Phi1osopher
Veteran Member
So a few months back I had this dream to buy a cool diesel VW station wagon and take it to Mexico. After much searching I found Tulbirt and named him Tulbirt for The Ultimate Low-Budget International Road Trip. Tulbirt and I knocked out some sweet back-logged maintenance and spent some time looking at maps. I'm based near Austin, TX, and there are beautiful mountains just a few hours south of us, plus my friend had never been to Old Mexico, so it was time to go!
Over all we got about 40mpg, but I rarely drove under 85mph, and the mountain roads in Mexico are not to the same standards as here in the US: some of them are really steep!! But Tulbirt never missed a beat. I would argue that the turbo and torquey grunt of these little diesels are PERFECT for this kind of trip. and as far as "the ultimate low-budget international road trip" goes, Mexico was cheap, cheap, cheap, beautiful, safe and cheap!
Road Trip? LETS GO!
The usual offenders.
My first setback was in Padre. The "Manual Transmission Relay Lever Cable Carrier" broke. Well, I actually wouldn't call it a setback. Anytime you're on a road trip, especially one that's about to take you out into the middle of nowhere, and something breaks close to a hardware store, that's a blessing! That's the Universe saying, "Here you go, this one's for free!"
You can see I was kind of winging it here. I used a stick and a straw I found on the side of the road to tie the cable to the transmission shift housing. It worked perfectly to get me the few miles to the nearest hardware store.
Here's what I bought to fix it. The parts, from left to right are: carriage bolt, extra fat big washer, long nut to get the spacing right, two nylon washers, and then a pair of double nuts to make sure the cable end is secure, but not tight.
Around here we call this a performance mod/ short shifter. I also ended up using safety wire to make sure the 'axle part' of the Transmission Relay Lever Cable Carrier stayed in place... I ordered a replacement Transmission Relay Lever Cable Carrier, but this repair got us through the whole trip and is continuing to work perfectly!
After fixing the shift cable I was able to drive to the beach! I am clearly very excited.
We spent 2 nights here at the beach.
Up next: MEXICO!
Over all we got about 40mpg, but I rarely drove under 85mph, and the mountain roads in Mexico are not to the same standards as here in the US: some of them are really steep!! But Tulbirt never missed a beat. I would argue that the turbo and torquey grunt of these little diesels are PERFECT for this kind of trip. and as far as "the ultimate low-budget international road trip" goes, Mexico was cheap, cheap, cheap, beautiful, safe and cheap!
Road Trip? LETS GO!
The usual offenders.
My first setback was in Padre. The "Manual Transmission Relay Lever Cable Carrier" broke. Well, I actually wouldn't call it a setback. Anytime you're on a road trip, especially one that's about to take you out into the middle of nowhere, and something breaks close to a hardware store, that's a blessing! That's the Universe saying, "Here you go, this one's for free!"
You can see I was kind of winging it here. I used a stick and a straw I found on the side of the road to tie the cable to the transmission shift housing. It worked perfectly to get me the few miles to the nearest hardware store.
Here's what I bought to fix it. The parts, from left to right are: carriage bolt, extra fat big washer, long nut to get the spacing right, two nylon washers, and then a pair of double nuts to make sure the cable end is secure, but not tight.
Around here we call this a performance mod/ short shifter. I also ended up using safety wire to make sure the 'axle part' of the Transmission Relay Lever Cable Carrier stayed in place... I ordered a replacement Transmission Relay Lever Cable Carrier, but this repair got us through the whole trip and is continuing to work perfectly!
After fixing the shift cable I was able to drive to the beach! I am clearly very excited.
We spent 2 nights here at the beach.
Up next: MEXICO!
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