the way of accessories, gauges, sound equipment, lighting and whatever else might need electrical power. I also had to decide which wiring route I wanted to take. I could buy a complete VW sedan wiring harness for a little over $200, or I could buy a dune buggy wiring harness for about $65, or I could buy bulk wire from the hardware or auto parts store and design my own harness.

The first thing I did was to find an understandable wiring diagram of all the basic systems normally found in a Volkswagen. I found a vintage hardback Chilton's tune-up manual in a used book store that had a decent diagram which showed the basic circuits I would need to get the car running. I scanned the diagram into my computer, printed it out on two sheets of paper, taped them together, got out some colored highlighters and started outlining circuits. I decided that, since it was to be an open car, I would include only the essential electrical accessories, so as to keep weather damage and theft to a minimum. For a safe, running car I would need wiring for headlights, turn signals, tail lights, running lights, brake lights, instrument lights, engine warning lights and windshield wipers. To go with the lights, I would need a headlight switch, a dimmer switch, a turn signal switch, a brake light switch, a wiper motor switch, a gas gauge and sending unit, and an oil pressure switch. I would also need wiring for the engine electrical system. It looked to me like the dune buggy harness would just about cover all of those circuits, so I ordered the necessary harness and switches.

With the diagram and the parts list done, it seemed like the actually wiring would be fairly simple and straightforward. It really should have been, but it wasn't. When you are dealing with parts and wires that have never been put together in this particular fashion ever before, there are always going to be problems to solve. There were.