220,000 miles and counting. This year marked 30 years in the family.Proper car!
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I hate Volkswagen I like when the world is quiet though!
- Thread starter MildredHubble
- Start date
My car has been in the family 23 years!
Not quite as long as yours but still quite a while!
^ You're doing well! There are quite a few long ownership vehicles around where I live. Longest ownership I know of is a 1955 Sun Cyclone motorcycle... 1 owner from new. I kid you not.
That's amazing! I like it when people get the most out of things! I really dislike the throwaway culture we live in! In the olden days you invested in something and you did your best to make it last. This helped reduce demands on resources and saved money. But capitalism is never satisfied with ticking over. Exponential growth in a finite world is just crazy.
Well done for getting so much out of your car! I hope it gives you another 30 years of service!
We can't hate Volkswagen, they made the Beetle and the Golf GTI. 
Ok, we can hate them for the Jetta and the Passat. But they did a few good things too.
Ok, we can hate them for the Jetta and the Passat. But they did a few good things too.
Uh! Been looking around at potential issues with the car, it's looking like if may actually be a timing issue. Apparently the sprockets on the cam shafts can become loose. I haven't slept so that may need to wait for another day!
Timing an engine can be really fun. In these times we have tech to do it more easily. Back in the day some vehicles were easy others difficult and some outright stupid.
For difficult I would choose the 1931 Rolls Royce I helped a friend work on. To set the ignition timing you turn the engine over with the starting handle and line up the marks which gives you... incorrect timing! The proper way to time these requires you to jack up a rear wheel, put it in gear to rotate the engine with the wheel. The reason you can't do it with the starting handle is there is an advancement mechanism lurking in the timing cover. For added fun the timing gun cannot be used on no1 cylinder (this is the normal 'base' to time from) you have to use No6 and add 180 degrees to the gun so it 'fires' the light at the right moment.
For outright stupid I would choose the Ariel 3. This was the worst 'bike' in British history. To set the ignition timing you had to take the engine apart. No-one wanted to work on them. Almost no-one bought one and it killed the manufacturer!
That's nothing, just a typical winter day here in Canada actually...
Try a morning start after a -30 Celcius night, that's in the forecast for next week here... Cars here have block heaters, when it gets that cold you plug a car in overnight...
You should never trust the ignition timing marks on any vehicle that had an elastomeric isolator between the actual crankshaft hub and the dampening ring.
More often than not, I set ignition timing with an intake manifold vacuum gauge and a tachometer.
You should already have these connected during a carbureted tuneup to optimized the idle mixture, so use it to it's fullest.
First set the curb idle speed with the tach.
Then optimize the mixtures with the idle jet screws.
After you get your idle where you need it, proceed to the ign. timing.
From there, the idle may either rise or drop because of how the performance was altered. Either way, it back to the curb idle screw again to place the value where you want it.
Then re-adjust the mixtures again. If the idle remains stable, go back to your timing again and look for your optimum rpm there.
After all three quit altering the speed, you have arrived at your destination.
Manifold pressure is directly related to performance, so I just keep dialing in advance to see it rise as the timing increases until I see the pressure (vacuum) begin to fall off as it becomes too far advanced.
I often drop about a degree or two of timing just to be safe, which is mostly what I use a timing light for.
My favorite timing light has an advance knob on it and also serves as a tach. It in essence can serve as a distributor machine and after I mark a TDC, I can set my baseline timing into the unit so my TDC mark becomes my desired setting.
The tach part lets me observe the full advance curve so I can see my "all in" timing when the vacuum and centrifugal advance are all in.
All recip engines make their best power right at the ragged edge of detonation.
Some engines like to run fat (rich) under acceleration at say a 12-1 ratio with the best stoichiometric ratio being around 14 pounds of air to one pound of gasoline.
An engine can run a bit more economical at a 16-1 ratio but will also be more prone to detonation when a power demand needs to be met.
This is where closed loop fuel injection rocks because it can monitor the engine and adjust the parameters on the fly.
Baseline timing at idle is just a starting point, the most important timing is overall.
On our stock bigger V-8s, total timing will always be around 34-36 degrees BTDC, while some performance engines even like a few more, but generally that can only be determined on a dynamometer in a controlled environment.
We aren't talking massive gains either, generally just a slight increase in overall power in the upper reaches of the rpm band that most drivers will never see on the street.
As a rule the ring will creep towards the retarded timing state.
Newtonian stuff, objects at rest etc.
Those lines were placed there for the manufacturer and if a wrench wants to rely on them as a vehicle ages, then good luck.
The only true way to set the top dead center on a gasoline recip engine is to remove a spark plug to access the piston crown on the #1 cylinder.
From there determine that the engine is coming up on the compression stroke by placing a finger in the plug port if assisted, or with tissue if not.
The next step is to place a dial indicator into the plug port and carefully rotate the crank until you see no more rise in the piston, then continue the rotation until you see the piston start to drop.
All of this needs to be done on the zero line of the timing tab.
From that point, turn the crankshaft backwards until the piston drops again the slowly rotate it in the normal direction until you see the travel stop.
At that point, make a mark with a sharpie pen.
Continue the rotation until you see it drop.
At that time, place another mark.
What in essence you are trying to achieve is two points in the cycle where the lull point begins and ends.
From there, split the difference and you now have a true top dead center.
Simply turning the engine backwards will not get you where you want to be due to slack in all of the chained or geared assemblies.
Pass it up then come back to it.
All final rotation must be down in the direction the engine runs.
The timing indicator on the cover will generally have a scale on it that you can use to interpolate the desired timing you want.
Too much ignition advance which produces detonation will destroy an engine.
The most damaging part of it will occur during higher rpms.
Late ignition timing while not as lethal to the engine will not give you the optimum performance.
Not only will it make the engine lazy, it will produce excessive heat in the engine as the hottest part of the combustion sequence is no longer contained in the cylinder head for proper cooling but instead starts to scorch the cylinder walls because of how thin they are to begin with.
The lazy engine effect is often compensated for with a heavier application of throttle which drags the fuel mileage down with it.
Modern fuel injected vehicles no longer have timing that can be altered because the baseline timing is set by a crankshaft sensor and altered by the input from the ECU.
From there, a "knock" sensor alerts the ecu that a detonation event has occurred and the timing is then retarded by the ecu to make it go away.
Then it diddles back up to the point where it will do it again.
After that occurs enough times, the short term memory compensation will overwrite the long term timing and fuel strategies.
Long term memory is call block learn, while the short term is called integrator.
The factory sets the computers up so they will start and drive out of the box.
The driver then teaches it how it is going to run under the parameters it is faced with, such as air temp, altitude and driving styles.
Once a driver "teaches" their ride how they are going to operate it, the info will remain in the fuel/timing maps at the norm.
You can erase all of the learned fuel and ignition timing maps by disconnecting the power to the ecu, but from there, the ride will suffer in both economy and power levels until the factory preset values are rewritten by the end user.
We call that drive cycle readiness, so after an event as simple as letting a battery go dead occurs, the ecu has to learn all over again.
If you really want to throw it a curve, let two drivers with opposing driving styles share that vehicle.
Most vehicles built now will run on just about any octane rated fuel you want to feed it because of the way ignition timing is now controlled, but at the same time, not having a high enough octane rating will force the ecu to compensate for it by retarding the timing.
Now is where the math and science part enters the equation.
A driver with a heavier foot will likely push his ecu to compensate for spark knock due to the increased cylinder pressures when they are flogging it, where a gentler drive is less likely to.
The only way to determine if a higher octane rated fuel is the answer for a driver is to collect a nice set of data points.
Run three tanks of what you normally do which will likely be the lowest number available at the pump and record the miles per gallon (L per Kilo).
Next jump up a grade and repeat.
When you hit the top tier, record it as well.
The numbers you are looking for aren't the distance travelled for the volume of fuel, but the distance you travelled for what you spent at the pump.
Sorry, this is just the basics of it.
I could go more in depth, but I think most won't want to know.
( I could have used what I learned about Ford electronic engine control IV as a thesis)
The most fun you can have is timing an engine is a Scott motorcycle. No timing marks at all! This one will make you learn new cuss words. On the plus side they're the only engine in the world where you can replace the big end rollers at the side of the road with only two different size spanners and a pair of pliers!
Many old British single cylinder bikes are pigs to start and they like biting people. I have experienced this on a 1932 Sunbeam Model 7A Lion (side valve engine). The Police had these and couldn't start them either. 600cc of viciousness that is flat out at 55mph. The viciousness comes from them kicking back if you set the manual advance wrong. This one slammed my knee into the handlebars at warp eight.
Many old British single cylinder bikes are pigs to start and they like biting people. I have experienced this on a 1932 Sunbeam Model 7A Lion (side valve engine). The Police had these and couldn't start them either. 600cc of viciousness that is flat out at 55mph. The viciousness comes from them kicking back if you set the manual advance wrong. This one slammed my knee into the handlebars at warp eight.
I was given this OSSA years ago:
https://www.autismforums.com/media/ossa-american-enduro.10991/
She was given to me because the original owner couldn't get it started.
When we got it to our shop, it nearly broke a few guys legs trying to kick it.
I had an inkling it was out of time.
When we finally opened it up, we found a woodruff key in the flywheel had been sheared.
After replacing the key, it started on the first kick.
In fact, it starts first kick every time.
The odd part of this Spanish wonder is the kickstarter on the left side.
Some Fantic bikes were even more fun. They kicked forwards! Thanks to a clever piece of design, if you broke the shaft, you had to take the engine apart to replace it.
The plastic fuel petcocks on it were leaky and available used but their conditions were unknown.
Instead of playing that game, I made my own tank fittings that were sealed with leather washers and added nice brass ball valves to it:
https://www.autismforums.com/media/leather-gasket-sealing-flanged-washer.10417/https://www.autismforums.com/media/fuel-petcock-mounting-assembly.10416/
I looked at buying a CZ one time that had a shifter that could be rotated backwards to become the kicker.
https://www.autismforums.com/data/a...01/43552_f9282e8e41fb1c2cfb35c3b4fa741d5e.jpgI took pictures of the odometer the day it rolled 222,222.2 miles
These '84-88 Toyota trucks were another favorite of mine.
I still have this 4Runner and one more 4wd pickup.
The truck is a project truck based on an '85 live axle chassis with an Isuzu 2.2l diesel, transmission and transfer case installed in it.
The cab is an '87 with the bed bring a California stepside unit made out of fiberglas.
The double bumped hood was fashioned out of an '85 Chevrolet Cavalier fiberglas one.
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Speed and poweeeeer!
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