Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

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Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by Amskeptic » Wed Sep 13, 2017 4:50 pm

First, I had to get here:

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Took "back roads" like US 285 South, from Santa Fe NM to US 380 East from Roswell NM :

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So, what really happened in Roswell? I'll tell you. Was just driving by this .. .. .. :

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.. .. .. when I pulled a u-turn and drove up to Roswell's Finest Auto Parts. Walked in to a discussion between the office manager and the owner . . .
"No, I said it is $20.00 to start, then $5.00 a week."
I jumped right in, "I'll take it! When do I start?"
The office manager didn't miss a beat, "oh no, honey, it's mine ALL mine."
"Dang. Well, I need a driveshaft for a 1992 Lexus LS 400, would you at all have a Lexus LS 400 here?"
Owner looked at the screen, "we have two cars, driveshaft is $75.00."
"That is pretty reasonable."
"Oh no, honey, for you it is a lot lot lot more, like a thousand," chimed in the office manager.
Shot her a look. "Hell, with a deal like that, I'll take both driveshafts off both cars."
"We have sixty Fords with driveshafts, you want them too?" asked the owner.
"How much for the sixty Ford driveshafts?" I asked the office manager.
"Oh my word . . . "
"$93.75 with tax," says the owner.
"No, it ain't," I said. "New Mexico does not have a higher sales tax than New York. WHAT is your sales tax rate?"
"Here? (I call this stalling, so I give him a nice silent stare and time to come up with another sentence)
. . . $80.44."
"You got 44 cents?" I ask the office manager.
"Oh, don't ask her," said the manager, "I am only paying her $5.00 a week."

So, I have a spare driveshaft now, to install in the Lexus while I figure out how to get the original properly balanced. If this $80.44 driveshaft happens to be well-balanced, then heck, I'll roll with it until it loses a u-joint.

Good-bye, Roswell, good-bye Tatum NM:

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Hello, Plains, Texas:

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Found a quarry sort of gravel pit:

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Cleaned the driveshaft, so I could place it in the interior with a more relaxed attitude than the stupid newspaper confetti outside of the auto parts place:

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So glad our Volkswagens don't need these things:

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And I have driven all day at 98* with nary a concern except for that ticket I got in Post TX.
34 mph on the MAIN DRAG THROUGH TOWN.
Oh, but the stupid school sign "20 mph when flashing".
"Do you see that sign flashing?" asked the kid, the kid cop.

Drove straight to the courthouse after my "summons" was summarily slipped through the driver's window.
"I need to pay a ticket."
"Driver's license?"
Gave it to the clerk. She came back,
"Um, gee, when did you get this ticket?"
"Ten minutes ago."
"We don't have you in the records yet, you'll have to come back in a few days."

After I got her to tally up the fine and court costs, she quoted me $314.00. She looked at my eyebrows and quickly reminded me that "school zone offenses are automatically doubled."
"Is the judge here?"
"Yes, but she is busy, she is in a meeting."
"No, she is talking to a gentleman about an article in the paper about a horse, ask her if she can cut me a break because the offense occurred at 11:13AM where no child is walking to or from the school, ask her, now. Now is the time. Do it." (I'm trying a little Obi-Wan Kenobe)
"She says $220.00."

Welcome to Texas.
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 Tayexsus

Post by Jivermo » Wed Sep 13, 2017 5:18 pm

"Unmmhg!"

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by tewa3240 » Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:41 pm

Well I hope you are proud of yourself, stealing $94 worth of scofflaw fundage from the 'lil Texan school urchins.
What are they going to do?
Those multi-million dollar texan high school football stadiums DO NOT pay for themselves. Jerk.
I kid. Keep that brown cow on the legal side, okay Kowalski ?

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by wcfvw69 » Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:44 am

I know there is something wrong with me. The last ticket I received was for speeding in a construction zone. I was guilty. I knew I was guilty yet the rage I felt when motorcycle officer cop "Chips" (who was hiding to catch speeders) was overwhelming. That tickets was $275 but I did driving school to keep it off my record. The driving school was still $250ish.

IDK, I know those police officers are simply doing their jobs and helping to drive revenue for their cities coffers. It doesn't make my acceptance of a ticket any easier.. :angryfire:
1970 Westfalia bus. Stock 1776 dual port type 1 engine. Restored German Solex 34-3. Restored 205Q distributor, restored to factory appearance engine.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:37 pm

wcfvw69 wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:44 am
I know there is something wrong with me. The last ticket I received was for speeding in a construction zone. I was guilty. I knew I was guilty yet the rage I felt was overwhelming.

I just sat there thinking, "Chloe, this is as good as you'll get for bragging rights at the car party."
Then I thought, "pretty good, actually." I got out of the two prior stops, one in 2007 in Washington State (77 in a 55 with the Road Warrior where, upon the officer remarking "I didn't know these things could go that fast," I replied, "they can't.") and one on an entrance ramp with the BobD in NY (just a no seatbelt).
Then I thought, "what is taking so long, is it that warrant out for my arrest in the State of Texas, is he waiting for back-up?"
I felt only relief, big guy. You gotta try being a scofflaw. It makes you humble and grateful.
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 Tayexsus

Post by TrollFromDownBelow » Thu Sep 14, 2017 6:10 pm

Getting that Lexus drive shaft balanced should be child's play compared to the drive shaft on a 1963 cadillac sedan deville. Two CV joints, one universal joint, and one center support bearing.

Oh, and that junk yard drive shaft will be perfect! I literally pulled a rusted 63 cadillac out of a farmers field and towed it home. With much trepidation, I bolted that drive shaft, that had been in an unprotected Indiana corn field for the better part of two decades, up to my 63 cad sedan deville. Drove that Caddy all the way from Detroit to Miami, with narry a rumble..she ran smooth as silk.

As a side note - the PO of my '63 caddy (not the rusty one from the farmers field) decided to have his drive shaft rebuilt (you know, while you are in there rebuilding the engine and transmission...) and it had a wicked vibration over 55 mph. Probably one of the reasons why I got the car so cheap.
1976 VW Bus aka tripod
FI ...not leaky, and not so noisy...and she runs awesome!
hambone wrote: There are those out there with no other aim but to bunch panties. It's like arguing with a pretzel.
::troll2::

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Sep 16, 2017 8:13 am

TrollFromDownBelow wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 6:10 pm

Oh, and that junk yard drive shaft will be perfect!
Thank-you, I pray that it is so. Nobody balances these things. The cars are so silent and smooth, that driveshaft balancers absolutely hate them. I even schmoozed the guy in Florida all about his Porsche fixation and tried to sidle in a suggestion of $300.00, beer, and a Saturday "sure would be fun to see if we could balance this thing." Nope.

TrollFromDownBelow wrote:
Thu Sep 14, 2017 6:10 pm
As a side note - the PO of my '63 caddy (not the rusty one from the farmers field) decided to have his drive shaft rebuilt (you know, while you are in there rebuilding the engine and transmission...) and it had a wicked vibration over 55 mph. Probably one of the reasons why I got the car so cheap.
Yep. It seems so easy. I got roped in on a u-joint replacement on my 1978 BMW 530i, "nottaproblem! It's easy!" Nope.
They did not center the u-joint in the yokes properly, they did not ream out the new circlip grooves properly, and they did not weld on the weights worth a damn. And I am a bad customer on a good day.

The current driveshaft at only 60,000 miles I think was f-ed up by the Lexus dealer in Texas that padded every service visit with ridiculous repairs that were not necessary, new lower control arms at 47,000 miles? New differential mounts at 52,000 miles? Not a chance. I think that was when they screwed up the driveshaft parallelidity, not pressing in the mount bushings exactly perfectly. I am going to give this a good try. The last try was helpful, but not good enough:

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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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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Sep 16, 2017 8:53 am

We're not in Texas any more. We are in Alabama, just a day from sticking the Roswell Lexus driveshaft into Chloe.

Just the day before yesterday, I was in the middle of the middle of Texas:

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As usual, the scale of our needs ruins everything. Those nice pretty wind turbines finally get so ubiquitous and so damn industrial and there in Texas, so strung up with transmission towers and wires and transformer stations, that it finally no longer looks like the future:

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This is a farm that used to have a nice big sky horizon:

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Mile after mile after mile. It looked like somebody just spilled a box of jacks all over Texas:

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Remember when Chloe shut off in I-95 in the Friday night scrum of Miami oh, years ago?

http://www.itinerant-air-cooled.com/vie ... 68#p217126


I have been using those taped up breaker points ever since. The day before yesterday, I thought to look at the point gap, past the unraveled electrical tape all fluffed inside the distributor under the rotor. Well, glory me, those is dry dry dry breaker cam lobes (hey, that explains the chirp I heard a few hundred miles ago), and the gap is next to nothing. And that explains the hard starting that I have been attributing to the hundred degree heat. Points OUT. You like the ground strap? Me too:

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This is what thirty or forty thousand miles of breaker point pits look like. Not bad:

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I noticed that the good ol' points that have taken me all around the country with nary a fuss are equipped with a far more substantial rubbing block than the used replacement points I just stuck in:

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Reset the gap to a loose .016" and yes, the car starts much better when hot and instantaneously when cold. Duh.
Here's Dallas four hundred miles later:

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The car has been running absolutely perfectly in every way:

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Hour after hour after hour after day after day, pretty much locked in right here:

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And into the night:

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And into the next day (here in Louisiana):

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By Mississippi, I realized that over the past 15,000 miles, the engine has somehow miraculously cured itself of that horrible thumpiness under load. I hear the crankcase absorbing all the combustion hits equally with a nice little generator/fan scream audible under load, off throttle, all the same. Go figure:

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Anyways:

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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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wcfvw69
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by wcfvw69 » Sat Sep 16, 2017 2:16 pm

Those points were (how should I say) scary! You and Robbie are the VW folks I know that still pile tons of miles on your buses, how long do you typically run a set of points, condenser, rotor and cap?
1970 Westfalia bus. Stock 1776 dual port type 1 engine. Restored German Solex 34-3. Restored 205Q distributor, restored to factory appearance engine.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Sep 16, 2017 7:07 pm

wcfvw69 wrote:
Sat Sep 16, 2017 2:16 pm
Those points were (how should I say) scary! You and Robbie are the VW folks I know that still pile tons of miles on your buses, how long do you typically run a set of points, condenser, rotor and cap?
Which points were scary? The ones I took out or put in?
Points can easily work well for 50,000 miles +, Condensor, cap, and rotor, can easily make it through an entire engine overhaul or two.
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 Tayexsus

Post by wcfvw69 » Sat Sep 16, 2017 8:12 pm

Amskeptic wrote:
Sat Sep 16, 2017 7:07 pm

Which points were scary? The ones I took out or put in?
Honestly? Both! :) BTW, I bought a bunch of NOS Bosch made in Germany points for the early 70's thru mid 70's distributors. I compared them to the new Bosch points sold today. I know you won't be surprised when I say the NOS points were vastly better in points face alignment, the points assembly frame being square and overall assembly.
Amskeptic wrote:
Sat Sep 16, 2017 7:07 pm

Points can easily work well for 50,000 miles +, Condensor, cap, and rotor, can easily make it through an entire engine overhaul or two.
It's nice to hear this from you knowing that you have hundreds of thousands of VW miles under your belt. It's been my contention as well that folks throw out points, condensers, rotors and distributor caps that have less than 10k miles on them more often than not.
1970 Westfalia bus. Stock 1776 dual port type 1 engine. Restored German Solex 34-3. Restored 205Q distributor, restored to factory appearance engine.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by asiab3 » Sun Sep 17, 2017 12:21 am

wcfvw69 wrote:
Sat Sep 16, 2017 2:16 pm
Those points were (how should I say) scary! You and Robbie are the VW folks I know that still pile tons of miles on your buses, how long do you typically run a set of points, condenser, rotor and cap?
Huh? Who, me? I WAS going to run my setup until it downright died, but SOMEONE gave me a nice wonderful dark brown original distributor cap…
(Thanks, wcfvw69!)

I'm only about 50,000 miles on this points/condenser/rotor/coil setup, though my hacked in braided wire relieved itself of duty somewhere in Eastern Oregon circa July 2016.

Speeding tickets? We've got those……
Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by wcfvw69 » Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:31 am

You wonder why VW and other sources had given time frames to change the points, cap, rotor, condenser with so few miles. Was it 12k miles that VW recommended this? Maybe VW was trying to keep their dealer service departments busy as well.

Colin will remember back in the 70's and into the 80's when there were 'tune up shops' on every other corner. Anyone else remember "Tune Up Masters"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUl7J5MSTcs
1970 Westfalia bus. Stock 1776 dual port type 1 engine. Restored German Solex 34-3. Restored 205Q distributor, restored to factory appearance engine.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Tayexsus

Post by Amskeptic » Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:53 am

wcfvw69 wrote:
Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:31 am
You wonder why VW and other sources had given time frames to change the points, cap, rotor, condenser with so few miles. Was it 12k miles that VW recommended this? Maybe VW was trying to keep their dealer service departments busy as well.
There was probably an economic decision to save time from cleaning caps and rotors and filing points. Add to that the marketing of replacing so many silly parts on tune-up day. Read the trade magazines of the day "How To Upsell" articles all over the place.
The Road Warrior had 515,000 miles on its rotor, and I couldn't use it any more when the brass end was finally filed flush with the bakelite and began to develop a stress crack.
ColinbycrackyIrememberthedaze
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 Tayexsus

Post by sgkent » Mon Sep 18, 2017 12:31 pm

12K. Usually about 15K they the glaze/pitting would start causing a misfire. One could file them and keep them around a very long time but they were so plentiful that it was easier to just change them. That said, a friend put in a capacitive discharge system and his were at 100,000 miles before the engine started to misfire. The current draw was so low that an oil film had built up on the points causing them to not conduct. He set the gap about once every 30,000 miles and greased the lobes/rubbing block.
TBone208 wrote: "You ppl are such windbags. Go use your crystal ball to get rich & predict something meaningful. Nobody knows what's going to happen. How are we supposed to take ppl who don't know the definition of a recession & "woman" seriously?"

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