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Driving on the interstate in my vintage Beetle, just after a fuel stop.
I drove 150 miles yesterday evening in the Beetle. As an exercize in navigation, it was a failure. I was driving between two different routes I knew well, but I didn't think about the additional distance the intermediate leg added. So I got home much later than planned.
But as a shakedown run, the drive was great. Some elements:
At 70 mph the oil didn't get above 215 degrees (in the cool of the evening, granted). This was measuring the outside surface of the block with an infared thermometer.
I suspect that I need to adjust the calibration of the oil temperature warning dipstick gadget. At 215, it wasn't any where near going off. It turns out that antifreeze mixed to go in a car has about the right boiling point to check the calibration.
Apparently the problem with the fuse for the reverse lights was its location; it was getting too hot. I slightly re-threaded the wire where it goes across the top of the engine, and even after driving for over two hours, it still worked. So that's fixed.
I fixed the muffler tips--it turns out that the clamps just hadn't been tightened properly. They're solid now. I need to check to make sure they're at the proper extension, but that problem is fixed.
No gasoline smell inside the cabin. Yay!
No gear-shift rattle whatsoever. That was nice.
The gas gauge seemed to work Ok, although it seems that the top "half" of the tank according to the gauge only has about 4 gallons of gas. Hmm...I guess that's not too far off; the tank is supposed to hold 11 gallons.
And it's really kind of a noisy car. One long-term project will be to try to get the body and door seals under control so that there's less wind noise.
The engine ran really well, although it did die on me one time coming off the interstate coming to a stop. I think the idle is actually set too low. I just need to tweak it up a bit.
The oil in the crankcase isn't down significantly, so I should be able to do a 450 mile drive with no problem.
So I think the car is signed off for long-distance drives. At this point the only thing that still needs to be done for long-distance travel is to finish driving it 500 miles after engine assembly, take the engine out, and re-torque the cylinder heads.