There’s a special place in my heart for air-cooled Volkswagens. I’ve owned five or six over the years and am glad to see that there is still a significant number running around.
The other day, a very smart 1966 model – the first Beetle with a 1 300 cm3 engine – turned up in the forecourt and I rushed out of the office to talk to the owner. His name was Tony and he turned out to be a fellow Beetle enthusiast. He bought the car six months ago after a long search for a good example and drove it to our town to stay with a friend for a few days.
I invited Tony in for coffee and rusks and he soon revealed that he was a bit disappointed in the car’s pulling power at large throttle openings, especially when he compared it with a friend’s 1300. The car recently had a complete service, with new plugs and distributor points.
I offered to have Hennie look at the engine and he started by checking the more obvious items such as the throttle-cable adjustment, fuel pressure and ignition timing. When Tony and I strolled out to see how he was getting on, he had a puzzled look on his face. “I can’t find anything wrong, so it’s time to start clutching at straws,” he said. “There’s one other possibility. Do you remember that blue Beetle with the hideous wheel trims that had a fuel-delivery problem?”
I certainly did. On a Beetle, the fuel pump is driven by a pushrod that is activated by a cam on the distributor driveshaft. On high-mileage engines, the pushrods sometimes wear to such an extent that the consequent shorter pump stroke reduces the fuel delivery. The blue car had this fault.
Hennie then removed the pump, measured the rod length and pronounced that our diagnosis was correct. A new rod was ordered, installed two days later and Tony reported that the Beetle was now up to full song.
