Sunday Sweaty Sunday

Hal arrived shortly after noon on Sunday after making his rounds through the small VW event at Portland International Raceway (PIR). Considering the number of air-cooled (and water-cooled) Volksies in the Pacific Northwest it is surprising how poorly run and barely attended a VW meet is here. Of course, I didn't go, so I guess I'm part of the problem. To be fair, the one flier I saw was at a VW-only parts shop, and the flier didn't have specific event names or times on it. Anyway, he arrived ready to work, and we got to it relatively soon after he arrived.

Mount Brackets
Hal and I have been going around on how the engine would mount into the bus. When I started this project 2 years ago, I had planned to mount something to the sides of the block and route that to the frame rails. I'd thought about using hydraulic mounts or something along those lines. I had "Ed the Welder" even fab something (before I got the engine into the bus), but he didn't do the work as I had initially described (no rubber mounts, so the bus was gonna vibrate like a paint mixer), so that idea got tossed. I moved to the "we'll do it kinda like the stock way, with the big mount coming off the bracket that goes around the timing belt. Well, now we're back to the brackets on the sides. That's how the Aussies do it. That's how the Brit's do it, so that's how we'll do it here in the colonies. Hal was able to make some head way on a stock mustache bar by extending the frame rail brackets by a couple of inches. It doesn't sound like much, but that was a few hours of welding and grinding to get to that point. With the hotter and muggier Summer we've been having, we had to take many breaks. During one of the breaks, we took a run to Home Despot for a drill bit that we fried. During another we hit the web searching for suitable rubber mounts. I regret selling that pair I had in hand 2 years ago. They may not have been perfect, but they were in hand. Anyway, we're going to try a Dodge truck engine mount. I'll be picking up a couple this week. We only need one to verify it, but I can just as easily return 2 as 1, and if we like it, I'd rather not make that stop twice.

Keep on tanking
Around helping Hal at various points and helping clear construction debris from inside my son's room, I was able to get some more traction on the fuel tank. The original fuel filler hose for the 1972 VW Bus is no-longer-available (NLA). So, in order to replace a failing (or 30+ year old) hose, you need to be creative. I took the old pipe down to the muffler shop around the corner and had them bend a pipe along the same contour in the same inner diameter. Unfortunately, exhaust pipe is much thicker than the old fuel filler hose. This became important, but for a few bucks ($10), I have a pipe that will last a long time. With my angle grinder, I cut off enough of the steel pipe so it would fit between the tank and the filler pipe with an inch on space between. Last week, I picked up a 2-1/4" Gates fuel-filler hose (pn 23976) at CarQuest. This was the stock diameter and the widest diameter they had, but I could only get the rubber hose one through much heavy sweating and torquing with a flat-bladed screwdriver. Once that puppy got on, there was no getting it off without considerable effort. I left about 2" of rubber hose sticking off the end of the steel, and had at least 1/2" on the bent exhaust pipe. Now came the fun part. Leaning over the back of the bus (on my toes), I twisted the rubber first onto the fuel filler and then onto the fuel tank. After tightening it down with a pair of new hose clamps, the fuel filler is now completed.
Remaining for fuel system:
(1) finding a location for the fuel filter
(2) mounting filter
(3) replacing fuel lines from tank to filter, including a "T" for the return line, and a clear cheap primary filter
(4) replacing injector lines
All of that will wait for now. I'll be switching to the vacuum system next. I will have to get a brake-booster capable electric pump, start mounting vacuum valves, replacing vacuum lines, etc. Hopefully, that won't take too terribly long.

pictures:
top - a closer look at the extension on the right-side frame rail bracket.
bottom - wider look at the same bracket showing how is sits under the engine.