When I was in high school a friend of mine had a VW Thing.  That car was
great!  But it did take three people to drive it.  Whenever you would pull
to a stop, the driver would need to press the clutch and hit the gas to keep
the idle speed up.  Of course my friend was not very coordinated and the car
would frequently die.  To get it started again the other two would jump out
(no roof of course - just jump out) and push the car until the driver kick
started it.

Now that I think about it, how hard is it to press in the clutch and hit the
gas?  He probably just wanted to see us jump out and push.  The thing I
remember most is how nobody seemed upset at our little procedure.  In fact,
it caused most people to laugh and cheer when we got it started again.

Take care,

Paul Borghese

----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Spaeth" <spaeth@GORGE.NET>
Newsgroups: groupstudy.vanagon
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 10:30 PM
Subject: Re: "Bump Start" stories

> On my first bus, a 66 stripped 6 volt micro bus I push started it for two
months after I first got it. Finally one day at a friends house I let it
roll back out of the drive and let off the clutch. There was an awful clunk
sound and then grinding. It was like something out of the cartoons. There
was oil and chunks of metal in a trail leading out
> from under the bus. The tranny case had actually cracked in half. Probably
not something that normally happens but it IS possible.
> Craig
> the Gorge VW club
>