It's been a LONG time coming!

....if you do Bob, take lots and lots of photos so the rest of us can vicariously enjoy the adventure too.

Do it Bob, the Prairies will be so much fun to drive through.  

A couple of years ago I got bamboozled into co-driving with a friend to Quebec to pick up an RV trailer he had purchased online.

B.C. to Quebec and back to B.C. in 9 days.

Fun was had by nobody.

I can't believe how long it took us to drive through Ontario.  That is one wide province.

Ok, as I type this, it's about 2pm in Ron O-land, plenty of time to test-start an engine and report back to the mother ship.

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED??????

3:33 Pacific time and counting...

And so, the speculation begins.........

Did the mechanic find time to get to it today?

Did Ron O get up in time to witness the starting if the engine?

Did it not start because the fuel lines were clogged?  

Did it start, but ran kinda funky?

Did it start, but immediately died for some unknown reason which turned out to be a mouse in the intake manifold?

Has his laptop or PC equivalent but the dust?

Will Don Cherry ever make a comeback?

And.......Where the hell IS Ron O, after all???

No word from my mechanic.  Looks like I'll be visiting his shop tomorrow.

Time for the proverbial firecracker under the proverbial butt.

Whose butt is the question, though.

Hey,

Heads up everybody who's paying attention to this 'long time coming' thread.

I got a 1:10am posting from Ron O under this thread heading...but It curiously isn't posted on the tread...Here it is, word for word:

Bad news...the car started fine, but then something went wrong and the damn car caught fire. the fire spread to the building and the whole damn place went up in flames.

I"m really in a sad way right now.

Is Ron pulling my leg?

Am I the only one who received this posting?

Why has there been no response from anyone?

What the hell is going on???

Well, that car has been jinxed a little, and I think it actually likes fire, having had a taste of it previously.

The world awaits word from Ron O...

Nothing here, Carl...

Methinks (mehopes?) he's pulling your leg, Carl.

Mehopes too!

I posted it as a joke on the forum, but then decided it wasn't all that funny and deleted it.  How the heck I ended up sending it to Carl is beyond me.

I'm driving in this morning to see what's going on.

Well, you know, Ron, if it's on the interwebs it must be true.

Let's hope you find the car in good shape...

So I'm out on my bicycle just after 8:30A and I get a phone call....from Carl.  Tells me about the engine going up in flames, then the shop, then the house, how it started that end of Ron's town on fire and is spreading to the surrounding countryside.  OK, I added that part about the rest of the town.

Holy ****!!!

But then I think, Holy ****!!!!  Ron O's just about as crazy as me!  The email has to be a spoof!  And I start laughing my ass off.......on the bike.....in traffic.

Anyway, I think I got Carl calmed down, and it looks like I was right - Ron's about as crazy as me (although I prob'ly would-a left the post up - guess I'm the crazier one).

Happy "Fire-it-up", Ron!!

Best of luck, too!

WHEW Ron, That's a relief!!

I've always found it difficult to appropriately commensurate to a friends pain and suffering while avoiding an underlying tone of 'thank God it's not me!'

I guess I'm the only one who received that posting before it was deleted because of the Internet service premium I pay to keep me instantly updated on everything that's going on in the world! 

So, Ron went to see his baby 5 hours ago.  

Still no news.

Dude likes to keep us in suspenders......

My mechanic fired up the old ECU and checked the fuel logs.  He suspected, when I first brought the car in, that part of my starting/running problem was due to injectors that were too large.

He was right.  The shop that built the engine ordered the CB fuel injection kit with the wrong sized injectors.  These babies are good for an engine pushing 300+ hp instead of the 160 hp (guesstimate) that my engine makes.

New injectors will be here on Friday.

Fingers crossed again...

Ron

We are looking for some good news here, brother.  Mum's getting tired of your explanations why you can't drive that car.

Wow.....overninght delivery on a set of fuel injectors.

I'm impressed!

Glad to hear you're 1 step closer, Ron (and that you're house and the rest of Chilliwack didn't burn down!).

I got it to because I was following the topic it was posted on and i get an email of everyone's posts. I automatically assumed it was a joke and was waiting for the follow-up "LOL" but it never came.  It's like a bullet Ron. Once fired it can't be taken back.

CB's kit uses standard GM injectors, which are available almost anywhere.

No kidding.

I didn't realize new posts you were following were emailed to you.  Ha, I thought I was safe.

Top right corner of the page hover the mouse over "Manage" and then click on "Personal Settings". The last choice in the "Notifications" settings you select "Follow dialogs I am participating in by default." and you get an email of everyone's posts if you have posted something in that forum.....even if they go back and delete it or edit it, you get the original post.  Makes you really think about what you're going to say sometimes because once you hit POST REPLY, there's no turning back.

Update:

Distributor installed 180 degrees off?

Good call, Gordon; that would be the simple fix. It's what initially came to my mind. I've got a feeling Ron's mechanic knows what he's doing though, and would have been the first thing ruled out.

Crank fire, I believe.

Yes, it's crank fired.

The Ford coil has a strange firing order. It took me some interpolation and hand written diagrams to get it to work on my Soob. Likely the same situation here with the VW requirement.

And of course, I forgot that your car is crank fired, Ron. Oops!

Yes, I think that's where our problem lies.

Ron, let's see if we can do this here. This is how the Ford coil will fire. Draw a square box on a piece of paper pretending this is your coil. At the center and bottom is where the module plugs in. Now...the lower left corner is the first to fire. The upper right corner is second to fire. The upper left corner fires next and then the lower right corner fires last. The Soob firing order is 1-3-2-4. Not sure what the VW order is but your mechanic should be able to check from what I've just given you.

Two other important bits, Ron. The air gap between the VR sensor and the trigger wheel should be no more than 1 mm or .039" according to the MJ website.

Also, if the wires on the VR sensor are reversed you will get no spark at all. If it fires a bit or sputters like you said above, the VR polarity is already correct.

VW firing order is 1-4-3-2

Thanks David.  I'm going in for a look tomorrow and will go over what you posted.

Oil leak has been fixed and the car is running a lot better.

The only holdup is the 901 gearbox.  The shifting rod from the shifter to the tranny sits a lot lower in the tunnel than the shifter rod for a stock VW 4 speed.  It sits so low that it drags on the bottom of the tunnel where the shortened two halves of the pan were welded together, creating a bump.  It creates a drag on the shifter, making shifts a real chore.

The welds need to be ground down via the back of the tunnel, or completely cut out from below and replaced with a new small piece.

Is the firing order solved and it's running?

Yeah, but now it's running backwards.....