Aircooled VW South Africa

Vintage man wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2020 12:42 pm Bus running lekker ,in the garden,wish I could take it for a drive.
Fitted a dissy that I found in all my vw parts zozo.
023 905 205al
Only concerns I got now is no vacuum on idle but just as you take it of idle there is vacuum.Is this normal?
The other one is when I connect my dwell angle terminal to the coil it shocks me and never done that before what could cause this.

Once again appreciate all the advise from you guys.

Again, there are many other factors here. What carb do you have on? Many of the earlier carbs are made to work with a distributor that has vacuum advance only. A mix of these is bad news.

Have you verified this distributor has the correct vacuum canister? Again, it may have been swapped in its previous life and is completely incorrect.

Incorrect timing, especially if its over advanced = pre-detonation = hole in pistons

Hi Sean

34 PIC aftermarket. Vacuum advance unit no numbers on.If i check that the maximum advance is correct will it be safe then.
Just worried as I dont want to damage this motor as its newly rebuilt.

It should be ok then. To check, with timing light installed, suck on a hose connected to the vac can and see if timing advances.
Those Aftermarket carbs can be nightmares

Thanks Tony

So !,....found the old "points" coil and it gives me 4 ohms,....the black one on the left of pic





The "electronic points" coil gave me a reading of 3.5 ohms,......maybe why the "points" have been lasting ?????
3.5 seem to be in the 'range' ?
Have connected the black( 4 ohms) coil into the car for now.

Any views on this lot ?

Haans

both are points type coils, not electronic type coils
electronic ignition coils would be less than 2 ohms

As Tony mentioned, they are both points coils and as I suspected, the coil supplied with that "electronic points" kit is a Bosch blue coil. They don't paint them blue anymore, but its the same part number as the originals.

The Bosch blue coil is good quality and it will work just find with standard points. Although they give a slightly stronger spark than the standard black ones, its far from the power of a electronic ignition coil.

Point,......would it be the reason that I was lucky up to now,......would I "s..t..re..c..h? My luck with the 4 Ohm coil. OR should I just replace the "electronic" points,......or run it until it "drops" me

I know you could be "gatvol" by now of this topic !!,.......but I prefer being "well informed" before I mess a thing further up

Haans
"

You might get more life out of it with the 4ohm unit.
I still dont trust them.
But the commonly found condensers today are pretty shiv quality too

Good I have now been forwarned!!!!! Thanks gents
Haans

Thanks for all the input.
Bus idles and rev sweet now.
What I did --- timed the engine at 30 degrees at 3500 rpm.When I can drive the bus again I will see if I must go to 32 or 28 degrees.
Set at 30 with out vacuum advance unit connected and when connected its over the 30 degrees.

Go to 28. It doesn’t make any more or less power than 30 but it lets things run a touch cooler and if you start getting close to knocking, then the extra 2deg helps prevent it

It really is amazing how well things run when you set the timing properly.

While seeing rotors being talked about on another thread, another thought popped to mind for this thread.

If fitting the proper electronic ignition (not electronic points or similar) you must have the appropriate rotor as well, They may look the same, but are not. There is a resistor inside rotors and they differ between points and electronic. Using a points rotor with electronic ignition will cause it to melt in quite a short space of time.

If you have a rev limiting rotor (from a 1.9 or 2.1 wbx) those will already be working fine as they are for electronic ignition.

That is a very good point Sean.
I had forgotten about that.
The points systems have the resistor in the rotor for radio suppression, but yes, running them on a electronic system will cause the resistor to burn up.
You get fancy "max spark" rotors advertised for when you run electronic ignition systems (normally aimed at MSD and similar), but these are nothing more than the 1900 rotors or early golf rotors (from memory)