water pump...

[knux511]

i agree, hands on is the best. Also, a hold on the temper, especially when working on a car with limited spare parts like the festy

[Icedawg]

I've got a friend in the auto repair business. Once when I was confessing to him I keep having to do the job twice to get it right, he said it was pretty common in the industry too. At least until you get as much experience as knux511' s Dad.

[mechanicaldj]

easiest way to do any job that you are unfamiliar with in this day and technological age is to:

TAKE DIGITAL PHOTOS of before, during and after

gives you a guide for putting it back together and for the next time

[bobstad]

My dozen years with a "pancake in my suitcase"

I love my Auto Tech class... we have a projector in the shop so we get lectures while we are working on stuff, especially now that our teacher is using our rebuild of a VW pancake to show the class internals of an engine... plus he is fascinated by the engine itself.

Did your class get rid of the factory oil-cooler? They are pivoted 90 degrees from the ones in the bug and bus; to give the low profile allowing the flat station wagon cargo area/trunk space in the fastback-notchback.

But, this puts the oil-cooler directly over the #3 cylinder, not only blocking air-flow to that cylinder resulting in an inordinate amount of over-heating and seizures; but also generally worsening the cooling of the motor overall.(there was a book out called THE WORLD'S TEN WORST CARS in the '80s which named the type III as one in this select class, which could've only been due to their crappy factory oil coolers; "Hitler's Revenge" as this model designed for the American market got to be known)

The trick with a type III is to get a PermaCool remote filter and locate that in the left fender-well behind the louver fins of the air intake; and do away with the stock oil-cooler entirely.

The typical after-market cooler kits from the '80s hadn't the necessary cooling capacity of the PermaCool; though I'd guess the more recent stacked plate type coolers would be sufficient if not an improvement over the PermaCool.



p. s. I got my type III in '82 from Jay Warhell of Oakview, CA for $800 who I ended up giving a massage to once.(I had from '82-'94 then sold to Todd Molyneux in Spokane, WA son of the criminal couple depicted in the book and movie THE FRENCH CONNECTION, born after those events)

Interestingly, getting to see the half moon scars from under both arm pits to below his buttocks where a great white shark had him in its jaws briefly until Jay stuck his diving knife in the shark's eye he'd been illegally gathering abalone with off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA.

Jay is definitely "unsavory."

[miami man]

yep on my chrysler we put on a pully backwards and the timing belt was walking off..stupid us