Itinerant Air-Cooled Wraps Up In New York
Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:10 am
I have billions of photographs and stories and a failed brake booster. I also have a mangled time-line here, so forget any chronological cohesion. My last "official" Itinerary post was "New York New Heads Day Two/Three".
We left off with a poorly running engine on June 6th at 5:45M that was also hitting some serious head temps, "hey Len Hoffman heads, welcome to my life." I had blown out of wdollie6's house on schedule but with loose ends because I had to get to my parent's house on June 7th in Essex NY some 200 miles north with no time to spare.
We had friends flying in from the mid-Atlantic, this visit had been on the books for a couple of months. This visit was "why" I begged off on making it to Maupin this year. This visit was to steel myself for the inexorable march of time that is taking my mother. This visit was to reconnect with an adolescent human being of such great vitality and intellect that it is a sheer joy to converse with him, sixteen years-old, last seen when he was twelve when we had had a riot of laughter careering through fussy little tourist trap shops in Essex.
NaranjaWesty RAN fine but idled poorly and backfired menacingly over the first 60 miles of rushrushrush. I stupidly but understandably went to the AFM and thought to richen up the mixture over that of the old heads (you saw the photographs of the white pistons and combustion chambers, yes?). Sure didn't help. The next morning, June 7th, 150 miles shy of destination, did help. You see, I scheduled a mandatory valve adjustment for the very next morning because as new valves seat into their new valve seats, they gobble up clearance. Yeah, good thing. Guess who never DID adjust the #2 valves? Mememee. I was too fragmented with multiple operations at the wdollie Hospital For Headless Volkswagens, and I now remember that all I did was to screw in the valve adjuster screws to eat up the changed dimensions of the new heads, but I never DID adjust the valves. Well, there you go, folks. I was so uncomprehending of this horrific oversight, that I thought I had rotated the crankshaft in the wrong direction when I moved from #1 to #2. Then I rotated it another 360* and I STILL had NO clearance. Then I checked the position of the distributor rotor and holy cats. Sorry, Len Hoffman heads.
With properly adjusted valves, re-torqued exhaust studs, and one rebuffed observer, "hey, are you broken down? VWs always break down don't they?" I hit the road north to Essex and the engine was smooth and lively and still a little hot. Was it the flaps? The sticking flaps? NOOOOO, the fail-safe spring had won the day and muscled those sticky flaps open. It was yesterday's AFM mucking about adjustment. I LEANED out the wiper and RELAXED the spring, and somehow got back to 16 mpg (good-nuff) and head temps about 400*. The engine is definitely smoother with these heads, but now we are stalling at stoplights whenever I step on the brakes.
Really NaranjaWesty? Adjusted the mixture screw "superrich" and jacked up the idle speed so that I get a lousy lean idle with foot on the brake, and a lousy rich idle with foot off the brake, and I pondered such compromises. Do two Lousys on opposite sides make a nice Middle? No.
Beautiful day, lovely Lake Champlain, sad sad sad to see my larger-than-life parents and their amazing journey through 50 plus years come to a point, a small point in space and time. Delighted, but vaguely disconcerted both by this new sixteen year-old so very awake and alert and questing, and our lifelong friend (once-upon-a-time fourth-grade teacher!) who burns with a passion yet to teach. Our walk down the dirt road in Essex New York June 2019 so far from our Old Days in Virginia 1965, yet here we are, we are still us, we life-long friends seeing the mysterious unfolding of our Selves.
In that golden afternoon light walking along the fields (but mom is trapped in a bed never to walk again), we ambulators all did recognize in that moment that the Journey is Unknowable Until It Is Done.
I listened to the sixteen year-old mulling some point about about God and Humans, and noted to myself that we all have our unique path to wisdom, and I had a flash of irritation at all of the pontificating "Gurus" who presume to fill the heads of others with their numbered lists to "Enlightenment". I say, "keep clear of the questing creatures and only answer their immediate questions."
Here is a question for any Guru, "how does a brake booster control valve fail and pass air through to the engine no matter the position or pressure on the pedal?"
Will try to fill in later, but I am going to Detroit .... Detroit.
We left off with a poorly running engine on June 6th at 5:45M that was also hitting some serious head temps, "hey Len Hoffman heads, welcome to my life." I had blown out of wdollie6's house on schedule but with loose ends because I had to get to my parent's house on June 7th in Essex NY some 200 miles north with no time to spare.
We had friends flying in from the mid-Atlantic, this visit had been on the books for a couple of months. This visit was "why" I begged off on making it to Maupin this year. This visit was to steel myself for the inexorable march of time that is taking my mother. This visit was to reconnect with an adolescent human being of such great vitality and intellect that it is a sheer joy to converse with him, sixteen years-old, last seen when he was twelve when we had had a riot of laughter careering through fussy little tourist trap shops in Essex.
NaranjaWesty RAN fine but idled poorly and backfired menacingly over the first 60 miles of rushrushrush. I stupidly but understandably went to the AFM and thought to richen up the mixture over that of the old heads (you saw the photographs of the white pistons and combustion chambers, yes?). Sure didn't help. The next morning, June 7th, 150 miles shy of destination, did help. You see, I scheduled a mandatory valve adjustment for the very next morning because as new valves seat into their new valve seats, they gobble up clearance. Yeah, good thing. Guess who never DID adjust the #2 valves? Mememee. I was too fragmented with multiple operations at the wdollie Hospital For Headless Volkswagens, and I now remember that all I did was to screw in the valve adjuster screws to eat up the changed dimensions of the new heads, but I never DID adjust the valves. Well, there you go, folks. I was so uncomprehending of this horrific oversight, that I thought I had rotated the crankshaft in the wrong direction when I moved from #1 to #2. Then I rotated it another 360* and I STILL had NO clearance. Then I checked the position of the distributor rotor and holy cats. Sorry, Len Hoffman heads.
With properly adjusted valves, re-torqued exhaust studs, and one rebuffed observer, "hey, are you broken down? VWs always break down don't they?" I hit the road north to Essex and the engine was smooth and lively and still a little hot. Was it the flaps? The sticking flaps? NOOOOO, the fail-safe spring had won the day and muscled those sticky flaps open. It was yesterday's AFM mucking about adjustment. I LEANED out the wiper and RELAXED the spring, and somehow got back to 16 mpg (good-nuff) and head temps about 400*. The engine is definitely smoother with these heads, but now we are stalling at stoplights whenever I step on the brakes.
Really NaranjaWesty? Adjusted the mixture screw "superrich" and jacked up the idle speed so that I get a lousy lean idle with foot on the brake, and a lousy rich idle with foot off the brake, and I pondered such compromises. Do two Lousys on opposite sides make a nice Middle? No.
Beautiful day, lovely Lake Champlain, sad sad sad to see my larger-than-life parents and their amazing journey through 50 plus years come to a point, a small point in space and time. Delighted, but vaguely disconcerted both by this new sixteen year-old so very awake and alert and questing, and our lifelong friend (once-upon-a-time fourth-grade teacher!) who burns with a passion yet to teach. Our walk down the dirt road in Essex New York June 2019 so far from our Old Days in Virginia 1965, yet here we are, we are still us, we life-long friends seeing the mysterious unfolding of our Selves.
In that golden afternoon light walking along the fields (but mom is trapped in a bed never to walk again), we ambulators all did recognize in that moment that the Journey is Unknowable Until It Is Done.
I listened to the sixteen year-old mulling some point about about God and Humans, and noted to myself that we all have our unique path to wisdom, and I had a flash of irritation at all of the pontificating "Gurus" who presume to fill the heads of others with their numbered lists to "Enlightenment". I say, "keep clear of the questing creatures and only answer their immediate questions."
Here is a question for any Guru, "how does a brake booster control valve fail and pass air through to the engine no matter the position or pressure on the pedal?"
Will try to fill in later, but I am going to Detroit .... Detroit.