looking up

Too many of my posts start with something about time. This one is one of those, unfortunately. With my nephew's first birthday party at cocktail hour and housework/laundry book-ending my day, I had a couple of hours in the middle. I made use of that time though.

All VW's mark their spot
I heard this saying from another bus driver a few years ago: all VW's mark their spot. Like a dog, it'll piddle a little bit to show where it's been. When I parked the bus, he marked a little bit and smiled and nodded. Yep, he knew it was home. Lately, I noticed that he's marked more. Since I needed to slide under to adjust the clutch, I figured I should stop the piddling before it got too deep.

Coolant Leak
One of the downsides of putting a radiator into an air-cooled vehicle is all of the coolant lines, etc are custom. There's no guarantee that anything I did will actually work. Once I got looking at the coolant lines, I realized that I only did "just enough" and never really finished. I mean, I didn't fast-mount the lines to the body, I didn't verify all of the connections, etc. This just underscores the importance of a good clean shop and a well organized project. Neither of which I had... or have. Instead, I fret, and do things over again. So, one of the hose clamps was too far away from the joint, causing the end of the coolant line to flex, creating a small gap for coolant to seep out of. Easy fix.

Wiring Re-wound
Some of the wiring for the radiator fans needed some attention too. The wire bundles were un-bundling, so I wrapped that up. Also, the main power routing to the fan relay had separated from the main B+ on the starter. Another simple fix. Messy though, cuz there was coolant leaked around there. Yuck.

Clutch Adjust
Last, I spent my remaining 30 minutes on adjusting the clutch. The wiring and the coolant line took nearly 90 minutes. Jeez. Anyway, I bought a new bowden tube yesterday, so the hardest part of this job was getting to the cable in the first place. I parked the bus about 6" from the wall along the driver side, so getting to anything under that side means some contorting is necessary. One thing I was reminded of was when the cable is disconnected from the clutch lever, the pedal drops to the floor... with an "oh crap" thunk. To get the cable to the clutch lever, you need to prop the pedal up. I used bailing wire because I couldn't find a bungee cord. Anyway, the new bowden tube fit right, and I used a thick and a thin washer at the clutch end. The clutch feels good now, but I'll only know for sure after I fire the engine and try it.

That's it for today. Stanley Cup Finals tomorrow, I have the boys on Tuesday, so I won't be doing anything until Wednesday night at the earliest.

picture:
old bowden tube on the left, new one on the right. You can see the old one was broken in 2 places. That probably shortened the life of my old cable, and part of the adjustment challenges.