We have now been in lockdown for the best part of a Year. During this time I took a break from the bus and restored a VW Caddy. Unlike the restoration of Chucky this has been a joy. Not only was it done at a reasonable cost, it is also on the road having just past the MOT after being abandoned for over 11 years. That done (I will post some pictures) it was time to revisit Chucky, take stock of the vehicle and put some energy into getting this on the road and usable. I normally watch a couple of episodes of Fast & Loud to get me motivated and get to business. So, after many false starts with Chucky I decided that the main objective had to be a focus on reliability. For me, this meant swapping out some of the stock items for more reliable modern ones. I decided on two minor modifications, electronic timing and a temperature gauge. I bought a complete kit from the fellas at AccuSpark and installed this along with the temperature gauge in around 3 hours at a total cost of £150 all in. The kit arrived within 48 hours and worked seamlessly with the engine starting without issue. I have pulled together a small video on the installation – enjoy!

The installation of the temperature sensor is extremely simple, the kit comes with a probe that acts as the crush washer for a spark plug. It recommends Cylinder 3 for this, I have no idea why?? You then simply run the probe to a a small LCD Screen at the front of the Bus that you in turn connect to 12V. You then have a view of the engine temperature – vital information for an Air Cooled 40 Year Old Engine. I am advised that 120 degrees Celsius is the Upper Range with VW recommending 75. I will let you know when we start driving this on how this works out.