The beginning of our cross-country adventure took us mostly through sea level terrain. We’ll always remember how excited we were reaching the highest point in Alabama, a whopping 2,000+ feet, but when we entered Colorado, we ascended 10,000+ feet of elevation, as we crossed over the Continental Divide. After a few days at a local elevation of 7,000 feet, we noticed a little sputtering coming from our 1978 VW bus, Moksha. Carbureted motors need a little more air flow at such high elevations, which can be configured with bigger/smaller jets and timing adjustments, but our clogged fuel filter was an obvious trouble maker.

Our VW Bus has a fuel filter located between the fuel pump and the carburetor. We have a regulator between the pump and the filter, so we set that to zero and loosened the clamps around the old filter. All the hose was in good condition so we inserted the new filter, tightened the clamps, set the regulator to the appropriate pressure and we were all set.

Turning down the volume control screw and adjusting the idle helped lean out the motor to compensate for the altitude change, making a much smoother ride. Lower octane fuel and a bottle of STP helped burn out whatever was left over from the gunky filter. Moksha was very happy for the fresh fuel filter and care and smoothly took us to our next destination.

*See photos from our cross-country adventure here!