Air Flow Meter

Hi! Today I'm posting about what is called the Air Flow Meter! Most of you who own air-cooled VWs don't actually have to worry about this and may not even know what it is. I didn't until I bought this particular model. The Air Flow Meter is only on the L-Jetronic fuel-injected Volkswagens. For the air-cooled engines this is from 1975 to 1979. It was only a few short years. My car is a 1975 Super Beetle, the first year this system was installed.

Unfortunately my car in the past wasn't very well cared for. And on top of that it has pretty much just been sitting for the two years I was in Lithuania. So now I have the job of bringing him back to life. I'm going to be working on replacing fuel lines, gas tank, and other parts of the fuel-injection system. I'll be posting on it as I go. Today's job is working on the Air Flow Meter.

On the Fuel Injection system the Air Flow Meter takes the job of the carburetor to regulate the air and fuel mixture. It is attached to the air filter, and it senses the amount of air taken into the intake manifold. It then sends that information to the Electronic Control Unit or E.C.U. which is basically a very simple computer that runs the fuel injection system. It then determines the duration of time the fuel injectors open. Meaning it regulates how much fuel is mixed with the air.

That's how it works, its an important component of the car. It is very rare for these parts to go bad. And it is also very rare that they need adjustment. Unfortunately as I said my car was not that well cared for. Someone had taken the cover off and undertook to "adjust" it themselves. I.E. they mucked around with it until they bent some of the potentiometer contacts out of what and completely messed up the adjustment of it.

The sad thing is the reason he mucked around with it was to try and cure the symptoms of old rubber hoses and seals that needed to be replaced, instead of just fixing the problem. This of course means that I give to fix both his "solution" and the problem. But on the bright side, little by little my car is getting nicer and better.

That fact that they fiddled with it combined with the fact that the Air Flow Meter is old I decided its best to replace it. I've ordered a rebuilt Air Flow Meter. I'll send in my old one to them which they will later rebuild, and he will send me a rebuilt one in a couple weeks.

Today's job was to take the air filter and remove the Air Flow Meter from it so I can prep it for shipping. The Moral of this story is; If you don't know what you are doing, learn first before you muck around and ruin something.

Have there been times where you have had to repair some previous owners' "repair" because they only ended up breaking it worse?