Can't get time?

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VWGirl
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Location: Powder Springs, GA/Micanopy, FL
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Can't get time?

Post by VWGirl » Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:23 am

I am going to copy most of this from Samba since I already posted it there before realizing I should post this here... so sorry for the cross post!

I've had my bus now (78 bone stock FI westy) for 10 years. I brought it back from a ten year slumber and have managed to keep it on the road all this time until about 2 months ago. skip down if you don't want the whole story...

Background as to why I drove it to where it sits now... I had no power going up hills. My distributor had a lot of up and down play in it. I have replaced the fuel injectors, checked compression, changed spark plugs, set dwell... etc etc.. no power up hills... so why not fix the distributor?

So I was in a hurry to get the bus running (to where i could go up a hill in a higher gear than 2nd) so I shopped around and found it was pretty much impossible to get a stock distributor. I didn't want to go 009 (I have one of those on a spare bus engine, and it will just sit there). No matter where I looked this pertronix set up was pretty much listed as universal. It was the same for beetle, bus, type 3, type 4, etc. I decided to just order the whole distributor with the electronic ignition installed.

So of course the distributor is marked for a beetle. That's fine, I don't much look at the notch anyway and I can figure out where it should be... (now this part was 2 months ago so some of the details may be a bit off) I think it was 90 degrees out from where the bus is notched. I set up the distributor close to where it should be and go to crank it and try to set time. It starts, that's a good sign... Let's see where we are at... okay, there is 0... lets turn it.... oh wait... there is a 5th injector in the way... wth now? Okay, let's just make this 180 out and move all the wires... let's try again... now we don't run? huh? okay...

Tried pretty much every way possible of setting up the pertronix distributor,. Phoned a friend and had him walk me through setting up #1 TDC again as I was a good 8 hours into this and getting nowhere so figured that I had just forgotten everything I ever knew about buses and needed help. I rechecked everything and he walked me through the same things on the distributor and it yielded all the same results. I did get a bit of backfiring when I tried moving wires to places they shouldn't be because everyone is convinced that I don't know the 1-4-3-2 firing order and must have it mixed up. Came time to when I was supposed to leave and had to leave the bus sitting as it didn't run.

So I have my original to the bus distributor out and it has no side to side play. really, the only thing wrong is there are no washers at the bottom and it gives it tons of slop. Well, I work at a dealership and one of the guys there offered to put a washer on it for me. He's an old aircooled guy so I hand it to him and a while later he brings it back with this washer and no more up and down slop. We talk about moving the electronic iginition out of the pertronix over and I do... Awesome... now i need time to put it back on...

SKIP TO HERE
This brings me to last night. So I take my stock, original distributor with the pertronix ignition and I put it in the bus. Crank it up, sounds like music to my ears! Great, let's time her... uh... what? Why am I firing #1 cyl at the seem on the type 4 fan housing? That's really weird? Sounds good? Maybe I just haven't done this in so long that I forget it will run here? Let's adjust this... As I approach 0 the bus starts to cut out. At 0 it won't even run... Checked all the vacuum hoses. everything appears to be good there... double checked my firing order, double checked all the wires...

phoned a friend... maybe it's 180 out? okay, lets make it 180 out from what it is now... nope, won't start like that...

Maybe it is the electronic ignition? removed the electronic ignition and reinstalled points and condenser... actually sounds a little better (could be timing?) but still hitting at the seam instead of 0....

So, I am stumped... Where do I go from here? I didn't put the washer on my distributor so it *could* have been flipped to 180 out... but that still should work.

I took a video of it. Tried to show my little white dot that is left of marking the timing 10 years ago (Actually I think that Colin put these marks on there?)... you can't really see it, but you can hear the bus running at idle. Didn't have enough hands to rev it at the same time. She sounds good, but I don't want to drive her this way not knowing what is wrong.

Help please!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10 ... =2&theater

If I can't fix this by October Colin then you may have to add me to your list and swing by here... if I had known you were here in May I would have had you swing by! All I need is to time my bus! That's it! Should be so simple eh?

VWGirl
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Location: Powder Springs, GA/Micanopy, FL
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Re: Can't get time?

Post by VWGirl » Sun Jun 29, 2014 12:30 pm

Well since I posted this here... I will answer my own question...

I have an adjustable timing light... and even though it was set to 0 when I was messing with the pertronix, I never thought to look at it again when I put the old distributor back in. So... it was pretty much dead on where it needed to be... my timing light was just off and set to 58... so... problem solved... now I just need to figure out where to get replacement molded injection hoses to fix my vacuum leaks :/

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Amskeptic
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Re: Can't get time?

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Jun 30, 2014 9:28 am

VWGirl wrote:Well since I posted this here... I will answer my own question...

I have an adjustable timing light... and even though it was set to 0 when I was messing with the pertronix, I never thought to look at it again when I put the old distributor back in. So... it was pretty much dead on where it needed to be... my timing light was just off and set to 58... so... problem solved... now I just need to figure out where to get replacement molded injection hoses to fix my vacuum leaks :/
I have been tripped by the dial on my timing light too. You don't forget after the first time . . . :cyclopsani:
ColinMicanopyWasSoooLongAgo
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

VWGirl
Getting Hooked!
Location: Powder Springs, GA/Micanopy, FL
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Can't get time?

Post by VWGirl » Mon Jun 30, 2014 9:46 am

Yeah, this is the first time I have forgotten for more than a few seconds...

I have been in Georgia for 7 years now so it sure was a long time ago... give me a call when you're in the Atlanta area again and we can do lunch or something. My bus doesn't need anything except some sort of boost to get up hills?

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