I'd say I'm not sure if its just my dumb luck or not, because I know too many people who've gone through this....

Does it not always seem like some of the most minute or dumbest things happen at the most inopportune times while wrenching? I've had a spat of them over the last few days, leading up to last night. I fired the car up after swapping carbs and realized I had the throttle cable bracket on wrong. One of those where, I knew it didn't make sense where I put it, but I still stupidly put it there. To nobody's surprise--vacuum leak. So I go out there after putting the kid to bed and decide i'm at least going to put the bracket where it should go. I do so, and while I've got the ratchet I figure I'll verify the other carb bolts are tight as I've had a history of them being tight but loosening up. I check the rear-they're good. I check the PS front-its a little loose so I just snug it up.

...then I get to the DS front.

Same feeling as the PS bolt, a little loose. I start snugging it up and all of the sudden I hear the pop of nightmares. I pull the bolt out and see that the threads are fine, so that means its in the thread of the intake. Literally the last thing I needed to do before firing it up again, and now I'll need to pull the carb off and fix that. Whenever I'd put the intake on the Dodge, I'd break the intake bolts off in the head before it got close to torque.

Its always the dumbest things...what are you fighting? Or, what have been some of your memorable frustrations?

 

Generally speaking, I'll hit my head on something, then hit my head on the exact same something again, repeating this scenario until blood begins to drip.

 

You are so right. It is always something. You are cut from the good wood like I am. You battle and know that you can. That is something that is missing in today's world. Keep doing you. You will get thru it. It is crazy though. Always one more battle.

 

Going back many years now, I had to fix something in the transaxle of my hopped up '57 Beetle...can't remember exactly what it was, but it required me to undo the front mount and remove the aftermarket trans strap amongst other things. It was fighting me the whole way, so I stepped back for a smoke. Halfway through the cigarette I got to looking at my aluminum crank pulley and remembered I needed to pull it off to fix some clearance issues with the tin. Ok, "careful" I thought as, lacking the proper tools, I gently pried on each side of the pulley with a big screwdriver and a steel jack handle (one of those solid 3/8" things VW put in the cars. *SNAP*! Dammit, the pulley broke just like the premonition I had had. Add that to the shopping list.

In the anger of my unbridled youth, I threw the jack handle down on the concrete driveway. My goodness, I don't think I've ever seen steel bounce like rubber, but this one did...and was on a trajectory towards my Blazer. The thoughts in my head ran something like this as I watched it fly in slow motion... Into the windshield?...no..whew...oh, gonna clobber the hood...nope...nope, it's gonna smash that plastic grill...oh...crap...right into the headlight. So, add a headlight to the shopping list.

Go get the new sealed beam, back home to install it and I get my first lesson in Torx fasteners and my utter lack of Torx tools.

It was definitely one of "those" days. I feel your pain!

 

Do you have pictures of your bug? I love early Volkswagen's.

 

I like Mary Chapin's version, but why not give the devil his due?😎

https://youtu.be/GG5ghP8XLW8

🤬 why did it post one video and not the other?🤬 Right in the theme of this thread...

 

1957 Canadian Standard, 2165cc, 1969 transaxle. Fun little car...

 

That but has to be a blast to drive. I love the small back window and the color goes very weill with the chrome wheels.

 

It's a hoot, but you have to take charge of it. I let my 21 year old daughter drive it for the first time last summer and it owned her. Touch the gas, the car lurches forward throwing her back, her foot comes off the gas then back on when the car settles forward...worse than bunny hopping the clutch. I bust a gut laughing...but she's persistent and figured it all out. The Bug is what I "have" to drive when she insists on taking the Cutlass.

The colour is '78 Ford (Truck) Midnight Blue, turned out exactly how I wanted it back in '91 but due for a full rebuild.

 

Do you still have it? Help me out. Is 55 or 56 the last year for the split window? I thought it was 57.

 

Yep...got it and did a full restoration on it in 1991, kept it through a divorce, second marriage, house purchase, two kids...debating selling it now though. I've had a lot of fun with it and a lot of memories, but I'm having a hard time reducing my collection below 3 cars. The Bug really needs another full restoration after being driving hard all these years and although I've collected a lot of nice parts for it. The 70 Cutlass build is really draining the bank account so I'm not sure if I'll be able to give the Bug the love it needs any time soon.

My wife says to not sell it unless we have to. She's a keeper (the wife, that is!).

The split window ended mid 1953, which was also when VW changed their model year production to begin in August, so from August 1953 until August 1957 they used the oval window like mine. August 58 they enlarged the window to the square window.

 

That's hysteresis and is even prone to modern cars. My sister swore her Rav 4 was "surging" and I figured out she was doing that. A lot of women are serious space cadet drivers, just oblivious, to technical concerns. I believe it is because of American society not inculcating the importance of basic engineering knowledge to young girls as much as boys. With some people, they will never get it, and will get offended if you try to help them get it, so the only thing to do is quietly sing "Ave Maria" as you back out of the projected blast radius.

 

I thought 55-56 were the last years for a split window bug. 🤔

 

Nope...they were oval window. The dash changed in '52 and carried through to the end of the '57 production year. The '52/53 split windows with that dash are referred to as Zwitters. Semaphore turn signals went away in '55, maybe that's what you're thinking of.

 

And I thought that stuff only happened to me, thanks, I feel better now. For me it always goes, if there is four nuts or bolts three will come loose and the fourth always gives me a hard time, it'll round off or break along with causing a knuckle smash/gash or other. If I don't come away from a job bleeding it's not complete.
Nice restoration on the bug.

 

Thanks!

And it's always the last nut/bolt of the bunch that gives you trouble, right when you're feeling confident that you're almost home free, right?

 

Exactly...

 

 

Sticking with the theme here......

Went back out this evening to start timing/tuning. When I fired it up, I noticed the fuel lines were leaking so I shut it down to tighten them. When I walked over to start tightening things down I heard a dripping so I got under the car and noticed transmission fluid dripping. I tracked it down to coming from the dipstick tube. No clue why, but it was definitely puzzling.

Decided maybe it was a fluke and fired it up again.. got it timed back to where it should be and noticed I finally had decent vacuum. I shut it down and reset the mix screws so that I had a baseline and now it will barely run with 5hg of vacuum..but I also noticed it's leaking in a few places now regarding trans fluid and the upper radiator hose is rubbing the alternator pulley and wearing a hole in it.

I just want to get it out so I can clean the garage out

 

5hg of vacuum is really low; it should be up around 14-16. Are all the lines hooked up? Sounds like a vacuum leak....
You can try loosening the hose clamps and turning/twisting the radiator hose to get it away from the alternator.
There's a grommet that the trans dipstick goes into. Was the tube removed? If so, the grommet could have gotten pushed in. Need to drop the pan to get it out. Or, if it's not seating in the grommet, the bracket that holds the tube may be bent. Pull the dipstick out, put a piece of wood on top of the tube, and smack it with a hammer. The right (and more complicated) way is to remove the tube and tweak the bracket back, but the hammer method works, too.

 

It sounds like your gal just doesn't want to go out into the cold just yet and is having a fit, lol.

 

Radiator hose has been addressed this morning before headed to work. After the leak stopped at the top of the tube, I timed it and hooked up the vac. gauge to the port on the intake for the trans modulator. First reading was around 13hg. From there I (stupidly) ran the idle mix screws all the way in and back out 4 turns (per the Jet setup sheet) and it dropped down to about 8hg. Since then I've made half turn increments in each direction and it has done nothing but continued to drop. I'm fairly certain I'm lean due to the eye-burning exhaust fumes. I'm going to push it out provided the weather is nice and clean the floor up as it makes me nervous with all the trans fluid on the floor and around the trans itself.

I need to also call Jet and try to get an idea of what they set the carbs up from the factory. I'm not putting it past that maybe the timing needs adjusted as well-I set it back at 20BTDC prior to hooking the gauge up as that's what I figured out it should be using total timing method.

 

I mean, it didn't have any trans leaks until the day I got it out to turn it around (it was a high of 12 that day)..so its darn near possible..haha.

 

Don't be so concerned about the number of turns on the idle screws. They need to be tuned to your engine with the vacuum gauge. Adjust them evenly to achieve the highest vacuum reading, then adjust idle speed to suit.

 

I've just always been afraid of backing them out too far and they just come out..but I've also never had to turn them a ton. I may reset them at 6 turns just because that's further than I've had them out yet and try again before messing with the timing.

I understand its more what the engine likes versus the turns, I just have to mentally do that moreso to make sure I'm consistent across each side. I have a hard enough time remembering that loosening them up richens the ratio for some reason.