footsteps on the shoulder of 101....

[Jim Ratto]

I remember a long tme back, I'm talking when I first got my '67 VW along with John Muir VW book.... in that book, Muir made some mention of starting out on a cross country trip with an "ok" running Volkswagen and completing the journey, with a perfectly running car. Harry Pellow in his 356 engine book has some similar ancedotes.... breaking down in BFE, where your only friends are an old sycamore tree to provide shade and a basic set of old hand tools. Stories of guys propping cars up on boulders, lowering motors down on their chests, working in hot and filthy conditions, grinding valve seats with river rocks, using crazy glue, a chain of zipties, finding an old cooter named "Bubba" who had one piston and cylinder he'd trade you from some wacky tabacky...etc.
Unfortunately (?), I've never had the joy of experiencing of finishing a leg of a long journey with a perfectly running car, my luck always had the car turn against me at some point. While I could get mad and say "screw it" and part the poor car out or push it off a cliff, I always took note of what went wrong, and made sure to address it (for good) when I got home. You learn things like "maybe there is something to that date code on that old crusty bottle of Loctite on my shelf", or "bringing that 30mm box end wouldn't really cramp my style on the next trip." In 1990 my friend Jason and I, at the last minute, took a spontaneous trip in my '67 to Ventura CA from Pleasanton up in North Calif. This was JUST AFTER re-camming my 2054cc with an Engle VZ35 (with very little experience in such topics!). Big mistake. the car had a vast and horrible soggy spot in powerband that reached from 2800-4500rpm (coincidentally rpms a guy might cruise at on most of HWY 101). I brought a collection of Weber jets, and there we were, on the side of the freeway, at midnight in San Ardo, unscrewing jet stacks in the dark. Then trying to clear the thing out on some full throttle passes getting back in the lane. Nothing worked. We ended up running out of gas (I estimated we were getting 11mpg) in between Santa Barbara and Ventura. The next day, 20 miles or som from home, on our return trip, had a rear shock come loose from lower mount and that caused shock to rub a hole in the RR hard brake line.
This latest trip to Big Sur, I learned lessons as well, not only in how car was set up before I left, but also what tools and parts might be a good idea to bring next time. And that solid mounts DON’T work on long distance trips! When I got home, not only did I have cracks in both IDA manifolds (one broke), but found some velocity stacks had worked loose from tops of carbs (yes with nylocks!), the crank pulley bolt had come loose, along with most of the 6mm cheesehead tin screws. And of course, while yanking the RH manifold, I regressed back to high school technique and dropped the 3/8”x 8mm intake nut down the (OPEN) intake valve. Now motor’s coming out… there goes my summer.
Needless to say, these latest failures will be addressed and fixed this time around, along with ditching the soild trans mount.
Much of what works on my VW now a days is the result of the related ‘systems’ letting me down somewhere, sometime (which has always been caused by me not being careful or thinking things through all the way).
Let’s hear what you’ve learned in the midst of some dropped spring retainer during a dark night’s electrical storm.

[Sam K]

I love the idiot manual. My favorite story in it had something to do with a mechanic who would repair your car for whatever you had in your pocket but he would only fix  car well enough to get where you needed to go but god help you if you try to go any further.

[stealth67vw]

Greg Borg told you, your engine would fall out if you used solid mounts. 

[Zach Gomulka]

Don't put 3 quarts of oil in your stock sumped engine. Three tenths of a quart will end up in the underside of your decklid

I've always been pretty lucky on road trips. Other than running out of gas on I-8 once

[Hecker]

Geez Zach ? what is it with you & GAS !!!! ?

[wolfswest]

had a broken trottle gascable once 200 miles away from home, in the middle of nowhere...  Since that moment I always have a spare cable with me... 

[Jim Ratto]

Greg Borg told you, your engine would fall out if you used solid mounts. 

and he was almost right!

[Tony M]

Amazing what a spool of wire can do. Comming home from a trip to the mountains, broke a throttle cable. Same thing, out in the middle of BFE, thank god for the spool of wire, tied it to the broken cable, pulled it through and presto a new cable. Had to tighten it quite a few times, but got me home. Now i carry a road box with just about everything but the kitchen sink - thats for Jim to handle.

[Nico86]

I've learned to listen to what old guys learned from their road.   

[team97]

I broke a throttle cable also. It broke at the pedal end so i pulled i back through to the engine compartment and up and outside of my KG and pulled it with my left hand. I had to fish it through the shroud without the tube and then out and over the rear cowl. It wanted to bind up but I got her home.

[Jim Ratto]

throttle cables, who knew?
My friend and I had this happen after hot boxing his '64 @ lunch senior year. Easy fix was I steered, braked and shifted, while my buddy rode on rear bumper w/ decklid open and gave the carb a handjob. Got us back to school. About 6 months later I was in Berkeley with my g/f at the time, in her Baja bug, she made some wise ass remark about "it's been 3 days without this bucket breaking down" and sure enough, "plink" the throttle cable split in tow. On the side of highway 13 in the dark we took speaker cable out from under mat, fished it back to carb, fastened it with safety pin and tied a knot at pedal end.
had generator bearigns sieze solid in my '70 Bus on a Sunday night in Cayucos CA in 1991. No qucik roadside fix for that one. Just a $500 tow for a $200 Bus

[Zach Gomulka]

Geez Zach ? what is it with you & GAS !!!! ?

Ha! We found out later that the when the tank reads empty in AssHull's car, there's still at least 4 gallons in there. So I wasn't even close to running out! He's still sorting out the Porsche gauge with VW sending unit in the aftermarket 16 gallon tank...

[danny gabbard]

Rented a u-haul truck about 25 years ago and was towing my notch back from a show. Well comeing back over the grapevine and the truck just stopped running. Figured it was not getting 12 volt to coil, So went back to trailer and cut a hunk of wire from taillights and with that I went straight off battery to coil with the wire and with some luck it fired up and did not shut off till I got home.