Sick of this and about to give up.

[johnnypan]

[sb001]

[kwest69]

Can't you isolate a vacuum problem with the auto-stick system by doing the following?:
- get it warmed up, do your left-turn trick until it idles poorly.
- now disconnect the big auto-stick vacuum hose from the inlet manifold. Plug both sides of the hose (obviously to the inlet manifold, also to the auto-stick control system just in case..). I suspect that you can disconnect the auto-stick system like this to isolate it, can't you?

Now see if the car idles any differently. If so: wouldn't that point to the auto-stick control valve issue that Johnny suggested? If the valve is leaking when warm then you've got a big problem..

OR similar to the above: just tee-in a connection for a vacuum gauge off of your new vacuum line to the valve. How does the vacuum read when the car is behaving vs naughty? If vacuum reading is much different when moderately-warm vs really warm then you've got a vacuum leak problem to sort out.

HTH,
Kent

PS: wish I'd done those tests on my car a number of years ago! Would've saved me from ripping the auto-stick out..

[Dwayne1m]

There are no vent louvers in your deck lid. Is that normal for the year of this car?

[Tim Donahoe]

Is that Steve's deck lid?

Tim
_________________
Let's do the Time Warp again!

Richard O'Brien

[Joey]

From looking at the pics in his gallery... yes it is.
_________________
Joey

‘60 Kombi - '74 Bus - '79 Panel - '65 Beetle

[jwp67]

[sb001]

I tried the tennis ball trick driving to work and back this afternoon.
It did not seem to make all that much of a difference. Engine bay was still pretty hot to touch anything upon arriving back home.

HOWEVER...
When I measured the oil temp the other day after driving home, the needle stopped at 220 which was the highest reading on the gauge:

I thought the thermometer had simply pegged out and my oil temps were probably hotter than that. But a friend suggested that the needle didn't necessarily stop there- it might go further around if the temp was hotter than 220. So to test this when I got home from work today I immediately took another oil temp reading and it again read 220. Then I put the thermometer in the oven and set it to 300. Sure enough the gauge needle kept going around past 220, around again to about the 100 mark on the dial. (to indicate 300 degrees.) SO 220 degrees is indeed the ACTUAL oil temp I am measuring, which on a hot summer day in the south (about 95 degrees here today) I think is acceptable.
I guess it's just my engine bay is getting extremely warm from sitting in the parking lot all day with the sun hitting it and then heating it up even more driving home. But oil temp seems OK, that is a big sigh of relief.
Now all I have to do is figure out the cause of the boiling fuel. Last night I actually swapped out my stock oil bath air cleaner with the old Empi round chrome air cleaner I had laying around, to isolate the stock air cleaner as the source of the problem. (The Empi air cleaner has no flaps or preheat connection-- just the crankcase breather hose connection):

Pulling into the driveway after work it stumbled a little again but did not stumble low or stall. My flaps in the stock air cleaner seem to work perfectly OK though, so I don't know if this points out anything or not. I wonder if perhaps the WEIGHTED flap is causing an issue? Like at idle it is not closing off the snorkel all the way allowing fresh air to come in when it's not supposed to and thin out the mixture?
_________________
I'm the humblest guy on this board.

1969 autostick sedan, family owned since new
1600 SP engine
Solex 30 PICT 3 carburetor
Bosch 113905205AE autostick distributor

[iowegian]

[itskyle]

Forgot to ask, what size tires are you running?
_________________
--
69 or 72 Autostick Bug current
66 Bug (We both miss it)
74 SuperBeetle Auto Stick (I miss that car)
73 SquareBack, Straight Stick (Wife misses this one.)

[sb001]

[zoobyshoe]

I ran across a previous thread about your problems ("Why the plume of smoke?") and see a lot of discussion about your distributor.

But, I'm confused. You say your distributor requires a dual vacuum can, which you have, yet you are running it as a single vacuum. Why aren't you running it as a dual vacuum, with the appropriate timing for that? You said you tried timing it at 5 degrees ATDC at some point, but it ran too hot. It wasn't clear if, when you tried that, you timed it with both vacuum hoses connected, as Bently and Rob and Dave prescribe. (All the timing attempts you otherwise mention, you had at least one hose disconnected.)

Due to the continuing problems, I wondering if the assumption the dual vacuum can be run in any way other than the full dual vacuum monty is wrong. The full monty being: time it at 5 degrees after top dead center, with both hoses attached to the proper ports on the carb, at normal idle speed.

Apologies if you've already given this a try.

[Chochobeef]

[Bashr52]

[Bashr52]

[Joey]

sb001, you may want to consider getting one of these:

http://www.awesomepowdercoat.com/Venturi_Ring.html

I have one on my 1600DP in my '56 and it dropped the temps down a good 10 degrees. VW put them on the later fuel injected engines.

Before I owned the car, the engine use to get so hot the paint on the deck lid is all cracked and the paint on the apron is blistered off.

I would run with the stock air cleaner but without the pre heat hose - the weather is warm enough and it's probably not needed.

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[sb001]

[vamram]

[sb001]

[Eric&Barb]

Stock should be a bracket on the left side of the shroud with rubber sleeve inside bracket like flex fuel line. Less length of fuel line in the engine compartment should mean less heat getting to the fuel.

_________________
In Stereo, Where Available!