Zoom zoom

It seems that I've been gone long enough for the blogger format to have changed.  Apologies to my regular readers for both my delay and for any weirdness caused by the new blogger interface.  It'll be a basic update today, just touching on bus stuff.

Daily Driving
The ol' bus and I have been a tight-pair the last few weeks.  I've been driving him to work and back pretty much every day.  I've noticed a few things that are curious, but not necessarily alarming.  First, the coolant level continues to drop, but I can't spot a leak.  Also, the pressure (or is it vacuum?) build-up is so pure and strong that after a drive the coolant bottle is nearly empty.  When I remove the cap of the fill-bottle, coolant splashes back in all the way to the full line.  Crazy.  So, I hear the low-coolant alarm in the donor dash, but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm low on coolant... I really over-filled the bottle this morning.  I'll post what happens.
Second, there's an oil leak.  I don't know where it is, but the bus definitely leaves his mark when I park him. I think the oil line to or from the turbo could be it, or its the oil cooler or maybe the underside of the oil filter housing.  Regardless, I'll find a dry day next weekend and tighten everything.  I was just under there last weekend re-tightening all the coolant line hose clamps.  There's always something, but that's part of owning a 40 year old car.

Acceleration Interruption

fixed and re-installing

On the way home from work on Friday May 11th, I had a breakdown in the left-hand progress (not turn) lane during rush-hour.  The accelerator suddenly dropped to the floor and I was rolling without throttle control.  The RPM's dropped to 900, so I quickly scanned the traffic on Hall Blvd (in Beaverton).  I was unable to slide right, so I took a left turn into an apartment complex parking lot through the oncoming traffic.  Sketch.  I removed the front belly pan and discovered that my hack-awful welding job on the accelerator resistor bracket (see Accelerating Slowly) had failed.  Dandy.  With my welder deep in storage, getting this fixed could have been a real time killer.  Fortunately, Boo has a local mechanic guy (Johnny) who can do small welding repairs, so I asked him to do it.  Less than an hour (and only $15) after I gave it to him, the weld was done and the whole thing was painted.  I can''t find a business name for Johnny's garage, but the location is (9085 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, Beaverton, Oregon).  Great guy.  Talk your ear-off, if you let him, but he'll fix your car for a fair price.

Since I've neglected the blog a bit, I'll post again in a couple of days covering snow and personal experiences.... and, of course, another bus conundrum. :)  As always, thanks for following along, and another apology for my blog negligence.

Natural-born Amusement

More fun tales from the last 2 weeks.  Its been busy, and the bus is back home and daily-driving again.  The joy of looking out the windscreen of a bus is unlike anything else.  Even when looking at a dreary gray morning through barely caffeinated eyes, it brings deep deep joy. 

Big Ol' Rounder in my Foldin Bed

First things first, I'm fully moved into Boo's place.  My boys and her boys have really gelled, and the few nights a week when we're all home are rowdy and fun.  Its a little crazy come bed-time, though.  the place is small, and wasn't really built for 6 people to sleep in, so its a little crowded.  Between a loft space and a bunk bed, though, everyone has a spot.  Add one more, though, and we'd need a cot in the hallway.

Man Comes By Lookin' For His Hat

One of the challenges of temporarily staying somewhere, is finding your stuff.  Most of my things are in storage, but there are some regular things that need to find homes.  From bills to car keys, basic processes have had to change around from when I had my own place.  A month into it and we're down to the last few things that need a system.  This included where to park and how to best make use of the bus.  For the last 3 weeks, I had been parking the bus at various locations near my old apartment.  I'd move him from one spot to another or from one parking lot to another every other day.  This kept the towing companies away, but it was annoying.  At least the engine was getting started, but it wasn't really even getting warm.  But, it was the system until yesterday.

On the Road Again

Yesterday, Boo grabbed the keys and dashed over to where we'd last parked him: her friend's apartment complex parking lot.  She had never driven him before, but she's driven a bus before.  She got him home and the report wasn't completely rosey: "its hard. I couldn't find 1st or 2nd consistently. He played Alpha (male) on me."  Yeah... that transaxle has been a beast since I bought him.  I know a new one is in order, its just a question of finding $1500 - $1800 plus a core charge.  Regardless, she got him home.  Now, I'll be driving him to work, she'll be driving the Jetta and her 16 year old (K) will be driving her old car.  This leaves an old Mountaineer out of the rotation and back at the stable.  Since it gets about 8mpg, this should save us some money, longer term.  Since the HOA rules for teh condo-complex forbid any work being done on the bus while parked in the lot, I'll be parking on the street for those days when I want to work on something... like fixing the shift linkage... or the cabin lights... :)

Natural-Born Amusement

It felt great to wind-up the bus this morning.  He's as peppy as only the TDI could allow, and I only had a can't-find-the-gear moment once, while trying to down-shift into second as I passed through a busy intersection.  No worries.  As he gets used to being driven, the gears get easier to find.  And there's always that promise of a new gearbox with hopped up gears...  He didn't even get to thermostat-open temp (185*) before I got to work, so I'll have to take longer drives to prove out his real road-readiness.  Camping season approaches!

That's it for today.  Thanks for following along.  Now that I'm driving him every day, I expect to have more relevant adventures to document.  Besides that, camping season is coming, and there are things I'd like to have ready for this Summer of fun.  It should be a fun Spring!

... and a Stella at the Stube

Today is all about weather, sliding and moving my bus around.  No new work, but I have a couple of codes to chase down.

Spring has Sprung

It is definitely Spring in the Pacific NorthWest.  The temperature has risen into the 50's(F) during the day and we're enjoying that donut-hole of dry weather in the middle of our typical wet season.  If you don't live here, the rumors of our rains are generally true.  The "spring" rains start in February and continue nearly unabated until Independence Day.  There is one exception to this: April.  Since I moved here 20 years ago, a hole in the wet season has appeared covering most of the month of April.  Last week we entered April, and the hole hasn't been as pronounced as other years.  Since Spring Break has ended, and the kids are all back at school, it seems yet another creul joke has been played upon them: Rain for the week they're out of school and the second week back it's in the 60's(F) and dry.

T Birthday? T-line

It was T's birthday early last week, so Boo and I took the whole brood of bears up to Timberline on Sunday as an early celebration.  The conditions were really good.  By this time of year, you start expecting Spring (a euphemism for bad) conditions: slushy, bare patches and generally slow.  Timberline, however, had very good conditions, especially further up the mountain on Magic Mile.  The snow was powdery and there was hardly any wind.  The rest of the mountain was okay, but there were slow spots.  The bigger boys played on the terrain parks, and had great things to say about the jumps.  Across the resort, though, the place was not busy.

... and a Stella at the Stube

riding Pucci lift

Yesterday, neither Boo nor I had our boys, so we took a late run up to the mountain for some afternoon snow.  Unlike the week prior, Magic Mile was the worst snow of the day: heavy winds made getting off the lift almost dangerous.  The granular snow wasn't much fun for sliding either, but it was fast!  We spent most of our time working the slopes feeding into the Jeff Flood and Pucci lifts.  There was a new half-pipe at the top of Pucci that we didn't see until it was our last run, unfortunately, but that will bring us back next week.  Timberline closed the mountain at 4, but we'd only had a few hours of snow-time, so we packed up and drove the 20 minutes to SkiBowl.

Rather than jump right into any "should we slide" decisions, we hit Beer Stube and grabbed a couple Stella's.  We watched fellow snow-lovers work their way down the lower bowl face and the rail-riders in "Jesse' Flight" terrain park from our window seats.  One beer later, and we decided we'd take a couple runs.  We did Random on the Upper Bowl face and discovered a new large jump terrain park at the end of Dog Leg.  I tried the first jump, had bad body position on my board and landed flat on my back.  I finished the run and took 2 more, wanting to conquer the jumps.  Ultimately, those really large jumps are more that I should be starting with.

TDI Codes

So, with all the fun snow out of the way, I mentioned the shift linkage in my last post.  The linkage is still held together with a zip-tie.  I'm only driving the bus around 200' every other day lately, though, so it isn't a big deal.  I'll explain the 200' thing another day.  Today, let's hit the Check Engine Light (CEL) codes that are being thrown by the computer.

First, I'm getting a P1403 which decodes to "Exhaust Gas Recirculation System 17-00 Control Difference Readiness: N/A".  Since I blocked off my EGR system (its a '72, so no smog test, the EGR clogs the intake with goop and I run B10, so my emissions are still better than the old '72 engine was), this code should be expected.  I can get a computer modification (aka tune) that deletes the EGR, but that's money, or I can ignore it.

Second, I'm getting a P0380 which decodes to "Glow Plug/heater Malfunction".  Yeah, I've seen this one before.  Either the glow-plug harness has become unwired again or some other wire bit has broken free.  Regardless, neither are a big deal, especially as Spring approaches and glow plugs aren't really going to be useful for a while.

When in doubt, over-estimate

In my last post, I thought that I'd be finishing the apartment move that day.  Well, I was wrong.  Again.  So, today, I will remind myself how important it is to be fair to both myself and whatever project I am working on and over-estimate the effort.

Move
On Saturday, I did move a bunch of stuff: an extra bed from one friend's place to another's and everything I could carry down to the garage from the upper levels.  The big things I mentioned in that last post were moved... on Sunday.  And, I loaded the bus a few times on both days.  Sunday ended with me loading the bus to the gills with stuff, but running out of time to get to the storage place before they closed.

Tax Man Snow Therapy

Mt Hood at Sunset
from atop SkiBowl

Monday, I had to pay the piper, and have my taxes done.  As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I divorced last fiscal year, but with my withholdings not adjusted until mid-year, I hadn't had enough pulled out.  So, I owe a big chunk o' change to Uncle Sam.  Grr..  My tax preparer is in Gresham, and I kinda knew it was gonna be bad.  So, I prepared for the worst by loading my snow gear into my car before heading East.  Once I saw the amount due, I knew snow therapy was in order.  On the side, here, is a picture I took from the top of the upper bowl at SkiBowl before taking the plunge down "Radical".... my first run down a black on the upper bowl face.  The snow was crusty on top, requiring jump-turns rather than edge-to-edge transitions, but it was fun.  Ultimately, I slid on different trails for about 2 1/2 hours and then drove home.  It didn't reduce the bill, but it sure got me "right" with it.  My advice to a reader who may be heading for divorce: change your withholdings early and over-estimate your potential tax burden.

One Screw Short of a Linkage

linkage drawing
courtesy of Bus-Boys

On Sunday, the shift linkage failed on the way out of the storage facility.  It was the only run my brother went on, and the first time he rode in the bus since the drive to Furthur.  So, I'm not saying he's a jinx, but everything was fine, until.. :)  At the front (FIF) of the 002 transaxle, a rod sticks out.  On the end of the rod is a small square cage-looking thing (see picture) that is attached with a screw (part "R"), which is then wired in place.  This cage mates with the linkage running back from the front of the bus in a true VW way.  The cage has a plastic block on either side.  Each plastic block has a round hole in the center of it.  Through this hole, a metal sleeve is threaded, and through a round hole in the rear-end of the main linkage.  This sleeve handles the stress of the shift manipulation, resisted by the transaxle through those plastic blocks.  The sleeve has these indentations which act like a nut so when a screw so threaded through, it is held together.

On Sunday, it became un-screwed.  Or should I say, the screw worked its way free at some point and the sleeve broke-free, dropping one of the plastic blocks on the ground and making shifting impossible.  The screw was no where to be found.  My brother and I were able to find both plastic blocks and the sleeve though.  In rooting through the rock'n'roll bed, I found a zip-tie.  I mashed the plastic blocks and sleeve together in the linkage and threaded the zip-tie through the sleeve.  Zip-zip, we have linkage.  I've driven the bus this way a few times (to storage and back), and its worked fine.  I intend to find a bolt and lock-nut so it can't work its way apart again.  Again: over-estimate your bus' ability to work parts free and make use of lock-tite and locking washers and nuts.

Okay, so that was pretty long.  I guess its been a busy week.  On top of all that, there's work issues, I'm looking at places to live more permanently and continuing to move stuff.  The moving is about done, and the apt gets cleaned next.  This time, I'll estimate the effort to take the better part of a day rather than assume a couple of hours :-D

Thanks for following along...

Moving and Moving

Has it really been a month since I last posted?  Apparently so.  Its been a hectic March, so I apologize for the radio silence.  Its still crazy, so this will be brief, but should get you all caught up too.  Lots of work stuff has been going on, but I won't bore you with those details.  Let's just say I've been at work a lot.

Moving
First, my landlord chose to increase my rent by $80/month when my lease renew was up.  Seeing how my income is year-based, there's little I can do to bridge that gap other than cut spending elsewhere.  I'm already kinda near the bone spending-wise, so I decided to counter their proposal with a move-out.  This is where things get a little interesting.  I thought I had until the end of April, but it turns out the lease was through the 11th, so I had to get crackin' on finding another place to live, packing up stuff, and moving.  I have all that resolved temporarily, but I'm still vacating the old apartment.  In fact, I've used the bus for a large bulk of the transportation.

Water tight?
In my last post, I talked about getting the little clip on from the bottom to get the cooling system to seal.  That was the ticket, it turns out.  After multiple trips over the last week or so, he hasn't dripped a drop of water.  Oil, on the other hand, he continues to spread in little drips.  I'll solve that later.  Before I could really use the bus to help haul stuff, I had to make sure he was water-ready.  For those of you not in the US Pacific NorthWest, you may not know just how wet it is here right now.  We have had rain almost every day since my last post.  With standing and moving water on the streets, parking lots and just about everywhere else, I needed to be sure the bus could keep going if I hit some.

So, the weekend I gave notice, I slid under the bus and did some less-than-permanent adjustments to some wiring.  The radiator fan related wires all trigger off of a relay.  That relay is now wrapped in plastic wrap.  I know, that sounds positively awful, but it works, and the relay has stayed dry through this weather.

Next, I removed the belly pan from under the cab.  After a good cleaning, I covered the inside with vibration noise reducing sheets.  This should reduce a little road noise as well as seal off the small drain hole.  I then caulked the front and sides of the pan and re-attached it.  I know that if I hit a big enough puddle, water could come over the top of the support members, but that's a problem to be solved later too.  For now, I'll avoid large puddles at speed.  I didn't seal the back, thinking that any little bit of water that got in would need a way out.  So far, the caulk and hole patch work very well: electronic accelerator and brake pedal switch have been working perfectly.

And Moving
After the minor water-proofish modifications, the bus was ready.  I have driven him to and from a storage facility as well as to/from another apartment nearly every day for the last 2 weeks.  He has started right up, driven with pep and carried every burden I put inside without issue.  I have 2 or three large items left and then the usual debris that needs to be resolved, but my move is about complete.  The bus has been a great way to move in a steady downpour, keeping my stuff dry without tarps.

I need to figure out how I can park both my daily driver and the bus at the new place, though.  Unlike the old place, I don't have a 2-car garage.  So, I'll annoy my neighbors for a while as I resolve this.  As I mentioned earlier, this is a temporary housing solution, so I'll be moving again pretty soon.

That's it for today.  I've avoided my moving tasks for long enough this morning, and need to get back at it.  Today, I'll be completing the packing of the garage, and moving those big items I mentioned.  That will leave the final sweep for stuff, a trash run and then the final cleaning.  Moving is such fun...
 

Front is Front

Front is front.  Sounds like nonsense.  If you troll car repair websites, etc, especially those sites oft-visited by John Muir fans (this one, not that one), you'll see that phrase when they are talking about the orientation of a section of car or how something is situated relative to the rest of the car.  "front is front" means "when I say 'front' I mean that face of the subsystem is pointing towards the front of the car".  Consider the phrase "I dropped my wrench down in front of the engine."  Now, where is it?  On the side closest to the nose of the car!  It sounds so simple now.  So, why is this post-worthy?  Ah... that's where today's story begins, or ends.

No Juice -> No Go

Lower Bowl Lift
Ski Bowl Night skiing

New o-ring.  Freshly re-seated temperature probe.  Coolant and water mixture set.  Skipping the mountain for the weekend to get the bus running, and was rewarded with some great breaks in the weather.  The stage was set.  So, after running the engine a bunch in the garage (starting and restarting a bunch), the bus looked leak-free. Hazah!  Saturday I wrangled the garage door open and set to starting the engine. 'click-click'.  Sweet.  All that testing drained the battery, so I put it back on the charger and returned to pulling bootlegs off the 'net.

#$%& Leaking Again
Sunday, the weather gods continued to smile.  The spits of rain broke in mid-afternoon, so I re-connected the battery, wrestled the door open and fired up the bus.  We drove around a little bit and then over to the BioDiesel-selling Chevron on Allen & Murray.  The computer started beeping at the intersection triggering that familiar "oh crap, we're out of coolant again" feeling.  We hobbled into the parking area and I killed the engine.  The overflow bottle was empty again, and there was evidence of coolant having sprayed on the rear (first front-is-front reference) of the fuel tank.  Coolant was draining out with verve.  I wrestled with it a bit, thought I had it fixed and watched more fresh coolant drain when I tested my theory.  Great.  At least it was a nice day, the lot was flat and I had ready-access to water (I was next to the air/water thing).

Pardon the Interruption
Interrupting the story for a second, but when I was at the Air/Water thing re-filling my water bottle, there was this odd couple putting air in their Smart car.  The guy was trying to figure out how to work the air thing, and the woman asks him if he'd gotten a pressure reading on the tire, and he turned to her and said "if you would just shut up, maybe I would".  I was aghast; I mean I'm standing right there, and then made the mistake of making eye contact with the woman.  Her face said "this happens all the time, he's an asshole".  Wow, the crap some folks put up with.  I just took my water back to my bus, grateful I don't have to sit in that Smart car with that asshole.

Front is Front

After singeing my fingers and my left wrist a bit, I sat on the slider door entrance and thought a bit.  I changed the o-ring, so that's not it.  The C-clip is in good shape; not bent.  The flange was new, and the engine hasn't gotten warm enough to warp things.  I remembered that the C-clip is usually pushed on from below when the TDI engine is in a stock car.  In my Jetta, for example, there's lots of room under the flange, but almost none from above.  I figured this was why it was installed that way.  So, I had been putting mine in from the top.  In "front is front" form, I decided that "bottom was bottom" and I should try the C-clip from underneath.  Considering that the lower edge of the flange sits less than 1/2 inch above the fuel tank deck, there is very little maneuvering room.  Still, I was able to get the C-clip in with a minimum of swearing and burning.

Drive It Like You Stole It
Wanting to get away from the bad vibes of a-hole, I put everything away, and quick-started / killed the engine to clear the air bubbles.  I checked the coolant level, and I was off.  I drove like I assumed it was fixed: pushed the RPM's into the low 3000's before shifting, etc.  If you don't test drive it like you're going to drive it... its not a valid test, now is it?  Anyway, I got home and circled the block before turning into the apartment complex.  No beeping from the computer.  Temperature steadily climbed, but it wasn't at all erratic (which happens where there's air near the sensor).  So, I parked the bus outside the garage, killed the engine and opened the garage door.

Leak-less
While doing my opener wrestling stuff, I watched the bus for leaks.  Nuttin.  I fired him up, parked him and closed up the garage again.  Still no drips.  Hmm.. Now, the final test: how's the coolant level.  I looked at the bottle, and it looked low, so I started to open the bottle.... I heard a sucking sound and the coolant rose up to the full line.  The system was so sealed that the vacuum/pressure created by the coolant pump was holding.  I think we're finally fixed, and this time, I have reason to believe its for keeps.

As always, thanks for following along.  Now that he's road-worthy again, I will drive him to work a few times this week to get the gear oil into the tranny and prove the fix.  Then, maybe next weekend to Mt Hood?  I suppose, if I leave early enough, we can get to Timberline before the lot fills.. Regardless, it feels great to even consider it again.  I guess it does matter which way you put the C-clip in.  Bottom is bottom.  Front is front.

Mopping Shop and Eating Crow

Being Monday, today is all about updating what happened over the weekend.  I was able to test drive the bus,  take a run at the mountain, work on the cooling system some more and even watch a little football.

Mopping Shop
Well, as you may expect from the sub-heading here, the test drive got a little, uh.. wet.  Like my prior attempts to drive the bus, I had all the usual trappings.  Everything seems fine, and then its not.  I started him up, checking for leaks and for air bubbles in the overflow bottle.  Nada.  Then, I drove the bus down to the local 7-11 and picked up a celebratory beer.  Drove home.  By the time I got home, the engine was warmer, and the coolant started to leak.  I parked him in front of my place and like a nervous puppy, he formed a puddle underneath.  Drat.  I proceeded to mop the garage floor where he is usually parked and backed him in.  I slid a pan under the drip, went upstairs with my now-conciliatory beer and watched the Blazers beat the tar out of Denver on tv.

View of Mt. Jefferson
from the top of Magic Mile

Timberline Shines
I awoke to an alarm on Sunday morning, triggering a day playing in the snow.  I grabbed Boo, met my brother in Hollywood and made it to Timberline Lodge by 9:30.  We figured the resort would be less crowded on StuporBowl Sunday, but there were still quite a large number of folks there.  The weather was absolutely fantastic: sunny with a slight wind.  It was cold enough to stave-off the melting but warm enough so you didn't need lots of layers.  Perfect weather.  The snow was pretty packed, but there weren't many ruts and the groomers had churned enough to keep the top fresh.  Everything except the Palmer Ice Sheet was open, though the Magic Mile trails were pretty icy (making them fast and easy to catch edges).  Alpine, Thunder, Glade and Kruser were really good runs, with plenty of open space between folks.  The terrain parks were jammed, but I avoid those anyway.  We played until around 2 when we packed off back home.

Dinner of Crow
I dropped my brother and Boo off at their respective homes and hit the parts store for an o-ring.  I'd come to the conclusion that the leak was caused by an o-ring failure, not a human error.  I got home and my legs declared they were too tired to do anymore.  So, I snapped on the game.  Boo and I stopped for a quick bite at one of our regular spots (Mandarin Palace on the corner of Allen & Scholls Ferry), and I saw the 1st quarter there.  It seemed like it was a decent enough slow-start StuporBowl.  By the time I got home with my o-ring, got my snow stuff into the laundry and the game back on, it was nearly over.  Yes, that was an amazing finish to any football game, and it being the final game of the year makes it all the more impressive.  I watched the post-game interviews and swallowed my crow.  Maybe I'll try to watch the game next year.  It sure would be nice to see a West Coast team in there, though.

More Cooling Surgery
After the game, I took my new o-ring and swapped it into the bus.  This time, I did things a little differently.  First, the o-ring is a little oversized.  The stock part is metric, but all I could find was one in imperial sizes. So, rather than 3mm thick, it is 3.1mm.  Instead of 20mm inner diameter, it is 19.6mm.  You get my point. As a result, the o-ring was snug on the temperature sensor and snug in the flange.  Once the c-clip was back in place, I couldn't wiggle the sensor at all.  I contrast that with the ability to wiggle it enough to make it leak before, and I think I've found the leak source.
Second, I captured the coolant differently.  Rather than try to drain coolant, I caught all of it at the flange during the sensor removal.  Take a clean kitchen garbage bag and push the closed end down from the flange towards the ground.  Wrap the open end around the flange and remove the c-clip.  Pull the sensor and all the coolant goes into the bag.  Put the new o-ring on the sensor, install the sensor and pour the coolant back into the overflow bottle.  In my case, the coolant bottle didn't drain during the work, so I had to start the engine to circulate the air bubbles back into the bottle.  Then, I re-filled it from the bag.  Neat!  And no mess!

I'll test drive when I have some time this week.  Like every other time, it feels like I have it fixed.  We'll see. Maybe this time I actually found and fixed the problem.  Thanks for following along.  More next time..