Back home and timing belt covers

["Rick Lackner" <rsl@kendra.com>]

WARNING:  long rambling recounting of Scirocco problems on holiday 
trip to follow !!!  Delete if not in the mood .............

> As far as the safety of leaving the cover off, I have never had any
> problems resulting from its not being there(I took off both upper
> and lower).  I've never heard of people having things jump in there
> and break the belt.  You can theorize about sticks and stones all
> day long - I don't deny it could happen, but I and many other people
> have traveled thousands and thousands of miles without covers,
> without problems.

Just want to get my .02 in and let everyone know I had a succesful 
trip back east and am back in WA safe and sound........

I had my belt break on my 8V a few months back.  I was stuck at work 
at night with it raining and decided to let both covers off.  I've 
been running it @ 10k miles so far and no problems so far.  I do 
intend to replace the covers eventually, but was really glad they 
were off on my recent trip.

We pulled into Sheridan WY at 2am to get some sleep, my gf was 
driving.  I woke up when we pulled off I-90 and heard a squeeking 
noise when we parked in the motel lot.  I said screw it, we'll check 
it in the morning.  I had my gf pull go bring it closer to our room 
when it died.  I went over and popped the hood, the tensioner 
bearings were gone and the belt popped off.  I was lucky to find a VW 
guy in town who had a used tensioner and time to pop it on.  I saved 
at least an hour labor because the covers were off.  $75 and a couple 
hours to get it towed and fixed and we were back on the road.
And for me to replace the tensioner with a new one will be cake with 
the covers off.....I paid this time because I didn't have a lot of 
tools and decided for $66 it was worth it so my gf and I could spend 
time in the hot tub and pool at the motel :)

BTW, we had a little problem on the way out to MN also.  I had the 
cruise control set at 80 in a desolate area of Montana (love that 
state! had cruise set to 90 a little earlier for 50 miles or so and 
topped out at 105 on one stretch) when the motor died.  It appeared 
to be out of gas but the gauge said 1/4 tank and we had only gone 280 
miles since fill up. I checked the fuel pump fuse (OK) and called AAA 
(thank goodness I signed up before we left).  I got towed to Hysham, 
MT, a town of maybe 100 people and got the AAA guy to cut me a short 
jumper wire.  He had to go, but said he would return to see if I 
needed to be towed back to Billings, the closest place with parts, 80 
miles west.  I jumped the fuel pump relay and it kicked right over.  
I asked some locals if they knew of anyone with a junk VW in their 
backyard, no one knew of any.  There was a "junkyard" with maybe 10 
cars in it across the street and I started to head over to snoop when 
I spotted a chopped up grey car behind a building.  It turned out to 
be a Jetta with it's doors welded shut, no windows or roof.  I leaned 
in the drivers side and reached up under the dash.  2 relays were 
there and one of them was for the fuel pump!  Popped it in and we 
were off with less than 2 hours delay.  I left $5 and my business 
card at a neighbors for the car owner and got the hell out of there!

Sorry for rambling, but there may be a useful thing or 2 in there for 
some one :)

Also, I had unsubbed this list while I was gone, so if anyone posted 
on the list for me in the last 16 days, please resend it to me off 
list.
Rick
rsl@kendra.com
Richard.Lackner@entex.com
85 Scirocco 8V  Wolfsburg
Everett, WA

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