Sunsets and Stutters

This weekend, we took advantage of the last days of summer and cruised the countryside. We took various pics of the fading sunset and our Volkswagen Bay Window Type 2 at different locations.

As our weekend was wrapping up, we headed out to tackle the 20 mile journey home. We were travelling at 50 mph for a good 10 minutes. All of a sudden, the bus "blipped", that being, it felt like the bus lost all power for 1 second. Hesitantly, we carried on at the same speed as all seemed instantly well again. Five minutes later, it felt like we were only firing on three cylinders, again, for about a second. At this point we were 5 miles from home. The rest of the drive home, culminating in a 600 ft climb, the bus ran perfectly. Engine sounded fine and no weird noises or leaks.

Now at home, we checked all the usual on the VW Bus and found nothing too obvious. However, on popping off the distributor cap, we discovered the Accu-spark ignition module looking a little worse for wear. For a touchless system, something has definitely been gouging into the top of the module. At a guess, I'm thinking that the distributor has largely been ignored since the previous owner installed the Accu-spark and a build-up of dirt has slowly ground its way into the module when trapped between the module and the spinning magnetic disc. Anyways, we're looking into reverting back to points and a condenser. When working these electronic modules are excellent, but I'd rather go "old school" and know that I have a spark at the points. To be continued.

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Bleeding New Year

Happy New Year! After buying our bus in April '20, we replaced the rear shoes and cylinders and bled the system. Front pads seemed fine, as did hoses. We have driven the bus many miles since then with the brakes working well. My daughter took the bus to visit a neighborhood friend and reported that the brakes faded almost all the way to the floor. She was able to pump the brakes to stop. However, after the pumping the brakes were fine again. On her return, I took the bus for a test on the exact route, no issues and the brakes were fine there and back. I also tested the booster by pressing the pedal while starting and, as expected, the pedal dropped slightly - but settled well over half the available travel, as its always been. Fluid is full with no apparent leaks. The reason why seemingly good brakes would intermittently fade? Brake master cylinder - apparently, when a MC is about to fail fully, intermittent loss of pedal pressure is common. I soaked the brake pipe nuts in PB Blas...

New Distributor, New Life

The refurbished distributor finally arrived for our Volkswagen Bay Window Type 2. After a little grease and a "wiggle", the distributor dropped straight into place. I placed the pulley timing mark at 7. 5 BTDC (visually) and, using a test light, rotated the distributor until the test bulb just illuminated. I turned the key, and instant success! Bus started immediately and held a tick-over. My next step is to time with a timing light. The distributor has a single vacuum that is currently attached to the throttle unit. However, I believe that I should have a 'T' in the vacuum line that also goes to a nipple under the air box. That nipple was capped by the previous owner. For now, I will time with just the vacuum attached to the throttle unit - as it was with the previous electronic module dist. The VW Bus started first time and performed flawlessly on a 10 mile test drive. However, the tachometer's now reading roughly 1.5x higher rpms than it did when we used the ...

Wink, wink....nudge, nudge

We fitted chrome 'eyelids' to the Bus because we like the look. Check out the install video here: Before and after picture:

Volkswagen Type 2 Musings

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