Thursday, November 29, 2007

Fixin’ my Bumble – Fit to be tied, literally


Most of you know (and love) Bumble my 1971 VW Transporter. I love Bumble. I find that when I am driving Bumble I smile a lot. It just makes me happier. But of course with old cars come little problems. Luckily, old cars are also easy to work on if you need to fix little things here or there.

That brings me to this morning...

My morning commute is not bad at all. 15 minutes usually. I start by driving about 2 miles on hilly surface streets. Then I hop on the freeway and drive for about 6 miles, exit and drive a mile or so to my office. Usually on cold mornings Bumble will stall at the bottom of each of the 2 big hills I drive over to get to the freeway. No big deal. I know when it’s going to happen, so if I hear the engine sputter a little I just give it a touch of gas or let it stall and crank it over again when the light turns green. Once I get on the freeway the engine warms up and it won’t stall again.

This morning Bumble didn’t stall at all! I was shocked! Wonderful! Amazing! Then I was idling in neutral at a stop and noticed that the engine was idling higher than normal. The tachometer doesn’t work so I have to listen for when to shift, etc. The idle sounded out of the ordinary. Oh well, at least it’s not stalling! I continued on my way. I got off the freeway and was pulling into my office parking lot when I realized that my gas pedal was stuck about half way down! I put it in neutral and coasted into a spot with the engine revving. I pulled the parking break and reached down and pulled the gas pedal back up.

I think the pedal mechanism just needs to be oiled so I am going to try that. For now I tied a piece of twine around the gas pedal and tied it to my dash board with enough slack that I can floor it on the freeway. Then when the pedal sticks down I can just pull on the twine and that makes it pop back up!

4 comments:

NuclearToast said...

Ok, I know you love Bumble, but can you get any more redneck than having a PIECE OF TWINE tied to you accelerator? I mean, seriously. You live in Bellevue. You should have the strap from a Louis Vuitton purse or something.

DK said...

Wow. That's pretty friggen GHETTO! Actually... I can't talk. My classic car isn't even running right now.

Bri said...

Thats really scary..is it fixed yet??

Shannon Perry said...

Ahhhh,Volkswagens. My first one used to lose its brakes once in awhile (usually on steep downhills with a red light at the bottom), and my current one doesn't have an operating speedometer. They're great cars, but they can be...eccentric.