Evidently, Zen didn't go straight to a gas station :p . How far from a station were you when you ran out of gas that time, Zen

Poor Zen :laugh:

How far from a station were you when you ran out of gas that time, Zen

I lucked out and was able to coast back into my driveway . . .

Allright, it's back in and spinning!  Wow, I started pulling it on Sept 30 and finished Oct. 16!  Shows how much free time I've had lately!  The alternator pedestal, intake manifold (which cleverly attaches onto the studs that would hold the fuel pump on a carb. car.  The hole's still there.)  compressor and brackets (but not the hoses, thank God!), air cleaner, coil pack, rear engine tin (to remove the lower compressor bracket, which attaches to the exhaust studs), fan shroud, distributor cover and rotor (for clearance for the removal of the intake manifold), several things that have wires going to them (beats me what they do), and gobs of wires and vacuum hoses.

My tech tip?  Don't take the inside piece of the pulley off until you loosen the fan bolt.  It's got a flat piece for clamping and it's a pain to put back on after trying to hold the alternator shaft in a vise!

My latest tech tip -- If you push a 73 bus into the gas station and fill it up into the filler neck, you CAN get 15 gallons in it!   :p

You know how you can buy a new "universal" case?  I'm pretty sure that's what these are.  I know this F.I. setup is nothing like the one on the '76 I used to have!  There wasn't a hole in that one, either.

You beat my record, Zen.  The most I've gotten in is a little over 14 gal. and could see it in the neck.  Of course, I drove the bus into the station!  

We all know not to cross-rotate tires on an air-cooled vw, right?  Some would say don't even go front to back.  Well the folks at Firestone Northgate cross-rotated Juan's the other day after I had asked them not to during a balancing job.  All's I know it when I got back in it wanted to go in four directions at once!  Well, the next day I went back and had them put back where they belonged and it drove as good as ever.  

And now... the rest of the story...
I waited 2.5 hours for the original job, an alignment, balancing, and drum turning, to be done.  When I came back at the time they asked me to, the shop manager said all that was left was the drums.  I told him I needed to go and asked them to skip the drums.  When I got to the counter, they said all that had been done was the balancing, so OK, that's over 30 min. per tire.  I know there are other customers, but they pulled it in 5min from the time I gave them the keys and told me to be back in 2 hours.  It wasn't busy.  You can imagine how surprised I was at how awful the car was when I got on the road.  They also in the process chewed one of my lug covers up before they realized they are supposed to pull them off and tore up the trim on one running board.  They also attempted to lower the car onto a jack stand under the side emergency jack hole (which will crush it).  I was there and suggested they not do that.

To be fair, they are reimbursing me for the damaged parts and they've done a good job for me in the past.  

The moral of the story is working on cars is one thing, working on Beetles is another.

And if your luck is anything like mine, you had a full tank when you found this out!