Live Oak, George's Birthday campout

Live Oak is a small-ish town along the feather river, just north of Yuba City. A quiet park is on the edge of town and borders the river. John La Torre decided it was a good place for a campout to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his bus.

(Click on the photos for larger versions)


John has the gigantic tent of doom, we love camping with it as in guarantees our comfort during "fire and drink" time.



I left on Friday afternoon, and managed to swing around some traffic.

I had just replaced the CV joint boots (that writeup will be later) and the rear shocks.

(Guess which parts were new) :)


The moon is clear in the valley, and gave me a chance to play with long exposures. I still need some work:


That night it was just Me, John, and Mike. The next morning, it was us three and hundreds of birds.



Mike had never seen the tent set up, and I needed to dust it off, so I did the full tent regalia and had John time the setup. It took 16 minutes to put it up, and would have taken less if I remembered the corner piece direction.
Take down was 10 minutes.







The rest of the crowd showed up mid-afternoon.



We had to scavenge for food and were limited to whatever we could scrape away from the local supermarkets:



As long as you are having a birthday party, you should have a cake.



Joe had returned from China, and Maggie was doing her Dog-duties (begging for food) as if he had never left.




Maggie loves us.




The wonderful Blake and Shelby made it, I took their photo for this years christmas cards.




Since I'm mentioning the tent, the interior (when it is connected correctly) looks like this:




More write up later - I need to stretch this out as I am starving for content.

Not much to post

I haven't done much recently, so I haven't posted.

In the meantime, let me link to this bad ass picture of my Grandfather. He's the fine looking dude on the far left.

Montana. 1930's. I look at these guys, look at those springs, those riding outfits and think... man, I'm travelling in luxury, and I don't look half as cool.

This is not a VW post. Sorry.

Anti Super Bowl campout v 3.0

The Anti-superbowl campout was never supposed to have that name. It took place on Superbowl weekend, but was not supposed to be anti-anything.

This is my third year attending. First year and second year reports are linked.

I took my LaTorre tent-of-doom out for the first time, I wanted to test the poles. They failed. Miserably. The wind was too damn strong and the connections blew out in the middle. Time to re-engineer the poles. Still, that thing is huge.

We had a welcome addition of a split window and (Jason) very fanatic owner. Witness his tattoos.

His bus is in impressive shape considering his trips to burning man, and his drive down from Carson City Nevada.

Mike was also a newcomer with an impressive 1979 Avocado. We met him at Burning Van, he showed up the very next weekend.

It was a windy campout, but not rainy. Given the two, I'll take wind. More pics later.

The License Plates of Burning Van

When I was younger, personalized license plates were the punchline to a tale about an overinflated ego. "...and the bartender says 'his license plate is suprego'". Not so much anymore. Everyone has them. Syncro owners seem to like their inside joke... the joke being that you cannot afford this vehicle, and if you are unindoctrinated, you have not idea just how cool this thing is.

So they say it on their legally required identification mark:

And of course there is the one hometown representative:

This picture was taken for my wife who will appreciate the humor.

The Busses of Burning Van.

For the record, we are not burning a van. There have been times where an engine block was burnt, for an idea of what a magnesium block would look like on fire, you tube has a few videos of just how bright that stuff gets.

Each year a group of busses (mostly vanagons) show up and hang out, a bon fire is done later. Last year we have somewhere in the mid-20's. This year we had 38 at maximum.

Photos here, and some of the betters ones are posted below.

Twins

Since I haven't had much to say for a while, I thought I'd add a short update and some thoughts about the fellowship of VW bus owners.

These pictures were taken yesterday on my drive home. The other vehicle was a 1971 - same color, same options, and slowly being restored (much like mine).

Where I live I can count 30 VW's of various flavors and vintages within a 20 block radius. This one is located at a house in Sea cliff (one of the more expensive areas of San Francisco.

And then there is that guy who keeps putting flyers on every aircooled VW out there telling us about the problems with 009 coils and how he can make them better. His bus is looks like it is about to fall apart, it's not exactly the best advertising. I'll find the picture, but I'm sure I'll see him at burning van on Saturday.


There is a hobie cat vanagon out by the zoo, and a couple of syncros scattered in the outer sunset district. I'll post pics later when I can find them.


One of the pacifico busses is currently parked on fell street.

I live in a city where the VW bus was arguably raised to an icon, what with the Haight Ashbury days, the hippy living, and the weather all contributing to an icon that I love to drive. I get waved at daily, I wave back. Other buses drive by me slowly, I do the same.

I like our little club. We are weird. I like weird.

A Tale of Three Generators

Most VW's these days use Alternators. For some reason, I've stuck with the generators. I'm not sure if it is some sick desire to stick with old tech, but I think it is a combination of being gun-shy with electrical matters, and not wanting to deal with a fuel pump. (Alternators require a larger stand, which also requires a change of fuel pumps. See this blog as to why I hate fuel pumps.)

My last road trip killed my generator. It was old enough that it might have deserved to die, but it died and that is all that matters. So I had it replaced.

And on it's maiden voyage home from the shop, it died. The generator light came on, it was not charging the battery. It just wasn't doing what it was supposed to do - generate power. So I headed back to the shop who gave me a quizzical look and said "they never break that quickly, that's weird". They installed another new one.

And less than a thousand miles later it died. Full death. The engine just stopped running less that 10 blocks from my house, so I pulled over and saw smoke from a melting fanbelt. Better yet, I didn't turn the engine all the way off, it was in the start position, so power was running to the generator. It was arcing and sparks/electrical cracks were coming of the pulley. (Yes, the pulley) The generator not only epically failed, it was competing for most spectacular failure ever on my bus.

Punchline to this was that I was only going a few blocks away, so I didn't bring my cellphone. I borrow some random guy on the streets phone, call the tow company, and three hours later, I'm back in my garage. I might have just pushed it, but I live in San Francisco, we have hills.

Big Sigh. Here we go:
Step one, pull off the failed parts.

Step two. Remove generator

Step three, bring generator back to shop, swap out, get replacement pulley, fan belt, and spare woodruff keys.

Step four, put it back and start it up again.

So I'm running again, and this time, it sounds as good as it did when I was driving through Nevada a couple of months ago. The sewing machine sound is exactly what is it supposed to sound like. Let's see how long this lasts. ;)

Some notes - When you put a generator/fan assembly back in the car, it is important to shim it correctly. The fan has about 1/8 of an inch of room in the fan housing, and will rub if it isn't perfectly straight and if the fan housing is not lined up correctly. When I was repositioning the fan housing, I noticed that the fan shroud had some rubbing where there wasn't supposed to be any, indicating that the shop may have not lined it up correctly. It's a difficult thing to do, and easy to over look is it isn't visible on the back side. But, it accounted for the inconsistent "fan rubbing sound" that I was getting when the car was cold starting.  Bottom line - engine tin is designed to go in one way and one way only. Double check that it is right, then triple check.

Annual Pre-thanksgiving campout

Bothe Napa State Park is just outside of the town of St. Helena, in the Napa valley. It is known for the old Christian Brothers Castle that is now the California Culinary Academy.

Beautiful place, changing leaves, and full of the kind of scenery that gets turned into postcards.

The Camper family does a couple of yearly campouts, this has become one of them.

I missed last years campout, but made this one. Pics ahead. Short summary here: lots of rain. Some thunder and lightning. Warm fire helped, but the winner was the return of the deep fried turkey. Much thanks to the duo of mandolin players.

There are more pictures here.

We like to laugh a little at ourselves at these campouts. It's cold, it's wet, it is not hospitable to most campers. We have our little portable homes, our turtle shells. And thanks to John, we have a big tent to keep our food dry, our fire warm, and our alcohol unwatered.

The constant snare-drum rattle of the rain on the fiberglass roof is a mild annoyance. The gusty wind makes it hard to sleep, and here in the back of the bus, I am warm, dry and content. It's a moment of victory against the elements that promise to make my drive home slow, full of traffic, and a mild fight against the cross winds on the golden gate bridge.

For now, I have a full belly, and happy amount of beer keeping me warm, and several friends nearby.

The Return. 1.5 days. 2.5 Failures

It's Saturday, October 9, 6:30 PM and I'm heading out the door. The car has been loaded up, tuned, valves adjusted, oil changed, brakes checked, and I have to do 1200 miles in two days. Tonight's plan is to head to Highway 80 and go as far as I can before I have to pull over.

Juliette is with me. She just finished a five day rotation at the clinic, and now needs to head to San Francisco for a three day externship, so she is coming along with me on the drive.

North on 287, we hit Laramie about an hour into the drive. We made it to Rock springs around 11:30, check in at the easiest to get to hotel, sleep and are out the door the next morning around 6:00am. We averaged about 70 MPH, which is better than expected.

Quick calculation time. Rock Spring to San Francisco 925 Miles. At 65 MPH that's 14 hours, putting us in at 8:00. Assume an extra couple of hours for gas and food, and we might be home at a reasonable hour.

Evanston. They closed the Starbucks.

Utah. We blow through the canyon outside of Park City, descend into Salt Lake and we don't stop until we pass the Salt Flats. This guy passes me and we share a moment.

We refill in Wendover and start across Nevada.

It's a little more boring out there. I start tweeting where I am since we have nothing else better to do.

And the inevitable road gremlin attacks:
Then the generator light goes on. I pull over and look at the engine(while noticing the feint smell of smoke). It's not a broken fan belt, I wish it were.

It is clear that the generator brushes have ground down, and I am no longer charging the battery. For some reason I ignore that smoke smell, and write it off to "something else". We make it to Reno and fill up once more. Once I hit the sierras, the sun has gone down, and I have to turn on the lights. I know that they are going to fade out once the battery dies, but right now, I'm aiming at getting as close to home as I can.

I'm also calling a friend to see if he has spare brushes. He does, he is in Sacramento, and if I can make it there, I'll be fine. My wife is pretty tense about this, but does a good job of keeping it to herself.

The lights completely die just outside of Sacramento. I drive for about two miles with no headlights on the freeway, everyone is flashing their highlights, and I'm realizing that this is both dangerous and stupid. I pull off the freeway and ask my friend to guide me to his house with his car lighting the way.

We make it to his driveway, and I start removing the generator brushes. I drop the screw. I try to keep my cursing down to a minimum. My friend loans me his car. We drive to San Francisco with the intention of returning the next morning.

I head back the next morning, finish installing the brushes. The generator light is still on. It's not the brushes.

Kombi house is less than a mile away, I drive the car there and have them install a new generator and voltage regulator. Little did I know that I've had a 38 Amp voltage regulator on a 30 amp generator for the past 12 years. Honestly, how often do you look at that thing and read the numbers on it. I can't remember who installed it, I can't remember when I replaced it. Regardless. It's dead, so is the generator. They get replaced. While it's there, the window regulator dies. The internal gears are stripped, I need to find a replacement. Kombi house has one, they give it to me and I replace it the next weekend.

So I'm driving in back home, and the generator starts making a noise. The bushing in the generator is bad. I now have generator grease all over my pristine engine. Sigh.

I drive back the next day, they replace it, but now the fan is rubbing. I hear it every time I start the engine, it makes that high pitched whirr sound that is similar to a loose fan belt on a water cooled engine. I have no time to return to Sacramento, so I adjust and tweak the generator positioning until I get it as close to correct as I can. For the record, it left Kombi house fine, and somehow started rubbing after I drove it for about 40 miles.

I'll fix it properly once I have more time.

Up next: post failure analysis and update.