Getting closer

Next round of progress:
My original heat exchanger on the passenger side finally died. So I had to get a new one.

I'm still missing the carb, but that is on the way.

Pics from all four sides here:





While I'm at it, the gas tank is done, and the firewall has been repainted:




Now a quick lesson on CV Joints plates.
The CV joint plates are necessary to strengthen the connection between the CV bolt and the boot. The metal on the boot is relatively thin for the kind of forces that the CV joint is capable of making, so the plate is necessary.

There are three types of plates. Pictured here are the two wrong types for the boot that I am using:


They are wrong because they don't fit over the slightly raised part of the boot that makes the boot structurally stronger. The flat plate completely missed the alignment:



The raised plate is closer, but still not exact:


The best solution is the "real" plate that looks like this:


The image is blatantly stolen from German Supply in Canada, I'll post the real pictures once I get my shipment in (Thanks Scott).

I'll continue next week. Thanks for tuning in.

Progress

Gas Tank Resurfaced:




Cylinders and Pistons put on, new heads on, slowly adding the rest of the it:




Maybe finished on Saturday?


Larger Versions of these photos can be found here.

Remember that German Comedian?

Julia Weber was kind enough to send me the you tube link. I'm both horrified (that he's big in Germany) and proud (that my bus is better than his singing).

It's here, at the 35 second mark.

Weekend Progress

The first round of crazy overhauling madness began Saturday. Red was driven down to Johns shop, put up on the hoist and drained of oil.


All pertinent parts were disconnected, engine got pulled, gas tank was removed, both CV joint sets were taken off.


The old engine was broken down to recycle the parts that I don't need to replace (such as my very pretty exhaust system).


I didn't remove the heads yet, but when I do I will take the pictures of the damage that a sunken valve will do. In the meantime, here are a few shots of something very familiar to Bus owners: Oil crud and buildup.






The Cylinders and Pistons that were shipped were the wrong ones, so I have to wait for them to show up before they get put back on. In the meantime, this is the current state of the new engine:









A little bit of history on the Engine Case if you are interested:
John will only use AS21 cases, not AS41 cases. The article is slightly incorrect - you can re-machine AS21 cases, but you get 1 chance to do it. By the third re-machining, the case is out of spec and beyond use. It has to be perfect, there are no second tries.

The gas tank is getting cleaned up and resurfaced so there are no more rust flakes in my fuel filter. I replaced the CV joints on the passenger side, but both of them have been damaged already, so I'm replacing them while the engine is out.

I'll keep you posted.

P.S. I love air powered tools, and Stalwille wrenches. John has a full set and damn if they don't feel... just right.

Let's get this party Started

If you recall our last episode, the story thus far was:
-Valve Sinking into head.
-Decided to replace engine while I was at it
-And since I'm there, I'm also:
--Fixing CV Joint
--blasting/resurfacing gas tank
--rebuilding steering box
--upgrading engine from stock single port 1600 to slightly faster dual port 1641

Step one - get engine built:
This has taken the longest as my uncle is both anal retentive with parts and tolerances. If it doesn't meet his standards, it gets sent back. He works on Porsches, his demands are slightly higher.
This has taken him a couple of months as his suppliers are in high demand. Go figure.
But this is what we are starting with:



The short block is done, the Cylinders and Pistons are on the way.

Step two - get car down to the shop. This has been the problem all along - there has been no room at the shop, but that problem has been solved.

Tomorrow I drive down (slowly) and pull the engine/tank/steering box and begin the work.

I'll take pictures as I go. Wish me luck.

Happy Birthday Red

My bus doesn't have a name, but I refer to it as Red occasionally. A friend of mine insists on calling it Lucy. Today, I'm calling it 40.


According to the M code, The production dave was Tuesday, May 19, 1970. It was special ordered via the "tourist program" from Reynold Johnson VW in San Francisco, via Volkswagon of America.

Mr. Simon of San Jose picked it up at in Weidenbuck on Jun 19, and according to the service stamps, it went to France, Barcelona, and England before being shipped to Santa Clara.


My Aunt and Uncle bought the vehicle approximately one year later while attending college in Santa Clara. They owned it, and took their kids on vacation in it, broke down in it, and went all over the west coast from 1971 until 1989, when I purchased it from them while attending college.

Since then, I had the engine stolen while I was working on it 1989, the pop top burned up in the Berkeley Hills fire in 1991, the entire body was stripped and repainted in 1999.

This year, it is getting a new engine.

My scanner is acting up, so I can't post older pictures, but I'll send you here instead.

Happy Birthday happy car. You have taken me places I didn't know I could go, and given me endless memories.

Don't do this

This. Don't. Just don't.

But if you want to see a very nice pink bug, go here. ;)

But if you are going to do something cool, do this.

Out and About, riding to Finnon.

It's been over a month since my last update. Apologies. The street cred of any blog is it's frequency and it's relevance and I am currently failing on both.

And since I am mentioning frequency, I should point out that my bus is frequently parked these days. I'll post a follow up later. For now, I'll post the highlights of the most recent Finnon Lake campout.

Joe hosts two campouts a year at Finnon lake. I've posted a couple of them, this one from two years ago has the correct tone.

This year, I had to take the motorcycle as the bus is about to undergo major surgery. I was also a little under the weather. Note to guy on plane: Hey man, when you are that sick, please don't fly. The rest of us don't need your cooties.

I arrive Saturday mid-day, there are plenty of other BMW motorcycles there. We like our vehicles german, and our engines horizontally opposed. Just like our women. What?!? I'm kidding.



and the Oaks are beginning to come into full bloomage.


It's a typical sunset at Finnon, we all gather at the restaurant across the lake to eat.


And since I'm sick, I got to bed early and miss the usual campfire rounds of drinking and lies.

But the next morning I wake up to the geese trumpeting.


And John, Melissa making coffee.


The motorcycle crew gets breakfast and leaves. They have to head to Santa Barbara, so they are gone early.




The rest of us head up the hill to Gene's place. Gene is the guy with the burnt out bus. He also flies airplanes.




We cook up some meat on his grill for lunch before I head home.

It's a smaller VW crowd, but a larger overall crowd this year.

We did have one late comer. He was pretty much ready for anything.

Rio Vista Redux

This is the second year I made it to the Rio Vista (anti-superbowl) campout. It was raining, but not as bad as it was two years ago.

Blake and Shelby were there on Friday night.


Jeff and Melissa showed up with the rest of the rain.


It cleared up enough for us to see that the recent rains have been very good to the mushrooms.



It gets cold out on the delta at night, the best way I can think of to avoid it is with a fire and alcohol.



or you could just take a nap


The dog to human ratio was almost 1 to 1.


We had a Eurovan this year - this is Gene and Betsy's replacement for the one that burnt to the ground.


Betsy like the convenient door positioning.



10 Buses total, Romy and Jenns bus, as well as Ralphs and Genes didn't fit in the frame:


I love driving on the levy roads. I get the urge to sing American Pie loudly and out of tune, and I live my American Graffiti fantasy in my head everytime I cross the bridges, watch the boats, and watch the alignment of the posts in the fields. You can get very romantic listening to the red winged blackbirds, and the hawks in in the morning. We had a woodpecker in a near tree wake us up with his knocking for worms. This is a great time to see Blue Herons on the delta, flocks of sparrows in formation, and the rare green hills of California before the turn to mustard yellow.



It's also a great time to have IN-N-Out burger before heading home.


Bigger Pics and more of them here.

Note: for those who asked me about the engine overhaul I'm about to go through, the heads are currently in the shop, but to be honest, the single ports are getting hard to find. I may have to suck it up and get dual port heads.

Preparation: Johns shop pr0n

I'm married to a pretty kick ass wife who has this uncle who fixes VW's. He's been doing it for a while, he's knows his merde. We will probably be working on the engine together just so I can do this without him.

I had to stop by his place for lunch to order parts of the head rebuild, and since I had my camera, I figured that I would take some pictures of his work.

Warning: Engine porn below.


This is what he does with old parts. Some of them go to get remachined, most of them go to get recycled.


This is the sign of a good mechanic. Notice that there are no oil stains on those boxes. All those parts are clean, and ready for use. If they weren't they would be in the other pile.


This Ghia was getting a new set of tie rods put in.


This engine was a restored one for a customer. Note the decals on the fan shroud.






Caution: some assembly required



This beauty is a porsche engine in development.


Most engines come in looking like this, I'm pretty sure that mine will.


Completed - now it just needs with acoutrements.


I'll take pictures of mine during disassembly. I just hoping that we can get it done before superbowl weekend. Otherwise, I'll be taking the motorcycle.