On Wed, 19 Jun 2019 20:00:19 -0500, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 16:41:34 -0400, Wade Garrett wrote:

On 6/17/19 9:09 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jun 2019 18:48:59 -0400, Wade Garrett
wrote:

On 6/17/19 5:08 PM, Vic Smith wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jun 2019 16:49:24 -0400, Clare Snyder wrote:

On Mon, 17 Jun 2019 14:29:32 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Jun 2019 23:45:01 -0600, rbowman
wrote:

On 06/16/2019 09:52 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 16 Jun 2019 21:07:17 -0600, rbowman
wrote:

On 06/16/2019 07:38 PM, wrote:
BMW is a whole other thing. It means Bring More Wampum. A ****ing
battery can cost you $500 by the time you get out the door. .

That philosophy has carried over to their bikes.

Pretty soon you figure out why they lost the war. Everything German is
very expensive, over engineered and hard to maintain.
One exception might be the old VW bugs but even they had some strange
stuff, like threaded exhaust fittings. Then of course there was the
gas tank, guaranteed to arrive first at the crash.


I had an Audi back in the day. They must have improved quite a bit since
they're still in business. It took VW a bit to figure out how to put the
engine and drive wheels in front.

In its defense Nixon dreamed up the 55 mph speed limits after I bought
it and it really didn't have a gear to handle that speed.

If you had an old (36 HP) Beetle the 55 MPH speed limit wasn't an
issue. That was about all they would do.
The REALLY old beetle (mine was a 1949) anything over 45 you KNEW you
were going downhill with a tailwind - - - -

I commonly did 70-80 mph in my stock '64. 90 mph downhill. The 36 HP did 65-70 mph.

I had a '66, the first car I ever bought new. My father had an Pan Am
airline pilot buddy with a side-gig buying Beetles on his layovers in
Germany, He imported them back to the US and sold them for a lot less
that the car would cost at a dealer.

I really liked the car and drove it until the early 70's. At that point,
it was burning a quart of oil per tankful of gas so I decided to trade
it on a new car, although it was in pretty decent shape otherwise.

But one of the secretaries in my office said she wanted to buy the car
and wasn't scared off by what I told her about the oil-burning. I told
her emphatically that if she didn't add a quart of oil at each fill up,
the engine would seize... and somewhat reluctantly, sold it to her for a
very low price.

Long story short- she didn't and it did- the first month she owned it.
She came back at me madder than hell- saying I didn't think you really
meant it about the oil. She said she thought my stories and warning
about adding a quart per tankful were just an office joke.

Last time I sold anything to anyone I knew!

Was it burning the oil or just leaking? Those push rod tubes were
famous for dripping. There were a few tricks to plug the leak but the
right fix was to pull the jugs and put in new tubes. On an old VW,
dropping the engine was a 2 hour thing and more like an hour the
second time you did it. Two guys could easily hold it or one guy (me)
and a floor jack.
I bought a 58 bug and made a dune buggy out of it. Before it was over,
I got to know quite a bit about VWs.

Best I recall, it was burning, not leaking,

Bug engines were toast after 60-70k miles, max, because of blow-by.
The jugs simple wore out. The used bug I bought from a friend was a real dog.
Think it had 60k miles on it. I bought a set of jugs/pistons/rings for 70 bucks and
ground new valves with a reversible drill. Never had an issue with the valve tubes,
and never opened the crankcase.
Put another 50k miles on it before rust killed it. I said before it was stock, but I put a
Bosch mechanical advance distributor on it.
Reliable car, and cheap.