[T3] Re Invasion Update

[jaransont3 at comcast.net]

----- Original Message -----


From: "John Jaranson" <jaransont3 at comcast.net> 
To: type3 at vwtype3.org 
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 7:14:45 PM 
Subject: Re: [T3] Re Invasion Update 

Sophy run great the whole trip, even all the way to the top of Pikes Peak,, until she was 2 miles from home. As I approached my exit from I-75, she suddenly started running on 2 cylinders and lost a ton of power, obviously. I managed to get off the highway and through a couple of lights and into a parking lot. Popped the hatch to see what the problem was. Turns out the 3 inch long linkage from the control arm to the butterfly valve had popped off. Fortunately it was still attached at one end. Popped it back on and made it home without further incident. Guess it was her way of reminding me to not take her for granted. 

She will get a much deserved oil-change and tune-up in the next day or two. I think I am even going to take the carbs off and re-bush that throttle shafts like I have been meaning to do for sometime. She has always run a little rough at light throttle and over the last couple of hours of the drive home she didn't want to idle great and started running a bit rich. 

Yup...time for a tune-up. 

----- Original Message -----

I took a couple of hours yesterday to see what was up with Sophy running so rough and so rich at the end of the Invasion trip. 


I swapped in a different socket end on the carb linkage and that fixed that small problem. 


I also changed her oil and checked her valves and timing. Oil looked good. Valves were fine, with #3 maybe .001 tight or so. They were the only ones I tweaked. I did notice the valve cover gaskets where shrunken a bit and starting to crack, so I swapped in some new ones. The points were closed a bit more than I like so I adjusted them back to get the dwell right. The timing was also still spot on. 


So far nothing to explain the running rich. I know I have to re-bush the carbs, but that would make it run leaner, not richer. So I pulled the air cleaner off and started checking the various connections and bolted joints. In doing so, I found the idle cut-off jet on the LH carb was backed almost all the way out of its socket! Probably only hanging on by a thread or two. Now this would make it run rich! I screwed it back in and cinched it down. Sophy was a happy camper again. 


I think this LH carb is possessed. This is the same carb that decided to spit out the brass access plug for the main jet in the bottom of the float bowl....at 75 mph in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming on the way to the first Invasion. It is also the same carb that dropped the high idle pickup tube in the float bowl on the way home from that Invasion. It is the same carb that had the solenoid on this same cut-off jet fail coming back from an Invasion. Fortunately, Russ Wolfe was with and just snipped off the shut-off mushroom and made it a plain jet. It is the same carb that had both manifold to head nuts back off on the way home from the Myrtle Creek Invasion. I think that when I pull them this fall for the rebuild and re-bush, I will also preform an exorcism! 

Later, 
John Jaranson 
www.carartbyjohn.com 

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