Date:         Sun, 31 Aug 97 22:22:10 EDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Sean Bartnik <sbart7kb@www.mwc.edu>
Subject:      vanagon@gerry.sdsc.edu


Hey all,
Well, the Bug-Out trip to Manassas this weekend went pretty well:

Saturday Bob Busick held one final party for his VW club, which died due
to lack of member participation.  So he cleaned out the club treasury
and got lots of food for a cookout :-)

Many club members were there, who I had not met before along with Sonny
Flamer, who I knew from the Kiptopeke trip I organized last March, and
of course Bob and his wife, etc.

I have seen Bob's '69 Westy a few times but hadn't seen his '71 double
cab yet, and I must say, I was very impressed.  I could see myself in a
single or double-cab.  :-)  He also has a '68 Beetle convertible which
is very nice, and a more modern VW Cabriolet.

Anyway, the party was a success, with some fine barbecue, I might add.
We were about to head to Bull Run to camp when Steve showed up at the
door, minus his bus, which died down the road.

So we piled in my '81 (which had many tools and some spare parts) and
set about diagnosing the problem.

We seemed to be getting no points action, so Steve adjusted the dwell.
Still wouldn't start.

We knew the dwell was close enough for it to start, so Steve decided to
check for spark.  No spark.

I, thinking incorrectly, said a faulty condenser might lead to a
no-spark condition, which, upon thinking about it later, is probably not
the case.  However, the points were new as was the coil, but the
condenser was not replaced at the last tune-up.  So I gave Steve my
spare points/condenser set and he pulled the distributor to install them
(gotta pull the distributor on the Type 4 engine to install the
condenser).

So we put in a new condenser and a new set of points, both Bosch, and
tried it again.  Still no spark.

We knew we had 12v to the coil, as the VOM proved but we weren't getting
spark out.

It turns out the coil indeed was the culprit.  This was a Bosch blue
coil, which, bought five years or so ago, had only been in service in
Steve's bus for a week and a half.  Still looked very new, it was hard
to believe it was bad.  We got the coil from Bob's crewcab and put it in
Steve's Bus, and Steve's promptly fired right up.

Now, as I understand it, the condenser is basically a capacitor that
feeds back some juice to the coil, allowing a somewhat higher-voltage
spark, correct?  So if the condenser is bad, you may get a spark, but
just not a very good one?  Or can it go bad so that you get no spark at
all?

Anyway, during that adventure, Tom Draffen showed up in his '78, ready
to lend a helping hand :-)

So after we got all that straightened out, we all convoyed to Bull Run
park for a night of camping by the fire.  Met up there with a fellow
named Chris and his two kids, in an '83 air-cooled Vanagon.

Sunday morning we got up at 0-dark-30 with hopes of making it to the
speedway by 7:00.  Alas, it was not to be.  By the time we stopped for
breakfast at McDonald's (which had one person working the counter,
apparently not prepared for the 7:30 Sunday morning rush of VW freaks)
and got re-grouped, we got to the Speedway around 8:00.  We drove to the
end of the very long line of VWs waiting to get in the grounds.

We were able to get in as a VW club as Bob still had the banner for the
club, and this was probably the last club outing :-)

At that point we all split off, I went to the swap meet to see what I
could find.  I found a good used hubcap to replace the Japanese
counterfeit (not quite a VW logo) hubcap I had on the driver's rear
wheel.

I also got the two clamp assemblies that hold the heater cables to the
flapper boxes.

Steve kindly replaced my points and condenser set that his Bus consumed
and got Bob another coil.

And my girlfriend, Christy, got me some goodies for my birthday :-)

The show cars were pretty much the same as last year, I remember seeing
a lot of the same, still there were some standouts, like a very nice red
Porsche 356 Speedster, and a very nice orange Porsche 914.  Also a
couple good Buses with excellent tents.  Unfortunately, the custom &
lowered contingent appeared to be stronger this year, while I prefer the
showroom stock cars :-)

I signed the official VW trailer at the VW booth, and they had a
screenign tent where they were showing a bunch of old VW television ads
from the '50s and '60s.


I saw a set of wheels for the Karmann Ghia I wanted, but as I have
nowhere to store them I decided to hold off on buying them for now :-)

Christy and I left around 2 as we had to get back to Fredericksburg to
do some studying; we are not off from school tomorrow even though it is
a holiday.

Sean


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