Engine smells funny

U been 4 wheelin?

Ryan sometimes goes by "Dusty" these days.

I'm hoping that you're planning on either cleaning or replacing those air cleaners, too!

Spiffy clean-up job, Ryan!

Oh my God! Did a cow $hit in there?

@Nolan posted:

Oh my God! Did a cow $hit in there?

Ryan likes to go off-road every now and then.

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Great way to reduce weight and lower CG, Ryan.

But when we said add a 'turbo', we didn't mean...

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Your engine doesn’t look like this after a weekend drive?

Am I doing something wrong? Or are you?! 😉

Damn, I don’t think I’d be able to sleep at night wondering how much dirt was packed around my cylinders and in my oil cooler.

Then again, I’ve got 100’s, if not 1,000’s of miles on dirt roads in VWs and nothing untoward SS ever happened  

@Ryan (formerly) in NorCal posted:

Your engine doesn’t look like this after a weekend drive?

Am I doing something wrong? Or are you?! 😉

Show those at all critical of your prized dirt collection, Ryan, exactly what your definition of a "weekend drive" really is. Take them, again, on a photo tour of your and Cory's    off-road PCH excursion during 2019's West Coast Cruise. I think the CA Coastal Commission is still trying to track down who drove away with so much of the state's  coastside soil matrix.

I just want to be clear. When you got that car from me, it didn't have a dirt museum.  But I understand every owner needs to customize.
-=theron

This is the way, no?

I've had all three of my sons on this rare adventure. Twice this month, so far. My daughter is eager for her turn. She'll have to wait a bit, especially after deep cleaning the engine compartment.

@dlearl476 posted:

Damn, I don’t think I’d be able to sleep at night wondering how much dirt was packed around my cylinders and in my oil cooler.

Then again, I’ve got 100’s, if not 1,000’s of miles on dirt roads in VWs and nothing untoward SS ever happened  

Seriously though, what should I look out for? I'm thinking of getting a pair of mesh air filter covers for dusty trips.

I'm not likely to change my routes. For me, that's the point.

What can I do to be more aware of inevitable mechanical consequences for driving on California's best?

I'd go shopping in the dune buggy section of a VW parts website.

@Ryan (formerly) in NorCal posted:

Seriously though, what should I look out for? I'm thinking of getting a pair of mesh air filter covers for dusty trips.

I'm not likely to change my routes. For me, that's the point.

What can I do to be more aware of inevitable mechanical consequences for driving on California's best?

Maybe something like this:

https://www.jbugs.com/product/43-6111.html?rrec=true

But they don't list the size just a part number for what they fit. You could also try an oil soaked sock or something similar.

@Robert M posted:

Maybe something like this:

https://www.jbugs.com/product/43-6111.html?rrec=true

But they don't list the size just a part number for what they fit. You could also try an oil soaked sock or something similar.

Robert, nobody, and I mean NOBODY wants to know what you do with your socks.

Keep on enjoying it and going where you're going, Ryan!  The only thing I'd worry about- if you're running K&N air filters it's time to change to something else (a good paper filter, maybe?).  The K&N's flow great and make more hp, but at the expense of not filtering out the finer dust particles.

@DannyP posted:

Robert, nobody, and I mean NOBODY wants to know what you do with your socks.

I ALMOST came back to add an addendum to my comment that it wasn't to be done in the same fashion as adolescent boys MIGHT have done. Bwaa Haaa

He he he!

@Ryan (formerly) in NorCal posted:

Seriously though, what should I look out for? I'm thinking of getting a pair of mesh air filter covers for dusty trips.

I'm not likely to change my routes. For me, that's the point.

What can I do to be more aware of inevitable mechanical consequences for driving on California's best?

@Robert M posted:

Maybe something like this:

https://www.jbugs.com/product/43-6111.html?rrec=true

But they don't list the size just a part number for what they fit. You could also try an oil soaked sock or something similar.

I would do that at a minimum. I got mine from UNI, but I don’t know if they’re still in business (I know the Motul distributorship side of it is defunct.) If they’re not, just measure your filters and pick the closest size on their website.

Other than that, I think rather than using a leaf blower, I’d get an air hose attachment for compressed air with a  long tube on it that you could really get into the nooks and crannies. Like I said, my biggest worries would be the vanes of the internal oil cooler and the top/between the fins of the cylinders. It seems like those deflectors on the bottom would be an ideal place for dust to pile up.

^^^^
Definitely do a lot of that. Check Harbor Freight for a cheap air pressure nozzle with a very long reach tip.  https://www.harborfreight.com/...extension-68257.html

If it is bendable that’s a bonus so you can reach behind the shroud to get to the vanes and the stock oil cooler. It’ll also help you get up under the car to the heads and under, behind, and on top of all the tins etc.

The road less traveled........

Full disclosure-my buddy in his 275 GTB/4 went first.  I almost felt like I had to go to avoid a lifetime of ridicule from him  

@Kevin - Bay Area posted:

The road less traveled........

Don’t leave us hanging! Tell us where!

@Ryan (formerly) in NorCal posted:

Don’t leave us hanging! Tell us where!

Stewarts Point Skaggs Spring Rd.

Take Highway 1 to Stewarts Pt (just south of Sea Ranch). Turn right on Stewarts Pt Skaggs Spring Rd.
That stretch of road is VERY desolate. You will not see another car or human for 20-30 miles. (at least on a weekday)
You will pass Lake Sonoma and finally die into Dry Creek Rd by Healdsburg.

@Kevin - Bay Area posted:

Stewarts Point Skaggs Spring Rd.

Take Highway 1 to Stewarts Pt (just south of Sea Ranch). Turn right on Stewarts Pt Skaggs Spring Rd.
That stretch of road is VERY desolate. You will not see another car or human for 20-30 miles. (at least on a weekday)
You will pass Lake Sonoma and finally die into Dry Creek Rd by Healdsburg.

Interesting choice of typo...

@Kevin - Bay Area posted:

Stewarts Point Skaggs Spring Rd.

Take Highway 1 to Stewarts Pt (just south of Sea Ranch). Turn right on Stewarts Pt Skaggs Spring Rd.
That stretch of road is VERY desolate. You will not see another car or human for 20-30 miles. (at least on a weekday)
You will pass Lake Sonoma and finally die into Dry Creek Rd by Healdsburg.

That is definitely one of my favorite roads in Sonoma County. We’ll done! There’s only a short dirt patch as I recall. The rest was beautifully paved and banked as you wind through the mountains and over the dam.

If there are other gems like this you find, please share! I keep pins on my Google Map to pick routes for my adventures. That’s how I ended up on this road last year, looking for another way over the mountains. What a treat that was!

This last shot looks awfully close to the same location as yours! I only saw one car: a ‘64 Stingray that wouldn’t get out of the way! I chased it the whole way.

The stretch of "Skaggs" westbound from the dam to the 'bungee bridge' is nationally renown.  Here is why:  Honda CBR1000RR VS Lotus Elise at Skaggs Springs Road California - YouTube

There are lots of videos of Skaggs Springs -  Stewart's Point, and lots of google info too.

West of the bungee bridge the road deteriorates (as in pictures posted above).  So the bungee bridge is the turn-around-point back to Dry Creek / Hwy 101.  From home for me, that was about a 1-1/2 hour round trip.  Not bad for a Saturday morning aerobic exercise before mowing the grass.

I know a guy (actually, my older brother's friend, more of an acquaintance to me) who left Massachusetts in the mid-1960's and went to live in Alaska.   He drove up there in an original 356 Cabriolet with two suitcases stacked on the Leitz rack on the back and ended up in Anchorage where he found work as a carpenter.

He sent a photo back to my brother, with the car sitting next to the Mile 777 on the gravel ALCAN highway, somewhere near Tok Junction, east of Anchorage and in the Yukon Territory.  The car, which was originally a dark red, with the suitcases on the outside rack all wrapped in a canvas tarp, was an even beige color from the dust and there were some sort of plastic bubbles over the headlights to ward off stones kicked up by the trucks.

That's what I thought of when I saw Ryan's engine.  

Somewhere I have a pic of my Volvo 145 the day I arrived in Denver in 1991. Packed to the rafters with everything I owned, including the roof rack. It snowed off and on the whole way there. My Green Volvo was pretty much dirt brown, too. With giant Icebergs hanging off each wheel well.

@Ryan (formerly) in NorCal posted:

... I keep pins on my Google Map to pick routes for my adventures.

@Kevin - Bay Area, help fill my map! There’s a lot of undiscovered gems in those gaps!