So I was reading an article the other day about something called electro-magnetic pulse, or EMP. What I found particularly scary were the consequences of an EMP attack on North America. I'm certainly no physicist or anything like that, but, as I understood it, when you detonate a nuclear bomb at very high altitude, like 150 to 250 miles, it sends out a Gamma ray burst that will induce a voltage spike of about 50 volts into basically everything that will conduct electricity. According to the article, if the terrorists or Chinese or whoever wants to attack us, explode the bomb over Kansas or the Dakotas, about 2/3 of the U.S. would be effected, from the Rockies to the Appalachians, down to North Texas. Canada would be less effected due to something about the earth's magnetic field causing the effect to be less intensive to the North. As I understood it, most standard electrical components, like wiring and switches and stuff like that won't be bothered by this, but it would pretty much fry every circuit card it hits. Now what has circuit cards in it? These days, pretty much everything. As far as automobiles go, it would pretty much kill everything with electronic ignition or any kind of computerized engine control. Point style ignitions on gasoline engines and diesels without computer control would probably survive. This got me to thinking about the old V-dub. All you need to run is the shut-off solenoid in the pump. I don't know if the solenoid would get baked by the pulse, but a guy could probably rig up something manual if you had to. I haven't checked to see if the wiring for it runs through the circuit card in the fuse box, but if it does that would be pretty easy to wire around. So, as an end result, if you have a MK 1, you might be the only person for miles around with a car that still runs. As far as I know in my little town there are 3 other MK 1 diesels, another Rabbit (which I owned at one time), and 2 Caddy's. The 4 of us might see pretty heavy use as a taxi service. hehe. Not trying to be a harbinger of doom or anything here, but I did find this stuff kind of interesting. Plus it gives us MK 1 owners another good reason to hang on to them. hehe.
when they set off the 1st(set of) atomic bomb(s), they were trying to figure out what else was going on there, as now they had an EMP. for years national security necessitated avoiding the effects of this an EMP. then in the '70s or so this seemed to come obsolete, and we moved on, building (eventually) most if not everything with fine wiring, circuit boards, etc. although national security dictates a fail safe method, back up system. although i havent kept up on the new fail-safe method, i used to be like a religion, it might as well be. now ive heard the russians(esp) can produce an 'artificial' EMP pulse, this could be used for mass murder(think of all the airplanes which will just fall from the sky, up to a certain area), mass hysteria, and confusion. anything in the immediate area will be rendered useless, including most, if not all modern military equipment. this is also (i figure) one of the main reasons the russians have kept analog systems on their military equipment. among its also a neat, smart, backup, fail safe system. your and my mk1's & mk2's should be EMP pulse, nuclear, resistant, perhaps proof. not including fall-out, tho.
Woweee....
Well to put your mind at ease yes a mechanical diesel will keep on going. Most critical infrastructure is shielded as there's other things (like lightning) which also produce EMPs.
Electromagnetic interference is a significant challenge electronics designers have to take in to account all the time. Lots of stuff is designed with shielding and isolation simply to prevent problems under normal circumstances. Newer stuff is often better in that regard, especially as we have more and more transmitters around us these days.
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Depends on how severe the EMP is. I suspect a solar flare or a true nuclear EMP would wipe out the diodes in the alternator, kill the glowplug timer circuit and literally catch wires on fire. The mechanical side will survive. I suppose you could make a manual fuel shut off valve but getting the beast started without a starter or glow plugs could become an issue.
You can push start easily enough. Dump the clutch to turn it off. No need for anything electrical at all.
Time to install a wind-up spring...