Ah one of those. I think I've seen one before. I'm not too concerned about not having a lighter port. It'd be nice in the future but right now the wiring is such a mess that I don't want to chance hooking something up and having it cause other things to fail. As simple as these things are the wiring is terrible.

 

fair enough - i'm used to ford wiring not german wiring - and don't get me started on swedish wiring - do some research on biodegradable wire insulation if you really want nightmares - certain wires in volvos were known to have their insulation decompose and fall off, you can imagine how much fun that would be

just rewire your bug into a ford and don't look back

 

Screw the decomposing insulation, thats ridiculous. I am already planning on putting some Hummv seatbelts in it since mine don't work for S**t. I was going to go snag some Ford ones from a junkyard but for $54 I could have military grade seat belts. My friends can't complain that it's unsafe

Doing a ford wiring would be interesting. I'm sure it's been done at least once before.

 

seatbelts are over-rated for awhile in my old LTD i had a bad buckle on the drivers belt, stuck a little magnet on there to hold the belt in place so i looked legal, drove that way for about 2 months before i bought a better one from the junkyard.

doing a full wiring conversion would probably be a very painful process, but still fun to joke about

 

oh, and i'm still fighting that damn BMW i was talking about a few days ago, no matter what i do, i still can't make the clutch work right. new everything, pump the clutch up until i can barely get the pedal to the floor, and still the clutch holds stronger than the starter is able to overcome while holding the brake and clutch pedal down with it in gear.
this car is really pissing me off, everything is new, but not everything is right. WTF!?

 

Stupid BMW's... I need to get the seat belts fixed or my parents will keep bugging me. In my case both passenger and driver side buckles don't work. I don't really know why but I can at least jam the buckle inbetween the metal pieces and it will stay there so I don't get busted.

It kind of sounds like the clutch isn't disengaging to me. Is there a cable adjustment you can do it is it all hydraulic?

 

The brushes look like they could stand to be pulled and reseated. The
commutator ring needs to be cleaned. You should see a wire coming
from the brush to that screw. If that is in bad shape then a new set
of brushes are needed.
From that one photo it looks like a little wire CPR is in need.

You know that you can get here on West Valley HWY. Not need to get on the freeway.

On the job thing there is a prestressed concrete place here nest to Boeing that has
the help wanted sign up. They are just a tad bit south of the Boeing plant in Frederickson
on Canyon Rd.

Sean

 

Do you know how far you are from the Supermall? I don't know where you live yet haha.

Also do you know what they do at the prestressed concrete place?

 

Good Morning Everyone......where did the warm weather go? It's rainy and cold again!! I thought we got rid of April

-The Great

 

Clint drive over to Algona. We have plenty of sun right now.

 

yeah, that clutch not disengaging is exactly what i'm fighting. no adjustments, its hydro. and even with every part of the system new and the clutch pedal pumped up till i can't get it to the floor, i can't make it slip here in the workshop, but that really just means the clutch is stronger than the starter motor. i'm hoping i can get out on a road test and try to get it to slip in 3rd or 4th at high RPMs, as i'm thinking the clutch is just hairy and needs to get worn in.
it acts like there may still be a little air in the line, as the pedal pumps up hard after a few strokes, but these cars are reported to have a high pedal engagement anyway, and the bottom of the stroke feels like i'm really pushing on the extreme limit of how far something can go
i did a clutch awhile back in a dodge colt that had a similar problem, but not so severe - i could get it to slip at least.
i'm also posting about this on a BMW forum

 

Hmm that is odd. Last time I drove a manual BMW was a few years ago and I remember the pedal wasn't super stiff. It felt like an average hydro clutch. But I've also never replaced a clutch so it might just need a little wearing in like you said.

 

well i just got back from taking it for an abusive test drive, and even with the clutch pumped up till its hard, turning 4000RPM in 4th, i can't make the darn thing slip at all. i'm really starting to think the disk is too thick or the flywheel and/or pressure plate aren't built to the right specs, not allowing them to come far enough away from it.
this has me tempted to shim the pressure plate away from the flywheel with flat washers and see if that helps, but its a whole day of work just to do that, and i really don't want to

 

Josh I wish I had some helpful advice for you but all I can say is RUN, lol, I HATE working on German cars. All but old school air cooled VW anyway, but even there not a picnic. You just end up pulling your hair out yelling WHY WHY Why in the heck would they build it like this.

Gruesome, a VW or really any vehicle with a old school generator just isn't going to charge well at idle. At least I've never seen it and I've owned quite a few air cooled VWs and old American vehicles with generators. So first of all when testing speed up the idle. Secondly a real good trick when working on VW is to just work under the back seat. Put a volt meter on the battery and pull the cover off the regulator. You'll see some windings and contacts that look like points.



By pushing on the contacts to open or close them while looking at the voltage at the battery you can learn a lot about what is going on. And often tweek/fix it by cleaning the contacts and bending the arm that connects to the spring to adjust voltage.

Somewhere around the shop I have all the good air cooled VW books, the john muir , the gene berg books, and the bently manuals.

The old John Muir books are by far THE best book, find one you will wear it out.


And get a good laugh while working on your VW it's a mix of a very imformitive and easy to follow manual and a comic book.

 

Nice, thanks for the info. Those books look nothing like a manual which is a good thing. I'm more inclined to read it with all the goofy pictures.

With the regulator trick, do I do this with the engine running or off?