[T3] Mystery Miss

[Daniel Nohejl]

Okay, so as usual, I spoke too soon!!!!!

Just a little while ago, I was braking while approaching a toll plaza and the car gently bucked twice. Pulling out of the toll plaza, it again gently bucked twice while accelerating. For the next ten miles it bucked every time the rear wheels went over a certain sized bump or pothole. Sometimes it bucked a lot, sometimes a little, sometimes gently, sometimes more roughly, but as long as I was driving over a rough enough surface it bucked. 

Now, it seems like something electrical is loose…..I’m going to change and go back out to have a look!





> On May 11, 2016, at 10:29 AM, Jim Adney <jadney at VWType3.org> wrote:
> 
> On 10 May 2016 at 21:51, Daniel Nohejl wrote:
> 
>> Well, in the spirit of intermittents, my intermittent has vanished for the time being: I haven´t had a miss since last Friday morning and almost 60 miles of driving. If it matters, all of last week was damp, rainy, and miserable. A bit as if the climate of Portland or Seattle had settled over NYC. Now, it´s warmer and completely dry. Maybe I should spray around the engine with a spray bottle and see if I can replicate my mss. Perhaps it is/was weather and wetness related. 
> 
> This may be an important clue. VW added some special red silicone 
> rubber boots/seals to the SP connectors, starting around '71. These 
> keep the upper part of the SP ceramic insulator dry, even if the 
> cooling system is blowing mist over the heads. If you don't have 
> these red boots, get some. The VW part # is 311 905 444A. I just 
> called my dealer and they said this is still a good number, but the 
> price is now out of sight: $22.91 each!
> 
> Every aircooled VW should have 4 of these, because they are immensely 
> useful. They prevent one type of damp weather problem. This problem 
> will only happen on a cold engine; once the SPs are hot, water gets 
> boiled off the insulator instantly, but on a cold engine, moisture on 
> the ceramic SP insulator will short your spark to ground.
> 
> Since you've just put this engine together, it's unlikely that the 
> drain hole in the bottom of the fan housing is plugged up again so 
> soon, but that's also worth checking.
> 
> Now that I see how expensive these are, and I don't find alternate 
> sources anywhere, I'm not inclined to sell any of my remaining few. I 
> do, however, have a few of the earlier versions, which I don't care 
> for, because they tend to stay on the SPs instead of the connector 
> and keep you from getting your SP wrench on there. I havn't tried 
> this, but I'm thinking that they could be glued onto the brown SP 
> connector, so they would stay in place. If that worked, they should 
> work just as well as the later version. If you want 4 of those, you 
> can have them for $10, including shipping.
> 
> I just took a photo of the different versions. I'll post that to your 
> samba thread.
> 
>> In other news, my gas mileage when commuting to and from work (local, highway, traffic) is only 17.4 mpg over many tanks. That´s fairly pathetic, no?
> 
> Yes, 17 is pretty bad, but if your commute is short or includes lots 
> of stop and go traffic, maybe it's reasonable. My mileage always 
> improves with the weather. Engine misses will also bring your mileage 
> down, since each miss is one more cylinder's worth of gas thrown 
> away.
> 
> OTOH, your pressure sensor may need to be leaned out a bit more, or 
> try one of the ones that hasn't been tampered with.
> 
> -- 
> *******************************
> Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
> Madison, Wisconsin, USA
> *******************************
> 
> _______________________________________________
> VWType3.Org mailing list - type3 at vwtype3.org
> To unsubscribe or change subscription options, visit:
> http://lists.vwtype3.org/listinfo.cgi/type3-vwtype3.org
> If you need more help, contact: gregm at vwtype3.org