It began around the beginning of the month. The starter cranking speed
on the Chevy seemed a little slower than usual. It was kinda hard to
tell for sure because the engine generally starts right off. But after
work on that Thursday there was an unmistakable sluggishness to the
cranking sound, even though the car started with no fuss. On the way
home I kept an eye the voltmeter to see if the charging system seemed to
be doing its job. I have to admit that I hadn't taken special notice of
what the normal charging voltage was, but a bit under 14 volts seemed
about right to me, and the needle didn't seem to be where it didn't
belong.
When I got home I decided to check the starter again in the safety of
the driveway. I shut off the engine and tried to re-start. Absolutely
nothing. No clicks grunts or what have you. Only some defection of the
voltmeter and the usual flicking of the other gauge needles. A quick
check of the battery and starter connections revealed nothing obvious.
An annoyance but not a big problem; after all, even though the snake was
temporarily out of service, I still had the trusty VW as a back-up. So
Friday morning I fired up the bug and started my morning commute from
Santa Clara to Palo Alto. I opted for a non freeway route because the
bug is getting a bit long in the tooth and while the tires have plenty
of meat on them, they've been on the car about 10 years now, mostly at
rest in front of my house.
At first everything seemed okay. The engine was a little rough cold but
I hadn't bothered to properly adjust the choke after the last tune-up so
I didn't think much of it. But within a couple of miles the engine was
well warmed up and the roughness got really serious. The engine stalled
every time I stopped or slowed substantially. It was impossible to keep
the engine running at even close to idling rpm. This made commuting on
surface streets a real pain and I was beginning to wonder whether not
taking the freeway was such a hot idea. I had more then one irate
driver honk or give me a dirty look as I struggled to get moving after
stopping for a light.
Sunday morning I dug into the starter problem on the Chevy and concluded
that the starter itself was the problem. But I didn't want to buy a new
one until I had verified this, so I pulled the starter out and put it
aside for the time being. Next I started on the bug. Hmmm. I had put
in new plugs, points and a condenser earlier in the summer to make the
car driveable for my daughter. Maybe I'd screwed something up in the
process. I started with the distributor. I eyeballed the breaker gap.
It seemed about right. I replaced the condenser with a new spare I had.
No difference. Next I started fiddling with the carburetor. I pulled
the air cleaner loose and there was a dramatic improvement. Still a bit
rough, but at least the engine would idle now. It seemed like an
outside shot but I pulled the air cleaner off and cleaned it. It's one
of those oil bath types and a pain to clean. The oil was dirty looking
but nothing seemed clogged. All the little flaps worked freely, et
cetera. There was no improvement in the crummy running after
re-installing the the cleaner. So I decided to RTFM. In the
troubleshooting section was a comment about how a bad mixture control
cut-off valve could screw up idle running if it wasn't working properly.
I tried the experiment suggested in the book to see if the little
solenoid in the valve was activating. I could hear it click when I
connected and disconnected power to it. But the valve itself, which
screws into the body of the carburetor, did seem very loose. Ah hah, I
thought. Found it. But when I tried to tighten it by screwing it in,
it just turned and turned. The threads were stripped.
I looked into installing a heli-coil but there wasn't enough metal left
to drill a hole big enough for the insert. Sigh, either I needed to
find an old carburetor at a junk yard or buy a whole new one. Since I
was rapidly running out of cars, I decided on the quickest, easiest fix,
a new carburetor. But the $160 the local parts place wanted seemed
awfully pricey to me and none of the VW places were open that late on a
Sunday.
My wife had Monday off which left her car potentially available, but her
plans included a little shopping for that day. Since three of our four
cars were now out of action, I decided to go for something simple and
cut a washer gasket out of some neoprene sheet rubber I had. This
allowed me to re-install the bottom fitting to the snake's gas tank. On
Monday I tossed the Chevy starter into the snake's trunk and drove it to
work. During lunch I took the starter to an auto electric shop where my
suspicion it was confirmed. They had rebuilts on hand for a reasonable
price so I bought one.
It had been my plan to install the new starter after work, but my wife
had suffered a minor eye injury during the day so we ended up spending
the entire evening mostly waiting around the emergency room at a local
hospital. No starter installation, but I would have her car the next
day because she couldn't drive with the patch the doctor had put on her
eye.
Tuesday night I got the starter installed. One down, two and a half to
go. My wife was able to drive on Wednesday and I had the Chevy again.
During the week I picked up a new carburetor for the bug for $109 at
Kohlweiss in Redwood City. Installation had to wait until the weekend.
The first thing I did Saturday morning was install the VW carburetor.
Everything went perfectly. Two down, 1/2 (or so I thought) to go. I
had notice the telltale small of gasoline in the garage so I figured the
gasket I'd made for the snake's tank hadn't held. I pulled the rear
wheel and took a look. Sure enough the bottom of the tank was covered
with gasoline. My home made gasket was also covered. I gave the
fitting another quarter turn or so, wiped everything dry and went off to
do other things for a few minutes. When I came back, the rubber gasket
was still dry but the smell of gasoline was strong and I could see
wetness on the bottom of the tank near the edge. I can't describe the
feeling of depression I felt when I saw this. This was not only a new
leak, but a fairly substantial one. Of course it was in an area I
couldn't get to with the tank in the car. Sigh. I had no choice but to
pull the tank out, AGAIN!!
When I did get the tank out and up on saw horses it seemed as if it
might have several leaks. There were dried cake-on red stains at
several locations along the soldered seams. Now I really felt
depressed. The tank had been leak-free before I had sealed and
installed it a few months back. Now it seemed to be leaking everywhere.
I decided not to jump to conclusions. I cleaned up the outside of the
tank, closed off the bottom fitting hole and pour in about 5 gallons of
gasoline. First I set the tank upright and checked for leaks, paying
particular attention to the seams. Then I turned it on each of its side
and did the same. With some relief I discovered that there was only one
leak. The other spots were apparently from gasoline creeping along the
seams, settling in the rough spots and drying. But just to make sure I
poured in some more gasoline and let the tank sit in each orientation
for quite a while.
The leak turned out to be the one that the guy at the Radiator Doctor
had fixed with solder. The soldering had been solid enough but there
was a 2" crack in it. The sheet metal underneath was either torn or the
hole was too large to soldered over. At least that explained why the
sealer, which was probably an 1/8" or more thick in that area of the
tank, had not held. It had been cracked by the flexing metal. Of
course the Radiator Doctor should have patched a hole that large, not
just soldered over it. Well, they were already off my list.
But I still have the problem of how to fix the leak. As much as I hate
to do it, soldering on a patch seems like the only sensible option. I
have no idea what the heat will do to the sealer inside the tank but
I'll have to risk it, I guess. I suppose I could slush some more sealer
in the area of the patch afterwards, but I'm not sure how well it will
stick to the old surrounding sealer (which is pretty well stained a
brownish-red now) or to the melted/carbonized(?) sealer directly under
the patch.
Roland
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