Starter

(Looking up at the starter, 1972 Type 2)

Tonight I climbed under Mossy (that is what I called from the day when it found comfort in my garage that I started scraping the moss that had grown on its north side where is sat exposed to the Bellingham weather for years) and took the starter out listening to a Donovan cassette. I don't know if the starter is necessarily not working, but I wanted to learn how to take if of myself in the comfort of my garage versus some logging road over on the peninsula. Now I am still amazed how simple it is to work on a VW when you have the right tools and comfy garage. Tomorrow I will take it to the Bosch starter shop a half block away. It had a label on it that said remanufactured.  

But basically here's how it went for my 1972 Weekender in less than thirty minutes:
- Remove the negative battery strap.
- Climb underneath with a 13mm socket, a 15mm wrench, a 15cm piece of wire, and your light.
- Pull of the wires from the solenoid. Two red ones that are push on tabs.
- Loosen and remove the bolt (I think #30) with four wires coming from them. I put a piece of wire through them to keep them together in the same order. A 13mm socket does the job. There is a washer and a nut.
- Remove the 15mm nut that is for bottom mounting.
- Roll out on the dolly, pet the dog.
- Get a 17mm wrench and remove the northeast engine mount nut. The bolt is half-moon shaped on the head on the forward side of the transaxle so you need to keep pulling it forward once you loosened it. I found an open-ended wrench useful for this. Put all the nuts and washer. in the baggie.*  
- Crawl back underneath and hopefully your starter will easily come out like mine did with no bruised knuckles.

But there was one bolt that looked like it had something attached to it, but it had broken off (maybe?). I check online, or the manuals. I will ask at the starter shop too.Or better yet (sudden thought) check the electrical schematic in the Bentley manual.

* - Now I don't have the blower fan or the air cleaners on my new Webers yet, so i had a bit more room to move up there on the engine topside than normal. Oh, and Othello is a dog I am fostering and tries to help when he can. He is a Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Cur. He is good to have around. His favorite food is CD cases.