What's Old Is New Again

Well, the Volkswagen Bay Window Type 2 has been driving like a dream. We attended an event this weekend that culminated in a 100 mile round-trip. The VW Bus ran perfectly. No stumbling or misfiring and we kept the speed to a maximum of 50 mph and minor roads only.

However, for the whole trip, the thought of our severely worn distributor imploding played on my mind. There is simply too much vertical play coming from the shaft of the distributor - almost 1/4". The folks on TheSamba forum seem to believe that the distributor has disintegrated internal washers and shims. Renovating such a finely balanced device is well beyond my capabilities. Therefore, on TheSamba, I tracked down a person who FULLY renovates Bosch distributors and sets them back to factory spec. I'm reverting from electronic ignition back to points and condenser. I understand points and condenser and the process to test them.

Also, part of the scenario to run a Compu-fire module (as we have) is to shave off approx 1/4" of the rotor arm so that the rotor arm does not sit too high into the cap. The magnetic wheel makes the rotor arm sit too high if not shaved down. The following picture show the height of the rotor arm with and without the magnetic wheel attached. This was the reason for the black dust covering the internals of our distributor - the rotor arm was chewing into our black distributor cap. The rotor arm was sitting too high.

Anyways, refurbished distributor should be here by end of week. watch this space for details on our "upgrade" to the Volkswagen Bay Window Type 2. :)

Comments

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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