Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:54:15 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: stumped
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sure, it's quite possible to get the distributor drive shaft/gear in
incorrectly, ....resulting in # 1 spark plug position on the distributor cap
being not where it belongs. I've seen that about 50 times on VW bugs.
however........it sure is darn easy to tell which cylinder it's firing on .
Since # 1 is the right forward cylinder, when the vales for its 'paired
opposite' cylinder, # 3, the left forward cylinder.........when the valves
for $ 3 are at 'point of balance' ( intake just closing, exhaust just
starting to open, if turning the engine forward ) .....when 3 is like that,
it's on # 1.
it could happen in waterboxers too, but those cases are so seldomly spit
that there's little opportunity for people to put the dist drive shaft in
wrong.
One important tip - always keep the distributor or something, like a wine
cork, in the distributor hole in the block.....
if you turn the engine with the distributor removed, there is some change of
the shaft lifting up ..........
and jamming even , due to two small metal rings on the bottom of it that can
get cocked out of place, if that shaft lifts up.
even splitting Type I cases, I leave the distributor in the left case half
the whole time. But I never touch that stuff anymore now anyway.
Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Allan Streib" <streib@CS.INDIANA.EDU>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 6:44 AM
Subject: Re: stumped
> On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:20 -0800, "Scott Daniel - Turbovans"
> <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM> wrote:
>
>> perhaps a Tiico engine is differnt, but on all other VW engines, it's
>> not possible to put the distributor in 180 out, but it's easy to check
>> if that's suspected.
>
> Years ago I had an air cooled beetle with the distributer 180 degrees
> out. Actually it was not the distributor but the drive shaft. During
> a reassembly, the distributor drive shaft had been dropped in 180
> degrees out of phase. Everything ran great, but anyone who was
> familiar with these engines would have been puzzled by which wires went
> to which plugs.
>
> Allan
> --
> 1991 Vanagon GL
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