The Cal-look Lounge

I thought I would post a topic about my current road trip.  It may be many days between updates since I don't have a ´puter or one of those fancy new phones that can talk to the interweb.
It starts in Vancouver Canada on the west coast of North America.  I hope to make it somewhere in Central America before I head home.  The deciding factor may be the heat.  It may be that I'll be sick of travelling.  Or I might run out of cash!

The car:
75 Canada spec IRS Standard Beetle that has been deep into Mexico 6-7 times.  It's really heavy, just under 900kg empty.  Then add tools, spare parts, etc.
78x90.5 engine with 40DRLAs that makes about 120hp (at sea level).  Although it has around 120k km on it, it still runs great.
There are discs all around, and big fat tires, so it sticks well in the twistys.  And it's got a Berg 5 mit ZF.
The car sat undriven for two and a half years, so I spent considerable time going through a long list of checks, including: 
Change oils (gearbox, engine),
new rear pads,
new exhaust system,
replace the unreliable gas heater,
rebuild the carbs,
swap to stock height spindles on the front then realign,
install genuine VW front shocks and Koni reds on the rear,

The route so far (follow along in Google maps!):
I headed south on the main US interstate freeway towards southern California.  After a short visit with my brother in the OC, east to Phoenix was next.  From there, south through Tucson, then onto the border city of Nogales AZ/Sonora Mexico.  This is about the safest border town between the US and Mex.  A few hours south is the beautiful city of Hermosillo Mexico.  On this trip, I wanted to go through Monterrey Mexico in the east, so I took the rural highway from Hermosillo towards Chihuahua.  This is quite near Texas.  From there, south to Torreon.  It was a short drive to Monterrey.  I backtracked to Torreon, then continued west to Durango, then to the west coast at Mazatlan.  After a bit more than a week, I went south to Puerto Vallarta.  Inland to Guadalajara for some drag racing, then Mexico City where I post this now.  Soon I'll head south to Acapulco.  Then a long drive along the Pan-Am highway to Guatemala.  Honduras is next, and I think I will skip El Salvador (with the world's second highest murder rate!) Nicaragua then Costa Rica and lastly Panama.  I don't know if the last three will happen.

nice post. keep it coming.  :)

i love to read about roadtrips like this. makes me pull out my old rand mcnally and follow along, dreaming about doing one again.....

cool trip!!!
have fun and good luck :)

Awesome Bruce, I dream of doing something like this. Keep us posted and be safe

The drive across the US was pretty uneventful, except for the fuel pump expiring in N Cal.  I had a spare, so it only took a couple hours in behind a gas station 
For those who've never entered Mexico by car, they have a really dumb system.  You drive up to the line and it triggers a light.  Red, they search you, green, off you go.  I got the green, so my carload of "assault weapons" sailed right through!  Not one official even looks at you.
Karl, find the highway that heads east from Hermosillo towards Chihuahua.  The first bit was straight enough that you could drive pretty fast.  Then you hit the Sierra Madre range and the road gets really twisty.  Lucky for me there was almost no traffic, so it was 3-4 hours of cranking at the wheel in 3rd and 4th.  My front tyres are 205/55/15s on 7" Fuchs, so there's almost no push ever.  At one point I came up fast behind a Mexican army troop truck with 4 guys on each side.  As I approached, the guy on the right noticed me, then swung his M16 over his knees, pointing to the road between us.  After a while, I went by them.  About 10km later was the first military check point.  Then another 1km away.  At a third one they were quite bored since there were no cars to check that they asked me to shut it off and get out.  In reality, they were more interested in the car than me.  A couple of them spent some time looking at the engine.   They are all young guys, no more than 25, so they wanted to know a bit about Canada, then where I was going.  As I think back, I wish I had offered one of them a bit of cash for one of their cloth caps.  That would have been a cool souvenir.

Here's the parking lot guy of my friend's apt building cleaning out the interior and washing my car.  Yes, that's the floor mat on the roof.  What can you expect for $3.50?

Saw this war horse of a taxi today.  There aren't many Beetle taxis left, this one will be retired by this summer.  They allow taxis to be up to 10 years old, and this July will be the 10th anniversary of the end of production.  At one time there used to be thousands of Beetle taxis.  Now I see only a handful each day while driving around.

On the left is the most evil of all vehicles.  The Mexico City police tow truck.  One of those bastards tried to steal my car last week.  With me in it!!!

Thanks for sharing Bruce!
I like road trip, I'm missing a lot all the trip I already did in my bug :-\

I didn't know a lot about Mexico, but I thought it was a modern city.

Keep us posted on your "Finds" and stay safe!

i left Mexico City today, heading south towards Acapulco.  there are two routes, the free road, and the toll road.  The tolls can be pretty steep, so i am trying to keep on the free roads.  An example is the autopista from Guadalajara to MexicoCity for $65 in tolls.  today's route took me through the small city of Taxco, SW of Mex City.  IT's one of Mexico's most famous tourist draws you've never heard of.  The city is built on the side of a very steep mountain and is full of small shops selling silver goods.
south of that is Iguala, and where i am now in Chilpancingo, about 150km north of Acapulco. 
about three hours ago i got pulled over at one of the police road checks.  When they see foreign tags, theyreally want to check the paperwork closely, since any "problem" is serious.  My temporary import papers are perfect, so they have to improvise. They asked me to open the rear lid.  I offered the front instead, but no, they wanted to see the engine.  One guy began wiping the case at the engine number, explaining that they were verifying engine numbers.  After i laughed at that and told them they would need to phone Germany to do that,  they let me go.  I think they were relying on the general public not knowing how an engine number could be checked os they could solicit a bribe to let you go.

Be Safe, keep the posts coming.  I keep wanting to plan a road trip thru the US in my daily driver.....
I went to LA from nocal in the middle of the week to see my daughter play ball and drove back that day ....thought of a road trip up thru Oregon and WA for some events and down to CO and so on....just a a thought a line on the bucket list....
and Bruce if your in Norcal and need anything give me a shot....

I stayed only 2 nights in Acapulco since it was so hot and humid, and the crappy hotel had no AC.

Topes:  this is Mexican for speed bumps, and they have thousands everywhere in the country.  They are all different in size and shape. Some can be taken at 50km/h, some are violent at a crawl.  When you're on the highways and approach a town, there are usually a few topes.  Sometimes they are marked, many are well camouflaged! and you have to guess when they are done. Well, a couple of days ago, i guessed wrong, and was back up to full speed when one appeared in the dark.  I know i got airborne from how hard it came back down, but the car seemed to drive ok, so i continued driving. A quick look at a gas station and i saw nothing wrong.  But the next morning, there was quite a bit of oil under the engine.  Oh well, i needed to do an oil change anyway.  I found a small dirt repair shop and paid a guy $17 to change the oil and to pull the deep sump off for an inspection. I thought for sure it was cracked somewhere, but it wasn't. Instead, it's bottom surface for the sump plate was bent. And of course the plate was junk. He installed a new plate with plenty of RTV. So far there are no leaks.

Cool!
Bit of a lucky escape on the sump then :)

Didn't they say taxi's had to have rear doors and it killed the beetle taxi over night? Or was that brazil....

Hi Bruce- Just discovered this thread; glad to hear you're safe. If you get another chance, definitely see if you can liberate one of those cool hats! :D Take care, and I'll talk to you when you get back. Al

Andy, there's one advantage of heavyweight Berg parts like their sumps, they're really strong!

You're right about beetle taxis.  The biggest single market was Mexico City taxis, and there were stories about thieves following victims into the back of a beetle taxi to rob them.  So Mex city passed a law requiring all taxis to be 4 door cars.  The idea was that ina beetle, you were trapped, in a 4 door you could go out the other side.  It's hard to believe this robbery theory since in Acapulco, 95% of the taxis are still beetles.  Same in Taxco.  When that market was removed, sales weren't enough for VW to keep making our car.  
It's now been almost 10 years since the last new one was made, and the ones left are in overwhelmingly bad condition.

So far the distance travelled is over 11,000km, and i'm still heading away from home.

Here's a pic of one hotel parking lot.  Real good security at this hotel.

Which company's logo was ripped off here?

surroundings look very similar when i was in Colombia.

Bruce, i thought you were using a Scat sump for ground clearance?

Here's where I got the oil changed.  At least they collected the oil rather than letting it drain on the ground. 

The Berg sump went on 13 years ago when I built the engine.  I never got around to changing it for a lower profile sump.  I have a vintage LANG sump that holds the same volume, but has 1" more ground clearance.  But LANG sumps are not as strong as Berg.

Two days ago I crossed into Guatemala.  The first thing I noticed is that aircooled VWs are RARE here.  So far I have only seen 4 driving around.  Stayed in Quetzaltenango the first night.  Found the VW guy in town.  He has most of the VWs left in the city.  Unlike Mexico, they got German made VWs here.  So they are familiar with Super Beetles and IRS cars.  The VW guy had a 1302 and a 1302S (with factory disc brakes!)  He also had two Brazilian Beetles and two Safaris, both with reduction box swing axle.

This is a great thread, Bruce. Thanks for sharing details and photos from your trip.

Safe travels!

--Eric

anybody heard from Bruce lately? Been a few days hasn't it? :-\

I´m now in Guatemala City, and VWs are just as rare here.  Visited a few VW shops, but haven´t found anything interesting.

While stopped for a light in front of an appliance repair shop, the owner excitedly came out to talk to me.  He was so enthused, I thought it warranted a circle around the block after the light turned green.  Jose is a die hard VW enthusiast, owning two Beetles and 8-9 mk 1 Golfs/Rabbits as well as an auto repair shop.  He told me about the big annual VW car show weekend happening next weekend in Coban, north of Guatemala City.  I´m going to try to make that show.  Here´s a link for those that can stumble through Spanish,
http://fuscacoban.blogspot.com/2010/06/el-bug-camp.html

Jose has also been very helpful to me in guiding me around the city, so when a customer brought in her 69 German Beetle for a clutch job, I said I would help.  Wow, what a can of worms we opened up!  The car is a Deluxe Sedan with swing-axle rear suspension.  Low-back seats and an all metal dash.  Although the badge on the engine lid says "VW 1500", it has an F engine case (1300).  But it could be anything.  When we pulled the clutch, it was a small 180mm 6V clutch.  This was the problem.  It took many phone calls, and several visits to various shops to locate a new clutch.  That kind of early stuff is so rare here.  On the bright side, the original disc was relined for only $11!  The hooks on the cross shaft for the throw-out bearing were just about worn through too, causing the TO bearing to tilt sideways.  I think that´s what damaged the original clutch.  Finding a good cross shaft was just as difficult.  We could only find a piece of junk China one that was made wrong with the splines for the clutch arm clocked at least 20º too far forward.  The car still needs a ton of work.  The engine had a few pieces of missing engine tin, a big leak at the oil filler, missing screws everywhere!  I exhausted my emergency supply of M6 screws.  It´s no wonder the car was overheating.  Also, everyone here in Central America is blindly brainwashed into thinking that every car on the road needs 20W-50 oil, even though in this city, at this altitude, the temp rarely goes over 30ºC.  I explained carefully how xW-50 in a VW engine is the actual cause of high temps, so Jose said he was going to try thinner oil.  Initailly he couldn´t believe I was using 5W-30.

When we were at one shop, I took the opportunity to show the owner a pic of a swing axle ZF.  He immediately knew what it was, calling it "diferencial de bloqueo", and "Positivo".  He said he had one a couple of years ago, but he threw it away because nobody wanted it!!!!

Thanks for sharing Bruce

Sounds exciting! And good to hear it's still going well. Al

The curse of the shorty cars is here!

Spotted this Puma GT buried in one corner of the shop.  Said he´s going to work on it some day....

Still in Guatemala City, hanging around Jose´s shop.  He keeps coming up with new ideas of other places in the city to go.
 
We are also busy helping the local VW people get their cars ready for this weekend´s show.  One friend of Jose´s, Luis, called him on Sunday morning after he accidentally started an engine fire while trying to tune it up.  The fire caused more damage than he could handle, so Jose and I headed over to his house.  We were greeted by a nice looking stock 67 double cab with safaris.  He showed us the pic of how he and the neighbours put the fire out, with DIRT!!!  It took a carb rebuild and some new wiring, then the engine was running as good as before.  Luis was so greatful, he was choked up a bit and asked how he could repay us.  By this time we were all pretty hungry, so it was agreed he had to buy the chicken beer.

We are also working on Jose´s Beetle.  His kids call it "Barbie".  It´s an early 70s Beetle with the roof cut off into a permanent open car.  It has a 1300 engine that needs new rings.  We have the engine apart down to the short block now.  Hopefully we can find rings today and get the cylinders honed.

The afore mentioned 69 Beetle we did the clutch on last week belongs to Laura, and it needs more work to make the 240km trip.  The carb ran so badly we pulled that apart yesterday.  I found a bent part in the choke mechanism preventing it from functioning, so hopefully it will run well now.  The car needs a new muffler and an engine comp seal, then it should be ready.

What is a chicken beer?
Is that an alcoholic beverage usually consumed by chickens?
Or some special Guatemalan dish?
Just curious...

Sounds like your VW good karma will be stored up for the trip home, Bruce.

Their #1 national beer is "Gallo".  Direct translation is Rooster.  It´s a decent beer, I rate it mid-high.  There are a lot of Germans in this country, and it shows in the cerveza.
http://www.cervezagallo.com.gt/index.php/edad?ref=fiestas

Yesterday I was installing the rebuilt carb onto Laura´s car (rhyme the first sylable with "how", that´s how she says her name).  The wires to the engine looked like crap.  They had that stupid plastic accordian wrap on them.  At one point, I started ripping that shit off and found many future engine fires.  Wires that were too short were extended by simply twisting them together.  Large gauge wire was extended with small wire.  And wrong colours too.  In some places bare wires were close to touching each other.   I took all that crap off and started extending the wires properly.  I showed Jose (and jr.) how to do a Western Union wire splice.  A little later, Jose told me that in Guatemala, they have a name for the person that does such poor workmanship.  They call him "Chapoose".  And the inside joke is that the name sounds almost the same as Chip Foose!

Jose´s 1300 ring job may not happen.  The brazilian pistons had 0.25mm of clearance between the rings and the grooves.  Spec limit is .05mm.  He´s got another set we can check today.

Bruce, thanks so much for the travel reports!  I'm envious.  I'm sure a lot of us are living vicariously through your excellent posts.

If you are crossing the border at Escipulas, have an orange with chili powder for me.  That was a real treat - for some reason the Oranges were killer there, unlike the lodging.  We stayed at a place with a shower that had a device that attached to the spout, where the water came out, and it had two 8 gauge wires going to it, that in theory were supposed to heat the water!  Didn't work, but then again, I didn't get shocked, luckily.

If you are headed for Tegucigalpa, good luck in the city.  Most of the shops I went to had no interest or idea on where to find some old parts, and that was way back.  If the chase for parts gets bad, head for the coast.  It's not Costa Rica, but it's worth the visit. 

Be safe, earn your paint chips and sump bumps and I look forward to the next installment.  Vaya con Brosol!

Will check out the oranges, Dave.
My current hotel has that same water heater.  It kinda works, but changes in flow really affect the output temp.  I´m sure the electrical code at home prevents such a stupid device.

Jose got lucky yesterday.  He scored a set of NOS 1300cc P&Cs for just over $100.  And Kolbenschmidt too!  But I don´t think we´ll get the engine together and running to make the show tomorrow.

I haven´t talked to Jose about trying to find NOS parts stored away in forgotten locations.  Then yesterday, he says a shop owner near him had invited him to go up into the attic to look at a parts haul he can´t identify.  What luck!  One of the first items I saw was NOS early Type 3 front brake drums.  There were 7 of them.  I didn´t check the other drums to see if they were original VW, but I will when we go back.  Lots of main and rod bearings for Type 1 and 4 engines.  Strange, since I don´t think they got anything with a Type 4 engine.  Jose is thinking about buying the lot, then trying to sell the stuff individually.  I think the buy price will be so low, it will be easy for him to win.

Great news for Jose!  I hope he makes out on the lot. 

Thanks again for the updates.  It makes for interesting reading.   All the best to you.

D

P.S.  Been to any of the traveling carnivals yet?  Check out the equipment and games if you do..................

Bad news for Jose.  The P&C set turned out to be 40hp 1200.  Still a good find, but it doesn´t get his engine together.  The plan is to re-ring another set of better pistons and hone the cylinders.  Engine assembly today, we leave the city in 5½ hrs!  There will be at least 6 cars in our caravan.

I can't help but wonder if there's any parts stashes to be found in Mexico anymore following the famous Jeff Walters treasure hunts of the '80s... those stories were epic.

Ryan, parts stashes in Mex are very unlikely due to their tax laws.  Companies could save a lot of tax by throwing away obsolete inventory.  Not so in Central American countries, I´m told.  But the guys I talk to here say parts are very hard to get here.  One guy I spoke to today said it takes about 3 months for a shipment from the USA to be delivered.  Many of them said there are just about no old parts anymore.  I´ve been looking in Guatemala and found very little.

Bad news for Jose´s engine.  We didn´t have enough time to get it going.  Turned out to be ok since it rained most of the day on Saturday and Jose´s car is roofless. 

Next was Laura´s car.  I was able to get it all together, but the really crappy fitting exhaust needed a lot more work to fit.  The damn holes for the heat riser flange are at least 4-5mm too close together, so there was no way to get the screws in.  Since they´re threaded, I suggested to Jose to wind in a headless screw, then weld it at the top.  Then drill and tap the hole in the right place.  Also, one stud was missing for the #4 exh port.  In it´s place was a large lag screw.  Since drilling and tapping are quite difficult with the engine in place, we thought we would try to just reinstall that lag screw.  Problem was, the flange was not aligned, so it took a lot of torque to pull the flange in.  Then the damn head busted off.  We´ll get it fixed soon.

Now it was my turn for a breakdown.  As we left Jose´s shop with our small caravan, Marco was riding with me.  Less than 1km away, we hit a bump that wasn´t that big, but it made a nasty noise.  Then there was a new clunking while going down the road.  We pulled over and found the shock tower busted off!!!!  It was partly my fault, I had to clearance it to fit the P 944 adjustable spring plates back in the 90s.  With a couple of the guys, I said I was sure we could find a welder guy and be back on the road in 2 hours.  They started asking around, and in 15 min, we had our welder.  We pulled the wheel off right on the street and the guy started stick welding it with an old, small buzz box.  It was done in 1¼ hrs!

We got to Coban late in the evening for Bug Camp.  Lucky for me, Laura brought an extra tent and sleeping bag for me since I had none.  It was set up for me when I arrived.  The next morning we all set out for a long cruise through the jungle.  After about 45min to an hour, we arrived at a waterpark built around a fast flowing river.  It was kinda cool out, but there were a few guys brave enough to go in.   There wasn´t much to do there and we stayed there far too long, IMO.  A few of us decided to head into Coban.  We spent a couple hours there, then I got to thinking that it was now 4pm, and we haven´t had much chance to see the cars or talk to the owners.  I suggested we go back to the event.  Back at the event, I met the guys who drove in from San Salvador in El Salvador.  A couple of them were having overheating problems.  The fixes were easy.  Install the seal that goes around the sides and apron.  Plug up the holes for the heater hoses. 

Sunday started out great.  Sunny and all dry from the rain yesterday.  There were two Type 181 Safaris.  Both were IRS, and both had ZFs in them.  One of them had brake trouble, so he pulled off a rear drum.  When I arrived the drum was off, but I didn´t see any tool to undo the nut, so I asked.  He said he removed it with his vise-grips!  Yikes!  I went and got my 3´breaker bar with 36mm socket, and when it was time to put the drum back on, showed him how tight it was supposed to be.  Most of the cars had stock engines.  A couple of the Salvador guys had dual Solexes.  One guy said his engine was a VW Brazilia engine.  It had the low profile fan shroud, and the alternator stand had "Igniciao" instead of Zundfolge.  One car had a turbo´d engine, but on the cruise, it didn´t seem to be very fast when he was on it.  Maybe the elevation was a problem for him.  There were a couple of guys from Honduras, a Bay Westy from Mexico, and other than me, the only other foreigner was an Argentinian from SF California and his GF in their late Vanagon Westy.  They´ve been on the road for 7 months now.  There were some strange configuration cars.  70s cars with pre-64 small windows, made in Brazil.  Many times I told them about a side event we usually have called a swap meet.  They´ve never heard of this, and when I explain how it´s done, they all agree it would be a good idea.  Late Sunday at this event, there were two guys who did know about swap meets and they laid out their parts.  I picked up a heart tail light housing with a cracked lens and the chrome surround, a 60s locking column switch, and one semaphore.

People started leaving after noon.  After looking at the map, I decided to play tourist and continue heading north to see Tikal, the ancient Mayan city.  Right after I hit the road, that clunking sound was back.  Sure enough, the shock tower broke off at the welds.  I drove slowly into Coban, needing to find a welding shop, and a hotel.  About 5 min in the city, I recognized one of the Beetles from Bug Camp.  So I pulled over and the owner came out, still wearing his event tee shirt.  I showed him the problem and he took control.  He called up a friend who has a shop and arranged to get it fixed tomorrow morning.  Then he led me to a hotel 1 block away and arranged a room for me.  100 Quetzales, or about 13 bucks.  It´s not hot here, so the lack of AC isn´t a problem.

The VW guys have been super friendly and helpful to me.  The guy helping me here in Coban said something about us being "VW brothers".  That pretty much sums up the sentiment here.

cool, love the story!

Cool stuff, Bruce. I have family in Coban and throughout Guatemala. Travel safe.

Here´s the busted shock tower.  I recall when I did the clearancing, I thought it looked kind of weak.  Thinking back, I´m amazed it took so long to break.  
It´s fixed now, ¼" plates welded over the breaks.
I also took the opportunity to raise the rear on this side.  It was always a bit lower than the other side.  Now it´s about 3/4" higher.  It sure was a bitch to get the spring plate cover back on.  I didn´t have the perfect length longer M10 bolts.

Early this morning, my new friend Axel and I went to his friend´s shop. We pulled the LR wheel, then I removed the top bolt for the shock to remove the broken shock tower.  The guys at that shop agreed they could not do a proper job, so they referred us to another shop.  I didn´t bother putting the busted piece back in, and just compressed the shock all the way.  On the short drive, we could hear the shock clinking against something, I guess I should have removed it.
After several hours, the repair was done.  Not pretty, but it is strong.  Then while driving away, I could hear that clinking again, wtf???  But it sounded like it was from up front.  Well, the damn front shock pulled through the top of the shock tower!
Since I was kind of tired from the rear suspension work, I took a break for lunch. Bought a big thick washer at the bolt store for 15 cents and went back to the welder guys.
The rear shock tower repair cost $31 and the front was $18.

damn....thats nasty.  :(

Great adventure Bruce.

Sounds like the roads in Sth America are the same as the roads around here!  :D

I made the trip to Tikal on a secondary road instead of the main highway.  They´re a bit narrower and they don´t get as much maintenance.  When there´s a hole, it gets bigger!  I had to drive partly on the opposite shoulder once to get by one hole.
And, there´s a river where they don`t yet have a bridge:

I´m in Rio Dulce right now, in NE Guatemala. 
On the drive south from Tikal I found the road surface to be very slippery.  At one point I passed a dump truck in 2nd gear.  As I steered right to return to the right lane, the back end started sliding to the left.  Since I was now pointing at the ditch, i had to steer left which made the back slide to the right.  Lucky, it straightened out after that.  Then after each speed bump, I noticed it was very easy to spin the tires by just rolling on the throttle in 2nd.  I would say the road was as slippery as when the streets are wet at home.
It was similar in Monterey and Torreon in Northern Mexico, except that the streets there were shiny and very black.

(http://cal-look.no/lounge/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=20447.0;attach=65422;image)

Koni Red front, Bruce?

Indeed.  Those shocks are a bit shorter than the stock listing Koni sells.  I recall I got them from Mark V a few years ago.  I started the trip on genuine VW front shocks, but in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala the rubber bumpers split and one of the top mounting pieces came off the shock, so I decided to switch to the backup Konis.  They ride better than I expected.

Now in Honduras.  
Crossed the border late yesterday afternoon.  It took about 2½ hours to process their dumb paperwork.  Is it really necessary to record in 3 different locations that my car has 4 cylinders and burns gasoline?
Dave, I didn't cross at Escipulas, so I didn't get the chance to try the oranges with chili.  Instead I crossed at La Florido a bit north, and close to Copan.

The odometer has passed 14,000km now.

great stuff. stay safe.

Glad to hear it's still going well. Al

I  spent the last 3 days looking at the Mayan ruins of Copan.  The site is much larger than the other Mayan cities I have seen.  Residences extend 30+ km up the valley.

This afternoon I drove around to Santa Rosa de Copan.  This road was the worst I´ve been on this entire trip.  There were sections of missing pavement hundreds of meters long.  Holes in the road the full width.  If they were smart, they would patch the holes when they are small, then it would cost a lot less in the long run.

VWs:  There aren´t any!!!  I haven´t seen a single aircooled car since I left Guatemala.  When driving on the rural roads, at least 90% of the people stop and stare at my car as I go by.
 It's very strange to get that much attention.  I bet many of the younger children have never seen a Beetle.

Many of the towns in Guatemala have a name ending in -tenango.  This means "place".  I think they should name the whole country of Honduras, T0y0ta-tenango, since it seems T0y0ta OWNS this country's automotive market.  There are easily more T0y0tas here than all other cars combined.  And most of them are pickups.

At one police road check, the cop wanted to practise his English.  He was very friendly, and when he said I could go, I took the opportunity to ask if he would sell me his hat.  "Policia Federal" is what was in an arc at the front.  At one point, he said a number, but when I pulled out my cash, he said no.

Bruce
I just showed this thread to Shaleen and she had a great question. How many miles are on your car now. You were making great  trips like this in it when we lived in Seattle back in 1999!
Be Safe
Bill

Hi Bill!
I think it's got about 260k miles on the car.  The current engine has about 80k miles.

I'm in San Pedro Sula in Northern Honduras now.  Yesterday I made a short trip to Tela on the coast to spend time at the beach.  Nice warm water there.  I was in the surf for about 2 hours straight!  The road there was bad in places.  At one point I hit a hole that was about 3/4 of a meter in dia, and probably 20cm deep.  It hit really hard.  In a gas station, I could see the front right Fuchs wheel was bent slightly.  Anyone that knows Fuchs, knows it takes considerable punishment to do that.

I've only seen 3 Beetles in Honduras so far.  Today I spent a few hours rummaging through the dusty parts bins of an old VW shop that has been in business for decades.  My friend says he remembers this shop as a kid in the 60s.  I've found a few 50s mechanical parts so far, but nothing considered a score.

My friend here owns a coffee bean mill.  The office has a really nice 2 bdroom apartment on the second floor, so I'm staying here at the mill and learning a lot about how the beans are processed, graded, and shipped.
http://www.cafecopan.com/index.en.html

Bruce, thanks for the updates!  Glad you made it to the coast.  Yes, the water is usually warm and its worth the trip.  Hope you can keep that thing in one piece.................

Dave

This morning the guys were loading containers with bags of coffee beans.  152 lbs each, and the guys tossing them around weigh less than that!  At one point a forklift needed to be moved and no one was available, so I hopped in.  Three hours later I got my first break. 
And then they offered me a job.  It sure would be nice to live in the land of perpetual summer.

All this week I have been digging through the inventory of an ex-VW shop.  They stopped working on cars about 20-25 years ago, and the parts have slowly been returning to the ground.  Literally!  The shelves are collapsing due to wood rot.  Cardboard boxes cannot be moved, only the sides now exist.  Unfortunately there's a fortune in NOS German transmission bearings that are so rusty they're scrap metal.  Same goes for the NOS Kolbenschmidt main bearings.  Many of the parts I thought were well used, turned out to be NOS, but very dirty and badly corroded.  There's probably 20-30 NOS 66 and earlier headlight rings.  All need to be re-chromed.   

This sound so cool!  8) Keep us posted really like to read this!

Yesterday I left Honduras and entered El Salvador at El Amatillo, Honduras.  I can say one thing about the bureaucracy of El Salvador, they are the MASTERS!  This time on the documents I had to list the number of cylinders, engine displacement, number of doors, number of seats, engine number, type of fuel, and that it is LHD.  Apparently, it is illegal to enter the country with a right hooker!
It took about 3 hours to get everything done, and that is with no lineups.  And of course, the important part is the search to see if there was any illegal stuff.  But that was of little concern to them, they only looked at the car for about 2 min.  And they didn´t find the 20 kilos of cocaine behind the back seat.
After all that was done, one Policia Civil cop was looking at the car from a car-guy perspective, asking many questions about the engine.  After telling him, he didn´t think the car would be very fast, so I said I could demonstrate.  In the middle of Custom´s parking lot ;) (video tomorrow)

Give him a ride but tell him the price is his hat.... ;) Al

Al, it was about 10 min after I left that I thought about his hat, so I didn´t get it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGnefTZ4cFE
In the background you can see two police trucks, and 2-3 cops in dark blue.

It is very hot here.  High humidity all the time.  When you sweat, the breeze doesn´t cool you.  Yesterday was 38°

Yesterday and today i spent time at Mario Posada´s VW workshop.  He was telling me about how difficult it is to get parts.  Shipping is the problem.  Something that can be delivered within the USA for $25 will cost over $200 to get it here.  He gave one example of a guy who needed an air pump for the suspension of his Lincoln Navigator.  After he paid the supplier in the US, he was hit with incoming charges of $2000.  Corrupt customs officials know that anyone with a car like that has money.

As in other C.A. countries, there are almost no VWs left.  Today we drove by the empty building for the VW dealer here in San Miguel; Continental Motors closed a few months ago.  There are no more VW dealers in this country.
  
The Beetles are gone due to stupid government regulations.  They are very anal about engine numbers.  Your engine number is on your car's title.  Every 4 years when everyone must get new licence plates, they also do mechanical inspections.  If your engine number does not match, they confiscate your car.  It is almost impossible, and very expensive, to get your car back, so most are crushed.  Mario said every 4 years, the majority of VWs are destroyed this way.  Now, you're thinking, it is legitimate to buy an engine and install it.  There is a process to change the number on your title.  You must take proof of purchase to the DMV and pay a fee.  But the fee is $100 to do this, so most can't afford it.  Mario's shop truck is 94 Rabbit pickup, and it's original diesel engine was replaced with a 2.0 GTI engine (on propane!)  He said that when he transfered it into his name (fee for transfer), plus changed the engine number, and the body colour, the total fees were $400.  Isn't that F'd up? ? ? ?

...........

really like your stories, bruce!

You missed it. You'll only get so many opportunities, and you have to come home with a hat! Glad to hear it's still going well. Al

Part of the reason for including San Miguel on my trip was the claim by Mario that he had a ZF diff.  I met his friend Chito in Guatemala City a few weeks before and Chito thought Mario might have a diff, so Chito sent Mario a pic of the swing ZF I had in the car.  After arriving at Mario´s shop I asked about the diff.  That´s when he admitted he didn´t have one.  But wait, there´s a twist to this.  When I was looking around his shop, I saw a SSC IRS gearbox inside a Combi for storage.  When I grabbed the output flange and turned it, the other went the same way!  Then I looked at the filler plug.  Yep, the special ZF filler plug was there.  Then there was the final proof, AW was the letter code.  The ironic thing was, Mario did not know it had a ZF.  He said he checked many online lists for gearbox codes and AW was not on any. 

After San Miguel, El Salvador, I went around the capital of San Salvador to Santa Ana where I met up with the guys from the Santa Ana VW club for their cruise night on Friday.  I think there´s good hunting for parts in San Salvador, but I am running out of time.  I must be home before June 15, so I now have to skip some destinations.

Finding a hotel in Santa Ana was very difficult.  All I could find were the $8-10 hotels without AC, and I really need AC here.

On Saturday, Chino, one of the guys in the Santa Ana VW club, was my tour guide of the local shops.  Chino is unique here in that his car is a Type 3 Sqbk.  Parts for him are extremely difficult here.  At the second shop I found a couple of rare Super Beetle parts to drag home.  Then at a VW parts store we found a complete ZF equipped IRS gearbox from a VW Type 181.  As expected, the seller would not sell the diff out of it, so I had to buy the whole thing.  Normally I extract the diff right there, but it was so damn hot that day we wrapped it up in a giant sugar sack and put it on the right side floor of my car.  I thought I could take it apart here in Guatemala City (where I am now), but now I may just drag it all the way home.

 hello friend bruce! I'm happy! know that we're back home how lucky you found another P / R strong a taste! Here the power assist you and will be watching! on your journey! Blessings! and you send a photo! of your stay over here!

att. mario posada..



(http://imageshack.us/a/img856/8100/img02940.jpg)



(http://imageshack.us/a/img209/5728/img02941r.jpg)

Mario!  I`m surprised you found this site.  You will find lots of good info here and many will help you when you are ready to build your 2180.

I made it back to Guatemala City after Santa Ana in El Salvador.  When I went to my friend Jose's shop, he said, "Hey, I have a friend......"  Everything starts that way here.  This particular friend had a Type 181 with no engine.  Located south of the city on the shores of Lago Amatitlan, about 30km away.  Jose's friend Sylvester went with me to see the car.  It was just about the dirtiest car I have ever seen.  Spider webs out of Raiders of the Lost Ark covered it and there was lots of junk stored in it.  Many household pets and barnyard animals have also had their way with the car.  This car is swing axle with reduction boxes, and when I cleaned away the trans code, it was AL.  But I don't know the swing axle codes, so further checking was needed.  After jacking it up on both sides, it failed the ZF test of turning one wheel and watching the other.  More looking said the car was a Mex Safari, made in 1973.  But it was not like any 73 Thing I have seen.  It has the 71 and earlier steering wheel, and Bus tail lights.  Then on the dash to the right of the speedo, there was a label stating this car was equipped with a "diferencial de bloqueo".  A ZF!

After I returned to Guatemala City, I talked to Jose about it.  I also needed to verify the code and the existance of the diff.  The code said yes, so the only way to know for sure was to return to the car and pull the drain plug for a look.  Meanwhile, Jose talked to the owner.  He didn't want to sell the diff or the gearbox, it was all or nothing.  OK, you'll just have to accept my offer of what I would pay for an unknown core diff.  He agreed, so Jose jr and I went back to the car, prepared to drag it back to the city if it had the diff.  And it did, so we tied it onto the dolly and towed it back.  The ride back was painful.  Jose would not go over 30km/h, so it took an hour and a half!

Yesterday I started pulling the gearbox out.  Good thing the shop had a roof because it rained hard for most of the day.  I ran into a couple of problems.  One axle nut was missing and the other rusted on very well.  I could also tell rust was securing the drums too.  Today, Jose took the cutoff wheel to the nut, then after a good workout with a BFH, the drums were off.  The reduction boxes had to be split to remove the axles.  Finally, the diff was out.  Once the ring gear was off, I had a closer look.  It seems like some "Chapoose" has worked on it.  The heads of the bolts holding it together are stripped, and by looking at where the fulcrum plates live, I could see there were no discs inside!  That explains why it acted like an open diff.

Here's my VW Safari and the diff extraction on the sidewalk.
[attachment=2]

Hey drag racers, the R/P turned out to be a Klink 3.88.
Obviously I can´t bring the Safari home, so after talking to Jose, I gave the car to Jose jr.  He´s going down the wrong path in life, constantly looking at all the lame watercooled VWs, so maybe this project will straighten him out.
The car is in surprisingly good condition.  The only rust it has is the bottom of the spare tire slot, the left rocker panel you can see, and the usual battery area.  The windscreen frame has zero rust.  Most I see on restored cars are rotten, so this one got lucky.  In the pic the car is pretty clean.  That´s because of the heavy rain while we towed it home.  A free tropical wash job!

Here's a 67 I saw last week as I was passing through Nacaome Honduras heading towards the border with El Salvador.
Can any of you Fuchs experts tell me what's very rare about this wheel?

Three-prong center?

Correct!  That makes it an original 73 Carrera RS front wheel.

More break-downs!
As I was checking out a hotel in Huehuetenango Guatemala, I came out to my car no more than 5 min later to find the offside door's window broken.  Must have been a rock spit out by a passing car tyre.  I cleaned out the broken bits of glass then made a feeble effort to find a window right there.  The rarity of VWs made this a waste of time, so I drove on to the border with Mexico.  Unfortunately, we are now in the rainy season, but at least it's not cold.
After crossing the border, I started to see Beetles-a-plenty again.  In San Cristobal de las Casas I began looking.  None of the VW parts sellers have windows, only new repro parts.  Several kept telling me to go to one guy who has glass.  When I got there, he didn't have any used windows, but said he would in 10 min.  Shortly, a guy drove up carrying a window.  It was an aftermarket repro.  I broke my rule of inspecting carefully any repro part and bought it.  MISTAKE!  The glass was too thin so it would not stay stuck in the original metal channel from the old window.  The seller said to use RTV, but I don't have time for crap like that, so I left. 
Near the edge of town I found a paint shop that had a couple of dead Beetles, one had a window.  I asked the price and got the "gringo" price of 500 pesos (about $40).  I let him keep it. 
Heading towards Tuxtla Guiterrez, I found another paint shop where the owner had two VW Safaris.  Of course I had to check them out (one had a ZF) and I also asked about a window.  He had one at half the other guy's price.  When I told him about the other guy, his eyes opened up really wide in amazement.  All is now well, and the genuine VW part fit perfectly as expected.

Al, I have my trophy!
When I passed this at 110km/h I knew exactly what it was.  Veracruz State Police.  The police here use pickup trucks and it is common to see them standing up in the box while at speed.

[attachment=1]

An Harlequin Bug! Special edition from '96. A nice collector to have.

Excellent, Bruce! Who needs a blanket when you can bring home one of those? :D I've seen the police in a couple of different places (in Mexico) use pick up trucks with guys standing in the back, so I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen more often. Glad you got the window sorted out. Give me a shout when you get back; I've got a 5 speed for you to look at... Al

Right!  And this car was in extremely good shape, living in the holy city of Puebla where it was born.
Friday I went into Mexico City and spent Saturday with my friend Antonio Trejo driving around buying NOS Genuine VW parts from various independent suppliers.  If any of you guys need genuine VW Type 1 parts, look up user "Antonio Trejo" on the Samba, he can supply a lot of top quality parts.  There are also OEM parts he can get, like Hella and Bosch.
One item I need is a front bonnet, and surprisingly, VW now only supplies the one for the Ultima Beetle.  What a bunch of dummies they are.  Only 3500 of them were made and they turn their back on the last 6-7 years of production.  It is so easy to convert a normal one for Ultima use, and so much more difficult to go the other way of welding up the holes and metal finishing it.  I remember seeing NOS old ones in Guadalajara on the way south, so tomorrow I´ll go and see if they still have them.  Then I´ll figure out how to get it inside my car.

Just ticked over the 20,000km mark today.

Pick up the pace man!  Camaeron and I will meet you for lunch at El Camio Real ( by Bills house )  Friday at 1:00,  then will head over to Nicks!   :)

Yahoo! Real Mexican food! I'm looking forward to it.
I'm sure Bruce will be tired of it, by the time he gets into SoCal.

Bruce!
You did not show up for tacos.
What happened?

I'm now in SoCal and many of you know I made it here for the Classic weekend.  I arrived at Nicks just before dark after leaving Yuma AZ at nearly 110F.

Backtracking a bit.  In Guadalajara, the seller that had the front bonnet a couple of months ago still had it.  And it does fit inside a Bug behind the seats!

While driving towards the Mexican drug capital of Culiacan, there was a pretty big dip in the road.  But it wasn't the dip that was alarming, it was the road rash at the end.  Sure enough, the engine hit pretty hard.  Then the next day, a large oil puddle made it necessary to do another involuntary oil change.  But first I needed supplies.  Wal Mart is about the only place I can find oil instead of the tar they like to use in Mex.  (who really needs 25W-60?)  Finding the Wal Mart took some time.  Then, they only had crappy Fram filters, so I set off to try and find either the Ford or VW dealer.  Instead I found the Chevrolet dealer and bought a filter to fit the common Ford.  Yes, AC Delco makes that filter, and it's a heck of a lot better quality than any Fram.
The damage: three studs and nuts sheared off leaving mostly glue holding the sump plate on.  Luckily, I had found another NOS genuine VW plate the previous Saturday in Mexico City.  It only took a few minutes driving around to find a shop where the guys were willing to do the work.  Working through the hole, the guy was able to remove the busted studs and thread in a M6 screw from the inside so it extended below the plate like stock.  When I pulled out the 5W-30 they were pretty surprised.  But for some reason it wasn't the 30 that alarmed them, it was the 5W.  Somehow I don't think he understood it's only a 5W when the oil is cold and that it doesn't really matter in a warm climate.

That made for a late start leaving Culiacan, but I still made it to Hermosillo that night, despite the community event going on in Obregon.  The highway passes through the middle of town, and I was following the signs when I came to a point of the main highway that was plugged solid with parked cars.  The event wasn't even on the highway, they just used it for parking!  A cop came over to me as I waved my intention to drive through that mess.  He told me I had to take a detour and sent me back.  There were absolutely no signs anywhere and now I had to figure out how to get to the north end of town around that mess.  Drive a bit, stop and ask.  Repeat 20-30 times.  This took two hours to find the main road again.  Oh well, at least I was able to go around a toll booth in the process.

The next day north of Hermosillo is Santa Ana where you can continue north to Nogales then onto Tucson, or you can go north-west towards Sonoyta.  After a previous difficult crossing at Nogales (8 hours at US Customs), I now always cross at Sonoyta where they are much more lax.  At Sonoyta, I ask around to find the place where you have to turn in your car permit. 
The Car Permit:  If you want to go deeper into Mexico than just the border towns, or other than the Baja, you must buy a permit for your car.  They fill out some forms and require a photocopy of all your docs.  Then they make you pay a fee and a deposit to ensure you take the car out of the country within the 6 months the permit is good for.  The root cause of the need for this bureaucracy is the corrupt cops that won't do their jobs.  While the USA may have millions of illegally imported Mexicans, Mexico has millions of illegally imported US cars.  Mexicans bring cars into the country and don't want to pay the stiff duty (100%).  So instead they just drive around on expired US tags.  When the cops pull them over, $8 will get them going again.  If the damn cops would seize these illegal cars, people would stop bringing them in.  Then legitimate tourists wouldn't have to spend hours getting dumb permits.
When you leave, you must turn in your permit, otherwise they keep your deposit, and put you on the list of people who can never bring a car into the country again.  When I asked at Sonoyta, I was told that the place was back up the highway in Caborca.  TWO HUNDRED km AWAY!  What kind of a moron would put it there?  Since my original plan was to drive north from there to Interstate 8 then head west to Yuma, I asked if there was a place to turn in the permit at the border town near there.  And there was.  It took a while to figure out where and how to do it since they don't put up signs, and I found it odd that the Mexican customs officials, who work all day a stone's throw away from the USA, don't speak any English.

After crossing the border and driving towards Yuma, I thought there must be an In-N-Out here.  Consulting my out of date location guide confirmed my guess.  And I was able to find it without a map!  After a Double-Single, all was well for the day.  The next day I was greeted by temps of around 45C.  With a cold (?) engine I headed west on I-8 at only 90km/h to try to keep the heat in the engine down.  After about half an hour, the oil was at 230F.  Then as the road started to climb, temps went higher still.  A couple of times I got out and poured water into the cooling fan with the engine running.  That really brings things down quickly.  Just make sure your feet aren't anywhere near the underside of the engine!

The water works really well, I use it out here as a last resort for when it gets really hot. I use a micro-mister (like for your greenhouse garden) aimed into the fan, water pumped from a washer kit.
I'm sure Rick M and others in AZ have used similar tricks.  ;D

Great story Bruce, I've really enjoyed reading about your travels, thanks man.

You learned that from experience? ;)

Done!
Arrived home a couple of weeks ago.  The total distance covered was 25,590km, or 15,905 miles.
I did notice that the engine was not running well for the final few thousand km.  Then driving around town at home it was rough.  So I thought I would check the valve lash.  This engine has been amazingly reliable over it's 140,000 km life so far.  After it's initial break-in, the valve lash would never change.  It was so stable that I simply stopped checking.  Sometimes I would go many years without checking.  A couple of days ago I found two tight exhaust valves.  No doubt it was due to the overheating I gave it while heading west from Yuma.  After resetting the lash, it runs just as good as it always has. 
This engine will live for yet another road trip!

Bruce,
Sorry for the slight hijack from an awesome story, but would you mind sharing your engine specs?  It sounds like an awesome running engine with enough power to be fun, and get decent mileage on a long haul. 

Maybe trans specs too? 

Thanks, Brian

When I built this engine in around 1999 or 2000, I built it specifically for travel to Mexico.  At that time there were only two grades of fuel.  Leaded low octane and unleaded low octane.  Both 87 on the R+M/2 scale, so about 91 euro octane.  And that means low compression.  Unfortunately, on the very first trip to Mex with this new engine, leaded fuel was eliminated and replaced with high octane unleaded.  Oh well, at least I get to buy cheap fuel now.  Compression is 8.5:1.
Gavin (Nivag here on this forum) was upgrading to a bigger crank so I bought his 78mm DMS welded German crank.  Since I knew I didn't want to be tearing into the engine every 3-4 years, I went with 90.5 Cimas.  In all the years playing with these cars, I have never heard of anyone installing a set of 94s then driving the engine for 150,000+ km without having to re-ring them.  But I have heard of many exceeding that figure with 90.5s.  Currently, my engine has 140,000 km on it.
Heads are CB 044s with 40x35 valves.  They were ported by an idiot who knew nothing about porting (me), so they are far from ideal.  The exhaust ports are way too big and I think that's why it doesn't get great mileage.
The biggest factor for long life is the cam and valve train.  My combo is kinda strange.  The cam is an Engle FK-44.  A really agressive set of ramps there does not make for long life.  So to tame it down a bit, instead of using the prescribed 1.4 rockers, I gave it 1.25s.  My idea was that one day in the future I could put the big rockers in to make more hp if I wanted.  But I never did.  Steel pushrods and some reground vintage Eaton two piece hollow lifters rub against it.  At time I built the engine the only other choice was Scat cam-killer lifters (my previous engine only lasted 8000km with them).  Soft springs makes for long life in my engine.  I installed a set of well used VW dual springs.
The flywheel is just 4 kilos.  Even when the car is fully loaded, the light flywheel is no trouble.  Don't believe anyone who says heavy cars need heavy flywheels (for street use) unless you like to to big burnouts!
Kennedy Stage 1 and the extra long arm on the gearbox makes a comfortable pedal in any traffic situation (ask about this!)
Up top are a set of 40 Dellortos.  I previously had Weber 40IDFs, but the first time I went to Mexico City (3300m), the car was almost undriveable it ran so rich.  Swapping idle jets on the road is such a PITA with IDFs that I changed out the carbs instead.  On this latest trip I must have swapped jets 10-12 times.  It is so easy with DRLAs.
I used to use a common German 009.  Then I learned about the advantages of the vacuum advance.  The distributor I am using now is one I picked up off the ground at Pomona after everyone left (free!).  I cleaned it up and checked it's advance.  Really lazy on the mechanical, so I took it apart and compared it to the advance of an 009.  It had an extra spring on the advance weights, so out that came.  With only one, it's advance was exactly the same as the 009.  Max timing at part throttle is now 42º.

Bruce, check this out! 

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-ff-c1-last-vw-bus-20131126-dto,0,3352653.htmlstory#axzz2lraJkOTg


That would have been hard to miss in Copan......................