Alrighty...time for a quick run down on the summer.
The fuel injection system was running splendidly, and I was looking forward to another awesome Hagerty Spring Thaw in the car. The actual event weekend ended up being a gong show. The night before the event, while doing some tuning, I lost all fuel pressure. Diagnosed it to be the pre-pump filling the surge tank. Popped a new one into the car while my guests enjoyed the pre-event dinner, and was ready to go. The next morning an avalanche took out the mountain road we were supposed to use, so I had to do a last minute re-route. While driving on the re-route we lost fuel pressure again, on an intermittent basis.
If we had been on the original route, instead of one that took 4 hours longer to get to the hotel...
If I had just stopped, breathed in and out for five minutes to think about it...
If i had another twenty minutes at the side of the road, without stressing about the event...
Alas, I did the responsible thing. Limped the car to a buddies place, rented a car and hosted the rest of my event. Literally 20min after we picked up the rental car it dawned on me. "There must be a problem with the fuel tank pickup." Another 15min and I said to Greg, my co-driver, "I know how to fix it. I simply need to swap the fuel lines around so that the engine is drawing from the gas-heater pickup." In my car it's separate, and located at about 1/3rd above the bottom of the tank. We'd have to fill up more often, but it would have allowed us to use the car for the event. On the way home, we stopped at the car, I spent 15min swapping lines around, and the car drove flawlessly. Sigh.
Some diagnosis upon getting to my shop, and I found some things I expected...and one thing I did not!
The filter showed some dirt, as I anticipated it would...
The tank outlet appeared to be plugged.
But this seemed odd...
What are the chances that a little rubber bumper which fit
perfectly into my fuel tank outlet would do just that. I think it was Joel that identified it as a bumper off of the fuel gauge sender. I mean, really. Unbelievable. Hopefully my new filter setup will prove to be problem free!
My fuel setup now has a backup pump, already plumbed to the gas heater inlet, ready to go should a problem resurface.
The rest of the summer was a blur of adventures...although most were without the Rally Bug. I acquired a ’67 MGB in a crazy L.A. to Canada adventure, and the ’58 beetle has been doing a lot of miles here on the island. Not wanting to leave the Rally Bug feeling left out, however, it was redemption time on my Fall event the Hagerty Fall Classic.
Fortunately this time around the car was flawless, and it was a perfect way to close out my motoring events season. The Rally Bug crossed 210,000km on the odometer since being finished, which is pretty remarkable in 4.5 years. The fuel injection setup is wonderful, the hydraulic clutch is fantastic...but the car does need a bit of a refresh in spots.
I'm getting a very slight front end vibration, similar to the Super-Beetle-Shimmy, but too early to tell. I found the steering damper bushing had failed, and made up a new one using Urethane. One of my wheel/tire setups vibrates less, but no amount of rotating seems to solve the problem. Not finding anything obvious in the front end, I figured I’d just do a full rebuild come winter. The other main annoyance is the pedal cluster. After 200,000km, many of them not gentle, it’s showing the fatigue. The brake pedal pin snapped off it once in Colorado, and now the accelerator pedal setup keeps breaking. It’s worn out, and needs replacement.
Back when I did the hydraulic clutch conversion, the hardest part of the whole operation was getting the factory pedal set bolted back in with the Saco clutch master cylinder. It was
brutal. The job was so bad, I promised myself that when the pedal set has to come out of the car next, if the body is still on the pan, I won’t put a stock pedal set back in.
Well…winter has started. First job was to put the car up in the air, and start stripping off everything that I new was going to be changed, upgraded or refurbished. The front suspension, front brakes, rear brakes, stock pedal set, and clutch master cylinder are all out of the car.
Tomorrow I’ll catch up on the work I’ve been doing…
-Dave