From: greis@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gayla Ann Greis)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.vw
Subject: Re: VW Bug Horror Story
Date: 27 Sep 1992 18:13:51 GMT
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.7.4

In article <1992Sep26.044055.16175@pony.Ingres.COM> garrett@Ingres.COM (QUOTE OF THE YEAR) writes:
>	Now to the story. Two years ago I bought my 71' bug. The first 
>thing I had to do was replace the carburator and give it a tune-up. This
>was before I knew how to work on it, and after it broke down in middle
>of Interstate 80 near Pinole, California.

You do now? :-)

>I then had to completely replace the rear-breaks, becuase I could still
>drive with the emergency brake on. 

This could definately be a problem. What kind of "breaks" were they? You
stepped on the gas w/ the E-brake on and the car split in half? (Don't
laugh! I saw this in a movie once... :-) I take it you knew if the brakes
were indeed worn, and didn't just replace them because the E-brake cable
was out of adjustment???

>	I then went on vacation and in middle of Interstate 5, near 
>the Oregon/California border my #2 cylinder melted. I mean MELTED.
>One of the valves had broken off inside the cylinder, bounced around
>enough to scrape up the walls, and welded itself to the cylinder head.
>I mean WELDED. The middle of the piston melted so that I could reach
>through the top of the piston with my arm and grab the crank shaft.

Really? I mean REALLY? With your arm? I mean ARM? You must have skinny
arms. I mean SKINNY! This is a good reason for valve adjustment. I mean
VALVE ADJUSTMENT. Oh, and also try to keep your bug under 80MPH. I mean
UNDER.

>This, of course, happened in about 5 seconds. Fortunantly, there was
>a mechanic in Grenada, California (a real nice guy) who had a rebuilt
>70' VW bus engine sitting around. After two days, I left a town that 
>didn't have a resteraunt, a hotel (I slept in the back of an abandoned
>van), or a second mechanic.

My town doesn't have a resteraunt either. Heck, I don't even think we
have any abandoned vans!

>	The next time my bug broke down was shortly after that, because
>my previous (the same one who left burnt roaches all over the wiring
>of the car)owner had hooked up the battery to a positive ground. So when

So that's where I left them. Damn.

>I put in the new engine, it took out the generator, the voltage regulator
>(I discovered this when the smoke from the burning wiring filled the 
>inside of the car), and the coil. Fortunantly, I was near home when the
>wiring started burning.

I had this happen to me on an old Ghia I once had. Fun! Wire Fire! I find
it hard to believe that he reversed the grounds "for the heck of it."
What did you check to come to this conclusion? The horn wire? Or did this
person just put the battery in backwards. (Red on Neg, and Black on Pos)

>	This last time was last week, when the clutch cable broke
>in a very bad area of town. The reason it broke (besides the fact that
>the hook that adjusts the clutch also broke) was because the metal tube that
>the clutch cable goes in had broken its weld and was loose inside the 
>body. In order to get at the tube, you must take the seats out and cut
>a hole in the floor ( I was lucky though, they needed to cut TWO holes).

Well, I can't tease ya about this one because it happens quite a bit. Clutch
cables always seem to go in bad areas of town for some reason. I guess it
has something to do with their upbringing. There are little spot welds that
hold the tube to the inside of the tunnel, and it probably wasn't that the
tube itself broke, just the little spot welds that hold this tube to the
tunnel. No real big deal. Cut one, two, or three holes depending on how
many broke free, and spot weld them, and close it up again. This condition
will cause your clutch adjustments to be nightmarish, but what the heck
hook are you talking about? The one at the end of the pedal cluster?
You try to compensate for this loose tube condition by tightening your
"spongey" clutch cable via the winged nut. As you tighten this, you break
more spot welds free, and get a very tight cable, that doesn't do exactly
what it is supposed to... (Disengage the clutch 100%) It also puts a LOT
of pressure on the little hook on the end of the pedal cluster, which often
causes it to bend. Pretty common.

>	So there's my story (for now, but what else can break?).
>Has anybody else have a horror story to tell?

For some reason, when you drive a car, you need to have an almost sixth
sense about you. You have to be able to tell that your clutch doesn't feel
quite right, and know enough about your car to be able to say, "Hey! My
clutch is whimpy, and I should take it in." Hopefully the mechanic can
tell you exactly what is wrong in this case... (Usually they will tighten
the HELL out of the poor thing though.) As with the brakes too, you need
to be able to think things through and say, "Well, my car stops fine, but
my Ebrake doesn't seem to work." And know that you should adjust the Ebrake
control screws... Not to pick on you (well maybe) because you are here
asking and trying to find out. That's great! But cars, especially 20 year
old VWs, are just machines, and without proper preventitive care, they
wont live to be 30. I hate to tell people that the kind of car that they
want to drive might not be for them, but collectors are only beautiful
when they're maintained by people who know their cars. This is the biggest
reason some people think of the VW bug as the most wonderful, beautiful
car ever on the road, and others think it is a service nightmare.