A word of warning

You might want to have a word with him while you're shaving tomorrow.

My son ruined an engine in a very nice 914 . Left a rag he checked the oil with in the engine compartment

i was driving once and i heard it suck in the rag into the fan.  holy alarming noise - i though i was screwed!  zero damage and lesson learned.

If you've been driving aircooleds long enough (for the first 15 years of my driving career I owned Beetles) it's probably happened; now you know what it sounds like. A paper towel isn't too big a deal, as it doesn't block very much of the fan, but a shop rag can cover a lot of space, and temps will climb quickly... Al

A buddy of mine had a small pickup with an inline OHV 4 banger and was adding some oil and the cap from the top of the valve cover went missing. He stuffed a rag where the cap would go knowing the local auto parts store was only a couple of miles away. He made it about 1/2 way......and later cost him a pile of $$$..

Have you ever had a fan grab a timing light cord and fling it around the engine compartment?  Does a good job destroying your radiator.

As Al said, Anyone who has been involved with air cooled VW engines for a while, completely knows that sound.  It is both intriguing (Hey, what the hell's that?) and sickening (Oh, $#!+!) at the same time.

I'm very glad that you and your wrench found it.  John Estes (Remember John and his friend, Tom, at Carlisle?) sucked in a shop rag (MUCHO worse than a paper towel) on a trip to Carlisle but Chris and I found it at a gas stop and removed what was left of it.  

There is a class 5 hurricane going on in that engine compartment at speed, believe me.

I had a piece of foam used between engine tin and body get into the fan.  Was trying to make "an improvement" .   No noise as I recall,, but when the oil temp gauge pegged to the right, i knew something was wrong.