I wrote this on August 22, the day my car went back on the road, but didn't get it posted here until the25th.

I got to fulfill my wish for a Howard Memorial Drive.

My wife wondered why it was so important to me that I drive the car to work today (since we carpooled today so she had to ride in the teener). Well, I took off from work for about 45 minutes this afternoon and drove the nearest twisty road - 7 miles up to the Arizona Snow Bowl, then back again.

It felt really good when I got to the end of the lower straight section and hit the first turn at 40 when it was marked 30, followed by some nice S turns at 45. I kept the radio off - just enjoyed listening to the car. All the way up and back I kept hearing "Tequila Sunrise" in my head. I smiled the whole drive.

I kept looking for a deer to come out of the forest like in Howard's canyon run. It didn't happen, but I would not have been surprised.

Well, here's to you Howard. I still can't believe I'm not gonna see you in Moab, but I could feel your presence today.

It's been a strange summer. My teener's been up on stands for most of it now while I put new rear bearings in it. The length of time is due to the volunteer labor that is putting the new bearings into the control arms after I removed them.

The lack of a teener hasn't been that big of a deal since I just commute to work on city streets... until this week. Howard's passing, reading all the remembrances from everyone, and especially seeing Howard's "Tequila Sunrise" video really made me wish I could hop in the teener and take it for a spin.

I think part of it was a way of remembering Howard, and part of it was a wish to just get away. This has been a tough week. Lots of tears over the weekend, and lots of times all week that Howard came to mind. I had the privilege to know him because he made the effort to come over to Arizona for the Route66 classic a couple of times and to the Red Rock Classic. That said, I sure didn't know him well enough. But as so many have said, I really miss him. It pains me to know that I won't be able to greet him at Moab this year.

Thinking about how Howard treated folks brought an idea to mind and so there's a new thing on my signature. WWHD - What Would Howard Do?

I can't think of a better remembrance than to ask myself that when it comes to how I interact with the other members of the 914 community.

Oh... the control arms could be done this weekend so I may even be back on the road next week. Right after the alignment, the first drive will be up the twisties on the Arizona Snow Bowl road... and I'll be thinking about Howard!

My transmission was leaking oil into the bell housing so it was pretty obvious that the seal on the shaft was worn. I decided I'd replace it and the one on the shift rod (where it enters the side of the tranny).

When I refilled the transmission I used Mobil1 synthetic tranny oil. I refilled it when the tranny was sitting on the floor jack since that was easier than doing it in the car. I also tipped the tranny slightly to make it easier to get the stuff out of the bottle. The Haynes manual said I needed 2.6 quarts, but I couldn't even put 2 quarts in before it was running out of the fill hole.

I did this about 2 weeks ago. For about a week I've been noticing that if I'm in 2nd gear and I put in the clutch to coast (like coming up to a light and getting ready to downshift to 1st) that I'd hear a noise that sounded like 2 pieces of metal being rubbed against each other. Not a grinding noise, but kind of a loud shshshshshsh sound. It didn't happen all the time, but it did often.

I've changed from traditional oil to synthetic and the weather has gotten colder too so there were lots of things to thing about as causes for this. I really expected that I was LOW on tranny fluid. Since I was suspicious about whether I'd gotten the correct amount of fluid in the tranny I decided to check it first - I got about an 8" circle of fluid on my driveway when I unscrewed the plug.

Since I let some of the fluid out, I've not experienced this noise under the same conditions. I'm not knowledgeable about transmissions, but I'm guessing that 2nd gear must be in the upper part of the gear cluster and that when you have too much oil in the tranny that part of the mechanism must be getting more oil than it is supposed to, hence the noise when the wheels are turning the gears while the clutch is engaged.

I was worried that I'd gotten some kind of contamination into the transmission, so I'll take this solution if it holds up!

P.S. - if you are looking to change your own input shaft seal, just go right down to your FLAPS and buy a transmission seal puller tool. It's $10 or so and nothing else is gonna get that thing out of there except this tool! (It's a good thing those broken pliers are Snap-On.)

A few years ago I bought a complete 2.0L Type IV engine. The word from the seller was that he had bought the car for other purposes and had only driven it a few miles to get it home. He reported that the engine ran fine when cold, seemed to have very little oil smoke, but ran like crap after it got warmed up.

I shared this info with my son Mike who works as a heavy-line technician at a Dodge dealership in Scottsdale, AZ. He also has 914s (that are parked at my house in Flagstaff) and drives a 1965 VW Bug for his daily driver. He knows a bit about engines in general and knows VW engines well.

So anyway... Without experiencing what the engine is actually doing, Mike says "All it needs is a valve adjustment. The valves are too tight."

Smart kid! Sure enough. When I put the engine into a car I adjusted the valves first and they were too tight. This means that when the engine is cold the valves close fully and you get an engine that runs like it should. Once the engine warms up the valves expand and no longer close fully. This affects vacuum, which effects the FI system, which makes it look like you've got an FI problem.

I've seen this same kind of thing come up dozens of times in the garage. Almost universally the angle of attack on the poor running problem is that there must be something wrong with the fuel injection system. The poster is asking about what FI component to spend lots of $$$$ to replace to fix the problem. Often no one wants to believe that it could be as simple as a valve adjustment, but in 99% of the cases when the owner has actually done a valve adjustment they find that the valves are too tight.

So the lesson I learned is to always start with the simple, cheap, solutions first. A valve adjustment costs virtually nothing, but so much about the engine systems' functionality depends upon proper valve adjustment that it is foolish to be chasing after other possible solutions to a condition without first making sure that this is right.

My inspiration for starting a blog comes from Lapuwali (the late James Montebello) who simply, but elegantly, shared what he learned along the way.

Don't expect any great inspiration here, but maybe what I learn the hard way can help someone else!