Weird California

I had a childhood fascination with all things odd and strange. Of course I liked the things that kids are expected to like - dinosaurs, ghosts, monster movies - but I had a tendency to lean toward the macabre and the unexpected. It's not too surprising that once I had grown enough to put a pedal under my foot and a wheel in my hands, I'd aim my vehicle in the direction that I had already been leaning.


These two guys have taken my hobby and made a career out of it. And this site is unrelated to the book, written by a different guy, but has a similar vein. I am apparently, not unique.

I'm less interested in "haunted houses" and "spiritually connected spaces" and more interested in strange buildings, odd gravestones, unexpected monuments, and places of historical interest.

Griffith Park:
The Curse? Bah, whatever. The weird? For starters, Griffith J Griffith let ostriches be raised on his land, changed his mind about the ostriches, then got shot by the ostrich owner. Taking a cue from his attempted murderer, he decided to try and pre-emptively shoot his wife (who may have been trying to poison him) and failed to kill her. He served two years in San Quentin, and donated the land that is now the park.
James Dean was right, it's the perfect place to see everything. Go get your picture taken next to his disembodied head.

Bubble Gum Alley. See the previous post.

I have never seen the Phantom Cow of Yerba Buena, but I have seen the Doggie Diner heads.

More later. as always.

Brake time - part 2

Continuing:
For clarification on the brake drum removal trick: Do this.

Once you are done inspecting your work, it is time to put the drum back one. Wipe it clean once more, and line up the splines, and slide it on gently.

The lug nuts don't need to be on, I put them there so I wouldn't risk losing any. Now tighten the big hub nut, re attach the wheel, and lower the car off the jack stand - you will need the tire to press against the ground again as you go for 250 foot pounds.

Side note: as long as the tire is off, now is a good time to adjust valves, wipe down parts, check shocks, examine fuel lines, all that kind of stuff thats easy with you don't have a tire in your way. just Saying.

So your tire is mounted and on the ground. Vehicle is in gear, parking brake is on. Good. Put the big honking hex wrench on the big honking nut and cracking it down by hand at first, and then by body. Like this.

Push until you can't push no more, chances are you have put it on tight enough. My cheater pipe put me out about 3 feet, and I weight over 175, I'm pretty sure that I surpassed the 250 ft pound torque setting. As you are bouncing on your cheater pipe, check to make sure you can line up the cotter pin. Like so.

Put the cotter pin in, bend it and you are almost done.
Get that friend of yours to help you bleed the brakes, adjust the rear stars.
Drive it carefully and test your work.

Drink something. I prefer beer. You may have something else.

Brake time

It's Tuesday, and I'm about to head south for a day. I pull the bus out of the garage, go back to close the door, and notice a trail of goop tracked through the garage. Further inspect of the trail leads to the rear tire, which looks like this.

I get on my other vehicle (also german, also horizontally opposed cylinders, but only half as many, and only half as many tires) and make a run to my local parts store. The bus goes back in the garage, and I make a note to buy a couple of these.

I get back, and inspect a little further before the big work begins.

If you haven't done this before, here's the short primer. Get the right sized big-ass socket with a 3/4 inch drive and get ready to break 250 foot pounds of torque. Pull the cotter pin, and get that nut off of there.

I do not have a picture of me standing on the cheater pipe. Note: the car is in gear, the hand brake is on. the wheels are blocked. You need the friction of the tire to get the nut to move. Once that nut is removed, you now have the problem of removing the drum. Jack the car up, put a solid jack stand under it, and release the transmission (shift it to neutral). Release the hand brake.Your wheel needs to be able to move.

The drum won't go willingly. If you have the right tool, you can just connect the lug nuts and turn a crank. Since I don't have the right tool, I have to do it the hard way. Place all lug nuts back in. Get a 17 mm open end box wrench, and slip it between the lug nuts and the drum. Take a soft hammer and tap the wrench so you are effectively tapping the drum. Rotate the drum with every few taps. Again. Again. Again. Again. this may take some time....

One the drum has move forward enough to remove, take it off and you will have this glorious scene, hopefully without the brake fluid all over.

In order:
Remove the spring clips in the middle of the brake - the ones that connect it to the backing plate. It's a quick turn of a small piece of metal, and the springs are free. 
Use a screwdriver and pry the lower part of the brakes off the adjusting stars.
The brakes should be free enough to remove the rest of the springs, and take them out of the brake cylinder.
Remove the long springy cable that allows the parking brake to work.
Finally, disconnect the brake line from the rear cylinder and remove your dead brake cylinder. I use the little black bleeder valve cover to keep the brake fluid from leaking over the floor.
Your naked backing plate should look like this.

You have new brake shoes, and a new brake spring kit, yes? Good. clean off all the parts that you need to reuse: the flat funny looking metal bar that allows the hand brake to work, the 13 and 15 mm bolts that hold the brake pads, and the connecting bar that hand brake pulls on to engage, and the star adjusters.
Put the hand brake lever back on. It will look like this when you are done installing it.

Bolt on the new brake cylinder, put the star adusters in, and put brake shoe that is connected to the hand brake in. Connect the hand brake Make sure the slots for the brake shoes are vertical, you don't want to have to monkey aroung with alignment after the springs are attached. Put the return springs one. the long connected one first, then the small lower springs second. Place the second shoe in the star adjuster first, and use the screwdriver to pull the top of the shoe over far enough to place it in the brake cylinder. Attach the center springs.
Note: the lower return springs will have one spring facing in, and another facing out. 

Bask in the glory.

Torque the cylinder screws again for good measure, and warn a partner that you will need them for brake bleeding in about 30 minutes.

I'll write up the rest tomorrow, when I actually finish the job. For now, I'm going to sleep.

Found on Windshield

Um... no. Perhaps if you added another zero to that number, I'd talk. Currently, you haven't purchased an engine.

I get these once in a while on my windshield and quietly chuckle to myself.

Back up the coast

It's January 3, it's 9:00 am, and I've just dropped off coffee with my wife before I hit the road. I'm still deciding on the route as I hit the 405 and roll into the valley in record time. I have to go to San Luis Obispo before heading home, so I take the 101. and head for Ventura.

10:00- Ventura,
11:00- Santa Barbara

11:30- Just ouside of Los Olivos, and I decide it's time for lunch. I pull into the college town and park immediately in front of this place.

 

Side Note - Weird California
I have a fondness for the odd, the weird, and the obscure. The "weird" series of books is a guilty pleasure for me. So when I have time on my various trips to visit strange locations, I do. More about Bubble Gum Alley can be found here.
Since Weird California is an obvious one, I keep a copy of it in the bus and use it to redirect some of my drives.
I'll be posting more about the side trips soon. In the meantime, feel free to waste your afternoon here.


I am visiting a friend in Los Olivos, home of Go Westy, so I stop by his place first, and their place next. There is nothing that I need, I'm afraid that Go Westy has provided me with cool camping gear all too well. So I look around the lot and admire the perfect vehicles

The back of Go Westy has a pile of buses that are no longer drivable. They are carefully labeled and are giving up their parts so that others may remain on the road. There is something about that idea that is part Zen, and part Wall-E.

And I've decided to take the slow road, and head through Morro Bay, Cambria, San Simeon,

and I stop to look at the Elephant Seals.

This squirrel was as interested as I was.

It's time to put those shocks and that steering box to the test. I head towards Monterey and stop occasionally to smell the sea, the cypress, and the sage.

I'm just outside of Post Ranch Inn and the sun is reminding me why I took this road.

Yes, one hand on the wheel, one on the camera, and my head facing the wrong direction on a twisty road. Don't try this at home.

---
2011 was a rough year that ended poorly. I took this road trip to spend time with my wife in L.A. and to regain perspective. There is nothing like a long slow drive to focus the mind on wider aspirations. So here I am, January 3, reminding myself what it is all about, and that it is all so beautiful.

Enjoy the ride, don't forget to stop and admire the scenery.

One more for the Road

It's December 26th, and I'm packing minimally. I'm driving to L.A. to both visit my wife and get one last road trip in before the end of the year. I had some things to take care of, so I didn't hit the road till noon.

Other travellers were with me:

Blake and Shelby let me know they were satying down the coast in Avilla beach. Google that town when you can, it is hope to both an oil refinery accident and a Nuclear powerplant. If Godzilla were going to arise from the waters, it would be here.

But you couldn't blame him for the scenery:

This guy was playing in the surf and rolling around on the sand.

Avilla Beach does not like RV's that don't have self contained grey water and black water reservoirs. They let us know that normally they wouldn't allow us to camp there, but considering that no one was around, and they explained the rules to us, they were going to let us slide.

No fires on the beach, but fires are allowed in self contained fire boxes. This one was exceptionally well made.

Blake and I had excellent coffee the next morning, courtesy of Starbucks Via. (Not a sponsor of this site for the record, but they could be... hint hint...)

This shirt was my Christmas present. Marine Layer Shirts, San Francisco. They have a 1969 Bus with their logo on it..

I finish the drive to L.A. by heading down State street in Santa Barbara, then over to Ojai.

I get coffee, walk around a little, and am just about to get back in the bus when it gets noticed. Conversations about the one they sold, or that guy who lives in one up the canyon, or the one that broke down all the time, or the one they really loved but didn't want to fix, but they should have not let it go, and about 20 minutes later, I insist on heading up the road. One of the people looking at it offer to buy it, I tell him he can't afford it. He says "seriously, $1000.00" I say seriously, you can't afford it. I don't think he understood.

I got down to the apartment around 3:30, and have been spending the rest of my time going to Griffith Park:

driving through Hollywood:

and visiting museums.


I'll start next year tomorrow by adjusting the valves, checking my fuel lines, and making sure I'm good for the drive back up.

It's been a good camping year. Thanks for the company and Happy New Year. Since we aren't spending it together, can we have a beer at the next camp out?

Aloha,  Peter

Californias State Parks

There are 278 state parks in California. 70 will be closed in June of next year. Here's a list of them.

There is one on that list that I adore. It's about three hours south of San Francisco, but completely worth it. I needed a break from the world, so I took a Thursday off, and headed down to Limekiln State Park.

Limekiln is named for it's kilns that were used to process lime. They were brought there in the late 1800's and the surrounding redwoods were used for fuel while the worked quarried the stones and baked them into bricks. The trees have grown back, and the Kilns have gone the way nature would take them.

I arrived mid-afternoon. There was one other person there - a cyclist working his way down the coast. The camp host wasn't there, and I could have camped for free, but not wanting to ruin good karma, I paid the fee.

I like campsites with a view.

Anyone who has driven highway one knows words are inadequate. Cliffs, beautiful bridges, ocean, windswept trees, and endless beauty are part of the twists and turns that make up the coast highway. I arrived mid afternoon and spent the evening over a warm fire and watching the world change color.

The next morning I resolved to see the rest of the park, it's less than a mile hike and the last time I was here (about 10 years ago) it was closed off.

So the first thing I did after coffee was argue with the Gull who decided that it was his bus.

Conversation was pretty much like this:
Me: "Bird, I need to drop the top and pack it up"
Bird: "squawk!"
Me: "No seriously, I have to be home mid-afternoon"
Bird: "Squawk!"

So bird just sat there and watched me pack up, and gave me cautious looks while I did everything *but* lower the pop top. He eventually got bored.

I finished packing up and headed over the namesake of the park. About a half mile up from the beach, through trees that look like this:

on a path that looks like this:

are hundred year old kilns that look like this:

And a mere half mile more across some fallen trees and up a precarious path is this 100 foot water fall.

And even though we are by the coast, you still get the benefits of being in a rainforest:

I saw an osprey nest and could see a bunch of sea birds following a school of fish. I didn't see any whales, but I caught a glimpse of some sea otters.

Once I packed up, I said goodbye to my wonderful view

and admired the landscape once more:

As anyone who drives a bus knows, we all look out for each other - other bus drivers that is. We wave to each other and admire each others vehicles.

I counted 12 between Monterey and Limekiln. Mostly vanagons, on syncro, but 3 bay windows.

The park is slated to close in June, I suspect I will go back before it does.