Life's Work

Melissa rightly complained from pretty early on that Gertie had a tendency to reek of gasoline, particularly while cornering after fill-ups. Fuel could even sometimes be seen on the road behind the vehicle at these times, originating from the starboard front wheel well. Not cool.

I'm no genius, but I'm not really a dummy either, and having had these cars, off and on, for half my life (!), I knew what the deal was. There's a tube that runs from the filler neck back into the tank, so overfilled gas has somewhere productive to go. Gertie's tube was a shadow of its former self (above), and served only to allow gas an exit during left turns. Temporary solution: don't fill the tank much more than half full.

Next best solution: tape an oversize bolt into the hole in the filler neck, where the tube was supposed to go (above, left). A decent fix, actually, but somewhat lacking in grace. Best best solution: order a replacement tube (from ISP West), which is still an original VW part, amazingly (above, right). They must've used it on some other model long enough after the sun set on the Variant to justify its continued production. A small victory to be sure, but we Type III owners will take what we can get.

It was an easy enough installation, with Melissa working it into place while I pulled from the fender side. (Let's all just pretend that rust at left is value-adding patina, shall we?) When fitting rubber parts like these, use talcum powder (the whiteness seen here), and not grease, as a lubricant please.

Done.

The Tater Tot was napping during all this activity so Melissa thought it'd be a her chance to deal with a thorn in her side, the carpet sagging from the upper corners of the cabin. Less-than-ideal temperatures didn't seem to affect the adhesive she used, which now mightily holds up the carpet. While I was certainly in favor of this project, I didn't expect it to have as dramatic an effect as it did. Gertrude is much better looking for the application of a little glue, I have to say.

Melissa's work

As we were doing this stuff, I found myself wondering. I thought, if someone had told my 17 year-old self that at 35, a Type III would be the daily driver my wife and I used to haul our kid around in (and that our only other car would be an old VW camper), I probably wouldn't've batted an eye. If someone had told my 33 year-old self that this would be the case, I probably would've thought they were crazy. Life is weird.