my bus is sick...
i bought a ’66 vw bus a couple months back in escazu. dawn found it on craigslist and convinced me that i needed to have it to complete one of many dreams i’ve had, owning a split window bus in the tropics. so i made the trip to escazu, bought it, and drove it back to the caribbean the next day, a 5 hour drive, with not a single issue.
due to the rough roads around here, i noticed the other day when i was having problems starting the bus, that the voltage regulator bolts had wiggled loose and the regulator itself had fallen and was sitting on the oil filler. not good! so i got new bolts and re-mounted the voltage regulator so that it was grounded and she fired right up.
then a couple days later i go to drive at night and realize my headlights are out. i found the loose connector at the brights foot switch, re-connected it and got my lights back on. but now the bus won’t start at all. it just turns and turns like there’s no spark anymore. there’s gas, the filter is clean, and the carb is getting gas. i’m getting a little nervous of running the battery dead, and there’s no one around here with a charger.
so i’m putting this out there to see if i can use my blog to get some much needed vw mechanic help.
also, i’m trying to fix this by myself with very limited tools. there are no real mechanics around here, and i’m hoping to get some of my vw tools and battery charger when dawn gets back here in another month.
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I can’t say for sure….but your description reminds me of when I had a similat situation with my car…and come to find out the battery was just plain dead. I had bought the battery only a year or two before, but I had an alternator problem not too long before that, and apparently that helped to flat-out kill the battery (something about too many charges and discharges) It might be worth checking out by hooking up a fresh battery.
Hey,
It’s a stick. Get a bunch of kids to push it, and pop the clutch. Just remember to park it facing down hill.
thought of that, but it’s all really flat around here.
I don’t know from VWs, But I’d verify spark/no-spark before getting too deep into things. You can pull one of the plugs (or use a spare), connect it to the spark plug lead, hold the base of the plug to ground, and have someone crank the engine. You will either see spark or won’t. Be careful a) not to hold directly onto the plug – you can get a nasty shock b) not to hold the plug near the carb or any spilled fuel – risk of fire is low, but present.
right, i just need to get someone to give me a hand to check for spark. i don’t have the right wrench to crank the main pulley to check for spark on my own.
I have a 66 Bug and I finally bit the bullet and installed a completely new wiring harness. The wiring is 44 years old! How can you depend on it? Get a good wiring harness and have at it. The instructions are easy to follow. If I can do it, you can. I bet if you do some of these annoying electrical gremlins go away and you can focus on fuel and compression.
Mike
Cleveland, Ohio
that seems a bit overkill when it was just running, but i understand what you mean. plus the wiring was redone not that long ago by the previous owner.
That’s good, at least you know the wiring harness is recent vintage. You may just want to go through it carefully and make sure that the PO didn’t screw something up along the way. Good luck, and enjoy your bus.