ultrasupergenius’ journal

Mar 04 2008

First Road Trip with the Turtle

Published by didj under General

Turtle and me

Turtle took me to North Carolina this past weekend, and we met up with about 30 or so other Volkswagen buses and vanagons and whatnot for “The Rides of March”. It was nice campout with some fun Volkswagen people. We were in Wilmington North Carolina, camped out on someone’s property right along a beautiful creek / swampland. It was the closest I have seen to a Louisiana cypress type swamp outside of the deep deep south.I had some “events” along the way… the first was getting pretty darn lost trying to find the place, but that was to be expected. I am me, afterall. I was a little bit more concerned when I went to start up the bus one time, and nothing happened - no starter sound, no whirring of the engine. Just silence. I pleaded with Turtle - “C’mon - do that thing you normally do when I spin the key… Pleeeease! Please please please please puhleeeeeease…” but to no avail. I put it in neutral, got it rolling along in the quicki mart parking lot, jumped in, threw it in gear and popped the clutch. Turtle fired right up, and we kept on rolling right out of the parking lot and back on the road. Nice and smooooth. hehe. In a later conversation, someone told me that they prefer to pop the clutch in third gear - it makes for an even smoother start. It turns out that it wasn’t a dead battery, but a “dead spot in the starter” that caused the issue, which was conveniently repeated while talking to some old time Volkswagen enthusiasts. Daryl figured it out right away, and taught me how to climb under the bus and short out the starter, which makes it spin out of its dead zone. He executed the manuver, and just as had been explained, Turtle fired right up.

The list of tips and tricks figured out on this trip:

Heater ‘works’ (about .005 degree difference) but the cable is too tight, so it turns itself off unless you keep some pressure on it
Jiggle the speaker wire to turn the radio back on
Pop the clutch in third for a super smooth dead start
jump the starter to spin it out of the dead spot

I am sure there are plenty more tips and tricks that I will pick up along the way!

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Archive for March, 2008

Inventor teaches Crows to find him money

First Road Trip with the Turtle

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