Myrtle's Manifold Malfunction

As I wrote the other week, poor Tango has been laid up after breaking a spring, and then requiring some extensive TLC. She is getting on a bit now, so replacing almost everything suspension wise was the best option, as after all she is my daily go to car for getting to work and back.

So whilst Tango has been out of action I have really enjoyed using Myrtle, my 65 Bug, to potter about in and get me to and from work. I am still getting used to her clutch, so have been experimenting with different routes, not so much going to work, but on my return. So far I have not been brave enough to tackle Watergate Bends LoL.

Anyhoo the other day whilst arriving at work and parking up on Richardson Road I decided to air Myrtle out. It's fun seeing the wee car sitting on the deck as she looks tiny compared to more modern cars, and she gets some admiring glances.


I used my mobile phone and the Airlift Performance App installed and selected my low height preset, which is "0" psi in all four corners. This is when I noticed that 3 of the bags had completely aired out, however my driver's side rear was still reading around 20 to 30 psi. As I had to go into work, I just had to leave Myrtle.


When I finished work upon getting in Myrtle, I used the AirLift controller which I have situated inside Myrtle's glovebox. I selected my high preset, which is roughly 95 psi all around. I noticed that the two front bags went up to the preset pressures, as did the passenger rear, however the driver's side bag was bobbing up and down on the controller screen, going way past 95 psi and then dropping back down to a lower pressure.


Fortunately I was able to drive Myrtle home and upon arriving at our street get over the giant speed bumps...fucking hate those things.

I then had a little mess around with the controller as Myrtle stood in our backyard, to no avail. That driver's side rear bag was having none of it. I then went on to try different fixes, such as recalibrating the system. Resetting the manifold, by removing the plug on the manifold. Removing and replacing the fuse. Releasing all the air from the tank and then trying to reinflate the bags. Well nothing worked.

Following all of this I went online to try and get in touch with AirLift Performance, however I couldn't find an email for them upon their site, just a telephone number.

Fortunately, I had an old email address from when I had a problem with my phone connectivity through the app, and the guys at AirLift were trying to help me. It was something to do with the Samsung updates and the Bluetooth connectivity. So I fired off an email, keeping my fingers crossed that someone would reach out.

I tried calling the supplier where I got the Airlift system from, Limebug, however there was no answer and I also emailed Limebug, that was on the 31st May, and they still haven't responded.

I got a pretty quick response from AirLift, so was well pleased, as like I say I wasn't even sure I had the correct address. So over the course of the last few days I have been corresponding with a very helpful guy named Kevin. Kevin has gone through my problem and suggested I try a few things to establish the fault.

My dad and I swapped the RR & RL lines on the manifold as Kevin suggested, and immediately I got a pressure sensor fault.

Upon sending Kevin a few small video's of the fault and what was happening, he asked me to send my original receipt and informed me a new manifold would be sent out under warranty.

So that is where I am at with Myrtle. Hopefully it will just be a case of fitting the new manifold and jobs a good'un.

Getting back to Tango, what a nightmare with delivery of parts. UPS, better known as "Useless Parcel Service" has fucked up yet again. The last 4 deliveries we have had off them, we have had issues each time. This time they haven't even bothered delivering the parts, instead they have decided to send them to some Amazon delivery depot. That is after sending 3 emails of course to say that the parcel was at a local pickup point down at Tanfield at some shop. Go down to the shop and guess what, no parcel.

Back in August of 2020  my mate Brian, the designer of the Bartlett Tendon, sent me a knee over to trial for a few weeks. It was delivered by UPS, well kind of. Now, this knee is probably in the region of 8 to 10K. The delivery driver thought it would be a good idea just to leave it at the back gate.

 

Oh! I will just leave it here, should be safe???

It's soooo far to walk all the way to the door, I will just leave it here

 

A week earlier, he had not delivered a parcel, or even bothered to slip a notice in through the letterbox, so I missed a parcel and the sender was not happy as they then had to pay the import duty. Oh! And he also came back with another parcel and decided to leave it on the spoiler of Grandma, my Beetle. The DPD man who was delivering actually saw it, picked it up and delivered it to our door. I mean, imagine if I had gone out in my car, I would never have known it was there.

The bloke down at UPS now knows my dad by sight and just sights when he sees him, LoL.