Fan Belt Stories

[Jim Ratto]

certain parts of the air cooled VW lend themselves to "better stories" than others. The fan belt seems to be near the top of the list.... I have some good old stories. How about you?

[Rennsurfer]

I was talking to one of my friends that I skateboard with. He's my age and grew up in the San Fransisco and Santa Cruz areas. While driving his VW Bus that he lived in, the fan belt (no surprise... it happens to all of us) broke. He wasn't anywhere near a parts store or anything of the sort. So he rummaged through the vehicle and found a girl's pantyhose. Yes... he was able to wrap the material around both pulleys and he was able to complete the remainder of his night time road trip.

I just heard this on Monday. I was stoked to hear some of the VW stories from up north. We had a good time exchanging our VW days.

[John Rayburn]

A bunch of us stood around and watched Gary Berg doing a burn out at the Classic, when the belt came apart, it sucked down one of the carbs. The car was done for the day. That was around 1990.

[Dave Galassi .]

You beat me to the jump, John!  I had the pleasure of taking a ride in Crazy Ray Walker's '66 lightweight Ghia one evening, to get some Mex Chow.  We were (luckily) at a stoplight near my house when Ray jumped on it hard.  We thought he threw a rod bearing!  Belt gone. 
Limped it four blocks back to my house and looked it over..............tear down time.

[Jim Ratto]

here's a story from "up north" circa 1989
As a teenager, prior to my illustrious career at buggy House, I worked at Original Sam's Pizza in Pleasanton, just a few doors down from RACEHEAD'S shop (Hi Tony). At the time I was dating this moody chick that caused me nothing but grief, and one night she shows up at the back door of Sam's with some other dude, just to get me worked up. After my shift I was so pissed off I went out, warmed up my Bug (which was, at the time without decklid, as it was being repaired from an incident) and then laid about 30 ft of rubber down the alley behind Sam's, but revving the motor so high tossed the belt, as the red light blinked on. I stopped car, even more pissed now... and thought belt would be laying down tangled in pulley. Nope. My co-worker watched the whole thing and said "dude something flew off your motor and went up on the roof here"

[Lids]

1996 - I had just got my first pair of dual carbs fitted to my 1600.  They were DRLA 40's, anyway, I took them to be tuned, got home.  thought nothing of them, until I bumped into a guy who had just imported a Swedish oval, I told him about my motor and then went home to show him.  Anyway whist the engine lid was propped open, I started her up, went round the back and revved the engine.  The fan belt flew off, smacked me in the face, luckily it missed my eyes, otherwise.

Anyway went back to the garage, pissed right off, bloke who tuned the car had been sacked, poor workmanship.  No shit.

[Tony M]

Panty hoses - never seen that - but not a bad item to use - and then when your done you can wear it to rob a store 

[Jim Ratto]

Panty hoses - never seen that - but not a bad item to use - and then when your done you can wear it to rob a store 

a friend of mine used to use his mom's panty hose to strain the used oil out of her car to put in his Bug. He was one cheap sumbitch

[Tony M]

Not ever loosing a fan belt on my own cars i will share this one with you. A lady call me at work and told me that the gen. light was comming on, told her not to drive it if there was no fan belt, get it towed in. She calls me back and said that there was a belt still on, but the light was still on. Thinking now that it has a bad gen/reg. Asked her if the engine was running, she said yes, told her to tow it in. She does and i get the car and check it out. When i opened the deck lid there was the fan belt, both pullys, all looked normal. Then i started it up to check the charging system and... the belt groove from the lower pully was completly machined off and was just hanging from the belt. Put on a new pully and sent her down the road.

[Sam K]

I have a couple of fan belt stories. There is currently a crack in the paint on my bug's decklid from the belt flying off when I was driving like an idiot a few years ago. Also, in august 2005, I wasn't going to take my bug to the local (Denver) Bug-In because I had a swap meet space. My roommate (we'll call him numbnuts) at the time was this fat, stupid mall cop who had blown up the tranny in his own bug a couple months earlier. Anyway, numbnuts begged me to let him drive my bug to the show. I told him that he could, but he had to "baby" it. Naturally, I got phone cal from him that afternoon saying that he was just driving along and somehow all the teeth came off of my 2nd gear. When I arrived at the scene, I noticed that the fan belt was all turned around upside down and fucked up, which only happens when you rev the engine overe 7500 rpm's. I know because I've done it before. Anyway he denied it and said he'd pay for the tranny, but he never did. Weeks later, I heard from two diiferent people that my car was seen doing massive burnouts on the way to the show. I learned my lesson about letting people drive my cars.