Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From DC (upd 09/09)

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Amskeptic
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Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From DC (upd 09/09)

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Sep 07, 2013 7:14 pm

The day of my last call in Georgia began here in a cemetery:

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The crickets and the trees and the peace and quiet were a compelling antidote in that beehive of Atlanta Commerce.

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My morning began with a carburetor overhaul behind the CVS pharmacy, just to clean it. The appointment was to attend to a beyootiful 1968 Karmann Ghia belonging to michaelvt. We did a tune-up, lubricated the squeaky shifter, did a parking lot rear wheel cylinder refresh, and a demented online search for an alternator wiring diagram *inside* the alternator, to help us figure out the no-charge condition, could not find one, decided that it was actually charging anyway:

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Now sporting six hundred seventy five miles on the new bearing plate inside the transaxle, Chloe has been slicing and dicing the Most Annoying Automotive Transportation Corridor In The Nation, I speak of the I-85-to-I-95 truck traffic corridor. Because the engine has been running so well, I maintained a steady 65 mph (which torpedoed my usually decent fuel economy down to 18 mpg) and even passed:
a claptrap Honda Civic
a slow phone gabbing trucker
a little old lady in a Camry
Bubba Bobbi Jo and Dwayne in their old Dodge pick-up towing mud-encrusted ATVs.

"Open for business" said the Welcome To Virginia sign, and Petersburg is certainly trying. I drove down a business "parkway" through a spottily-leased corporate park to the very end turn-around. "This is nice and abandoned," I says, " time to rust-eradicate the rear hatch seal channel":

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Like the rocker sills, the rust was hidden under shiny shiny paint with barely discernable little pin-pricks of dark orange that flowered into huge tracts of rust underneath when I prodded with a little screwdriver.

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Like the rocker sills, secrets were uncovered, like tons of bondo blobbed on so indiscriminately that the hatch seal could not rest in its channel:

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I also discovered that there had been a lot more welding performed in the rear of the car than I first realized when I bought the car. The weld was gobbed on so thick, that the edge of the channel that retains the seal was filled in. That explained why the seal was never able to stay in place on the right lower corner:

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Meanwhile, my abandoned cul-de-sac was anything but. Slowly it was dawning on me that the citizens of Petersburg were a lost bunch. Car after car would come spilling into the cul-de-sac and drive off. Why, though, were so many punching the accelerator and blasting off in some new hurry? Was the shirtlessness and headgear (my tanktop rubber-banded into a pony tail to keep my baldy little head from frying) scaring them off, "oh my God, I wish I hadn't seen that?" Turns out that the local car dealership was sending prospective buyers on test drives down the business parkway. That explained the unusually high percentage of cars with stickers in the left rear window.
I would have made a terrible salesman.
Me: "Why did you hit the gas like that?"
Startled Prospective Purchaser: "I just wanted to see how it accelerated."
Me: "Well, what did you think it would do?"
SPP: "I don't know, I just wanted to see what it would do."
Me: "What do you suppose it will do if you punch the damn brake pedal?"

Anyways, I had to dremel the weld blobs down and restore the lip to the seal channel so the seal would hold, hello. Then I sanded the bondo off the little curves in the channel where the seal has cut outs so that eventually I would have a correct channel. Rust Catalyzer (adjusted the brakes while it dried), followed by grey primer over the pink bondo (adjusted the ebrake cables while it dried), followed by a topcoat (adjusted the left front wheel's camber *again* while it dried):

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Threw the hatch seal on the middle seat and hit the road to Washington, DC. Found out that the seal participates mightily in noise suppression back there. Without it, the engine noise was extremely noticeable, and exhaust fumes sure did find their way into the cabin. Outside of Woodbridge VA, I put the seal back in. Nice and quiet once more, and re-fresh air for the cabin, too. Here in Washington, Chloe is a star. Amazing how many people are honking at me, stopping me at gas stations, coming up to me, "that your van out there?" How many people have I talked to today, how many . . . who went on their way without telling me that I had a nice black tattoo, an almost perfect circle of Tailpipe Carbon on my right cheek (branded it must have been when I tightened the fresh air duct this morning)?
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Mr Blotto
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From DC

Post by Mr Blotto » Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:47 pm

During our 3 visits, I never realized your feet were so small.

Why do you make rust eradication and touch up painting so damn easy. You should do itinerant body work... :salute: :salute:
1978 Sage Green Westy - 2.0 FI - SOLD WITH 109887 miles :-(

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From DC

Post by michaelvt1 » Mon Sep 09, 2013 11:55 am

Colin,

Thanks again for stopping by in my neck of the woods! I learned so much and it was a great experience! I hope to have you swing by again in the future. I will definitely be reaching out to you for any questions concerning my Ghia.

Cheers

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From DC

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Sep 09, 2013 2:44 pm

michaelvt1 wrote:Colin,

Thanks again for stopping by in my neck of the woods! I learned so much and it was a great experience! I hope to have you swing by again in the future. I will definitely be reaching out to you for any questions concerning my Ghia.

Cheers
But HOW are the BRAKES?
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From DC (upd 09/09)

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Sep 09, 2013 3:14 pm

Yes, we have an update . . . another L-Jet fuel injection retrofit. Due to the inequalled organizational skills of my intrepid customer, cheesehead, we had that sucker running by sunset.

Old Stuff, you know, top-drawer performance parts like dual double-barrel Webers, a Mallory Unilite distributor, an EMPI breather:

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New Older Stuff, soothing professionally-engineered electronic fuel injection, I like the look of this engine bay, and the bumper stickers, too:

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Test drive with the L-Jet showed an equal 7-second 50-60 sprint on the highway to the Webers/Mallory, and we had a one second slower speed 50-70, at 16 seconds, because of the stupid hillock. Driveability is smoother, cheesehead will let us know about the fuel economy.

(because it is a Raby engine, we did a 3rd gear 50-60 of what was it, cheesehead, 4.9 seconds?)

Colin-I-Keep-Fast-Company
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BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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