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On my girlfriend's 74 beetle, the charcoal canister came loose and dragged on the ground wearing a hole in it. I'm a sandrail guy, so I've never seen VW engine with emissions stuff attached to it. I figure we have several options:

1) Get rid of it

2) Find a replacement (new ones seem hard to find, ebay has some 35 year old rusted ones)

3) Fiberglass over the hole in the thing, fill it back up with charcoal.

I'm thinking for #3 as the best way to keep everything mostly-original without incurring much expense. Thoughts?

Remove it. I tossed the one in my 74 Beetle 20 years ago.

It stopped working along time ago anyway.

I think Aircooled.net has new ones...

I tried aircooled.net, but don't see it there (I searched for "charcoal" and "canister"). If it is there, any idea what they've called it?

Doesn't sound like it'd be too hard to fix yours (heck, you could probably just make a patch from a soda can and glue it on, or even use duct tape).
They're supposed to have the charcoal replaced every 48K mi IIRC anyway, here's your opportunity.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=421822

It shouldn't be hard to find one at a swap meet or thesamba.com (beware of those who are selling the expansion tank that goes in the trunk as a charcoal canister).

If you do delete it, be sure to plug off the purge hose coming off of the fan shroud. Personally I'd shorten/reroute the vent line from the gas tank so that it goes "overboard" from the trunk like it did on pre`70 cars rather than leave it open to the world at the engine end of the car...

You could source one off a late model car and use it. Most aircooled people just vent to the atmosphere and pollute.

If you simply vent to atmosphere on a modern car, it'll throw a code and give a CHECK ENGINE light. But that isn't going to happen on an ACVW, so it's just a matter of your social conscience.

Well lets be honest here..We are driving cars with basically no pollution controls whatsoever, and most are probably rolling Deepwater Horizons anyways..So whats the big deal? I would say differently about a modern car used as a daily driver though. But its pointless on an older car.

If it was me I would do like was said and at least run a new vent line under the front of the car like the older VW's had if I was deleting it