It was a time of innocence and freedom. I am driving across America with a beautiful girlfriend, the smell of Patchouli and Michoacan filling the cabin. The plains went by filled with native grasses, Hungarian Partridge, Pheasants, and Sharptail Grouse. I am thinking to myself, I will be back for the birds. Then came the Rockies. As we climbed steadily, we began to see other VW buses along the road broken down like Conestoga wagons gone"bust". VW engines had a serious design flaw. They were air cooled and the internal oil cooler blocked air flow to number three cylinder. As a result, under heavy load and high temps at best the exhaust valve in number three would burn leading to no compression, at worst the number three cylinder would throw a rod. The ones with thrown rods had pools of oil running out behind. Having been brought up modifying motors I knew the solution was to remove the internal cooler and plumb in an external one on the rear side of the bus in clean air. As we climbed and climbed I watched the temp gauge stay in the green, looking out my side view mirror at the oil cooler passively doing its job. At least to get her to California, Jane instinctively chose wisely in a mate with certain skill sets.
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