Delivering the Dog

Delivering the Dog

After having the issues we’ve been having with the fox, it made sense to have a “proof of concept” run to test the car out on the highway for an extended period before we set off on our 3800 mile trip. Well, Tex the wonder hound needed to visit his grandma in San Antonio, while his owner was tempting fate in form of a 90 model VeeDub, so we loaded up and headed south. The first thing I noted was the dismay in my dogs eyes. “WTF no AC?” its ok Tex you only have an 80 mile ride, you will be fine.

The car is running well, but the temp is climbing slowly as we travel through Buda, Kyle and San Marcos. The fan is running at its max and my temp is about 210-215. 212 is boiling under normal conditions, in a car radiator under pressure the boiling point raises 10-20 degrees, so things don’t start spitting up in a hew of steam and scaled dreams until about 230-240. I make it to San Antonio and temps drop as we slow down to drive through town. I get home, kiss my mom and tell her I need to find some supplies to do some shade tree mechanic-ing. I hit Lowes and find some plexi-glass and some zip ties, MacGyver stand back. I also pick up a product called “water wetter”, I don’t know how you make anything wetter than water, but these guys claim to be able to lower water temps, so I’m game.

I get home and build the plexiglass shroud around the radiator, which is located next to the engine and is about half the size of a normal radiator. Damn German Engineers. Zip ties are a wonderful invention; remind me to buy the person who invented those a drink, if I see them. I kiss mom, sis and pup goodbye and head back north to Austin.

On the drive back, temps have dropped to 205, and I am happier with this. I get home to Austin just as the 60 mph winds from a T-storm are blowing through. Mental note - The car runs much cooler when being doused with rain.

I am home and we are nearing the point of departure….



Thursday -> May 15th 2008
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[Josh]Still pondering why the fox is running so hot, we talked about checking the timing. It’s seemed like a long shot – how far off could the timing be? We weren’t misfiring and we passed emissions. Chris found the vaccum advance on the distributor was disconnected, replumbed it with new tube. Low and behold the idle jumped up and it appeared to run cooler.
We met at the Cedar Door after work to have a little send off with our friends. This is the day before we’re planning on leaving and we still haven’t made a decision about the head gasket.
Chris brought a bottle of Champaign to christen the car. We pulled it around the side alley where there was already a lot of broken glass. I smacked the bottle on the front quarter panel – I figured it was already dented there and it was metal, but no breakage. After a couple more thwacks, it was apparent I was just beating the heck out the fender so Chris took a try at smashing the bottle against the wheel which worked much better.
With the christening done, we decided to take a spin down IH35 to check our coolant temp under load with the timing advance fix. Chris had also bodged-up a plexiglass and zip-tie shroud to direct more airflow towards the radiator. We ended up running 190F under load – woohoo! So with all the improvement, we make the decision not to open up the engine and replace the head gasket. The decision made, our fate is set.[/josh]