[T3] Invasion and Post Invasion Repairs

[Jim Adney]

Our road trip to the recent Invasion revealed some repairs that our '71 
needed. Here's what I had to do:

#1 Fuel Injection Trigger Points.

About 50 miles short of our stop for the night, the engine started to miss. 
When I stopped, the engine was hard to restart. We hobbled on to our motel 
and I spent 4 hours looking for the problem, and 15 minutes fixing it.

The problem turned out to be a slightly worn trigger point rubbing block. I 
had my adjusting fixture with me, so the hardest part of the repair was taking 
the distributor out, putting it back in, and resetting the timing. Using my 
fixture to reset the points takes less than 5 minutes.

When I got to Peg & Marion's, I did the job again, but this time using a bit of 
Marion's grease. Once I got home, I took the distributor completely apart so I 
could clean it up and make sure everything was clean and lubricated for the 
next 20 years.

I do a LOT of distributor rebuilds, but apparently I had neglected to ever do 
this one. I regret that oversight.

#2 No Brake Lights

Once we got to the Invasion, someone pointed out that my brake lights were 
not working. So I proceeded to jack up the car and replace one of the brake 
light switches. When this didn't fix the problem, I checked the bulbs, but they 
were both good. Finally, in great embarrassment, I found a bad fuse.  ;-p

The fuse was one that I'd removed over the winter so the clock would not run 
down the battery. Normally the clock is not on a fuse, but I had re-arranged it 
so that it was wired thru a fuse that I could remove. That fuse had sat on the 
floor and been kicked around a few times. I probably broke it then, or when I 
reinstalled it.

There's a lesson here: Check the easy stuff first. Once I got home, I put the 
old brake light switch back in.

#3 Loose Front Sway Bar

Before the invasion, I had noticed that our steering seemed loose. When I 
inspected the play in the front axle, it was clear that the sway bar was a bit 
loose. I removed it and put a larger dimple in the left end, but there wasn't 
anything I could do to the right end in the short time I had. Since the problem 
is usually in the left end, I put it back together and hoped it would be good.

It wasn't. I could hear it creaking occasionally on the trip to the Invasion.

Once I got home, I pulled the sway bar again and looked at it. I redressed 
the deeper dimple with a correct 90 deg countersink, but there was clearly a 
problem on the right side that I hadn't fixed.

On the right side, the set screw had worn a shallow hole in the side of the 
sway bar, and, on the opposite side, it was clear that the flat was only hitting 
in the middle, not the edges where it would do the most good.

I took the bar to a welder and had him weld up the shallow hole and add 2 
beads along the 2 edges of the flat on the other side. At home, I carefully 
filed the beads down until they could barely fit in the trailing arm, while still 
standing above the center of the flat.

It's been good ever since.

#4 Noisy Exhaust

Our muffler seemed more noisy than it should have been, so I finally took a 
good look at the previous repairs I had done with muffler cement. They were 
still good, but there were some new holes and leaks. One lower heat 
exchanger connection was leaking slightly, right at the clamp.

I'm using Permatex muffler sealant. I never expected it to be particularly 
good, but it's been great. All you do to repair leaks is brush off loose rust, 
wet the area with water, and smear on the goo. 

The HE connection was tight, but there was a leak in a place I really couldn't 
see. I wet the whole area and smeared it with sealant, pressing as much as I 
could into the crevices. I filled the spaces within the clamp. Two other spots 
were out in the open, so I brushed, wetted and covered them with the 
cement.

It's all as quiet as it should be now.

I'm really impressed with this stuff. They recommend using it when you 
install new systems, and I'll do that next time. I think it would be especially 
good if the new metal mesh sealing doughnuts got impregnated with this 
stuff before tightening.

Final note:

The good news is that the system of relays that I installed last year, to take 
all the serious loads off the '71 ignition switch worked well and continues to 
be trouble-free. While I tend to shy away from deviations from stock, I'm 
really happy with this modification so far.

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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