Furious Fastback

[purplepeter]

( it was in that big box of left over parts you sold me years ago!)

[broady_6]

Ahghh, I thought it was going to be my standard comment about the timing marks

[Rhysos]

I decided to change out the Mountney steering wheel and gone back to the correct 4 spoke VW type. The wood on the aftermarket wheel had started to split and separate, so it needed to be retired sooner or later. Also, because it was a smaller 13” wheel I found that it obstructed my view of the dash gauges:

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Sometimes going back to factory stock just feels like the best option (or maybe that is my older self speaking!), but I am liking how this looks and more importantly how it feels when I am driving:

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Just got to hook the horn back up (it’s currently wired into a push button on the dash), but that is a little job for another day.

[broady_6]

Ive always liked stock, and Ive never been that old, and im still not. Youre right, the view is much improved

[Rhysos]

Cheers Broady, it’s just interesting that my appreciation of stock is increasing as I ‘mature’; that said, I am still a sucker for a low ride and a sweet set of alloys!

In other news, I’ve now swapped out that knackered old rubber air intake boot with a decent part-used one:

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Hopefully another small step towards improving the cooling of the car now that warm air cannot be drawn in from the engine compartment through the splits and cracks, like was probably happening to a degree with the old one. Incremental improvements will hopefully add up. Better than was n all that!

[Rhysos]

Happy Halloween! How is everyone? It’s been a minute, but I’ve been out and about enjoying the Fasty and getting those last rides in before the roads get salted and dampen my enjoyment until the spring. Happy to report that the car has been running well since just adjusting the timing a fraction. The car happily starts from cold and most importantly will restart once up to temperature. Maybe that is due to the cooler ambient temperatures at this time of year, but I will call that a win for now!

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Lots of little things to sort over the winter, but I have just been looking at what I need to renew the fuel tank breather system. Purple Peter recently pointed out that I was missing the all-important rubber j-shaped pipe that passes through the inner wheel well and connects to the filler. Consequently, I discovered that the hose that had been put in place by the PO had kinked up, severely restricting flow.

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With a new j-pipe acquired, I set about fitting it up, but despite my sweat I simply cannot get the integrated grommet to fit the hole. Has anyone managed to do this and if so, is there some kind of trick to getting it to fit up? If not, I will just leave it loose as it maddening task when I get it halfway on and then it pops back off!

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[purplepeter]

Did You get it from Simon? (it's an important question, as there are 2 versions, early & late, both almost identical, except that one is longer- simon's version is the longer, with the intention that you cut it down for earlier cars!)
It's a balancing act to fit, between the J pipe & the fuel filler grommet (sink plunger) but if you loosen the clip on the big rubber grommet that secures the filler pipe into the front wing, and the clips on the rubber pipe into the Tank, you can wiggle the metal fuel filler pipe itself (which you need to paint asap) either in or out a teeny bit, until the J pipe fits nicely
Don't leave it dangling, otherwise it'll slosh fuel out on ever corner!

[Rhysos]

Thanks Peter! No, not from Simon - I bought it locally along with some other good/used bits and bobs. The length between the filler connection and the inner wing is spot on, so I am confident that it is the correct part. When I say I can get it on halfway, I mean I can get the inner lip of the grommet to fit halfway around the hole, but it always pops off as I work my way around. Its a bit like what happens when refitting a bicycle tyre, if that makes sense? Perhaps this view from inside the bonnet area shows my struggle better, using a small screwdriver to lift the lip through:

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There is no tension pulling back on the rubber j-piece, its simply that I cannot get the lip of the grommet to form around the opening and thus provide a weather tight seal. However, once connected up it wouldn't be dangling; it would just have the grommet sat on the outside of the hole rather than the inner wing being sandwiched between.

I may try soaking the rubber j-piece in warm water, squirt a little Fairy liquid in the grommet seam and then use a small hook to try and coax it into place. I'll also give that filler a lick of paint whilst I am at it, you are right to point it out as I don't want that getting worse.

[purplepeter]

Don't use washing up liquid-It's full of Salt!
I'd suspect it's the roughness of the surrounding metal that's causing problems, so maybe clean & paint that area
Once installed, theres a plastic T piece that goes into the open end of the J pipe & expands it, so you only need it to hold itself in position for a few moments, but think about a splodge of mastic/underseal (Not silicone-it's full of salt!)
You'll have already tried a bit of dowel/thick screwdriver inside to J pipe to try to coax it to grip the metal.

[Rhysos]

Thanks Peter, I’ll put the washing-up liquid bottle down. It hadn’t even occurred to me that it would be bad to use as a lubricant. I will probably use a dab of motor oil instead. I’ll be bringing the car into my garage shortly, so will have time over the coming weeks to gently clean up the area and make sure the surrounding steel is perfectly smooth. Good idea to use the dowel inside the rubber of the J-piece to manipulate it into position, whilst I use the small screwdriver or hook to pull the lip through. I think that could work.

I already had the T-piece and test fitted inside the j-piece. It fits like a glove (I will add hose clamps when I do the final installation):

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I’m just going to order some connecting breather hose, I’ve measured with the callipers and it would appear to be 15mm ID. I assume I need to get low-pressure fuel safe hose, any recommendations for a good source for this? I’ll also get hold of some cloth braided vent hose that should come off the top connection of the T-piece. Fortunately, the regular VW sellers seem to keep a stock of that (3.5mm ID labelled as vacuum/breather hose).

[broady_6]

Also dont use engine oil, it will degrade the rubber. The correct thing to use is a silicone lubricant. Either a tine of grease or an areosol. I use an aerosol when fitting rubber parts and things tend to slid in rather easily after that.

Carbuilder solutions are a reliable soruce for ethanol proof fuel hose.

[937carrera]

Brickwerks are also very good for fuel hose...

[Rhysos]

Thanks Broady, I will get hold of some aerosol silicone lubricant in that case. I will look at the offerings on Carbuilder Solutions and Brickwerks (thanks David) for the hose that I need. Much appreciated!

[purplepeter]

I don't know if you've done your door cards yet Rhys?, But I remembered a tiny detail that I thought I'd better tell you
The technique I used was to stick the plastic sheet down, and then stab all the clip holes with a stanley knife, before inserting the grommet/bungs through the plastic

[purplepeter]

T'other thing I have been meaning to show you, is the original vw fuel pump mounting for FI cars
My excuse for not saying anything sooner is that all of my spare axles were down in the pit, but now they are out, and I'm in the process of cleaning them up
First pic is from behind the Beam, Second is from the front

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I'm hopeful that I'll be able to remove it from the beam without damage & if I do, it's yours, next time I see you, just so you can add it to your stash

[Rhysos]

I don't know if you've done your door cards yet Rhys?, But I remembered a tiny detail that I thought I'd better tell you
The technique I used was to stick the plastic sheet down, and then stab all the clip holes with a stanley knife, before inserting the grommet/bungs through the plastic

Thanks Peter, that is a good plan. I have cleaned up the front cards (they came up great!);

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I'm still in the process of repairing the rear cards. However, the fitting of these will need to wait a little longer as I've got a couple of pressing deadlines for some creative pursuits I am engaged with currently. In the meantime, the door cards are out in the garage, facedown with some weight on the backside in order to reduce the worst of the warping

[Rhysos]

T'other thing I have been meaning to show you, is the original vw fuel pump mounting for FI cars
My excuse for not saying anything sooner is that all of my spare axles were down in the pit, but now they are out, and I'm in the process of cleaning them up

Ahh, this is interesting to see how and where the pump was mounted on FI cars.

I'm hopeful that I'll be able to remove it from the beam without damage & if I do, it's yours, next time I see you, just so you can add it to your stash

Good man, that would be ace, but do not worry if it is not possible. I'm happy with the current mounting of the aftermarket pump, but the opportunity to utilise an original part designed for this purpose would be a bonus

[Rhysos]

I did a little job on the Fasty this weekend; replacing the aftermarket handbrake for an original item. The existing chrome jobby was truly inferior and the soft metal would easily bend and distort when the brake was firmly applied. It had to go, along with the faded red boot that now resembled a scrotum:

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The original was not without its issues, namely a huge crack running across the width of it. I thought this was a strange place for it to break and the reason why became clear when I came to fit it up. So, here it is all repaired with a big fat weld (going for strength and penetration rather than looks as this will all be covered by the new rubber boot) and painted up:

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Fitting up was straight forward, particularly as I had nice new handbrake cables to work with. Incidentally, I fitted the cables last year, which where a pain as they are essentially custom because my car runs Mk1 Golf discs on the rear. I needed to adapt the length of the outer sleeve of Mk1 handbrake cables to fit them to fasty.

Anyway, back to the task at hand; with the handbrake installed I noticed that it was binding when released about halfway down its throw. I dismantled to investigate and discovered a manufacturing burr on the bottom of the curved runner section of the handbrake, directly underneath the pivot point. I used a dremmel and a grinding wheel to smooth this off and when refitted it worked like a dream. So, I assume that the handbrake was always a little defective and the crack was probably caused over time due to metal fatigue with daily operation. No doubt it started as a stress fracture and inevitably opened up until it was no longer usable.

Well, it has now been repaired, fully functional and good for years to come:

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[broady_6]

Excellent attention to detail while undertaking what could have been a slapdash quick job!

[Rhysos]

Thanks Broady, I do my best to make sure that my fixes are lasting. It's a satisfying feeling to know that each little task ticked off of the list brings the overall standard and reliability of the car up by a small fraction. Over time all these incremental improvements will add up

[Rhysos]

What a glorious spell of sunny weather! I decided it was time to wake the fasty from slumber this weekend and get back out on the roads. I had a DIY-related errand to run, so it was a good excuse for a shake-down spin. I have been turning the engine over and occasionally driving up and down the back lane over winter to keep things moving (like exercise for the car), so after a quick check over she was ready to go.

As I headed out the car did feel sluggish, but previously I have found that she gets ‘congested’ after sitting a while until I have driven a few miles and blown out the cobwebs. About a mile down the road I started getting some backfiring, so turned and headed for home. When I got near home the car improved and calmed down, so I went back on my way and covered about 4 miles to the DIY shop (comfortably hitting 50mph on the dual carriageway). I got my DIY bits and then when I went to restart she took a fair bit of cranking to get going again (even with the carbs primed). Hmmm.

About halfway back the road starts going uphill and the car started losing power and would need more revs to maintain momentum. However, as the revs increased, so did the backfiring. It got insanely loud, this was particularly undesirable as I was on a quiet residential road that I found myself on. I pulled over in an emergency just as the engine cut out:

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I checked the car over. Verified fuel, checked points gap, checked electricals. Everything seemed good, but she would not restart. I dug deeper and removed the whole air filter unit. When I manually operated the carbs, I could see that the small amount of fuel from the accelerator pump was vaporising and turning to smoke as soon as it came into contact with the manifold when throttle butterfly opens (more so on the left-hand side):

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Crap, seems like the return of perennial overheating problem (although the engine block itself was not particularly hot)! I let the car sit for 30mins until everything was cool. It took a lot of cranking, but the engine did come back to life and then I was able to get on my way and observed that the backfiring had mostly stopped. Drove straight back home parked up and now need to troubleshoot.

My theory is that I maybe have a vacuum leak that is causing the car to run lean. The heat builds in the manifold(s) and then I think the back firing is happening through the carb(s). I will get out tomorrow and use a can of engine starter aerosol to hunt for the source of the vacuum leak, if that is what it is. Can you guys think of anything else that I should be looking into?

[purplepeter]

Double check that the fuel cut off solenoids are tight & the spade connections to them
Next thing would be fuel filter(s)

[Rhysos]

Thanks Peter, I just popped out in my lunchbreak and checked that the fuel cut-off solenoids were getting power, which they are (both click when the spade terminal is reconnected).

In terms of fuel filter, I recently checked along the length of the car and didn’t locate any hidden filters and the one connected to the electronic fuel pump has only covered a few hundred miles of driving. I also checked the condition of the fuel tank when I had the fuel sender out and it looked relatively clean without any crud floating about.

I started the car up and sparing used some ‘easy start’ spray to hunt for air leaks around the bottoms of the carbs and manifolds. No change to the pitch of the engine, so I think that things are all good in that department.

Whilst the engine was idling I noticed that the choke on the left side was not moving at all as the engine warmed up. The right side fully opens in about 4/5mins of running and returns to fully closed when cooled. Alas, no signs of life on the left side, so I wonder if this defunct choke element could be the source of my woes?! Would a stuck (mostly closed) choke element on a dual carb car lead to backfiring and hot start issues?

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Anyway, in my spares trunk I fortunately had I did had a new 12v choke element which I picked up some time ago, after the spade terminal broke off the original and I figured it’s days might be numbered (good intuition):

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I fitted up and adjusted. Ran the engine and it now effortlessly opens and closes the choke on the carb like a champ (if anything, it is now quicker in operation than the right-hand side!). I shall take it for a spin this evening and see if it has improved the situation. Fingers crossed!

[Rhysos]

1st April indeed! I had only just got the car off the driveway this evening when it backfired and stalled when put under load Could not get her to restart for the life of me and eventually had to enlist a neighbour to help push her back onto the drive. Sigh, well, it looks like something more substantial is going on. I will have some time towards the end of the week to investigate and will look at the ignition system, as I know I have fuel to the carbs. I will also reconfirm the timing and maybe check compression. I will get there...

[purplepeter]

I know I sound like a broken record, but always check the solenoids are tight- they have a habit of unscrewing themselves, causing lumpy running, backfiring, refusal to start & lots of head scratching/moments of despair. Also check that full throttle range isn't dislodging the spade terminals
Check that the balance pipe fittings are nice & tight
When you look at the timing, humour me & try the test bulb method, rather than a timing light
I take it you have got bakelite spacers between the carb & manifold? (quick, visual check)
I'll also assume that you haven't been playing with the carb settings?
And.. you are using the correct starting proceedure aren't You?