JBugs - 1971 VW Super Beetle - 009 Distributor Replacement:

Video Transcript:

0:00 hi I'm Sam with jbugs.com 0:02 we're going to swap in a vacuum advance 0:04 distributor in place of a double 09 0:06 mechanical distributor 0:12 I prefer a vacuum advance distributor 0:14 especially on Street driven cars as they 0:17 just 0:18 operate much more smoothly with less 0:20 hesitation than a mechanical distributor 0:24 a mechanical distributor like we have 0:26 here are intended by Volkswagen 0:28 originally for industrial applications 0:30 like a sawmill or like a sump pump or 0:33 like a dredging pump where the engine's 0:35 either going at an idle if it's just 0:37 being warmed up or out to Full Throttle 0:39 at operating speed they weren't intended 0:42 to be used in places like a street 0:45 driven automobile or you want a smooth 0:47 Advance depending on the RPM and the 0:49 load that the engines under so as early 0:52 as the 1950s Volkswagen actually 0:54 switched to a vacuum advance distributor 0:57 for a smoother Driving Experience Distributor removal prep 1:00 so before we start 1:02 we're going to do a couple things before 1:03 we ever pull out a distributor we're 1:05 going to identify which one of these 1:06 wires goes to the number one cylinder 1:09 back here now as this is a double 09 I 1:13 know it's already set up I know that 1:15 this wire is number one so if I was to 1:17 follow this wire here 1:19 and look at 1:21 back here 1:23 I can see when I pull on this one 1:26 that wire goes there and goes there so 1:29 now that I've identified number one here 1:32 I'm going to turn the engine over 1:36 to this position and actually just 1:38 happens to be we're 180 out 1:41 so before I ever pull the distributor 1:43 out I'm going to put it at number one 1:44 good some good compressions 1:50 good compressions again 1:53 all right now 1:55 we know we're pointing at number one 1:58 and we know we're at top dead center 2:01 based on our notch 2:05 in the engine case right here 2:07 so number one 2:09 top dead center 2:11 additionally some Distributors not all 2:14 we'll actually have 2:16 a small scribe mark 2:19 on this top ring 2:21 to indicate the number one spark plug 2:25 so now the Distributors at top dead 2:27 center for number one 2:29 we can pull this guy out 2:31 foreign 2:35 like so 2:39 what we've got here is a mechanical 009 Distributor information 2:41 distributor this is actually a jf4 zero 2:44 two three one one seven eight zero zero 2:47 nine 2:48 zero zero nine is just what we've 2:50 abbreviated it to 2:51 Volkswagen did use other Distributors 2:53 that ended with double a nine but those 2:54 Distributors also had a vacuum advance 2:56 unit 2:58 so a double 09 is a centrifugal Advance 2:59 distributor and to visualize that if I 3:02 hold this shaft 3:04 at the bottom 3:06 the rotor and shaft can spin forward a 3:09 couple of degrees 3:11 this is the centrifugal Advance the 3:12 faster the shaft spins 3:15 due to the weights and springs inside 3:16 this will actually Advance or the 3:19 timing based on the centrifugal speed 3:22 this pertronics distributor 3:25 also has 3:27 that same 3:29 centrifugal advance 3:31 like the 009 3:33 however 3:35 it also has a stock style vacuum advance 3:38 and we'll demonstrate that right here 3:42 thank you 3:48 so you can see this plate here 3:50 [Applause] 3:56 actually moves 3:58 independently of 4:00 the distributor so we've got 4:02 a single vacuum 4:04 and we have two different advance so an 4:07 svda or a single vacuum dual Advanced 4:10 distributor additionally this 4:12 obviously we've got two wires coming out 4:14 as opposed to the one single wire here 4:16 this has an electronic ignition 4:19 whereas this is your old 4:21 points and condenser distributor so 4:25 tried and true pretty solid but a much 4:29 more common and much more 4:32 reliable system now with our new Distributor installation 4:35 distributor 4:38 we can remove the cap 4:42 and rotor 4:46 and if we look on this distributor here 4:49 we do not see an indicating mark telling 4:52 us where number one is so like I said 4:54 wherever this thing happens to land at 4:56 this point 4:57 nope 4:58 nope 5:00 nope 5:04 there we go all right 5:07 so as we see old number one used to be 5:10 here 5:12 now number one's back over here 5:16 and at this point I can 5:19 rotate this distributor 5:22 wherever I want 5:28 but for ease of use and adjustment 5:33 this is about the best place to put this 5:35 to indicate number one 5:38 I'm going to punch 5:42 this distributor 5:46 so now 5:49 we have an indicator 5:51 to tell us where number one is 5:53 now I'll note that we're still at top 5:54 dead center and number one 5:57 so from that point we can go ahead and 6:00 put on our distributor cap 6:02 after pulling that off 6:06 putting our dust shield back in place 6:11 reinstalling the rotor 6:16 and 6:17 get reinstall 6:18 our distributor cap 6:21 noting that lines up with that guy way 6:23 down there 6:25 and like I said all right 6:30 a couple things from here Spark plug wire installation 6:32 we need to get our 6:33 spark plugs on 6:35 and our firing order conveniently is 6:37 cast right into our alternator stand 6:39 this is actually an original German Zoom 6:41 photos one four three two 6:44 one 6:46 four 6:47 three two so we go one four three two 6:52 so we know this is one 6:54 and if we were to spin the engine we 6:56 know the distributor turns this way so 6:57 this is one four three two 7:02 make sure everything is fully Seated on 7:05 our wires there we go beautiful and our 7:08 last is number four Catching mistakes 7:11 I got it backwards did you see that oh 7:15 I was still thinking this was number one 7:20 so even though 7:22 I've done this before I still mess up if 7:25 you get the firing order wrong 7:28 if the engine happens to start it's 7:30 going to run poorly 7:32 it might backfire 7:34 it might not even run at all 7:37 so let's pay attention and do this one 7:40 more time 7:41 and this is number four 7:45 so I had our plugs 90 degrees out 7:51 now 7:52 the last wire left is our coil wire 7:57 now we've got two wires to hook up to 8:01 our coil before we hook up these two Checking coil resistance 8:03 wires 8:04 to our coil 8:06 we're going to check the resistance on 8:07 our coil to make sure our coil is 8:09 compatible with our electronic ignition 8:11 so we are looking for three ohms of 8:14 resistance 8:15 between our positive terminal and our 8:19 negative terminal now note I'm going to Important wiring notes 8:21 pull that up out of the way 8:24 our old green wire 8:27 was hooked up to the negative side of 8:29 the coil 8:31 note that we have a black wire 8:34 and the black wire going to the positive 8:36 side of the coil really important note 8:38 that we have a black wire 8:41 and another black wire 8:43 going to the positive side of the coil 8:48 these are hot wires 8:51 a lot of people see this black wire and 8:53 this black wire 8:54 and take this wire and plug it in here 8:57 to the positive side 9:00 what you've done 9:01 as soon as you hook up 9:03 the red wire to the opposite side which 9:06 wouldn't have any other wire there if 9:09 you hooked it up and try to start it 9:11 you've just fried your electronic 9:13 ignition 9:14 so green and brown are two common ground 9:18 colors from Volkswagen black and red are 9:22 both hot wires from Volkswagen 9:25 so just our two wires by themselves we 9:28 have 1.1 ohms of resistance for just 9:31 these two wires so we have to add that 9:34 to 9:35 what we get on our distributor by going 9:38 negative side 9:40 to positive side 9:44 we get 4.2 ohms 9:47 so we know minus that 1.1 1.2 ohms that 9:52 the wires have this is a 3 ohm coil 9:55 and it is compatible with our electronic 9:58 ignition now we've got 18 feet of wire Distributor wiring 10:02 that needs to go 10:04 six inches 10:07 now 10:09 we can go ahead and crimp on 10:11 the two terminal ends 10:14 that come with the distributor 10:17 however 10:18 if we look at our coil 10:21 we can see our positive side coil 10:24 has three posts 10:26 and it already has three wires we've got 10:31 our positive circuit running to our idle 10:34 solenoid and the choke 10:36 we've got power from our ignition switch 10:38 and fuse box 10:40 more specifically the ignition switch 10:41 this circuit is not fused going to 10:44 provide power to the coil and then on 10:47 the back side here 10:49 we've got power to our reverse lights 10:51 so we've got three terminals that are 10:53 already taken up 10:55 we need to plug in another positive wire 10:57 you can pick up some piggyback 10:59 connectors like this here this will 11:01 allow you to plug in 11:03 two wires 11:05 onto one terminal 11:07 our idle solenoid from that terminal 11:10 along with our power terminal here so 11:12 we've got those two wires 11:14 I'm going to plug on our piggyback 11:18 over here 11:21 and I'm going to plug in 11:23 our power wire 11:25 on one terminal 11:27 and our solenoid on the other 11:31 all right now that'll give me 11:33 this terminal in this terminal four our 11:36 positive wire and our negative wire 11:45 we'll strip off 11:47 just about a quarter inch 11:51 we'll crimp them with this 11:57 and 11:58 double check that we have a secure 12:00 connection 12:01 this is the positive side with all the 12:03 black wires positive side of the coil 12:05 has the black wires 12:07 looks weird but we're going to plug in 12:09 the red wire 12:12 the black wire is going to go to our 12:14 negative side 12:15 if you happen to have a tachometer in 12:17 your car it will also be plugged into 12:19 the negative side 12:20 most Volkswagens 12:22 don't necessarily have attack so there's 12:24 probably not going to be anything on 12:26 this negative site moreover if your car 12:29 was running before 12:31 the green wire from your distributor 12:33 would go to the negative side so if 12:35 nothing else where the green wire was is 12:38 where the black wire goes the red wire 12:40 goes to the other terminal 12:42 now the only thing we have left to do is 12:44 to hook up our vacuum from here 12:46 before we hook up our vacuum we're going 12:49 to set our Max Advance on this 12:51 distributor without the vacuum hooked up 12:53 so we're going to keep 12:55 our carburetor plug 12:58 and we're going to time this thing Max 13:00 timing we're going to set it 32 degrees 13:02 just like we did with the double 09 13:04 and then we're going to hook up our 13:06 vacuum line to our carburetor and we're 13:08 going to take this thing for a spin 13:10 negative clip we're going to clip onto a 13:13 good ground 13:14 we're going to take a positive 13:16 right off of our generator 13:18 which won't actually provide Power until 13:22 the car is running and charging and our 13:25 inductive sender we're going to clamp 13:27 this around 13:28 the number one spark plug wire well this 13:30 is number four so this is number one 13:31 back over here 13:33 this is just going to sit around the 13:35 wire 13:36 like so but again we're going to do that 13:40 on the number one spark plug wire 13:43 back over here so that hooks up our 13:45 timing light 13:47 at which point we can go ahead and get 13:49 this thing fired over 13:51 and get our initial Advance set 13:53 I want the distributor clamp tight 13:55 enough 13:56 or I can spin it easily enough 13:59 but not loose enough where it just spins 14:00 freely as this car hasn't been started 14:03 today first thing I'm going to do is hit 14:06 the accelerator pedal to open up the 14:07 choke 14:10 one pump 14:14 we know it are generally white oil 14:16 lighter on just good safety keeping to 14:19 make certain that we know everything's 14:20 working as far as our indicators 14:27 not well timed but it was running here's 14:30 the fun part is when you're doing this 14:31 single-handedly 14:32 [Music] 14:33 it's not starting and running turn it a 14:36 couple degrees 14:40 [Music] 14:43 that's not working 14:45 turn it back the other way 14:49 that's our 14:50 little turn it about there see what she 14:52 does there 14:57 [Music] 15:04 we're getting nothing there 15:07 it was running better the other way 15:09 in lieu of everything else it's always 15:11 good to have an assistant 15:13 to crank the engine over Finding and correcting a fuel leak 15:16 go ahead 15:18 oh hold on hold on hold on 15:21 I just noticed 15:23 we've got a little leaking fuel here 15:27 so 15:29 before we continue much further 15:33 I want to see what's going on here 15:37 so we're going to 15:40 [Music] 15:42 nip the chip 15:46 hope we've got a new 15:47 fresh segment of rubber 15:52 good and tight 15:54 now just because it hasn't started that 15:57 well and when it did start 15:59 it wasn't running that smoothly I'm 16:01 gonna go back and double check the 16:03 firing order make certain I didn't screw 16:06 up because guess what 16:07 I've done it a couple times so we're 16:10 going to give another try with our handy 16:11 cameraman cranking the key while I turn 16:14 the distributor to get our initial 16:16 timing set 16:19 [Music] 16:50 foreign 17:01 foreign 18:25 foreign 18:51 now that we've got our timing set 18:53 and we've got our carburetor readjusted 18:56 to a about an 800 RPM idle now that it's 18:59 warmed up we should be able to just turn 19:00 the key 19:02 and it starts right up 19:06 perfect 19:09 now we're going to tighten our 19:10 distributor clamp fully 19:13 and we're gonna hook up a back of mine Installing vacuum line 19:17 we're gonna Purl 19:19 our vacuum from the side right there 19:25 and this will go down 19:27 to right here 19:28 and 19:30 just because we want to have some extra 19:32 for 19:34 future 19:35 shortening if need be 19:38 we'll give it a fresh cut 19:41 and 19:43 like so 19:45 our vacuum is hooked up 19:47 disconnect our timing light 19:50 all right Pre-test drive inspection 19:59 good starting 20:29 pulled off to it 20:38 let's take her for a spin Test drive 20:46 [Music] 21:09 gusta mucho 21:16 [Music] Final inspection 21:41 foreign 21:47 well with that 21:50 we can call this card done 21:53 one more thing but I'll probably do that 21:55 in a short I don't like that shifter 21:57 we'll probably swap that out to 21:58 something else but 22:00 anyway otherwise 22:02 with the new carburetor and our new 22:04 electronic distributor with vacuum 22:06 advance 22:08 this car is ready to go 22:10 and his owner can go enjoy it once the 22:13 summer cools off a little bit out here 22:14 in Phoenix 22:15 thanks guys take care 22:19 [Music] 22:27 well I'm Sam Mebane and I'm here to say 22:29 I love working on Volkswagens every day 22:33 that's a wrap