Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:36:47 -0500
Reply-To: Max Wellhouse <dimwittedmoose@CFU.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Max Wellhouse <dimwittedmoose@CFU.NET>
Subject: Re: History in a glovebox and a build sheet question
In-Reply-To: <BLU162-ds21EFA1F6384B61FAC25002CEBA0@phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
Thanks for the read. I have a cople stories
semi-sim ilar too. Now I know I'm not alone.....
DM&FS
At 09:51 AM 3/28/2011, B Feddish wrote:
>It’s long:
>
>”I can't believe it is still running, and back
>in the area! My wife and I were headed through
>Delaware to meet some friends to go camping down
>on the Eastern Shore of Maryland when the car
>died. We called AAA and a tow-truck came to help
>us. We hopped in the truck as the truck was
>connected to the car. Unfortunately, about 2
>miles down the road, the driver asked me if I
>had the parking brake on, and the car in
>gear...to which I said "yes" to both... We
>looked behind and saw that the car was leaving a trail of smoke.
>
>It turns out that the brakes were cherry red,
>the clutch was destroyed, and that the engine
>was revving in first gear so fast that a rod had
>gone through the top. This allowed oil to spray
>all over the inside of the engine compartment,
>and the oil started to smoke when it came into
>contact with the super-hot engine. In other
>words, we were only seconds away from having the engine catch on fire...
>
>Needless to say, we never made it on the camping trip...
>
>When I accused AAA of having destroyed my car,
>they said that in order to prove it, I would
>have to pay to have the car totally dismantled,
>and then an inspector would evaluate the
>damage... This would prove to be expensive and a
>waste of time, as AAA would claim that the car
>was not damaged by their employee's actions.
>And, if I had sued him, there wasn't any money there to replace the car...
>
>So, as the car's body was showing signs of rust
>"cancer", we just unloaded it through Jules, who
>was our mechanic in Phoenixville.
>
>We learned about Jules through a series of
>mis-adventures. You see, every time we would
>take the car on a long roadtrip, it would die
>several times. The longer we drove it, the more
>gas it would consume, and the more smoke would
>be emitted from the exhaust pipe. Finally, the engine would just die...
>
>Once we were in rural Georgia on a Friday night
>and our arrival was the biggest excitement that
>the gas station had ever seen. Everyone from the
>Sheriff to the town's best mechanic showed up to
>look at the engine... All of the good-old-boys
>just looked at it for hours. Finally, my wife's
>incredibly good looking cousin arrived and took
>us to her house for the night. In the morning
>the car was "fixed" and we went back on our
>way... Those boys are probably still talking
>about the night a vision of loveliness in a fur
>coat whisked away a stranded Yankee family...
>
>Another time, we were in Virginia with my
>elderly mother-in-law who had just recovered
>from a stroke when the car died... We had the
>car towed to the VW dealer, and they "fixed" it again...
>
>And then there was the time when Sue called with
>a car full of frozen food on the way home from
>the supermarket... The car had died on a super-hot day in August...
>
>After each trip nightmare, I would take it to be
>fixed by a local professional. But after our
>mechanic at the Gulph station in Wayne couldn't
>fix it, we took it to Devon VW. They tried, but
>finally told us to go to <Name Removed> in
>Fraser. <Name Removed> was a VW van nut - who
>cut one down and made a miniature version of a
>van, with "Honey, I shrunk the bus..." written on the side...
>
><Name Removed> had the car apart in his shop for
>about four months, as he replaced everything
>there was to replace... But the dieing engine
>problem persisted... So, to get his shop cleared
>out, he put it back together and towed it to
>Jules in Phoenixville. His father took one look
>at the car and had it fixed in about 20 minutes...
>
>It had been an electrical problem all along. It
>seems that a previous owner had had an
>after-market air conditioner installed. And the
>installing mechanic had crimped a wire too
>tightly, so that the insulation around the wire
>was compromised, and the wire came in contact
>with the clamp - which was grounded to the
>battery.... As a result, the engine thought that
>it needed to enrich the fuel mixture, until it
>over heated and caused "vapor lock". Then,
>because the engine was "flooded" it wouldn't
>start again until after it cooled down...
>
>The mechanic who had installed the air
>conditioner had covered the crimp with what
>appeared to be a molded - factory-installed -
>cover... All of the other mechanics had just
>assumed that the wiring had been factory
>installed. But the old guy had thought to test it for continuity...
>
>So, when the car experienced the towing debacle,
>we just washed our hands of it, as it had been
>very expensive to have, and was unreliable for
>the entire time that we had had it...
>
>It was a shame, because we really enjoyed our
>road trips as a family... We had some wonderful
>experiences in Minnesota, Maine, Nova Scotia, Vermont, and places in between.
>
>But then when our daughter turned 16, it became
>her car... She complained that the color was
>"baby-<expletive> brown", and that it wasn't
>wise to give her a vehicle with two rolling
>beds... As it was, I found a pair of her
>girlfriend's shoes at the bottom of the bed in the upper loft... Ah, youth!
>
>So that all is to say that after the towing
>accident, the clutch and transmission were both replaced.
>
>Glad to hear that it ended up with a good owner!”
>
>
>
>Learn
>
>
>
>From: JordanVw@aol.com
>Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 10:29 AM
>To: uprightbassghost@HOTMAIL.COM
>Subject: Re: History in a glovebox and a build sheet question
>
>In a message dated 3/28/2011 10:21:22 A.M.
>Eastern Daylight Time, uprightbassghost@HOTMAIL.COM writes:
> If y'all
> are interested I'll post it here....
>
>
>what did he say?
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