Date:         Sat, 16 Mar 1996 18:45:21 PST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Clay_Perry@we.xerox.com (Perry,Clay)
Subject:      Lima Bean rolls under its own power (78) long

The Lima Bean (working name "the incredible piece of sh*t") rolled out 
 of the garage under its own motivation today. I spent the entire day 
 rapping up loose ends and tracking down bugs before she finally fired 
 up. This project has been comprised of a new engine, new trans, 
 removal of AC unit, VDO gauge installation and rebuilding a butchered  
 electrical system. 

The PO (or FPO) considered using those cheesy squeeze on electrical 
 taps, you know the kind that the acne poster boy at U-Haul wants to 
 tie into your lighting system with , as the cure for any ailment. This 
 wiener had bypassed sections of wire using these taps to go around a 
 blown fuse, a pinched wire and any time he thought having 12 volts 
 right at that point would be a good idea. I removed all this and fired 
 up the soldering iron and the shrink tube and went to work, in about 
 two hours I re-fixed everything that Mr. Electron had "fixed" before. 
 I also mounted the gauges and wired them to the instrument lights and 
 the fuse box. One good thing about removing the AC is that I know have 
 an extra fuse block just for accessories with both key on and constant 
 voltage lines.

With gauges working I attempted to fire up the motor the first time. 
 Crank crank crank build the oil pressure up, connect the coil to the 
 distributor, crank crank crank, wait this should go boom boom boom 
 now. I check for spark-- yup got spark, I pull a injector line --no 
 gas . I run through the Bentley check on the double relay and show all 
 the volts are correct, I then climb down and check the voltage at the 
 fuel pump, nada, back track and find one more &@%%$#^!%& splice on 
 this line. For some reason the end of the wire is cut off next to the 
 fuel pump but this rocket scientist taps into the wire back in the 
 engine compartment and runs a parallel line to the pump leaving the 
 original end of the wire exposed to the elements. I pull that mess 
 out, solder the wires together, seal it up and the pump works fine 
 Yeah!.  Remove an hour and half of my day for all this trouble shooting.

I try to start it again get some pops and barks. I think, wow must be 
 timing or something so I drag out my dwell meter and crank it over- 
 pow -bark - pop -pop I look at the meter, sure enough showing about 70 
 degrees of dwell no wonder it doesn't work. So I pull the distributor 
 and check the points that's funny their a little tight but not bad . 
 Chuck the distributor back in and check the dwell again --- still 70 
 degrees what the hell , a moment of head scratching and sobbing takes 
 place before I realize the dwell meter is set on "tach" DOH! Waste 
 another hour on stupidity.  Flip the switch to dwell and 45 degrees is 
 mine, but it still wont run so I static time it, I didn't move the 
 distributor in its clamp when I took it off the old engine so it 
 shouldn't be too bad I theorize, I roll the engine over  and it shows 
 about 40 degrees too advanced, oh well so much for my theory. After 
 setting the advance the engine catches sputters and dies, I try again 
 and It starts but wont run down low, that's OK this is the first time 
 it has been started so I run it up and down the revs a bit until it is 
 getting warm and shut it down. I repeat this for a bit all the while 
 watching my new VDO's for any problems. After a few cycles the engine 
 begins to run smoother so its time for the first ride around the 
 block. Everything works fine but the motor will not run off throttle 
 and dies at stop signs and if I let off the gas and push in the 
 clutch, I drive it home and park in the driveway.

QUESTION: This bus hasn't ran for about 8 months, could I have a gummed 
 up injector problem or may be I missed something during assembly. I am 
 going to let it sit tomorrow and take a day off from the bus and think 
 about it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I want to thank everyone that has sent me advice during this project, 
 the depth of knowledge in this list always amazes me. I want to thank 
 Gary Shea for moral support and quality control. I also want to thank 
 Bob Hoover for being Bob Hoover.

My suppliers were-
Mark Stephens
Rebuilt 2.0 motor, very professional and a pleasure to do business with

Transform
Rebuilt tranny with a lower ring and pinion for climbing all these 
 hills, they changed the 4th gear ratio to allow me to speed on the 
 freeway. They responded to my urgent cries and delivered the tranny to 
 my door within 4 days wow!

RMMW
A bunch of parts including clutch stuff. This organization sets the 
 bench mark for customer service.

Chirco
Gauges. They shipped the wrong sending unit for the oil temp gauge, so 
 I shipped it back with a request for the engine sump model. They don't 
 stock that unit so they credited my account immediately for the 
 returned stuff.

I felt great  working with everybody involved, I have had problems in 
 the past with mailorder and have heard horror stories, but I had no 
 problems at all with these people recommend all of the above.

Now to clean the garage :-(

I'm bussin
Clay