Tell me your- 'How you got it home' stories

[bones]

Back in the arly 70's I had a KG with a 1600, Norris milage maker cam and kadrons. I have no idea what the CR was but the car would smoke a 912 porsche from both a 45 mph roll or a 10 mph roll. My old roomate from college and I had driven from Reno to Bozeman MT to visit his family and go skiing. Besides the drinking age was 18 and there were tons of girls at MSU. Well my battery wouldn't take a charge from the generator but I had a battery charger and we could charge the battery at night and have enough juice to drive all day. As we pulled into Bozeman the sun was going down and a cop coming towards us yelled over his loud speaker to turn on the lights but if I did the car wouldn't run. We left the lights off and beat it to his folks house then parked in the garage. Skiing was great and on the way back to Reno we were driving between 80 and 100 mph most of the way - crazy college guys. We pulled into Elko at dusk and stayed the night t ocharge the battery. The next A.M. we left Elko and 11 miles later in Carlin the car started running badly. I pulled over and noticed the header had tons of raw gas coming out. I thought the worst. We parked the car and hitched a ride back to Reno in the back of a o pickup truck with a camper shell with about 6 illegal hispanics. They didn't speak English and we didn't speak Spanish. Well we arrived in Reno and borrowed a pick up and tow bar then drove back to Carlin about 8 hours and towed the KG home. I pulled the engine and didn't find anything wrong. Then for some reason I pulled the top of one carb off and found the main jet sitting in the float bowl. It had probably vibrated out during the hard drive the day before. Had I known this back in Carlin we would have been on the road in a matter of a few minutes. Learned an important lesson that day.

[D JACKSON]

I had taught my Daughter how to use the fast idle cam on the 34 pict to speed up the engine so she could get it out of the road if the throttle cable ever broke. She ended up driving it several miles home from school that way. We live in the country with very little room to pass cars, she said it looked like a parade following her at 20 mph. Don Jackson

[Jerkstart]

48 carb, 2.3 litre, early Cal-bug, 3.88 box completely wound out watching the funny headlights dissapear in the rear veiw. Done it a bunch a times and never worried but I held my foot down too long and the thinly machined piston crown gave way and suddenly there was a 1/4 mile smoke trail behind me. 200 miles from home and It took 6 qrts of oil and a LONG time to putt my a$$ back home at rpm lugging speeds

Lesson learned, you can't trim 120 thou off the top of a 94 Cima piston and not end up with a big hole sooner or later.

[Big Ratfink]

I Know this is a real old thread but this is a real old story and must be told... in the late 80's I lived in upstate New York and drove a transporter. One day while talking to my dad in my homestate of Minnesota he asked me if I wanted another bus- I said no, I already had one. He said It had no rust. No. He said free. OK. The only catch is it had no engine. No problem. I took a few days leave from the Air Force, quickly yanked the type 1 engine out of my bus (which I had just transplanted from my baja, for temprary use while i worked on the 1700 ), Tore it down, put it in 1 box and 3 duffelbags and bought 1 way airfare to Minnesota. Of course the airlines lost one of the duffelbags. Now what? Fortunately there sort of was an engine for the bus-- there were boxes of 2 blown up type 4"s. we picked thru and cleaned up everything best we could and found we had everything except for 1 set of rings. Being the hacks we were we borrowed some 1600 rings for the new blown up 1700 and put it all together including the dual solexes. This was my first experience with dual carbs. Suprisingly it ran pretty damn good. No new anything- no new gaskets or seals, nothing. The new bus had a trailer hitch so we decided to haul a chest freezer on a trailer back to New York. My brother helped me drive and we put the peddle to the metal. We drove 65-70 most of the way (speed limit 55 back then). the engine leaked quite a bit but we filled the oil everytime we got gas. Made the trip fine. The next week we hooked up my boat to do some fishing and made it about 2 miles and the engine went klunk- dead. Upon teardown a valve stuck in the guide, pulled the guide out and jammed which put a nice hole in the piston. I will say that that was the cleanest vw engine inside I ever saw after adding all that oil on the trip. This was my second valve related 1700cc engine death. The other death the valve head simply popped off. ,

[Breaker]

Long time ago driving across france to uk in 1500S, gen light comes on. I know nothing, check it's not the oil pressure light. No? Ok, keep on going. Now it's evening, running lights...and every time I brake, the radio goes out. Just putter onto the ferry. Mate check out bushes, they're not making contact anymore, so we jury-rig it with aluminum foil. Had to re-adjust foil every 25 miles or so to London. Fun.

Some years later, bug with 1.9 fuelie engine, accelerator cable breaks just at the pedal. With the linkage, I have enough slack to bend a bit and get it to pedal. This leaves only about 25% opening of throttle, max.... I was overtaking people on the way home. Gotta love strokers!

Around new years, I was travelling on the autobahn, when I heard a noise. Turns out my alloy pushrods were hammering out the ends (after 3 years of good behavior), and finally one got loose enough for a lash-cap to get free, and the first thing it did was make it's way into the spring next to it, causing the other pushrod to bend. I coasted off the highway into a gas stop, and surveyed the damage. Decided the best course of action, 7 hrs into a 9 hour trip was to unbolt the rocker ramp, pull both pushrods on that cylinder, and limp along on three... I'm pretty sure I had a strainer before the full-flowed pump, and I always have a massive speaker magnet below the sump-plate, I should be ok.

All is fine till a long, right-curving on-ramp, when I suddenly hear another whackety-whackety sound, at valve train speeds. Oh, crap, just getting onto the highway for the 9 hour trip home, gotta wait till next exit... the sound goes away, and I figure, what the hell, let's just go for it. I can't do anymore roadside repairs, it's well below freezing out. No problems. It does 800 kms without a hiccup, through night, snow, mountains, etc. It vibrates quite a bit, but around 110 kph, 70 mph, vibes go away, some balance sweet-spot I keep it at all night.

Get to the workshop a few days later, and first thing I find when I take off the valve cover, was the inside cup from a two-piece lifter, no circlip to be seen. That was the wackety-whackety in the curve, as the lifter was uncontrolled by spring pressure. Then I see my magnet, lying where I left it to do the oil change before the trip..gulp...ok, so now I have most of the bits, still no circlip, so I pop in two steel pushrods of approx same length, and drive it a couple of months till winter finally ends. Upon disassembly, find no strainer, but a tiny piece of circlip and a nice circlip-sized gouge in the oil pump... I was so lucky, that all could have gone a lot worse. A lot.

Last one, this spring, driving up mountain roads at night, go to shift bus down from third for a turn, and.... nothing, no gears, gear lever swings about freely. Stop on only spot I can coast to uphill, with a cell phone for light, see the silly axle that goes through the selector flectors and rod is missing. I can'e even turn around to use the headlights to look for it, I know i had it not too long ago.... So I do the only thing I can at that hour and that degree of homeboundedness: I wring the living daylight out of the poor clutch, and take off uphill in third. May the Volks Gods have mercy on my soul. It was selfish of me, but the ol' girl got me home just fine, if a bit slow. I can confirm the CB2280 makes driveable torque down low! Never really got up to speed as the road is curvy... Still can't believe it, third all the way up and she got me home!

Those are the ones I remember best.

[Big Ratfink]

It's like therapy to hear these kinds of stories... It makes me feel better knowing that I'm not the only one with that kind of luck!

[ruff]

a year ago I was at the Bugshow in Spa Francorchamps in Belgium.
i had a notchback with the 2.3 type 1. During the meet, they organize drag racing, so i entered...
first run: it leaves the line fast, but on the top end it studders...
there wasnt so much fuel left, so i thought it was running out of fuel..
tanked some gas, and went for a second run...
the car went better, but suddenly I hare a BAM , and the engine dies....
Damn, here I am, sunday afternoon and 150 km from home
I was running a megasquirt at the time with EDIS ignition, which needs a trigger wheel..
anyway... i looked at the bonnet and there was a dent to the outside...bad sign..
i opened the decklid and what i see is an exploded Ford trigger wheel... it disintegrated and took out the rpm sensor and made that dent! the trigger wheel just tore where i drilled the holes for the bolts that connect it to the pulley...
Luckily at that time i was trying out a magneto, so i had the dizzy worm wheel installed with a dummy dizzy..
so at the swapmeet i bought a 009, plug wires , a coil and so on , installed them and drove home...
a day of stress , can you believe me?

[benito26]

Last weekend we went out to Canberra, 280km out of Sydney to pick up a 58' beetle which had been in a front end collision with the intention of driving the car back to Sydney. Upon arrival I quickly realised that the damage was bigger than originally thought with the front end being pushed to the point of impeding with the cars steering. Bush mechanics was in order. Took the left front wheel off as well as the bonnet and proceeded to "delicately" pull and beat the panels. My mate realised that the car was also missing a muffler for the merged system, a battery and the gear stick was sitting on the floor. No problem, I had a spare complete second hand rusty exhaust system and 12v battery that I'd pulled from a wreck only two days prior. Battery straight in not knowing how much juice its got and a little persuasive hammering and twisting of the muffler, oil check, fuel check, we are almost ready to kick it over. Sloppy gear stick on with a dodgy short shift plate and a loose shitty shifter coupling that received the twisted wire treatment and we fire it up.....teek, teek, puff, puff, vroom...the single port 1600 comes to life with a puff of smoke, choke comes on, idles and then settles down, awesome, at least it runs.

Back to the front end, here is a short video of the panel beating

http://youtu.be/HwzgsBj9VXg

we get it straight enough to get some clearance between tyre and headlight bucket so now we have some steering, luckily the original beam, steering and suspension components are all straight and relatively safe to drive but old. We fit a spare headlight and we are off....no reverse.
Hammer out again, "adjust" the shifter and get reverse, now we have 1st, 2nd and reverse, good to go.
60km/hr in second on the freeway for 280km, I think not.
Big hammer out, "adjust" shifter and voila, we have all gears all over the place but at least they are there and worth searching for, all gears are winding like cats on heat.
120km/hr 80km out of Canberra suddenly I get a studder and a nasty backfire with a metallic noise out of the engine, clutch in, blip the throttle a couple of times, let it settle down to third, engine brake, loud pedal, clear the throat and keep going. Running ok but engine noise is getting worse.
We pull over three times for oil, twice for fuel and somehow get it home with the last 120km the engine and gearbox creating so much noise that my ears are buzzing.
Get it home, let it idle to cool, shut it off and the oil starts to pool on the pavement.
I check end float off the pulley 0.043", lifters 0.012"-0.018", a broken valve spring and what sounds like a couple of rod knocks but at least we are home.

[shepherd]

Many, many years ago, went to pick up a bug I had found in someone's back yard. I had coaxed it to run, so naturally I thought I should be able to make the hour drive home. First the gas tank blew out when I filled it up, and seconds later the throttle cable snapped. About 30 minutes later we had the rear window popped out, and the window washer reservoir full of gas in the back seat, plumbed to the carburetor. We tried to rig a throttle cable with some rope out out the back window and back around a 2 liter soda bottle that was bungeed to the engine lid vents, but it really was all or nothing. My friend ended up making the ride with his arm out the back window operating the throttle for me. Had to refill the washer bottle pretty often, but it worked, and got us home before the spare ran out of air too, which I didn't expect.