Aircooled VW South Africa

that is the manifold pre-heater tube.
If you have a stock exhaust, then you will smell the exhaust gas coming out of it when the engine is running.
If you have an aftermarket exhaust, then it is either blanked off or blocked with carbon.

Not having it is a cause for the occasional flat spot, but it wont kill the engine

If thats the intake manifold I would say you found the problem.May be the reason the PO sold it.

Best to do fault finding when the fault occurs.

Be prepared, have the necessary tools ready to do fault-finding. Then drive till car stops.

Excellent advice so far in the first replys.

73type2 wrote:
"To check whether you've run out of fuel you could open the carb top immediately after the car has stalled to see whether the float bowl is empty."
This would be the first test to do once the car had died.

Also confirm that spark is still present. Take an old plug, bend the electrode a bit more open, stick a plug wire onto it. If you do not have someone to turn starter key, put in neutral and turn engine by hand. Or, if on level ground, put in 4th and push car forward to turn engine.

We simply have to confirm everyting when doing proper fault-finding.
Throwing new parts at a situation "Russian roulette style" often just wastes time and money. (One could have bought several faulty new condensers without knowing, etc).

Tony wrote:
"1) did you tighten the fuel pump flange recently? If this is too tight, it can bind on the pushrod when warm causing the pushrod to stop moving, this stops the pump from pumping and your carb runs out of fuel. When all cools, the pushrod drops back out and works again for a short while until the process repeats."

The two 13mm fuel pump nuts should never be much tighter than finger-tight. Nowhere near as tight as other 13mm nuts.
Otherwise, as Tony mentioned, the bakelite mountingblock may grab the operating rod at operating temperature. I use nylock nuts and a swivel-spanner there.

An uncle used this as his "security device". He only used his beetle to work, which was a few kilos away. He would adjust the fuel pump mounting nuts until he just made it to work. Sometimes, on a hot day, the car would cut out a block before his workplace. Then he just left it there till afternoon, knowing that a thief would'nt get too far.

I don't want to talk too soon, but......I think my nightmare is over....
Replaced fuel line with better quality stiffer sidewall fuel hose and rerouted the line slightly as far as possible from heat sources, took the fuel filter out from under the body and put it in line between the fuel pump and carb, took the fuel pump off, cleaned the flange and pushrod and refitted, did some fine tuning on the carb and so far so good. I went on my normal test drive route and it purrs like a kitten, no hint of the problems previously experienced.....

Well done Jack.
Now, take the fuel filter out of the engine bay and put it back next to the gearbox where it belongs.
You have taken it from the low pressure where if it leaks the fuel will drip out onto the road and moved it to the high pressure side where if it leaks it will spray out all over the electrics and hot surfaces.
Remember, the open flash point of petrol is around 45degC, which means that if you heat it to 45 in your engine bay (not in the hose) it will self ignite.

Have you ever wondered why it is that when you see a beetle driving which has previously had an engine fire, the fire is always on the left side of the engine bay?? Keep your fuel filter where it is and you'll find out.
Move it back to the gearbox and you wont have to worry.

Thanks Tony, will do soonest...

Thank you everyone for advice on sorting out my latest Beetle issues.

Jack Nel wrote: ↑Fri Jul 20, 2018 9:34 am Thank you everyone for advice on sorting out my latest Beetle issues.

Herman