Date:         Mon, 1 Jan 1996 14:47:56 -0800
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         sage@instanet.com (Martin Sage)
Subject:      How to hot wire a VW or what to do when your dash goes up in smoke

Hi ALL...Have I got a story
,
       Left Sat. afternoon from Burbank, drove up 101 to Salinas and then 
turned west toward Monterey. Half way there, while going up a steep grade
into Carmel Valley my van dies.  I quickly pull over and look.  No fuses blown,
starter works, gas in see-thru filter to carb but no spark to plugs.  I 
pull off the hot side of the coil and I see a spark so I know I'm getting
juice to the coil.  Pull off the dist.cap to check the points and low...what
do I see... but the tiny brown thing that rides on the dist. cam has broken off!

I'm stuck (didn't bring an extra set of points).  Sleep in my van(I'm out in
nowhere land) and set off the next morning,Sunday, to Monterey...8mi... to
get new points.  An hour of walking and a really nice guy picks me up,
drives me into town to the local FLAPS and back out to my van.  I put in the
points, turn the key and it starts right up.  Now comes the good part.

The night before while I was trying to figure out what was wrong, one of the 
things I did was disconnect my kill switch wires and taped them together (I 
thought the kill switch might have gone bad).  So, after getting the van running
I decided to re-connect the kill switch...well I don't know how I did it but
I somehow grounded the hot side because when I flipped the switch a huge puff
of smoke came out of the fuse panel...yes...I had fried the entire bundle of
wires...have you ever seen a grown man cry...to say I was having a bad day is
putting it mildly.

That's why, after hiking to a phone booth and having the AAA guy tell me it
would be meaningless for him to come out and tow me because nothing will be 
open till Tues., I accepted my fate and walked back to my van, prepared to 
celebrate the New Year alone, in the dark, on the side of the road.

It was then, back at the van, that it dawned on me that all I needed was juice
to the coil and maybe she'd run.  Crawling under the van I cut a 3ft length of
my ignition wire (the thing was dead anyway) and stripped off an inch or so 
from each end.  One end I wrapped around the hot side of my aux. selinoid switch
(although I could have connected it to the hot side of my battery) and the other
end I connected to the hot side of the coil.  I disconnected the other wire
on my aux. selinoid and touched it to the hot side ...this brought the starter
to life, and the engine started !!!! 

I drove back today ...almost 400miles ...hot wired.

Martin