WADDYA RECKON?

PRE-IGNITION CHECKS

IT WAS ALMOST too good to be true: An obv iously well-kept V W sitting on stands in t he loca l you-doit wrecking yard. I walked up to the car from behind; by t he time I’d done a lap of it, I’d discovered why t his 1970s Beetle would never see t he road again: t he punched-in nose. What a shame… the interior trim and most of t he exterior looked a perfect match to the 48,000km showing on the odo. With the Bug being around 30 years old at the time, that was a remarkably low kay-count… which meant its gearbox was likely to be perfect.

The engine was a lready on the ground and missing some parts which, with t he dak-dak’s rear-engine/ transa x le layout, made removing the gearbox a 15-minute task. I happily paid t he bucks, loaded t he gearbox into t he boot of my daily-driver and trotted home, ready to insta ll t he low-kay trans to my own Bug.

A few weeks later, I jacked my Bug (at the time, I had just one !) onto chassis stands and removed its engine and troubled gearbox to insta ll t his beaut low-kay second-handy. With that done, I dropped my Bug back onto its wheels, packed away my tools and went for a test drive.

About 3km from home a horrible howl from under t he car cast a big black cloud over my day. With the clutch in, I coasted t he car to t he side of t he road; my engine sounded f ine wit h its familiar bark but t he howl dissipated.

Hmmm… Oh shit! Gearbox oil !

With t he car f lat-towed home, I removed the gearbox’s drain plug to have just a few teaspoons of oil dribble out. My excitement and inexperience at t he time meant I’d overlooked one cr ucia l task: I hadn’t checked or replaced t he oil in t he gearbox.

Of course, to prevent any oil spilling onto t he ground in t he wrecking yard, t he gearbox (and, no doubt, the engine) had been drained of its lube prior to t he car being placed on stands for people like me to pick parts from.

Later, disassembly of t he ‘box showed my test-drive had overheated one of the bearings and caused its plast ic cage to melt, misaligning the gears and creating t he awful howl. Thankfully, apart from t hat one collapsed bearing, t he gearbox interna ls sur v ived unscathed and after a few years it was rebuilt wit h a few tricks and t weaks for my Beet le race car.

It was an embarrassing, but simple, mista ke… but we a ll learn from our mista kes and thankfully it was one t hat wasn’t too expensive !

What a lesson !