Still on Covid-19 lock down, so, we are doing what we can as we can. We last left off with the bug starting but quickly stalling out. My daughter and I revisited the auto-magic choke adjustment and finished making it do what it is supposed to do. We found a few procedures on line that had better detail than the first one and this time, the markings on the choke system lined up better and the flap moves when the car warms up as it should. Once we completed testing on the auto choke, we turned our attention to adjusting the idle as the car still wasn’t running as it should and starting was still a bit slow. We did a lot of reading ahead as neither one of us has ever worked on a carburetor before. After gaining what we thought was an appropriate amount of knowledge, we trudged out to the bug and opened the engine compartment. Since she loves to start the bug, I couldn’t resist watching her light up as the car started. Of course, it died right away. We made the suggested preliminary adjustments and I let her start it back up and showed her how to keep it running with the gas pedal. We worked together on it for the next several minutes by adjusting and readjusting until “Bee” finally stayed running. Even though it was rough, it stayed running. This is the kind of progress I like. I called her over and showed her the effects of turning the screws and making the adjustments until she felt like she understood it. We kept adjusting until it smoothed out and stayed running without help from the throttle. At this point, our inner Imps took over and we decided that we should try to drive it around the yard. Once I calmed the kids down from the excitement of driving in the yard, I moved the truck out of the way and started the bug back up. Here is where it got interesting for a minute. This is an Autostick. This means that it has a stick, but no clutch pedal. I had watched a couple videos on how to drive one of these and they didn’t cover much, but I muddled through. We found that we needed to adjust the R.P.M.s higher to accommodate the Autostick. After making the adjustments, I was now able to shift through the gears and feel the car lurch in the right ways. This indicated to me that I could safely back it out of the garage and test the brakes. I warned the kids to stand clear and moved the car into reverse and backed out slowly. The brakes seem to function. We will spend some time at a later date inspecting them more thoroughly. Today, however, we DRIVE! After I was confident that we could move safely, I invited the kids in and we drove around the yard laughing and carrying on not caring what the neighbors thought of us. We have great neighbors. They are all nice and easy going and fun to talk with. After we had run our course, I pulled back into the garage and shut the door. What a great day.
Great progress!!!