I'm a mechanically challenged, however in addition to the wealth of knowledge I have gleaned from other club members here on the message board and at club meetings, I would recommend the book "How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, A Manual of Step By Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot"[/i]  by John Muir. This book is written with a lot of love for the Volkswagen and with a good deal of humor thrown in. It is an easy and enjoyable read when you have a bug (problem). ::
By the way, be sure to come to our next club meeting on May 17 at Wally's East Ridge at 7:00 pm.

Hi Ron, Welcome to the board and hopefully to the club. As for weight of oil, I would recommend a straight 30 weight oil and Castrol is usually the oil of choice. When you buy your oil, go ahead pick up a can of Marvel Mystery Oil and a good squirt can. Drain your oil and the remove the bottom plate after getting an oil change gasket set. This plate is about 5-6 inches in diameter right on the bottom of the engine. After removing it you will see a round screen there that the plate covers. Remove it and wash it throughly. There will probably be some sludge also in the bottom of the engine so clean the plate also. After everything is clean, re-assemble with new gaskets but be sure not to over tighten the acorn nuts (6) holding the plate to the bottom of the engine. You want to just snug them. DO NOT get them as tight as you can and them turn 1/2 more turn. Refill the crankcase (3 quarts almost  put 2 1/2 in and check it.)

After that, remove your spark plugs and squirt a little bit of the Marvel Mystery Oil in each cylinder. Don't fill the cylinders. Turn the engine over by hand a few times (leave the plugs out) and then cover each cylinder plug hole with rags and turn the engine over a few times with the starter. This should lubricate everything well.

Now, put your plugs back in but NOT before you put a bit of anti - seize on each plug. Be careful not to cross thread any of them. This is very easily done in a VW engine.

Now, let's look at your gas tank and lines. Take your screw on gas cap off and smell inside the tank. If it stinks to high heaven, stop right there and don't go any further until you remove the tank, flush the lines and maybe even have the tank boiled out. When you get to this point let us know, and we will guide you further. This is enough to keep you busy at least a day.  LOL

ok, another question, is there a certain brand of plug and heat size to use for the 1970 bug? Bosch, etc.
Thought I might as well change plugs, points, rotor, etc.. any advice on this?
Thanks adn hope I don't wear anyone out with the questions, just kind of excited about this project? think the engine was rebuilt and has aobut 4k miles on it, new clutch, etc, again been garaged for a few years..
Ron

For a stock engine, a Brosol (that's a Brazilian Solex) 30-31 is hard to beat.  The older orginal German Solex 31 carborators are great (practically the same thing as the Brosol 30-31, and what your '70 bug came with from the factory), but most of them you run across at swap meets have a worn out throttle shaft which will cause it to run a little lean and make it kind'a hard to tune.  There's a place in California (RIMCO) that will fix the worn out shaft but if you pick up a new carb at a show for under a hundred bucks, that's probably going to end up being just about as cheap.  Any Solex or Brosol 34 is probably going to give you more tuning problems than you care to deal with.  The good news is that your engine is supposed to have a Solex 31 . . . well, that's assuming that it's still a single port.

On the oil, ask 100 VW mechanics, you'll probably get at least 25 different answers.  Maybe 50.  I've seen discussions about oil turn in to all out war on some other forums.  I'm with Herb.  I use nothing but HD30 in a stock VW air-cooled engine.  Here's why . . . the VW air-cooled engine was designed in the 1930s.  That was long before multi-grade oils were avalible down at the corner service station.  The oil in the crankcase serves TWO purposes.  It not only lubricates the internal components, it also COOLS them.  We call these things "Air-Cooled" but the truth is, the original design of the flat four engine broke crankshafts right and left.  They determined that it was because of heat stress so they added an ingenious oil cooling system . . . and it was all designed around the way oil acts as it gets hot.  A single grade oil like HD30 always gets "thinner" as it gets hotter.  At 10 degrees, it pours like honey . . . at 110, it pours like water.  Because of this, oil pressure will always drop as the oil gets hotter.  The cooling system is designed with a spring loaded check valve (two of them in the newer "dual relief" cases) that blocks any oil from circulating through the cooler when the oil pressure is over a certian amount.  I don't recall that amount off the top of my head, but lets say it's 35 pounds.  OK, as long as the oil is thick enough to hold 35 pounds of pressure, no oil goes through the cooler.  This keeps all the interal heat inside the engine while it warms up.  At some point, the oil might get so hot that it flows to easily through all the bearings and the oil pressure drops under 35 pounds . . . now a spring pushes the check valve opened and part of the oil is diverted through the oil cooler before going to the bearings.  If it cools too much, the oil pressure starts going high again and the pressure will push the check valve back closed and no oil goes through the cooler.  OK, if you're still with me (I've confused myself . . . so I've probably confused everyone else too) multi-viscosity oil messes that whole system up.  20W50, for example is the same viscosity as 20W oil at one temp, but at some higher temp, it's like 50W would be at that temp (a lot "thicker" than straight 20W).  Around here the best thing to do in my opinion, is run Castrol (Havoline is my second choice) HD30.  In an extream heat wave, HD40 might be OK.  If the temp is below 10 degrees, let the engine warm up a few minutes before you rev it up, or run HD20 (if you can find it).

Again, there are people who say I'm stupid for running straight weight oil.  There are people who say it's stupid to run multi-grades.  The main thing is run some type of oil in it, don't over-fill it, don't let it run low, and whatever else you neglect to do, CHANGE IT at least every two months or 2000 miles.  Verl Taylor has over 295,000 miles on the bottom end of a 1967 Beetle engine.  I ask him once how he did it . . . what's the secret oil he's been using? . . . he said something like "Well, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've run just about any kind of oil I could get my hands on, but I changed it ever time I got the chance."  He told me that he thinks he may have even let it run over 1500 miles with an oil change once or twice.  The last person to tighen the case half bolts on that engine was a German factory worker in 1967 (maybe even in 66) . . . that's a pretty good argument for changing you oil regardless of what brand or grade you use.

My personal plug of choice is the Bosch. I ran an NGK plug in my old bus (1600 DP) for a while and didn't care for them. Volkswagens just seem to prefer Bosch.


                                                                        :cool:

Bosch Super are the best plugs available for VW's. My bug actually used to spit out any other plug that I put in her. The Bosch stayed in- go figure.

On checking the oil, I just give it about a minute after I turn it off and check it.  The oil cooler is highest part of the engine, so, I'm sure that if it's sat long enough it will all empty into the crankcase and raise the level slightly.  If you have it hot and check it the second you turn it off, then wait a minute and check it again, you'll see a slightly higher level . . . let it sit for days, and it might come up a little more, but it won't be much.

The main thing is don't let it get below the add mark.  It has a capacity of slightly less than 3 quarts (2.5 liters or 2.7 quarts), so being a quart low is a significant % of lost oil volume.  That doesn't affect the lubrication because there is still enough in the sump to feed the oil pump . . . where it really affects the engine is in cooling.  That's the reason you see so many performance engines with deep sumps.  They don't make the engine any better lubricated, but if there is twice as much oil, it can do a much better job of cooling the internal parts.