Rear Shock Weld

Most of my repairs have been cosmetic, or easily functional:
-Fuel Pump
-Interior
-Seat Covers
-Steering Wheel
-Pop Top

All involved simple tools and an obvious process of remove-replace.

Not this time.

A couple of months ago I noticed a small rattle in the rear passenger area. I emptied the closet, tightened things down, checked the roof rack, checked the bolts on the CV joints. Nothing. Then I looked at the shock absorber and noticed that it moved far more than it should.



The shock is held in by a bolt that screws into a welded nut on the back side of the mount, the mount is welded onto one of the long support beams that make up the bus frame. There isn't much room to re-weld that little piece, so the best thing to do was to (eeep!) cut the shock mount off and place the nut back in.



After careful sandblasting and beefing up the weld points (like so)


we added some extra steel strips for strength:


and now have a stronger shock absorber mount.



Bus no longer has that rattle, and the shock absorber actually does what it is designed to do - absorb shocks (as opposed to rattle around in a broken weld).

The Fuel Pump Thing

I've been meaning to post this one for a while. So since I'm a little over amped on caffeine, here goes.

I went through four fuel pumps in less than four months. During that time, I found out far more about fuel pumps than I have ever wanted to know, but no matter - here's a short history, and a reason why you want to keep one on hand.

My first pump died after being installed 8 years ago. I was camping, and it just crapped out after so much use. It looked like this:

Fuel Pump #1


So I replaced it while camping - its very easy to do, two screws and two fuel lines. 10 mm bolts and a screw driver. Easy. Less than a month later, it died - apparently the spring installed on the interior was not aligned correctly and the return valve got locked shut by a spring that wouldn't move. I didn't find that out till later.

It looked like this:
Fuel Pump #2



I was near a VW shop when my second fuel pump died, so I replaced it with a used one that came with no promises, and no expectations. It died on the way home from another camp out less than three weeks later. This time I had a replacement that I was expecting to put one when I got home - and here is where I start the cautionary tale.

The fuel pump died on the freeway, I was able to pull over to a safe place and open the engine compartment. As I was removing the fuel lines and clamping them. This piece fell out:

Fuel Pump #3


It fell, I didn't pull on it, it just... dropped. So let's think about that for a moment. If it didn't die, the piece would have just eventually fallen out - giving me the opportunity to make the most of my insurance plan.

I replaced it with another one that looks like my first one(see Number 1 above), but with a few modifications...

So let's walk through fuel pumps. There are three types as show here:


Top to bottom, the three types are post 1971, pre-1971 single-carb (the one in the picture is a cheap copy) and pre-1971 dual carb.
Almost all the fuel pumps these days are made by Brosol - run by two brothers in Brazil, they are the only game in town and to be honest, they don't give a crap about quality (according to three suppliers that I know).

Let's ignore the fact that I don't want an electric fuel pump, move on.

The pre-1971 pumps have more moving parts, they can be repaired, and the repair kits are almost as expensive as the pump itself. See here:


The post 1971 (the brass colored ones) have fewer moving parts, can't be repaired, and don't have the option of a part falling off and allowing fuel to spray all over the inside of a hot engine compartment. Based on that fact alone, I'm going to reccommend that you stick with these "newer' ones.

However: The Brosol company has decided to go even cheaper and the metal pump levers (the single most important moving part) with plastic ones. They break, at random, sometimes before they get out of the mechanics garage. If you buy one, inspect the lever at the bottom. If it is plastic, you have two options - find a metal one, or replace it with your old metal one.

To replace it, you need to hammer out the pin, hammer in the new pin, and then find a way to secure the pin since (sigh) the Brosol company has also decided to remove the extra pin space that was used to allow a circlip to hold the pin in place.

I'd take more pictures to explain further, but I think you get the point.

Here's my best tip - keep a spare fuel pump on you.

Good luck.

All Hallows Eve impromptu campout

I got an email from Melissa who wants to scope out a camp ground for our next VW gathering. Its at Bothe Napa State Park, and she isn't too interested in giving out candy to hordes of children, so she's off for a recon mission.

There's nothing else going on, and I like driving through wine country in the autumn, so I pack up, head north, and despite the bay bridge being borken, I'm there in less than two hours.

Joe arrives. He's dressed like this:


It's a short night before, we have a bottle or two of wine, and go to sleep under an almost full moon that turns the tress into a shilouette.

The next morning, Joe leaves early for work, and Melissa and I walk around the campground on fallen leaves, listening to peregrine falcons and hawks battle for vocal supremacy of the trees. The falcons sound like they are winning. The woodpeckers are knocking making for a fun morning symphony.

One more cup of coffee and I'm packed up to go from a perfectly framed site.


The neighbors in the site next door were silent.


It's a short drive to St. Helena through an archway of trees and wine leaves.


And I arrive home in less than two hours. Not a bad way to spend an evening.


Notes about the campground:
-Expensive - $38.00 per site. Damn California state budget.
-Hot showers, porcelin.
-Sites 1-15 can hear the road, but its a slow road, so the noise is barely audible.
-Excellent way to go wine tasting. Camp out, eat breakfast, clean up, hit the wineries at 10:00 am when they open.
-No one there this time of year.
-Chilly, bring gloves and a hat and firewood.

SFgate photos

The Bay Area is filled with VW's, bugs, busses, things, rarities. I suspect that it is only appropriate that this photo set appears at SFgate- the Hearst-owned online arm of the SF Chronicle.

Jason Rehms bus is there, as are several cute bugs.

Granted, there is nothing like the flikr sets available, the bay window one is my favorite, of course, but the general Bus one isn't bad either.

Unrelated: in the neighborhood that I live in, there seems to be a bus on every other corner. I live here, Karl lives here, there's a younger couple that just bought a 1971 adventure wagon. And across the park in the other district, there is one on every block. Eurovans, Syncros, even a couple type 5's. Someone has the Hobie edition bus out by the zoo, and there is another 1970 like mine near 43rd and Noriega.

Anyone up for an east-end bus gathering?

Del valle Campout

Its been a while since my last posting. To be honest, I've been pretty busy with work, but I found some time to go camping this weekend.
Short summary: 8 Busses and one baja bug, 14 bottles of wine, one set of adjusted brakes, one relocation of a fuel pump, one window replacement, and one new camper among us. (Hi Jen with one "n"!)

It starting to get cold, so camping season is weeding out the weak. Those of us with fireplace skills and big tents will be fine.

Pics:
Johns tent, and Joe and Dick's busses. Gives you an idea of just how big that thing is.




Regis's bus, while Romy and Aaron relocate a fuel pump.


A few more here

Del Valle is great as it is close to the Bay Area, and less than a 2 hour drive for most people attending. One of the kids caught a rainbow trout, the girlscouts camping on the opposite side of the campground went around in costume, and the proximity meant that if we needed anything at the last minute, it wouldn't be difficult to get.

Next one will be on November 20-22 in Bothe Napa.

Sacramento Bug O Rama

The longest running bug show in the US is in Sacramento. It's a labor day event (who thought that was a good idea) and includes drag races, and a pretty big vendor area.

I was able to find a few parts that I was missing, and some replacement parts that I wanted.

As usual, Bay Window buses were underrepresented, but there were a couple.

Pics say it all, they are here

Some of my favorites:
Usually the Adventure top makes the Bus look huge, but when compared to other vehicles, it can look almost petite.





Squish


Nice Rat rod, I'll post more on this one later.

That Short Bus

It's a piece of art and expression, assuming that you want it to be. There is a reason that the typical depiction of the Bus has the Peace/Love flowery things all over it -there is a big wide canvas on those panels that lets its owner say what they want to say and move it to where they want to say it.

So there is this guy:


His website is here and it is marginally safe for work (he tattoos everywhere except neck and face, if you know what I mean...) Bill has a thing for weird cars.

I could go into great detail about it, but he has a website that says it all.

But in case you don't have time to surf, here are a few more.