[T2] And the bus is home again!

[Chris Dreike]

Sami,
Thanks for the update. Can't wait to hear if the timing change fixes the
overheat problem.

Chris

On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 6:22 PM Sami Dakhlia <sami.dakhlia at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's been 30 years since I bought the bus, almost that long since I joined
> the original vanagon list, and close to a decade since I last posted on
> type2, at least on a regular basis, so here is a much overdue update.
>
> We moved to France in 2010, took the '79 bug with us, but left the '75 bus
> with my brother, way up there in the Santa Monica Mountains. Already back
> then, it had an issue with poor performance and the drive from Mississippi
> (where we used to live) to the bus's new home in California (with a pit
> stop at David Schwarze's place in Dallas - hey David!) ended in Flagstaff,
> Arizona, at which point we rented a UHaul and trailer and schlepped this
> drama queen of a bus the rest of the way to L.A.
>
> The issue that had beleaguered the bus over 11 years ago was poor top-end
> performance: head temperatures quickly climbing up to 420F/215C and oil
> temps past 250F/120C. Back in 2010, having fiddled with the timing to no
> avail, I eventually latched on to a theory that it might be running
> excessively lean, perhaps because the '75 L-jetronic was optimized for a
> 1.8 liter engine, not the replacement 2-liter engine now on board.
>
> A BS theory, debunked by Chris Dreike (hey Chris!) about 5 years ago while
> I visited family in California. He hooked up his wideband O2 sensor to the
> tailpipe and we got 11.8 to 12.5 AFR depending on load, so no lean running.
> Chris and I continued to exchange emails long after and he eventually
> encouraged me to look again at the timing. In place of the original but
> sloppy dual vacuum dizzy was a newish SVDA, which I had been timing at 7.5
> BTDC (as opposed to 5 ATDC for the dual vac dizzy). But being overseas, I
> was just not able to investigate the matter further. In the meantime, my
> nephew got his driver's license and drove the bus, but it ran worse and
> worse, holding up Topanga Canyon traffic.
>
> Well, we moved back to the U.S. three years ago (beautiful Chattanooga,
> Tennessee), built a two-car garage during Covid time, and finally brought
> the bus into its new home right before Christmas (we had it shipped). It
> needed much TLC after having been neglected for so long. A good polish
> brought back luster. I changed the oil (whoever changed oil last time put
> in a Dynalube oil filter - the horror!). Old seals and vacuum hoses needed
> to be replaced. Doors needed lubrication, and so forth.
>
> And this time around, I bought a digital timing light and timed the bus at
> [what I _think_ is] 28 BTDC @ 3,500 rpm (vac hose off), which is 2-3
> degrees less than where it was before! (The notch in the pulley now points
> to 5 BTDC at idle.) The bus has a lot more pep than what I remember,
> especially uphill, and I plan to take it on a longer highway run to test it
> some more.
>
> But wait, there's more! the reason I'm actually not sure it's really timed
> at 28 BTDC @ 3500 rpm is that I have some doubts about the accuracy of the
> two timing scales, one old and sagging plastic, the other shiny aluminum. I
> don't know which one (if any) is accurate, but they disagree with a
> non-trivial difference of 3 degrees between the two. Right now, my timing
> is based on the new aluminum scale, which points to more advance, so that I
> will have dialed in less advance than with the old plastic one.
>
> Long story short, the combination of using a different timing scale and
> timing at full centrifugal advance rather than at idle means that timing is
> now set at 5 to 6 degrees less than before. It's a big difference.
>
> Sami
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