Hello, LuLu community! If you’ve been following along for awhile, you know that LuLu has had some starting problems that have been making everyone scratch their heads. If you haven’t been following along, you can read all the tales in order:
Getting LuLu Home
The Tune-up
Our First Trip
Starting Problems
Project LuLu: Did You Turn it On?
LuLu Takes a Trip
Off to the Mechanic
After years of trying to figure out this problem with the help of many hands, it was time to call in the mechanic. Unfortunately, until recently, I didn’t really have the means to take LuLu to a mechanic so I’m extremely thankful for the community and all of the work they put in to help me solve things. Regardless of what was necessary and what wasn’t, at the end of the day I think LuLu is better for it.
The Problem
So, what was the problem? It’s a little complicated and convoluted so I’ll do my best to explain.
There were two components to this problem. One was electrical and one was fuel related. I know we had an electrical issue because my long-time friend, Kyle, is both a mechanic and an electrician. He was having trouble getting to the root cause as to why we were losing power and I completely trust in his process. So we really replaced all of the electrical components, except for the alternator and the distributor. I set to work on getting a new battery and replacing the distributor and that seemed to help, but not solve, the problem.
The other component was the fuel-air mixture. LuLu has shot up several fireballs, resulting in now two fires. The reason? One part of her carburetor had been essentially tightened too much, causing it to strip and make the hole too big. This resulted in too much fuel, essentially flooding her, and when she did finally start she would backfire and literally backfire.
The Solution
So, those were the two main issues. The distributor and the carburetor were the main culprits. The original distributor was missing a spring and the condenser had been cut. My mechanic, Ellis, replaced the spring and used the condenser from the new carburetor on the old carburetor. Voila! One problem solved.
The carburetor issue was two-fold. First, that hole was too big. Second, the carburetor was filthy. To solve both issues, we put in a new carburetor. It was something I had been trying to avoid for a long time, but I also knew it was a possibility.
What’s Next?
I have two outstanding issues related to starting – the first one is that when she gets hot (and Volkswagens run hot), she won’t restart. Pretty normal, but I need to figure out how to get around that. The second is that I need to learn how to properly adjust her carburetor. There was approximately a 1000′ elevation change between the mechanic and my house and now air-fuel mixture seems off. I live in Colorado and elevation changes like that happen quickly, so I really need to know how to handle it.
Honestly, both of those are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. I’m a little nervous to f*** it up, though, considering where we’ve been and where we’re at now. Unrelated to starting, I am going to be ordering new tail lights. Hers are technically fine, but the gasket is disintegrated and the plastic is real crusty. And I hate to say it, but I need to make a new curtain, re-install the curtain rods that have broken, and replace the headliner again because it fell down. I’ll be soon to start on body work but I have to wait for my respirator to arrive, and hopefully, some cooler temps.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the support to all my readers, followers, and friends who have put in their time working on this. I appreciate you!
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