Walkabout - escape
Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2018 10:58 am
Lordy lordy, have I blown a fuse. I was so done with the hubbub of the northeast and the heartaches of inexplicable people and circumstances and the rain! and the bugs! and the humidity! and the brutal punishment of horrible potholes and crumbling roads that poor NaranjaWesty has been subjected to. So, when the engine started cutting out on the worst of the savage impacts on New Jersey Route 4, I friggen decided (swore) to drive to Texas. I escaped (with my life apparently) over the new Tappan Zee Bridge ... (NYT article just published yesterday):
nytimes.com/2018/09/08/nyregion/old-tappan-zee-bridge-collapse
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/nyre ... lapse.html
From the article, "Mr. Cuomo lauded the new bridge as a testament to 'New York’s greatness'". How about a little less "great" and a little more competence, you know?
I could have told them this wasn't going to end well:
Anyways, yes, of course, it was raining:
Camped somewhere in Pennsylvania in the rain. Next day looked a little sunnier. I needed that. I also needed better roads, but that was not to be. We Americans are like frogs slowly getting boiled alive, we just don't seem to see the infrastructure decay surrounding us:
I can't even remember where this was, Delaware Water Gap?
Headed across Maryland/West Virginia on I-68 with only one goal. Sunshine, more than one day in ten:
But the rain still fired up at least once a day:
I-68 is quite beautiful, nonetheless, and there were some hill climbs even:
Eventually trusted the roads enough by Morgantown WV to re-inflate my suffering tires back up to 37/47 from their northeast 32/43.
Was dealing with some unique CHT readings where NaranjaWesty was doing the old hyper-cool 370* under full load (with bucking even, as it cooled down too far). Leaning out the fuel mixture hardly seemed to help. I would get lean hesitation and slow idle on surface streets, but out on the highway, it would behave too rich. Fuel economy was a pretty lousy 14 or so.
Finally pulled over at the Ohio border and pulled the TS2 sensor out. Cleaned the threads. Applied dielectric grease to the spade connector and the threads. Snugged it up. Got 21 mpg on my next fill-up and no more bucking or hesitation. Pretty good huh? Yeah, except for new stubborn high head temps under load. So, I had to slowly revert the AFM back towards my desert settings. We are now at 17 mpg and 400*s at 60 mph and high spikes of 420 on long uphills at about 85* ambient. Good enough! I have an escape in progress.
Rustled up a call in Saint Louis to help finance my flee. Look at this lovely low-mileage 1974 orange Westfalia . . . :
Did you notice the rain drops? Yes, God sent the remnants of a hurricane to Saint Louis to greet me on my escape to find sunshine. It is 68* and rainy as I type. Imagine this interior as you wake up on a chilly rainy grey morning:
With great gladness, I greeted the factory dual carbs and noted the second excellent emissions sticker within the past three days:
Look, the last original 60mm air filter intake hose in the land:
We had a good solid day of newbie training on tune-up particulars, valve adjustment, points, timing, carburetion, and two excellent poodles and three vital children, and it is good to wrest another fine Volkswagen from the clutches of "professional" mechanics:
Excellent to meet you McCandmore or Less . . . I will apprise you all of my plans in the next couple of days. I already have an exciting new procedure to make your late model bus doors stay open. There are projects dreamed up, just waiting for, my god, a few sunny days in a row.
ColinInSaintLouisMO
nytimes.com/2018/09/08/nyregion/old-tappan-zee-bridge-collapse
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/nyre ... lapse.html
From the article, "Mr. Cuomo lauded the new bridge as a testament to 'New York’s greatness'". How about a little less "great" and a little more competence, you know?
I could have told them this wasn't going to end well:
Anyways, yes, of course, it was raining:
Camped somewhere in Pennsylvania in the rain. Next day looked a little sunnier. I needed that. I also needed better roads, but that was not to be. We Americans are like frogs slowly getting boiled alive, we just don't seem to see the infrastructure decay surrounding us:
I can't even remember where this was, Delaware Water Gap?
Headed across Maryland/West Virginia on I-68 with only one goal. Sunshine, more than one day in ten:
But the rain still fired up at least once a day:
I-68 is quite beautiful, nonetheless, and there were some hill climbs even:
Eventually trusted the roads enough by Morgantown WV to re-inflate my suffering tires back up to 37/47 from their northeast 32/43.
Was dealing with some unique CHT readings where NaranjaWesty was doing the old hyper-cool 370* under full load (with bucking even, as it cooled down too far). Leaning out the fuel mixture hardly seemed to help. I would get lean hesitation and slow idle on surface streets, but out on the highway, it would behave too rich. Fuel economy was a pretty lousy 14 or so.
Finally pulled over at the Ohio border and pulled the TS2 sensor out. Cleaned the threads. Applied dielectric grease to the spade connector and the threads. Snugged it up. Got 21 mpg on my next fill-up and no more bucking or hesitation. Pretty good huh? Yeah, except for new stubborn high head temps under load. So, I had to slowly revert the AFM back towards my desert settings. We are now at 17 mpg and 400*s at 60 mph and high spikes of 420 on long uphills at about 85* ambient. Good enough! I have an escape in progress.
Rustled up a call in Saint Louis to help finance my flee. Look at this lovely low-mileage 1974 orange Westfalia . . . :
Did you notice the rain drops? Yes, God sent the remnants of a hurricane to Saint Louis to greet me on my escape to find sunshine. It is 68* and rainy as I type. Imagine this interior as you wake up on a chilly rainy grey morning:
With great gladness, I greeted the factory dual carbs and noted the second excellent emissions sticker within the past three days:
Look, the last original 60mm air filter intake hose in the land:
We had a good solid day of newbie training on tune-up particulars, valve adjustment, points, timing, carburetion, and two excellent poodles and three vital children, and it is good to wrest another fine Volkswagen from the clutches of "professional" mechanics:
Excellent to meet you McCandmore or Less . . . I will apprise you all of my plans in the next couple of days. I already have an exciting new procedure to make your late model bus doors stay open. There are projects dreamed up, just waiting for, my god, a few sunny days in a row.
ColinInSaintLouisMO