The Road Trip

[Bruce]

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.

[pupjoint]

nice post. keep it coming. 

[karl h]

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

[Diederick/DVK]

cool trip!!!
have fun and good luck

[Jim Ratto]

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

[Bruce]

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.

[Bruce]

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?

[Bruce]

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!!!

[j-f]

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.

[Geoff P DVKK]

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

[Bruce]

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.

[axam48ida]

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....

[Bruce]

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.

[andy198712]

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....

[ALB]

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! Take care, and I'll talk to you when you get back. Al

[Bruce]

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.

[Bruce]

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

[Bruce]

Which company's logo was ripped off here?

[pupjoint]

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?

[Bruce]

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

[Bruce]

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.

[Eric Ellis (57HotrodVW)]

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

Safe travels!

--Eric

[Rennsurfer]

HAHA!! As an ex-Auto Haus manager... the blatant logo rip off is rather amusing. Thanks for sharing your story and pictures, Bruce. Very cool.

[Jim Ratto]

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

[Bruce]

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!!!!

[Chris W]

Thanks for sharing Bruce

[ALB]

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

[Bruce]

The curse of the shorty cars is here!

[Bruce]

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

[Bruce]

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.