Camp cancelled, work progressed instead

The day before we were going to leave for Central Oregon, we found out that our reservations had been canceled because of "bear activity". So, while our friends (Belle's owners) tried to find another place to camp, my wife started to suffer through some kind of sinus thing. We packed for the trip, loaded the car and hoped for the best. Our friends found another spot, and called us with the details, and we shared our bad news. Thursday morning, we couldn't go; she was still sick. Friday morning, we couldn't go for the same reason, so we ended up canceling the whole trip. Our friends went, though we haven't heard from them since we called with the bad news, I'm sure they had fun. I already had the 2 days off from work, so between running for tea, making meals, yard work projects and helicoptering the kids around, I got some things done on the bus. Details follow...

Starters for starters
I took the starter to a rebuilder on the SE side (All Battery & Electric) to have the starter I was given by Justin the TDI guru. The starter tested fine, but I noted one thing: the sprocket on the starter pops out about 3/8" when 12V is applied. I thought this was especially interesting since the adapter allows the starter sprocket to mesh with the flywheel when it is not energized. This makes me think that the starter will introduce some drag on the drivetrain that is not typical. I'm going to look into making a 3/8" standoff. I think a piece of pipe for the starter and a couple of nuts on the bolts would do it. Since the starter didn't require a rebuild, I'll be returning the starter to Justin and start shopping for a starter. The rebuild was estimated at $60 to $160 depending on how "toast" it was.

tanks for nuttin
I thought I'd drop the engine, slap in the fuel tank, and get the engine back in on Friday. This would be my first attempt with the ATV jack adapter that I built. The adapter worked beautifully. I was able to set it without a great deal of guessing, and I had complete control of the engine at-pitch. Dropping and raising the engine is now very easy, and I can drop / re-install within 45 minutes by myself. Unfortunately, the engine is still much taller than the old engine, so the rear end of the bus must be raised considerably to get the engine completely free of the bus. Anyway, in order to get the tank in, I had to raise the right side with the BusDepot jack all the way to its highest setting. Once the tank was threaded in, the engine wouldn't go in because of the vacuum pump and the hot coolant exit flange (even the smaller non-US manual version).

So, I dropped the engine again. After giving it considerable thought, I've decided to remove the vacuum pump, and put a block-off plate in its place. I'll be selling the pump to pay for a Cummins electric vacuum pump. For the flange, I am not sure what to do. I had a spare and I cut it up to see how bad the clearances are. The RTV is still setting, so I'll post on that another time. I replaced the thermostat and the pipe that goes with it this morning. I figured it might be a good time to get it done.

Completely tank'd
Since I've decided to keep the original tank and figure out how to fit the engine around it, I had some tasks left. I reconnected the side vents with some fuel line and clamps. The original fuel filler vent was mostly steel, but it used a no longer available (NLA) rubber hose. So, I replaced the whole stretch with a single rubber hose. I grounded the fuel level sensor and strapped the tank down. All that's left is threading in the nipple at the bottom and tying in a "Y" for the return line.

I popped the engine back in this morning. Hal and I will attack the mounts again next Sunday. Hopefully, we'll fab a vacuum pump block-off plate. I'll look into the water flange viability before then. Not sure if I'll make any real movement this week, but I hope to get the "Y" to finish off the fuel delivery and try the flange.

Pictures (from top):
1 - the current state of the engine. No vacuum pump, no water outlet. holes stuffed with rags.

2 - engine in with tank before tank was strapped down, and before the problems were discovered.

3 - engine on the adapter. works better than expected.

4 - finger showing where the badness is with the vacuum pump.

5 - my hacked-down flange after I removed 3/4" of pipe from the mount point to the pipe. I RTV'd the parts together to see if a flange like this would work. Unless something unexpected happens, this is not the permanent solution.