View from a Bus

Silence Rock

2012-01-23T17:10:00.000-08:00

Maybe its the time of the year. Maybe its the cloudy, soggy weather. Maybe its the New Moon cycle. Maybe its just being tired. Regardless, it seems like no one I know is getting much done on anything these days. I'm not getting much done either. Still, there's always something going on...

Ski-Bowl Delights
Saturday, I finally got to taste some of the "new" powder up on Mt. Hood. Unfortunately, most of it has been hard-packed by fellow sliders and rained on, but the top was still a little powdery. What was more surprising, actually, was the size of the crowd. We arrived late (3:PM) after a slow morning and tail-dragging departure. The parking lot was a virtual moonscape of unplowed and cratered snowpack with cars parked all over the place. I figured the parking guys were getting their own ski-on because there were none to be seen and there were new arrivals clogging the main driveway with their turn signal indicating that they wanted a parking space... which was actively being used by someone who was still removing snow clothes and had yet to stow their gear. Ridiculous. That may work at CostCo where the aisles are wide and loading your car can take a couple of minutes. There was barely room to get in/out of a spot much less drive around a spot-lurker, and unlike CostCo, no one is in a big ol' hurry to load & go after skiing all day. Oi! So close you can see skiers on the slopes, but you just can't get there. By the time we got to the lifts, it was past 4, and the night-ticket folks were joining the group at the base. The lines were long, but they were well managed. I concluded that the parking attendants were helping shepherd skiers, because there were 2 or 3 lift attendants for each lift instead of the usual 1.

After all the waiting, the snow was fantastic. Fast, but with a touch of powder so you could turn. No ruts, but no soft powder-piles to land on either. Basically, it was dangerous and fast enough to hurt yourself, but responsive enough so you could push your limits. We played until about 9 and headed off the mountain. The drive back down was peril-less, but the snow line had moved further downhill. Its been snowing up there on and off ever since, so we're hoping for another night-run on Wednesday. Pray for a low snow-line. :)

just above the snow line
looking south off Hwy26

Silence Rock
On the way up, we made bets on where the snow-line would be, and I guessed Silence Rock. I should probably explain what or where that is. When the ski-bus drivers haul a load of kids up to the mountain, the screaming and shouting from 40+ kids finally reaches head-ache stage around the same point in the drive. This point is on Highway 26 after entering the Wilderness Area but before reaching Government Camp (aka "Govy" to the locals). There is a large mound on the right side of the road as the highway turns left around a canyon (the picture on the right was taken just after passing Silence Rock). At this point in the ski-bus drive, the driver yells "silence rock!" and all the kids are expected to be completely silent as the bus passes this mound of earth. The silence can be broken after passing the next road sign sign. Now, as adults driving up to ski, we see Silence Rock as our opportunity to be silent in respect of the mountain, and of the beautiful nature in which we find ourselves.

Leak?
So, when I was able to mount some enthusiasm, I fiddled around with the bus. I re-routed the engine harness so there is less stress on the temperature sensor cable. Then, I played around with the temperature sensor and I think I was able to get is re-seated. I've re-filled the coolant bottle, pumped coolant by squeezing different hoses and bled the air bubbles out. I've also determined that the running pressure for the coolant system is 18psi. Instead of driving around and looking for puddles, I'm going to go about this a little differently. Using my Mity-Vac, I'm going to fill the vacuum reservoir bottle with coolant, and create 18psi pressure in the system through the bleed port (I'll take a picture while I'm testing and post it later). If the system can hold 18psi, I've fixed the problem. If not, then, there's a leak and I need to find it. I hope I was able to resolve it. If not, at least I didn't discover it as I was trying to get back for more snow.

Last, I just learned that my middle school science teacher passed away after a short illness. He was a Sgt Major drill instructor with the Marines before he taught science at the military school. He really knew how to keep 25 boys in line when surrounded by chemicals and other equally interesting (and dangerous) things. While gruff on the exterior, his heart was gold, and he only wanted the best and brightest possible futures for all of those left in his charge. Rest in Peace, Sarge.

More next time, and thanks, as always, for following along.

Reality Strikes

2012-01-18T23:31:00.000-08:00

As optimistic as my last few posts were, there just had to be a reality check. Unfortunately, it came in the form of a coolant leak on Monday, so the trip to the mountain for MLK Day was scrapped. I'll explain that today. I haven't gotten around to looking at the problem, but I have a theory. I'll hit that at the end. First, a quick snow update from Saturday and the state of C's concussion.

Saturday Sliding

looking up the Multipor lift

The 6 of us (Boo plus boys in one car, me plus my boys in another) hit Mt. Hood Ski Bowl on Saturday for some afternoon and night skiing. C, of course, couldn't slide because of his recent concussion. He spent the day in the lodge with Boo's younger son (K2) playing on a laptop, playing chess and by the end of the day, making a snow-fort outside the lodge. C's concussion symptoms are completely gone and he's back to his old self again. The snow on Saturday was probably the best I'd seen all season. Fluffy, yet quick, so you could get some good speed going, but if you took a spill, you had a nice soft powdery landing. The lifts and slopes were not that busy. In fact, look at this picture. There was no one on this lift except us. Nothing but empty chairs extending into the falling snow. Even the run under the chairs was empty.
The cafe and Beer Stube were busy, though, because of the NFL playoffs. I found that a little amusing, actually: drive 2 hours from home through chain-required conditions to watch a football game on tv. I admit I watched the end of the Saints-49ers game while having a pint, but I spent the rest of the day and night on the slopes, eating up that powder until my legs couldn't take any more. It was fantastic. I'll be up there again this next weekend. Maybe I can get the bus fixed in time... which leads me to the reality check....

My Outlet Flange History
If you've been reading this blog a while, you'll remember the troubles I've had with the coolant outlet flange on the front (pointing towards the front of the bus is "front") of the engine. This flange attaches to the cylinder head where the valves live and allows for the passage of coolant from the engine out to the heater core, the radiator and the coolant bottle. There's also a little coolant temperature sensor in there that connects to the engine harness that I've had all my troubles with. I don't recall how much I complained about the difficulty in getting the coolant sensor in-place and the harness clicked into it. It was a real PITA.

Flange Drives Tank Design
This area at the front of the engine is also the cause of the modification to the fuel tank. The flange sits just above the bellhousing where it connects to the bus frame and it juts into the space where the fuel tank is. So, getting your hands in there for maintenance can be challenging.

Flange Placement

sensor for ALH TDI engine

Last, the way the coolant sensor is set in place in the flange is a bit strange. The sensor is about an inch long with the 4-prong plug at one end and a bronze post at the other. The bronze post extends into the passing coolant, collecting temperature readings. Between those 2 ends is where the trouble lives. First, an O-ring needs to be placed around the wider throat of the sensor as it sits against the opening in the flange. Then, the sensor is held tightly in place while a "U"-shaped plastic holder (U-clip) is set into the slots in the flange. Getting all of this to work is much easier when the TDI engine is in its more native placement. In my bus, this 3-handed job is performed while hanging over the top of the engine with your hands slipped between the engine and the fuel tank.

Leaks
When I swapped out the original harness for the borrowed one, I had challenges getting the everything right. The coolant sensor was a real bear. I had leaks. I broke a U-clip, lost another one. Lost a washer. Then lost another one. Finally, I got it all together, and I was able to drive around eventually. When I swapped my original harness back in, I had some challenges getting the harness to reach properly. I didn't really think about what the impediment was, I just worked it and worked it until I had enough cable to make it, and then clicked it together. My test drive seemed fine, but I ended up low on coolant. Later, there was what looked like water on my garage floor, but I chalked it up to rain. Once I saw the puddle form under the bus at the gas station, though, I knew there was a leak, and the ski trip was off.

Cause Theory
What I didn't think about was the stress I placed on the sensor trying to get the cable to reach. I believe that effort affected the sensor such that the U-clip no longer is holding the sensor flush against the flange. I think the stress of the cable effectively pulled the sensor out enough to allow coolant to escape. The sensor location is the epicenter of the leak, so this theory does seem reasonable.

I'll be digging into this tomorrow night after work (and a trip to the gym). I hope the U-clip is undamaged. I plan to remove the sensor, re-seat it, re-clip it and test for leaks. I need to re-route the harness to eliminate the stress as well. I wish I had a trip report instead of another "guess what I found" post, but that's what happens on this adventure. Thanks for following along...

Still Waiting for Snow

2012-01-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

My schedule for hosting my boys changed a little bit this NewYear. Rather than having them on Tuesday nights, my boys asked that we switch it to Wednesday nights to make room for C's basketball practice schedule (Tue/Thu nights). They figured we could get in some night skiing on Wednesdays. Clearly, they have become accustomed to a packed schedule. We didn't go last night, and today's post is all about why.

Tues-day Bruise-Day
C has played basketball a couple of seasons. He says he's not very good. He understands the strategy, he just doesn't have the mechanics yet. He's crafty and has good lateral movement, so he could be a decent player if he wanted to. This season started the first week of January, so they're really only just starting. On this most recent Tuesday (Jan10), he arrived at practice early. A few other boys had as well, so they grabbed a few basketballs and started practicing their shooting. According to C, he was dribbling for one basket and one of the other boys started defending him. C chose to dribble to a different basket. When he went for the layup, the defending boy had sprinted to get to him and crashed into C, taking him into the wall and then the floor. He felt dizzy, and continued to feel dizzy for about half of practice. One of his friends helped him up and they walked over to a bench where C sat until he didn't feel dizzy anymore. At this point, he practiced with the team. He shouldn't have, but done is done. Fortunately, no additional contact was made.
C tried school from his mom's house yesterday and signed himself out of school before lunch. He called a neighbor and was shuttled home. His mom dashed home from work and took him to a doctor. "Moderate Concussion," he said. "Limited activities on a 6-day recovery plan. 200mg Ibuprofen every 4 hours." So, obviously, skiing is out for now.

Mon-day Fun-day
Based on my simple math skills, 6 days from the day of the injury would be Monday. MLK Day. It's also the one-year anniversary of the weekend I started crashing at my folk's place leading up to my divorce. Neat. Sounds like a party is in order. It seems the weather-gods are going to smile upon us too. Based on the projections, we should be getting consistent snowfall starting on Saturday and extending into early next week. Can you say "fresh pow-pow"? Now, that's a party. But wait, there's more.... with the bus running, and new glow plugs in the mail, MLK Day could be the first run to the mountain in the bus. Can you feel the excitement? :-) If all goes to plan, we'll play at Mt. Hood Ski-Bowl next Monday.

If C recovers more quickly, or if we can determine that higher altitude has minimal effects on a concussed brain, I may take Boo, her boys, T & C up to Timberline and hang out in the Main Lodge with C on Saturday. Then, at least Boo, Boo's boys and T can get some sliding in. C and I can play ping pong, drink hot chocolates and read by the fires. Still beats a day of watching the rain in the valley.

That's it for today. The bus is doing great. I have the glow plugs on-order, like I mentioned, and I need to buy and add some coolant. Overall, though, he's basically ready to play. So am I. We just need C's concussion to mellow out and we'll hit it. He's already tired of waiting :)

Return to Service

2012-01-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

Rather than spend the weekend playing in the snow with Boo, we both spent our respective weekends in the valley. Today's post will be more technical than usual, since I spent all weekend on the bus. Consider yourself warned :)

Glow Plugging Away
The glow plug is a mystery to non-diesel folks. I know it was to me, when I first got into diesels. I figured it was just a diesel version of a spark plug with some fancy lingo around it to confuse people. Actually, it is core to the difference between a diesel and gas engine. A gas engine depends on a spark to create a small explosion in the combustion chamber (by setting the vapor on fire), creating force to drive the piston down, and create movement. A diesel engine depends on compression for this function. This sounds a little strange to the newly inducted, I know. Now, gas engines need compression too, but not nearly as much. In fact, when you start losing compression in a gas engine, you suffer "blow-by", but the engine will still run, while you slowly start polluting your oil with un-burnt gasoline. An early indicator is a smell of burnt oil (rings going bad) or your dipstick smelling like gas. Once a diesel engine's compression falls too low, or should I say once the pressure created within the combustion chamber falls below a certain level, the engine won't fire at all. So, enter some chemistry....

Pressure is a function of temperature and the vapor contents. The presence of water in air, for example, reduces the vapor's ability to compress. A low temperature of the vapor increases its ability to compress, or should I say decreases the amount of pressure created within a cylinder. If the temperature remains sufficiently high and constant, pressure is equally high and consistent for a static vapor make-up (atomized diesel fuel, cooking oil, bio-diesel, eg).

glow plug image borrowed from
autoengines4842.blogspot.com

This is where the glow plugs fit into this picture. They are little combustion chamber warmers, but hardy enough to withstand the pressure and heat of an active engine. Once the ambient temperature falls below about 40*F, the pressure created within the combustion chamber is insufficient to create an ample burn for the engine to run consistently. As the temperature drops from there, the engine becomes, eventually, inoperable. The glow plugs create the heat necessary to warm the chamber so the engine can start and run until the combustion warms the chambers directly. Then, they shut off.

With this "science" in mind, we can better understand why it was so important for me to get the borrowed harness (without a glow plug circuit) replaced with a fully functioning harness. I completed that in my last post. On Saturday, I discovered that 3 out of 4 plugs in my engine were bad. I had lots of old plugs, but only one good one, so I popped it in and hoped for the best. Since it was over 40* in my garage, I wasn't too worried about the plugs. Turns out I was right, though starting on the mountain may be interesting if I don't have 4 operable plugs.

Okay, So Why Won't It Start?
Aside from pressure, a diesel engine needs something pressure-combustible within the vapor. As I indicated earlier, this ranges from diesel fuel, home heating oil, bio-diesel and vegetable cooking oil. I've heard of other alternatives, but I'd stay with those 4 (and home heating oil only if you aren't afraid of getting ticketed in the US - its a road tax aversion thing). So, I have temperature, I have compression, so I must be missing the fuel. Since I had the entire system open, I probably failed to get all the air out of the fuel system. I attack this in 3 steps: priming the lines to/from the filter, priming the pump, and priming the injectors.

Priming the Lines
With a Mity-Vac, simply apply vacuum to the fuel line that runs from the big fuel filter to the Injection Pump (IP). Block the return line from the pump to the filter. The filter is large and holds a considerable amount of fuel, so you can find yourself second-guessing whether you have it right. I have a small clear filter between the tank and the main filter so I can see fuel enter and move through. This little $1 filter extends the life of the spendy stock filter too, so I encourage others doing this too. Once you have fuel collecting at the Mity-Vac bottle, connect the IP feed line back to the IP and start priming the pump.

Priming the Pump

IP image borrowed from
Dieselgeek.com

At the pump, remove the little return line which comes from the injectors. Apply vacuum with your Mity-Vac to that little nipple until fuel collects in the bottle. Do this carefully, with low-pressure vacuum. You don't want to damage any pump innards (read: rubber seals) by applying too much vacuum at once. I found keeping it under 5 pounds was sufficient. Once you have fuel in the bottle, re-connect all the lines and move on to priming the injectors.

Prime the Injectors
Now, you have fuel at the pump and the pump is full of fuel. All that's left is making sure there's no air in the hard and return lines between the injectors and the IP. With a wrench, loosen the nut at the end of the hardlines where they connect to the injector. Do this for all 4. I completely loosened mine, but just "cracking" it should suffice. Now, start cranking the engine. Keep cranking until you see diesel fuel start to pop out of the loosened injector connections. Once all 4 are popping, you're air-free. Tighten it all back down and the engine will start. Mine did.

I took a test drive over to Boo's house to prove out all of my handiwork. This is a few miles, including a highway on-ramp/off-ramp and some city-ish traffic driving. The new tires felt fine, and I couldn't even hear the noise of the studs over the racket of the engine and rattling windows. The bus drove well, reached 185* and effectively leveled off there. The heat works (though the defroster air was a little funky), and I think we're back in business. I need to top-off the coolant, and double-check the oil, but I think the bus is now "back in service". Now, to plan the first trip to the mountain, and the next "real" road trip: Dark Star Orchestra...

As always, thanks for following along, and I'll post more as there's more to post about...

Holidaze, Hood and Harnesses

2012-01-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

Its been 10 days, and I've been on vacation for most of them. I'l hit the highlights, and describe my final engine harness resolution.

Mt Hood Xmas Eve

Holidaze
The miniature house painting, like so many projects I undertake, took longer than I described in my post before. In fact, it took as long as I told folks in person: over 40 hours. It still needs to be shipped, so it totally missed the holiday window. Once its been delivered, I'll post a picture. My dad says that the Three Kings actually arrived on the 12th day of Christmas (Jan6), not on the actual birth-night like the songs imply. So.. I'll stretch that so I can have the finished product in-hand by Jan6 and still meet Christmas expectations. Its all in how you frame it...

Hood
As I write this, I've been to Mt. Hood to go sliding 13 times since the start of the season. That is more than all of the times I've ever gone in all my previous years combined. On Christmas Eve and the 26th, I took the boys to Ski Bowl. After nearly a month without fresh snow, the conditions were really very good. Ski Bowl has snow-making machines like the resorts in Vermont, so the sub-freezing weather allowed them to make snow almost every day. This left an inch of top-powder on top of the packed base. The mountain was practically empty on the 24th and it was almost as quiet on the 26th. These were possibly 2 of the best days we'd had to date.

Mt Hood from Mid-Reynolds
top at Ski Bowl

We went up to Ski Bowl again on the 27th, but it rained. I was practically soaked through by the top of the first lift, so I only took a couple of runs and called it a day. We took the next 2 days off, so our legs could recover, and we had family holiday parties to attend. Our last trip to Mt Hood was Friday Dec30 to Timberline. Mt Hood was experiencing blizzard conditions, making the drive a little challenging for some, and the sliding a little interesting for us.

Sunset over Ski Bowl Lodge

The drive to Government Camp didn't require chains, but I pulled over into the rest stop/Summit ski lift parking lot and had them on in a few minutes. All those early trips gave me lots of chain-up practice. It also gave me some needed snow-driving practice, which came in handy. We found a front-row parking spot, set the car in gear (leaving the hand-brake off), and stepped into some of the worst weather I've experienced since moving to the West Coast. In the time it took to get our gear on I had an inch of snow in my back seat and over an inch in my trunk. The car was completely covered, and we were all cold to the skin. We hauled our equipment to the day lodge and set to sliding. Timberline had at least 16" of fresh powder on the ground and more was pouring out of the sky. Visibility was about 15' and foggy through goggles. Still, the sliding was slow with the fresh powder, but that encouraged more direct paths downhill. The spills were all the more epic.
I avoided a young woman who was sliding very slowly down the center of the trail (in an outstretched jumping-jack pose), but ended up hitting the drop-in at the top of Thunder with my body out of balance. I dropped about 10 feet hit a mogul, bounced, hit another mogul and then cartwheeled twice before landing flat on my back with a thud. If the 16" of powder weren't there, I would have been hurt. Instead, I caught my breath, checked my extremities, jumped onto my toe-edge and finished the run. Good times, and more to be had for sure this season.

Harnesses

wires don't go to the same pins

So, I bought a replacement harness. It wasn't the right one. I found the part number on the ECU plug and bought a replacement off of eBay. It looked right, but once I unwound the tape and pulled the dust cover off the back, it was clear that it wouldn't work either. The picture here shows how the wires don't route to the same pins. So, even though the part number was right, the implementation was different enough to make the part useless to me. One more thing to sell. Great. So, at this point, I got a little creative. I looked at the pin-holes that click into the ECU on both the old plug and the replacement. It looks like the inside of each of those little holes contain a metal clip. I figured I probably damaged or bent the clips with my connectivity testing. Next to each square-ish hole is a tiny slot. I found a tiny paperclip and started working the holes where I could see the clips. I did this on and off while watching football, so I'm not sure how much time this took, but it was more a case of move slow, than bang-it-out.

plug underside

Once the holes looked more like the plug I bought, I took the harness downstairs. First, I tested the loaned harness with the OBDII trip computer. I had only one code: P038 - Glow Plugs. I pulled the loaned harness out, shot every plug on the original with Di-Oxit5 and strung it into the engine and ECU. Quick test with the OBDII computer and I only had the one code. Hazah! I tried to start the engine and it wouldn't start, but its because I hadn't fully primed the fuel circuit. I'll be completing that this week, and I should be able to drive the bus again.

Well, that's like 2 or 3 posts in one. There's so much sliding season left, I expect to have lots of outdoor pictures and experiences to share over the next few months. It seems like the bus is almost road-ready again after a 3 month span. I plan to prime the fuel circuit this week and he'll be ready. When he drives again, he'll have a completely refreshed fuel tank, a fan on the intercooler, an operating glow-plug circuit, a freshly painted exhaust and studded snow-tires. Wow, when I spell it all out, its been a very productive 3 month lay-over. Like every other time the bus goes back into service, I'll start a list of things I want to work on the next time. If it goes well, I won't plan for another run of projects until May when the ski season is over but camping season hasn't started yet. As always, thanks for following along, and I'll post again soon-

Holiday approacheth

2011-12-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

What is it about the holidays that seems to make time disappear? I really didn't "do" Christmas this year, yet I don't have any more time than I did last year. At least it doesn't feel like it. Anyway, today, I'll give an overdue update on the state of the bus, and give an update on my elbow. First things first...

Elbow Whacked
Between Halloween and last weekend, I've been up to the mountain to snowboard 9 times. On my 6th trip, I was on my last run of the night at Ski Bowl when I caught a toe-edge and was too tired to kick through it. Instead, I went down. Now, we had received some pretty decent snow leading up to ThanksGiving, but its been cold and dry since, making the snow increasingly hard-pack and icy. So, when I went down, it was onto concrete-hard snowpack. I knew I was going down, so I tried to turn my shoulder into it so I could roll through, but I went down faster than I could react and landed on my left elbow. It hurt. It hurt bad. Sharp pain. Hard to fully straighten or bend my arm without pain. Not good. I finished the run gingerly, filled a plastic bag with snow, and applied that to my elbow for the drive off the mountain.
A smarter, more aware person than me would have gone to a doctor. Nope, I'm a dummy. Instead, I went snowboarding again a few days later and fell on it again. Same spot. Ye-ouch. Then, in an unparalleled case of extreme-dumb, I went one more time. I didn't actually snowboard that time, but it wasn't for health reasons. We got there late and by the time the kids were equipped and sliding, it was 8:PM, so I figured I'd just hold down a barstool at the lodge. Now, nearly 10 days later, my elbow still hurts when I bump it, move my arm certain ways, and I can't lean on it. I have a doctor appointment this afternoon. If I broke it, he may need to do something severe to set it. I may lose some mobility in my arm for the next couple of weeks, leading to a less fun week off between Christmas and NewYears (when I planned to snowboard at least 3 times). Lesson learned.
UPDATE: doc says its tendon damage. Keep frozen peas on it, and take ibuprofen. Apply kinesio tape to help reduce strain on the tendon. If I plan to snowboard, wear an elbow guard like skateboarders wear. Great news. Looks like I'll be back on the mountain next week afterall. hahaha!!!!

Christmas Painting
Every family treats gift-giving differently. Some enter arms-races to see who can buy the most stuff for someone else. I never understood those folks, but I suspect they are the same folks who buy a BMW because a neighbor bought one. Anyway, my family (my parents, brothers w/wives, sisters w/husbands) draw names for the one person for whom you will give a gift. For years, I have painted a small (around 4" each side) ceramic house for my randomly selected family member. These take a considerable amount of time, like 40+ hours, so I spend most of my time between ThanksGiving (when the names are selected) and Christmas trying to get the house completed. Of course, there are all of the other tasks of life sprinkled in, other social expectations, etc, so that's where my holidaze go. Since the name I received this year is not local, I should have already been finished and had it wrapped and on a southbound truck. But, since the family gift exchange isn't until the 28th, I have a few extra days. Thank goodness. On the side here there's a picture of a couple I painted a few years back for my sister and her husband (different years, of course).

Bus not Busy
There isn't really a great deal of news on the bus-front. I have the new ECU plug, so I could start the harness surgery at any time. I just need some time. With the ceramic painting time constraint and limit, I haven't been able to focus on the harness. The bus still on jack stands (though he doesn't need to be), and the new snow tires are sitting on the cabin floor. I've neglected him, though he's been in a warm dry garage, so it's not all bad. I want to give him some good focus on Xmas morning. Maybe slap on the snow tires and take a quick spin around the neighborhood with the Justin's harness. We'll see.

I expect the painting to complete in the next few days. So, I should be able to bang-out the harness by the middle of next week. Depending on what the doctor says about my elbow, its still possible that I could be taking the boys up to the mountain in the bus before NewYears. If the doctor needs to isolate my arm, I won't be driving, much less installing a newly repaired harness in, my bus. Keeping my fingers crossed that my elbow is fine (just badly bone-bruised), my painting completes soon, and the harness surgery is quick and error-free.

As always, thanks for following along, and have a Merry Christmas.

Foiled Again

2011-12-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

Cue a picture of a cartoon villain, twisting the ends of a long thin mustache...

what I got on top
early ALH on bottom

Harnessed
The engine harness I bought sight-unseen was not for an early ALH engine. I take at least some of the fault here since the guy I bought it from called and we talked about what it looked like. What we didn't talk about, though, was what the ECU plug looked like. Since this plug is the only one I know is bad on my harness, that one was the single most important one for me to ask about. I didn't. So, when the box arrived, I opened it like a kid at Christmas. I took one look at that plug and knew I'd struck coal in my stocking.

Now, the fun starts. I was unable to return the harness because the guy I bought it from had already spent the money and indicated that I did get what he said it was: it is an engine harness for an ALH engine. The fact that it is not an "early", and therefore doesn't fit is my problem. Of course, this position wasn't articulated until after I'd returned the harness, so now I have no harness, and no money. Sweet! ... and just in time for Christmas. The guy did say he would return the harness on delivery, so I'll have my useless-to-me harness again. To eBay I go, I guess. It does have a brand new glow-plug section in it, though, so that alone is worth $70. Before I go that route, though, I'll look up the part number on the ECU plug and verify what models and years it fits.
UPDATE (2011-12-21): I did some googling and found the harness fits an AJM engine, not an ALH: fits 1998-2000 Passat, Jetta and Golf with a highest HP output (130BHP) diesel engine available at the time.

I did buy a replacement ECU plug on eBay. After all this time, I finally found someone just selling a plug with 3" of wire bundle attached. I didn't want to perform this kind of surgery, but a $30 plug beats a $150 harness if the rest of the harness is good (which it should be). Had I found a plug like this before, though, I would have gotten it then. In 3 years, I'd never seen just a plug with some wire bundle for sale. Good deal, great timing. I'll have to wait on that work until I finish my other Christmas time commitments, but I still hope to get the bus onto the mountain before NewYears.

Tires
As I write this, my studded snow tires are being mounted onto an extra set of 14" rims I got off Craigslist a couple of years ago. They're black, so its almost like they were designed for snow tires. Since they're 14" tires, though, I will be retaining my 52mph top speed in the bus for winter driving. I'm certain this will frustrate other motorists as they try to speed past the beautiful countryside on their way to the lift lines. Ah well. I do have a set of 15" rims which fit the rear hubs. If I had that harness money back, I could probably get a pair of 15" studded snows and increase my top speed... but only by a few mph. Ultimately, my top speed is controlled by the high-rpm expecting 002 transaxle. I'll address that next Summer.... if I have the money. Or, I'll have another year to remind myself that the journey is the destination, and traveling at 50mph allows me a greater opportunity to make the most of that destination. Later this winter, I will be chanting this mantra as I drive up Mt. Hood at 50mph, heading a line of Chevy Behemoth's and Ford Monstrosity's chomping at my rear bumper. :)

Thanks for following along.

White Friday

2011-12-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned before, my boys and I have a tradition we started a few years ago (Holding Pattern taking Hold) where we get some snow time during the ThanksGiving break rather than retail time. On that first holiday weekend, we went on Saturday, but in the last 2 years, we've gone on the day after ThanksGiving. The newsfolks (and far too many people, in my opinion) refer to that as Black Friday. The ruckus leading up to ThanksGiving about what sales are where and who's going to have the biggest lines completely blots out the whole being thankful message of the season. So, to give the sickening consumerism the finger, we get away from the stores, the televisions and the crowds (presumably) and head for the snow.

Departure
My boys slept in. I told them I wouldn't wake them as a means of getting them to go to sleep ThanksGiving Night, but the excitement of going to the mountain on opening weekend was too much for them. I finally awoke them around 9. Since the lifts opened at 9:30, and we were still in Beaverton, we clearly were not going to be there for the first lift. No matter; both of my brothers were going to meet us up there, and they both have little ones, so we figured they couldn't actually beat us there. A quick-slam breakfast and we hit the road.

White Friday
We tried a weird longer route, but we got there by 11:15. The traffic to the mountain was steady. The climb up Timberline Hwy required chains. The parking at the lot was to overflow and there were sizable lines at the lifts. Considering it was considered the beginning of unbridled consumerism season, the turnout for White Friday was fantastic. Then, came the conditions. The snow was powdery. The air dry, the visibility infinite and the winds still. Perfect day for playing. C got separated again, so we spent time looking for him at one point, but he wisely realized he was in the wrong spot and stayed put. We met both of my brothers' families and visited in Wy-East, then headed down the mountain to Summit for some sledding before dark. We ended the day saying our goodbyes in the Summit Lodge after hot coffee / cocoa. Perfect White Friday.

I hope you take the opportunity to celebrate White Friday next year. The retailers will survive without you, but can you survive the retailers without first giving yourself a break? Go to the snow, play with your kids or your friends and breathe in the crisp fresh air. The malls will be there for you later.

The bus progresses. I'm waiting for a replacement engine harness so I can return the borrowed harness to Justin. I bought some used snow tires too, so we'll be able to take the bus up to Government Camp / Ski Bowl this winter. I'm not quite daring enough to try Timberline, but we'll see. Thanks for following along, and I'll post again soon-

Tank's Giving

2011-11-26T19:41:00.000-08:00

Okay, horrible pun. Guilty. Still, I hope you all had a pleasant ThanksGiving holiday. For those blessed with a 4 day work-stoppage weekend, I hope you were able to make the most of it. I was able to celebrate White Friday with a large group of fellow non-consumers. I'll talk about that another time so I can talk through how to put a fuel tank back into an early bay-window bus today.

Clearance
Before you do anything, you need to verify that there's nothing between the rear hatch and the tank compartment. This sounds obvious, but the tank is deeper than you may think, so you need a clear shot through. The stock wiring harness shouldn't get in the way, but if you have any customization (like, oh, I don't know... a TDI engine instead of he flat-four), you may have some wire-dangle issues. Solve those. Zip-ties are your friend. Also, if your stock engine is still in, you can slip the tank around it, but everything above the heads must come off first. That includes the intake, carb (or FI), filters (air & fuel), etc. Its actually easier just lowering it out of the way like I described in an earlier post. The actual removal of the stock engine is very well covered in the Idot's Guide. If the engine is on the shop floor, make sure you have at least 1/2 of the left-to-right space clear from the floor to ceiling of the tank compartment back to the rear hatch.

slide along right side and rotate into place

Vector
Steering the tank through the rear hatch and into place is an exercise in patience. Enter this step knowing you will have to do it many times, and you will not be unpleasantly surprised with an entire afternoon lost to wrestling your tank in. Before you start, set the foam seal back into position. On my TDI-powered bus, I needed to raise the right side (using my BusDepot bus jack) so I could get past the engine on the floor.
I sent the left edge in first and routed it around the engine into place. Get the tank partway into the tank compartment and attach the level sender wire and the ground wire. Then, the tank can settle into place with wiggling. Slide underneath and check that you can't see the foam seal. If you can, you can try to move it with your fingers from below, or re-set the tank. Neither are fun, but both work. Using fingers from below is faster, though. You can feel when the tank is settled into place.

Assembly
Now, you can start re-connecting things. I did them in this order: fuel filler hose, fuel vent line, fuel return line (mine re-uses one of the original vent lines), fuel feed line. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I replaced my fuel filler hose with a bent section of steel pipe from the muffler shop. I was able to find the right size Viton hose at CarQuest, but only in straight sections. So, I cut 2 3" collars from the hose, and I use them to abut the tank to the bent-pipe and from the bent-pipe to the filler on the side of the bus.

wire it up before final placement

Re-use your clamps only if they were in nearly-new condition. Otherwise, they aren't that expensive, but its better that than have one fail and cause leaks. It is a major pain swapping those clamps after everything is back in place. Last, the hold-down straps are cinched into place. This is a little challenging if the engine is in the engine bay, but on the floor. Since I put a heating unit in my engine compartment, and ran the air hose forward along the left side, it really gets in the way. Still, there's a washer and a 13mm nut (you need both). Use a deep socket and put a vice grip on the strap so it doesn't torque as you tighten.

That's it for today. We had a great White Friday, and I'll post about that soon, as well as the engine install headway. Thanks for following along!

Taste of Winter

2011-11-22T21:42:00.000-08:00

I haven't really been paying any attention to the weather beyond the Great Pacific NorthWest. Like so many folks, I get caught up in what's happening in my life or immediately around me and just don't look up. So, for those of you suffering with floods, power outages, freak freezes or blizzards, I hope your troubles end soon. For those of us in the Great Pacific NorthWest, Summer switched to Fall and then to Winter rather quickly. I'm going to talk about my trips to the mountain over the past few weeks today, and take a short break from my postings about the bus.

November Snow

view out bar window

Mt. Hood is home to as many as 6 different ski areas. At its peak, there is a glacier providing a surface for sliding nearly all year 'round at Timberline. Sliding on the glacier (Palmer Field), though, is really not that great, unless you like sliding on a sheet of ice pellets. Yuck. Still, if you want to slide in the first week of November, you have few alternatives. We have been fortunate, though, and the top of Mt. Hood got a bunch of snow the last week of October and the first week of November, so it wasn't all ice. Boo and I only took a couple of lifts before they closed them for the day, but we got to try out our new passes and her new skis.

Timberline Lodge
The ski-part of the resort wasn't really open yet. We walked through Wy-East Day Lodge on the way in, and it was still actively being remodeled. The entire food court area was a construction zone. So, once the lifts closed, and we took our final slide down, we visited the main lodge. The main lodge was in the movie The Shining as its greatest claim to fame. It was built as part of a WPA (Works Progress Administration) in 1936. The woodwork is pretty amazing, with exposed timber structures across the ceilings. There is a massive central smokestack serves 8 fireplaces on 2 floors. We hit the Ram's Head bar on the upper floor, found a table by the window and watched the snow.. with a couple drinks. Great way to end a day of sliding.

7 Days Later

Timberline Hwy

A week later, we took the boys up for a day on the mountain. Unlike the prior week, this time the wind was so strong at the top of the mountain, Palmer Field was closed. In fact, the only open stretch of snow (and corresponding lift) was the bunny slope between the parking lots. Had it been mid-season, and SkiBowl was open, we would have gone there. Instead, since the season wasn't even open yet, we played on the bunny slope. C strove for the highest number of times around and counted 29 runs in the 2 hours we were there. Clearly, C got very comfortable with his new skis. T used his old board, but felt like he was back to mid-season form by the end of the day. They shut off the lifts at 2:30 again.

Uno Mas
The following Saturday, this past weekend, Boo and I went up again. This time, Timberline had a 54" base including over 10" of fresh powder. Almost half of the runs were open and one of the other major resorts (Meadows) opened. The opening of Meadows probably accounted for the light crowd at Timberline. The snow, though, was incredible and the visibility was fantastic. I hadn't really seen much of Timberline's runs, and even now I've only half. Still, the sliding was amazing. I fell a bunch of times, so I was clearly trying hard enough. After 3 hours, my legs were burning.and I had to call uncle. It wasn't until I het the gym yesterday that the pains finally went away.

White Friday

looking down the valley near Govt Camp

In years past, my boys and I would celebrate the Friday after Thanksgiving by going to the snow. We call it White Friday, in a response to the Black Friday capitalism-on-steroids media circus which seems to lock-grip so many Americans. Rather than "fighting prices", we'll be fighting gravity. I strongly encourage you to do the same. The crowds are smaller, the air is better and it'll probably cost you less.

Anyway, thanks for following along. I'll follow up next time with a bus update.... and probably more stories from the snow.

Pulling the Fuel Tank

2011-11-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

Today I'll cover removing the tank from the Baywindow bus. When I touch something that's only relevant for a TDI, I'll say as much. Mostly, though, the process is the same. I'm starting from after the engine has been dropped (or removed entirely). Some steps are actually easier when the engine is still in-place versus on the shop floor but within the engine bay. I'll call out when that's the case too, so you can plan accordingly.

Empty Tank

tank sender. note wires, bolts

This should be somewhat obvious, but I'm putting it out there anyway. If your tank is blocked because foreign matter is in your tank, you'll need a siphon to pump it mostly dry. I got a manual pump at Harbor Freight for $10. They also had a bulb-style pump for $6, but that looked a little too disposable/one use only. Your experience may disprove that, so please let me know. This is easier when the engine is in-place and not on the shop floor in the engine bay.

Remove Fuel Feed Line
Depending on your engine, the route of your engine fuel feed line is different. Its purpose is the same, and the time at which it is removed is as well. Its easier to remove the thread-in fuel line attachment when the engine is not on the floor. If you drained your tank through this line, It was already disconnected from filters, etc. If you siphoned, disconnect the fuel feed line from the engine-end first, draining the line as you go. Last, place a bucket under the tank outlet and un-thread it from the tank. A last little bit will come out of your tank. If you have a tank from a fuel injected engine, you'll need to remove the return line too. It ties in down below as well, and should be removed the same way. My tank was a single-outlet style.

Remove Firewall
If you are running a gasoline engine, you should have a firewall between your fuel supply and the engine. This is held on by screws from below. These are hard to find and the engine has to be in-place or you'll be cursing the gods trying to get this wall out. The top edge is also held in with screws, but these are easier to find. I removed my firewall when I switched fuel sources, and don't use it anymore. So, I can't remember how many screws there are. Sorry.

Remove Tank Vent line(s)
If you're running the TDI (and don't have a fuel injected tank), one of the vent outlets is being used for the return line. Remove this and drain it. The true vent lines can be removed and the brass/copper tubes need to be removed as well.

Remove Fuel Filler Hose
Be very careful with this hose. This is no longer available (NLA) from the dealer or online. So, if you damage it or decide you need to be able to fill a different fuel (like switching from gasoline to diesel), a replacement will be a creative effort. The hose doesn't need to be completely removed to get the tank out, but the tank-end does need to be disconnected. I found disconnecting at the tank first to be easier than disconnecting at the filler anyway. I had a steel pipe bent to match my filler hose by the fine folks at Meineke when I chose to replace mine when I switched to diesel.

slide out right side

Disconnect Fuel Level Sender Wires
Disconnect the fuel level sender wire from the sending unit. It takes a thin wrist or a hooked wire to pull the signal wire from the tank compartment. There's a mid-wire connector where you can disconnect. Disconnect the grounding wire too. The grounding location varies, but mine is dead-center in the compartment ceiling where the firewall is attached.

Loosen Hold Down Straps
You could have done this earlier, but removing the lines would have been harder had the tank been free-floating. The straps are held on from below and you'd think it would be easier with the engine in, but the starter kind of blocks the right-side one. They take a 13mm deep socket. I suggest putting a vice-grip on the strap near the point where it passes through the base as the strap twists as it is loosened, and the vice-grip holds it firm. The nut has a washer behind it; don't lose it.

Pull Tank
Now, the tank should separate from the floor of the tank compartment with a little wiggling. Remember that the engine feed outlet on the bottom of the tank is the low point and that there's a foam gasket where the bottom bowl would touch the tank compartment floor. You're going to want that when you re-install. Rather than "store it somewhere safe" and lose it, I just leave it in the tank compartment. Everyone has their own system, though. The tank needs to slide out over the top of your engine (on shop floor) down the right (passenger) side of the engine bay. Because of the height of the engine on my ATV Jack adapter, I need to raise the right side almost to the top of the Bus Depot tire jack limit. Total non-sequitor, but if you're still using the stock jack, I encourage you to get one of those Bus Depot jacks.

If you're going to get the tank re-lined, remove the fuel level sender. It's held on with 6 8mm bolts. At this point, I took my tank to Mac's Radiator. They cut holes in the bottom, bead-blasted it inside and out and then lined it. The outside was painted with primer. All told it took about a week and cost $200. Once I considered the cost of materials and the number of hours as well as questioned how well I would have gotten all the gunk out, I concluded $200 was money well spent.

That's it for today. I'll cover the re-install of the tank and engine over the next couple of posts. I'm still not 100% done with the re-install, so that shoudl give you an idea of how busy I've been and how long this really takes.

Engine Extraction

2011-11-10T11:43:00.000-08:00

Today, I'll cover the steps to remove my TDi engine. This may only really benefit me, but if anyone else ever does the same install, this could be helpful for them too. I know I'll refer back to this the next time I have to drop it - for the transaxle replacement anyway.

Safety first, always
Disconnect the battery. While you're looking at the electrical, disconnect the computer plug and the B+ nut on the alternator. Disconnect the ground strap from the block. Now is the best time to raise the bus so it is on jackstands too.

Fuel System

The driver for dropping the engine was to gain access to my fuel tank, which became blocked on my trip to Eugene. One last point on that: when I went to drain the tank, the clear filter was 1/2 full again. It seems that the tow sloshed the tank enough to clear the blockage. Anyway, I ran a dip tube down the overflow pipe and into the tank. Through this dip tube, I pumped the tank nearly empty. Then, I disconnected the drain and caught the rest of the fuel in a bucket. All told, I had over 5 gallons left in the tank, so the fuel gauge was reading about right (at just under 1/2 full). The return lines, vent line and stock filter were drained next. Last, the stock filter was removed from its mount and set on top of the engine. The mount was also removed.

Vacuum System
The only part of the vacuum system which needed to be removed was the vacuum ball, and even then, it was only so the fuel tank could be removed. For an engine drop, the vacuum system can remain in tact. The vacuum lines which run down the intake need to be removed from the intake, though.

Exhaust
After the fuel lines and electrical, the exhaust needs to come out. The exhaust is bolts to the turbo with 2 nuts and one bolt, all 13mm. The hanger on the rear was done poorly (thanks Meineke) and requires some gymnastics to get disconnected. Re-install is equally frustrating. The exhaust drops down and can be turned so it slides out pretty easily.

Intake

The air filter is mounted to the side of the bus, so the intake pipe is disconnected at the filter. Unplug the computer plug at the AFM, remove the hold-down screw for the hard-plastic pipe at the intake. On the other end, remove the bolts holding the post-turbo air pipe at the inlet. Last, disconnect the pipe leading from the turbo to the intercooler. This is the nasty little bit that kept failing on that drive to Eugene, so consider how to disassemble carefully. Once these disconnections are made, the entire intake unit should drop straight down. Rotate the pipes around and move the intercooler towards the front. The pipes will pass through and under, allowing the unit to be removed under the bumper.

Cooling

Since the engine is not getting removed, just lowered, the coolant does not need to be drained. In fact, the heater core and almost all of the lines can remain in-place and untouched. The exceptions include the water bottle and bracket (so the fuel tank can pass) and the zip-ties holding the radiator runner pipes in place. These zip-ties would have tension on them as the engine dropped if they were not cut and re-zipped. Make sure the bottle is tightly capped. Set the bottle on top of the engine of on the jack cradle. Regardless of where it goes, it will need to sit below the engine for the tank to be removed, so it will get very full of fluid. If the cap it not secure, you'll make a mess. Disconnect the level sender plug and move that cable out of the way.

Transaxle
Disconnect the CV joints and the clutch cable. The transaxle will rise and fall with the engine, so these need to be loose. Put a small jack under the front of the transaxle and remove the nose-mount. 15mm and 16mm bolts, if memory serves.

Physical Mounts
At this point, the engine is free of anything which would impede its movement up and down a few feet. If the engine is being removed entirely, the harnesses would also need to be unplugged, the coolant drained and pipes separated. Slide an ATV jack with an engine cradle (adapter) under the engine. I looked through my old posts and I realize I never posted on how I built it. The closest I get is with this post showing a close up of it. Anyway, slide the cradle under the engine and take a touch of the weight onto it. Now, disconnect the stock mount from the tower and the engine. Once removed, the tower needs to be removed (for tank removal), and the bracket needs to be removed from the engine (so it can be lowered). Last, remove the long bolts which connect the bellhousing to the transaxle rear mount. These bolts are 13mm-15mm. Once removed, the engine should lower easily with the ATV jack and transaxle jack used in tandem.

Thanks for sitting through a somewhat dull posting about how to drop my TDI engine. This will be very useful for me in the future. To add some value to the casual reader, here are some handy links I've used over the years:

www.ratwell.com <- long time owner of '79 bus. excellent accurate info. my usual first stop

www.thesamba.com/vw <- forums of lots of VW owners.

www.type2.com <- dedicated old-skool VW owners site and email list.

www.busdepot.com <- great genuine parts

www.azautoparts.com <- dealer parts at cost. limited offerings, but always good prices for all cars

Furthur - the Return

2011-11-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

I know its been a while and I apologize for that. I've been covering a second job at work, so I'm basically working all the time these days. Fortunately, a replacement has been selected, so I'll be returning to having only one job again soon. Today, I'll talk about the adventure I had on the drive home.

out the passenger side while waiting

Carabus
We rolled out of the campground earlier than I really expected - around 10. After 3 days of late nights, music and dancing, I figured we'd sleep in later. Since the bus doesn't have much in terms of curtains right now, the morning sun got me up pretty early. So, after quick-charging our cell phones, slugging some coffee and grubbing some cold cereal, Ed (in Belle) and I (in Hapy) headed north through Coburn and onto I-5 North.
With my currently limited top-speed, Ed eventually grew impatient, passed and disappeared through my windscreen. Since he had a much longer drive over to the Oregon Coast before wheeling home, I totally expected him to split. It was shortly after we parted ways that things started to get interesting.

Sputtering

out the windscreen while waiting

One advantage to not having a stereo is being able to get very attuned to what your engine sounds like when its running well. It also gives you very early clues when things are starting to go wrong. It started with a little sputter. Like the engine missed or something. We kept on cruising, but now I was on high alert. Another sputter... and then another... and then... I could hear the engine starting to die. So, I popped it out of gear, let the engine fail and rolled slowly below the speed limit, into the breakdown lane and then eventually to a stop. Fortunately, I found myself in a very wide breakdown area. I had an idea of what went wrong, so I went around back to confirm. When I broke camp, I put most of my stuff on the floor in the passenger area rather than the rear deck. This made engine access easy.

Fuel-less
My initial guess was proven accurate seconds after I opened the engine lid: the clear primary fuel filter I put between the tank and the stock filter was completely dry.

Hah. I jumped back into the driver seat and checked my milage, and I should have half a tank. Curious. So, I pulled the filler cap and waited for a break in traffic. When one arrived, I rocked the bus and put my ear to the filler hole: splash-splash. So... not fuel-less? So, the tank has foreign matter in it blocking the outlet. Drat! Not something I can fix roadside, so AAA gets the call.

Towed Again

tucking him home

AAA was responsive, but I had to wait an hour while a flat-bed truck became available. It seems I was not the only northbound microbus that got a AAA call. Funny. While I waited, I messed around with some of my interior electrical, and got the poptop dome light to work. Sweet! Anyway, Dave the driver was very careful and did a great job hoisting my bus onto his truck. The drive back to Beaqverton was not nearly as climactic as the drive south was. Between the completely different weather (now cloudy with spitting rain) and hte different means, I was a little down. Dave was able to arrange his truck such that he was able to perfectly tuck the bus into his sleeping spot in my garage.

So ends the adventure of attending Furthur. I did take a peek at the clear filter a few days after getting home and it had some fuel in it, further supporting the floaties-in-the-tank theory. Since the return, I've taken steps to fix this, and I'll post what those steps were next time around. As always, thanks for following along.

Furthur - the Lot

2011-10-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

I'll cover the experiences from the parking lot over the 3 days of the shows in Eugene. In the greater scheme, this makes more sense. Besides, the days kind of run together, so going chronologically isn't really possible.

Shakedown Street

typical owner disposition

The Saturday morning print of the Eugene newspaper declared a successful "bust" of the vending along Shakedown Street. Now, if you've been to a Grateful Dead-like event, you know what this area is. For those who have not been so exposed, Shakedown Street is a zone somewhere in the parking lot where a large percentage of the vending takes place. This zone is usually close to the arena, and is where the highest foot-traffic would naturally happen. This is not a space designated by anyone. In fact, it springs up on its own where the first-arrivers think it makes the most sense. This "bust" had a little effect on the vending scene, though, and actually created multiple mini-Shakedown's as well as walk-about vending. I liked the walk-abouts. But even in my touring days, that was how I sold things before dark. Laying out a sheet or a cooler on Shakedown Street was too high-risk for me back then. One GDP (Grateful Dead Productions) violation cop, and you could be out hundreds of dollars. Staff-Pro's usually targetted illegal liquor or drug sales, but from the article in the paper, they were busting everybody for selling anything... except tickets. Funny how that's turned.

Wares without Art

One of the great contributions the "illegal" vending brought to the event used to be the iconic artistry placed onto T-shirts through 2-4 color silk screens. This artistry would take a modern icon and "Deadify" it. For example, one of my favorite shirts from years ago was a Bart Simpson T-shirt where Bart was wearing a tie-die and cut-off shorts. Under the cartoon drawing was the phrase "Bart it on Down the Line" - playing on the song title "Beat it on Down the Line". These types of shirts no longer appear at Dead-related shows, and I find that very disappointing. Disappointing to the point, in fact, that Mike, Ed, Boo and I talked about different creative ideas taking modern cultural references and making T-shirts out of them. We may just get into the T-shirt business, if we can isolate some time for it. In the end, I did buy a couple of wood coasters. These coasters have a Steal-Your-Face in the center or a Tour poster-looking image inside. I like the creativity in creating a coaster, and they are totally functional!


Belle and Hapy wait for us to return from the show

Tire-kicking
As you may imagine, rolling into the lot as part of a microbus caravan, Ed and I attracted a little attention. Belle was festooned with a big flag in her luggage rack on the way in on Sunday, and Hapy remained his usual sleeper-looking self the 2 days I drove him in (Fri & Sat). The looks on the faces of those in-the-know when I passed, though, was pretty funny. ACVW (Air Cooled VolksWagen) fans know what an ACVW sounds like. So, when my city-bus sounding microbus passed, a look of confusion followed. Funny stuff. By the time we parked, there was usually at least one person wanting to check out our sleds. As I may have mentioned in the previous post, Ed would park nose in and I'd back in next to him so our sliders faced each other. This made for a nice little sitting area as we enjoyed our beverages... (yes, staff-pro official, these are coffee's in our coffee cups)...

We met a number of VW folks, over the course of the 3 days. From the TDI-transplant curious, to BioDieselers, to purists. The purists wanted to talk to Ed. I popped the rear hatch a few times, and talked at great length with a guy from Corvallis who is working on a production-able nose-mount radiator for water-cooled engine conversions. Cool! I hope to hear more from him about his project. I may not ave the stomach for moving the rad, but having these kinds of conversations is a great way to learn about improvement ideas.

It was a beautiful 3 days, weather-wise, crowd-wise and music-wise. The lot wasn't over-burdened with booming stereos, had good Microbus, Vanagon and Eurovan representation and had a good positive energy. More next time about the ride home....

Furthur - To Eugene

2011-10-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

So many things to cover, I'm just going to have to start writing more often. My last post was before the trip to Eugene, so I owe a trip report, a summary of the shows, the trip home, and inevitable work-that-followed-the-trip stuff. I'll hit the trip report today.

GDTRFB (well, good, actually)
The first show in Eugene was on a Friday night. Without a place to stay Thursday, I planned for an early departure Friday morning. That plan was delayed when my brother (co-pilot for the southbound trip) needed to work until noon. Still, leaving downtown Portland by 1:PM was pretty good. We were also supposed to meet-up with Ed and Mike in Belle, but we were unable to connect on that either. If Ed hasn't posted his trip report yet, he had to run out to the coast to collect Mike the night before.
Anyway, I topped the tank at the local fueling station and calculated my milage: 31mpg. Yes, that's right, 31mpg... in a bus... without the new (better suited) transaxle. I still don't know how much capacity the tank has, but if I assume 12 gallons, that's a 372 mile single-fill travel capacity. By that estimate, I wouldn't need to fuel-up until after returning from Eugene. This was an important bit of data later.
With the tank full, and the fuel gauge still not operating correctly (showing "E"), I hit US26 into Portland. I hit cruising speed at 51mph (3100 rpm), stayed in the right lane and enjoyed sitting behind the wheel again. The bus handled great, traffic was light and the day was starting to get warm. Perfect. My brother was ready to go within minutes of my arriving at his office, so we greabbed some Quizno's and headed south. The bus doesn't have a radio, so we reverted to old-skool travel time-passing: talking and laughing.

Wheels Broke Down, the Leader Won't Draw
About the time we reached Aurora, I noticed we didn't have the power I'd expected on hills. I know we had some hills during the drive to Champoeg, so there was something amiss. Also, the cooling fans were not acting as effectively. The temp was staying under control, but the base temperature was floating between 195* and 200*, not around 185* where I expected it to be. These 2 indicators were distracting me, so we pulled into the Charbonneau rest area. After letting things cool off (and eating our Quizno's), I discovered that the pipe leaving the turbo headed for the intercooler had separated from one of the couplings. As a result, the air headed for the engine was (a) unfiltered and (b) naturally aspirated or non-turbo charged. I re-connected the pipe, tightened it down and called Ed to see what was going on with his end of the trip. He was working his way through the Coast Range, so we would'nt be seeing him until Salem at the earliest. Back onto the road we go.

Bound to Cover Just a Little More Ground
The pipe connection I described above separated again within 30 minutes of leaving the Charbonneau rest area. This time, I could feel it. The power loss followed by the slightly raised temperature. I figured "no problem, now I know what I'll be doing on Saturday". We stopped again to verify, and re-repair, but I could tell no damage was being done. I took the opportunity this time to verify the oil level and coolant too. All good. So, my brother and I just did the drive, and when we hit hills, just stayed as far to the right as we could go, singing "just a little bit harder just a little bit more, a little bit furthur than you've gone before"... to keep the bus motivated :)

The Music Never Stopped
We didn't need to stop again, and blew through Salem, Albany, etc. at our top speed (51mph). The campground we chose was just north of Eugene, so we took the exit before (Coburg) and actually got to the campground before Ed, Mike & Belle. All told, we had 2 stops and made the trip in under 3 hours. We set up the shed (tiny tent for holding belongings so the bus isn't cluttered with crap), cleared the bus of non-show-critical items, and waited for Ed, Mike and Belle. I re-attached the pipe again. They arrived before 6, and we prepared the rest of the site (EZ-up over the table, enjoyed some barley-pops, talked to some fellow show-attending campers, etc.). There was some interest in the busses, but ours weren't the only ones in the campground, so it wasn't one of those "wow I had one of those" kinds of conversations, it was more along the lines of "oh, so that's a '73 Riviera, I have a '69 campmobile over there (pointing)".

Inspiration... move me brightly
Feeling fresh, we carabused from the campground to the ampitheater parking lot: 1 mile of rural Lane country followed by 4 miles of suburbia. Being Eugene, we were not the only busses driving around, so the impact of 2 in a row was virtually 0. Still, it was a great sensation for me to be finally carabusing to a Dead show in my bus. Another milepost, if you will. We parked the busses, Belle nose in, me backed in so the sliders faced each other, and we settled into our evening.

I paused a minute to consider the last time I sat in a parking lot waiting for the Dead. 2 years earlier, my bus was a collection of parts, lacking direction, plans for some sub-systems and, mostly, my attention. I stood outside Belle in that lot and stated "I won't see the Dead again until I can get there in my own bus". Kennedy had his mission to the moon speech, and I guess that was mine. In that moment of pause, I had reached that goal. It's hard to describe the feeling of satisfaction, but to be there with the friends who witnessed my statement was truly special.

More next time--

Football, Friends and Further

2011-09-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

It feel like Summer was just in full swing and suddenly school is starting, the rain is falling, and football is on the tv. Wow. Insta-Autumn. In typical Pacific Northwest style, we couldn't start the school year without the first week being one of the nicest of the Summer. Sorry kids, the parents get to enjoy this one solo. I'll flap today about some more personal goings-on, and touch on a trip planned for the weekend.

Football
In my new digs, I'm rediscovering how much I enjoy American Football. College ball, NFL, its all good, and if I'm not careful, it will consume all of my weekend time. Contrasting this new interest are parental responsibilities with both boys playing soccer (or should I say "Football"?). Basically, helicopter-parenting season has opened, and this past weekend was quite an opening weekend. C played his second game, pulling in a few assists from his mid-fielder position, and his brother T played a spirited game (also at mid-fielder), though I couldn't tell if he got any assists. It was really fun to see both of them play with such passion. As much as they say lacrosse is their favorite sport, they play soccer with a true love of the game.

Family
After the games, I hosted the "family" birthday celebration for C. I tried to go a little further than usual in setting up the party, blowing up balloons and stringing streamers (okay, actually my new friend Boo did most of that, but I'll get to that later). It was a mid-afternoon affair, to fit around little-niece and nephew naps with an abundance of finger foods. Beer was flowing, and conversations light. Overall, it was a great time, and C felt the love from everyone. After the cousins and grandparents left, we ordered pizza and watched a movie: his choice - I am Number 4. Great b-day celebration for sure.

Friends
Well, with the divorce finalized for a few months, and life somewhat settled down, my finding new, uh.. friends... was inevitable. Dating has been a surreal experience for me, but fun for sure. I've recently started seeing someone exclusively, though. Out of privacy respect, her name will be omitted from posts like my boys' names and I'll just call her "Boo".

Further
Further (the remaining members of the Grateful Dead) is performing 3 nights at a tiny outdoor ampitheater in Eugene, Oregon. Its been 2 years since "The Dead" played the Bay Area and the Gorge. It was on that trip in Ed's bus (Belle) that really re-focused me on getting my bus project completed. *see the "WALSTIB" posts for details on that trip* This time, I'll be driving my bus, cara-bus style, with Ed & Belle down to Eugene. Sure, its only a couple hundred miles, but its the longest drive I've taken in him since the engine transplant. We'll be camping a few miles from the venue to boot, so as Summer turns to Fall officially, we'll be squeezing one last camping weekend in.

Tonight, I need to get a short in the dash resolved and get the fuel tank level signal working so I can make the trip safely. You don't want to run a diesel engine empty.... or drive out of a "Dead" show at night without tail lights. That's a cop's dream, and a DeadHead nightmare.

More next time, and thanks again for following along.

so much for tomorrow

2011-09-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, I just need to stop saying I'm going to post anything, and just do what I do. Clearly, I can't hold myself to a schedule, even when I publicly state I'll do something. Again, my apologies. I'll touch on some "life stuff" today. After that, I'll head down to the bus and start working on material for the next posting. Honestly, now that he's running, my posts will probably happen less often. Well, at least until ski season opens and we start driving the bus up the mountain for a day of sliding :)

Champoeg
I ran a basic trip report in my last post covering the road trip to Champoeg State Park and back. The boys and I drove past the exist on the freeway this past week (in the Jetta), and we got talking about our camping trip again. Since it was our only trip of the season, it had all the usual "first trip of the season" a-ha moments. Among them, both boys understood again that camping night time is colder than at home night time, so bringing pants and fleece jackets are a good idea regardless of how hot it is when you leave civilization. Mostly, we remembered how much time you have in a single day when you're camping. By leaving all the time-saving devices at home, we actually had more free time. Not sure how that works, but I'm sure it only works for a couple of days. Hmm.. sounds like an experiment or a dare for another season.

Like all trips, there was a small collection of stuff we brought that we didn't use at all (lacrosse sticks), stuff we brought that I thought wouldn't get used, but was used a heck of a lot (bikes) and stuff we forgot, but muddled through without (spoons). We made a list of things to bring next time (including spoons), of course. In the end, though, we spent most of our time down by the Willamette River, splashing in the water and making a mud/clay wall. Fun stuff.

Nested
The weekend after the camping trip, the boys returned to their mom's house for the week. I'd been waiting for some cash to roll in so I could finish making my place a little more home-y. For example, I had a tv sitting on top of a bass amp with a pile of stereo equipment around it. It looked kinda like it was set there during the move-in in April and then never touched. In fact, that's exactly what happened. I got a tv stand-thing, re-arranged everything again, framed some posters, decorated the boys' room and the hallway. Basically, the place is ready for outsider viewing. I'd hoped to be at this point in time for hockey season, and I made it in time for football. Sweet. Drop by for part of a game if you're in the area. I may make you look at the bus engine during a commercial, though, so you've been warned...

Boys Back
I got the boys back on Sunday night, but they're already back with their mom (Labor Day Weekend). They loved my place before, but I think they like the energy in it now even more. I had to work this week, so my folks minded them during the day Mon-Wed. T is old enough to watch his brother, but they can't use the pool or get beyond BMX bike-range without a licensed driver. Great thanks to my folks for being available. The boys found a local BMX bike track and used it a few times while they were with me.

Oregon State Fair
On Thursday, I took the day off from work and took the boys to the Oregon State Fair. I hadn't been to the fair in a few years, but it rang familiar. Big barns full of show animals, carnival rides and a bilk-your-money arcade... live music and many booths of sellers. We couldn't find the Alpaca's, but we did find the horses, cows, pigs, goats and sheep. There were some beautiful animals, and being so close to them we city-folk get a much better idea of how large they really are.
There were 2 big downsides, though, that the Fair organizers should re-think. First, the only water available was for purchase only in enviro-hostile plastic bottles or given out in tiny dixie cups by Bible-thumpers or Culligan water salesmen. Ain't nuttin' free. I was able to find a single old-school water fountain where I could refill my water bottles, but the Fair folks should change this policy. Second, almost every vendor was cash-only. So, if you prefer plastic you either didn't buy stuff (like me) or you hit the $4-per-transaction-fee ATM's which were everywhere. Clearly, the Fair was getting a taste of those fees, and I think that's rotten. The few vendors who handled their own credit card transactions got my business, I spent my cash on food.

Well, this got long. I suppose I should post more often, and this could have been 3 posts instead of one massive one. *shrug* It's getting late if I'm going to look at my bus today, so I better get to it. Hope you're having a nice Labor Day weekend, either with friends, family or live music. More next time...

One Small Step for Van....

2011-08-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

So, the maiden voyage of the TDI-powered microbus has concluded. It wasn't without its scary moments, but it was a great success. I'll hit the mechanical road-digest stuff today, and I'll come back around to the human-side stuff tomorrow.

liftoff from home

Houston, We Have Liftoff
Tuesday started with loading up camping gear and bikes (2 on a rear strap-on rack, one in the cabin). The load-up was not terribly interesting, other than I forgot all the little things that used to go without mention before. Things forgotten: dish towels, body soap & shampoo, extra towels, for example. There were plenty of other things, but we didn't leave our positive attitudes, our extra coolant, bag of how-to-fix-it books, toolbox of ratchets, screwdrivers and wrenches. This proved very important later. From the house, we went straight to Fred Meyers for last minute "oh, yeah, we need that" stuff, like a solar lantern, ice, propane and of course fuel and air for the tires. It was a little surreal to order diesel. The guy looked at me a little funny and said "you mean regular". "No," I say with a grin. "I mean #2 diesel". I then photographed the fill up like a total geek.

yes, I meant Diesel :)

Loaded for bear, and ready to roll, I couldn't find 1st gear, so we pulled out of the shopping center parking lot uphill in second. The engine didn't like that and acted like it dropped into "limp mode". Aw crap. Pull to the side, kill the engine.... Fret..... Fret some more...... Restart the engine, and everything's fine again. Hmm... something to ponder while I watch the UltraGauge.

Apollo 13
As I mentioned in my last post, the boys and I gave thanks to each of you who have helped us on this journey when we turned onto Roy Rogers Road towards Sherwood. The drive through the highland cow country of Washing ton County was beautiful, and the engine temp finally reached the magic 185* mark. It held there, then climbed some more. By 190*, I had flipped the fan switch, and the temp dropped back down to 185*, at which point, I turned the fans back off again. This cycle repeated a few times as we entered Sherwood. That is, until we reached 99W and I suddenly saw white smoke billowing. "Houston, we have a problem". I flipped the fans and the smoke cleared, but I knew something was wrong. I made the turn onto 99W and into the next parking lot: one for a NAPA. What luck!

hose on ground not so good.

Once parked, I jumped out to see what was wrong. The return hose from the radiator had separated from its coupling and one end was now lying on the ground. A small puddle of coolant had appeared. Good times. Seeing how we were in front of a NAPA, though, getting more coolant and a hose clamp (missing from the hose now) would be an easy task... and a very short walk. No need for the lifeboat, but exposing the coolant bottle means emptying the rear deck of our belongings, and removing the rear bike rack.

One Small Step For Van
While shooting the breeze with the guys at NAPA, I described my engineering failure: there are no barbs on my coupling, so it would just be a matter of time before this happened again. They leaped to the phones, calling different parts suppliers until they found a company in Tualatin that had 1-1/4" double-barbed couplers. "2 please," I say. NAPA went an got them for me from them within 30 minutes. During that 30 minute wait, we walked next door to the Safeway and had lunch. Perfect. No sooner had we returned, the couplers arrived. They were installed, coolant fed into the bottle, system bled and we were ready to roll within an hour. Knowing more air bubbles would appear, we pulled out of the NAPA parking lot.

new double-barbed couplers

Later on, while driving down 99W, I was unable to influence the temperature. We pulled over, re-exposed the coolant bottle, and topped it off. Dang air bubbles. Re-bled, and we were off. This time for good. The rest of the trip was temperature cycling, laughing with the boys and enjoying the corners of Yamhill and Marion Counties.

One Giant Step for Van-Kind
After being parked for 2 days, there were no fresh fluids under the bus before we left the campground. The coolant bottle was a touch low, so I topped him off again. I expect a few more air bubbles to appear before its all done, but I think the worst is past. The under-mount radiator has proven effective, and the TDI engine has proven to be an effective power plant for a microbus. As many have pointed out along the way "that transaxle isn't well suited to that engine". Very true. At 3k RPM, the bus is moving around 45mph in 4th gear with 14" tires. I have a set of 15" rims that I plan to use for tires in the future, but I'm sure a re-geared transaxle is in the future. That's a $1500+ statement.... and it reminds me that no bus or project vehicle is ever finished. Just some portion of it is. Today, the engine transplant project is complete. Tomorrow, some other project will begin, but for today at least I dance and sing in celebration that my bus lives again.

true satisfaction. greetings from Champoeg State Park

Mop up, and man up

2011-08-15T22:26:00.000-07:00

It's been a week, and I've gotten a bunch of little things done. I'll run through that and again ring that "fear" bell. Fun ahead!

Mop up
As I said, last week was very productive. The boys were with their mom, so I focused on bus stuff... Well, for the first few days anyway. I already detailed the relay setup for the cooling fans. That was Monday. On Tuesday, I wired in a toggle switch (after hitting the gym and working late). Wednesday, I scrubbed the interior of the bellows and hard-mounted the bed base to the frame with finish nails. I finished the wiring above the sink/stove too. There's an issue there, tho, and the cabin lights don't light up. I think my ground is bad because there is voltage at the switch.

Saturday, I mounted the toggle switch next to the hazard switch, fixed my rear driving lights so they actually light up, cleaned up some loose wiring and re-connected the speedometer cable. The running lights turned out to be a few simple things. First, fuse #2 was bad. Second, the right rear tail bulb was bad. I spent an hour checking wires before going to those. Doh! Basically, I mopped up all the leftover bits on Sunday, vacuumed the carpets, etc

Man Up
I picked up the boys on Sunday and they were a little disappointed that I didn't arrive in the bus. They thought that may mean the camping trip was cancelled, or the bus wasn't ready. The reality is, I wasn't ready to take him on the freeway. OR 217 is not a very forgiving freeway by Oregon standards, but bottom line I need to man up and drive this thing. Today, we ran an errand in him: to CostCo. He drove great, and we easily fit a huge cart full of food into the passenger compartment. We didn't even use the rear deck. I forget how easily the bus carries a bunch of stuff. I'll be collecting a piece of furniture next week and I think I know how I'll get it home now. It won't be a rented truck from Home Depot :)

On The Road Again
We take our first camping trip in 4 years starting tomorrow. These years have seen many changes, and it will be surreal to be camping in the bus without their mom, or the dog. Still, it will be nice to be out on the open road again, humming along and again seeing the world through a Bay Window Bus windscreen. The boys and I packed the camping equipment tonight, and we'll finish tomorrow morning. We'll slap the bikes on the rear carrier, hit the local grocery and head South for a couple of nights.

As we pull onto the 2-lane road through the cow patches of Washington County, I'll be thinking of all the folks who helped make this project a reality. Hal, and the hours and hours he put in on the engine mount, helping me decide what design would work best. Justin, and the low priced labor and numerous free parts (including the loaner engine harness I'm currently running) to get the TDI engine running perfectly. Andy, my TDIClub friend who sent months of personal research on the TDI wiring as well as his personal support along the way. Toby, for the pop top work, and ready hand for anything else that popped up. Ed (owner of Belle) who kept reminding me of my end goal with regular drive-bys and the famous ride-alongs to see the Dead. Ed the Welder, who performed the magic on the fuel tank so long ago. Eric, the guy in Georgia who salvaged the engine, crated and shipped it to me. KEP for their sending me a second adapter plate at 1/2 price when I needlessly broke the first one. Of course, the numerous others who have provided insights on problems or their own projects as motivations along the way. This project would not be where it is today without every single one of you.

Suffice to say, no project is completed on an island. We all need each other to make these kinds of crazy ideas go from concept to completion. I greatly value each of you for your time or financial sacrifice to help make this possible. I can't thank you enough. I can say, though, that my next post will be documenting a road trip; the first road trip in years. In that, we all can celebrate. Thanks for following along all these years, and I promise over the next 6 months I will back-document final solutions for each of the separate sub-systems, so the next guy who gets a cray idea to put a diesel engine in his bus has a workable roadmap... at least to start from :)

Keeping it Cool

2011-08-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post a quick update on the cooling fan work I did last night. As you may remember from an earlier post, I was concerned about whether the fans kicked on during my anti-NASCAR test drives. I watched the temperature rise on the UltraGauge, and even level off at 185*. I think that was when the thermostat opened and the full coolant circuit (routing through the radiator) was active. This allowed the 68* coolant that was sitting in the radiator to mingle with the 185* coolant leaving the engine. Predictably, the temperature dropped temporarily and then increased again. I didn't have the patience to watch the coolant rise too far above 190* before I got uneasy and stopped the test drive. I should have hopped out at that point to see if either of the fans were spinning. Wanting a backup system for fan activation was the driver for last night's efforts.

Relay Enabled
I re-attacked the fan wiring last night. My first change was to tie the fans together so they both turn on and shut off together. Having just one spin seemed silly. To protect wiring, I have both fans activated off of an automotive (30A) relay triggered from the temperature switch in the radiator. Now, when the "low speed" temperature is reached, both fans will fire. I don't have a destination for the "high speed" signal yet, but I think I might wire it to my oil idiot light on the original dash. That way, if I'm getting too hot, I'll have a visual queue to cool it.

Panic Switch
Now that both fans turn when the temperature switch says to fire, my concerns about whether that switch will always work kick in. Honestly, I'm not sure if the current switch works. Now, I could remove the switch (effectively draining the entire cooling system) and install a new one. Yes, that would be the proper course. Rather than do that, I wired in a panic switch for the fans. Now, if I see the temperature running high, and lack the confidence in the fans turning on automagically, I can flip a switch (with an LED to show me that I did so) and fire them up. The B+ side of the switch is running on circuit 30, so I can fire the fans after shutting off the engine. Since the coolant will stop moving at that point, it is limited in utility, but it might help cool a little bit. The tests of the switch and relay were positive, so I'm ready to test-drive again.

With all of these modifications, the wiring near the driver's feet has become, uh... rat-nest-like. I'll spend some time cleaning that up tomorrow night, freeing up Saturday for test drives and final bits and pieces on the pop top. Thanks for following along, and if all goes well, I'll be on the road Saturday doing more than just an anti-NASCAR this time. WooHoo!

Tight Topside

2011-08-06T23:11:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned troubles with getting the top to settle-down properly. I'll post on how that resolved, and touch on some other random pop-top related things today.

Westy strap holding Riviera Top

Great Pair
So, I've mentioned that the hole for the Riviera top is larger and more square than the sunroof hole. This lead to some interesting challenges for getting the inner wood framing to fit. Included in this was a need to change how the front section will fit. This forces a change to both the font hold-downs and the bow that holds the front bellows to the roof of the bus. For the hold-downs, I pulled the 2 side hold-downs from the old westy top. They fit well, and seem up to the task. Like the original Riviera, there are 4 hold-downs, 1 of the originals on each side and 2 westy ones along the front.

note original hole
(black spot above screw head)

For the front bow, I re-used the original, but had to cut short sections of the ends to fit it. To avoid putting too much stress on the bellows, I didn't reuse the original holes, but created new ones closer to the edge. This way, the bellows are not stretched at all when the top is fully open. Hopefully, this will extend its life a little bit.

Pointing Straight Ahead
After that last post, I realized that I didn't even try to align the feet front-to-back. Dummy. A quick measurement showed that the driver-side was a full inch further forward than the passenger side. This would explain why it didn't close, and why it was diagonally pointing off to the passenger side at the front. I matched the rear feet, screwed in one screw each at the front and back and verified the movement. Perfect.

Nice Rack

Screw holding front p-side

With the top settled down, and the front of the bellows tightened down, that left installing the luggage rack. I lowered the top down and pushed the luggage rack as far into the top as I could get it, and shook it a little bit. The top is held down by 4 long washered Phillips-head screws. I marked the holes with a ball-point pen, and drilled the holes with a 7/64 bit. Out of concern for water tracking under the rear of the rack back into the bus, I layered "rope" insulation along the rear edge just like I used around the edge of the bellows. Once the top was screwed in place, I forced my hand under the inner edge and sealed the malleable stuff against the top and the roof of the bus. I tested it with light, but I still need to test it with water.

completed. tight seam.

That's it for today. The boys helped some, but they've kinda lost interest in the work part of this project and are ready for the test-drive part. I can't say I blame them. I'm ready for the test driving part too. I have one last thing I want to do first: install a radiator fan over-ride switch. I hope to tackle that on Monday so I can take a few test flights this week. Its very very close now, my friends. My plan to take the boys camping in mid-August may actually come to fruition.

No New Tales to Tell

2011-08-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

It's been the dog-days of Summer around my place the last 2 weeks, and getting into the bus hasn't been really happening. Between the Brew Fest, and my niece's birthday on Saturday, last weekend was a wash. I was able to start getting the scissor-support mounted, but they aren't quite on right, so I'll be re-starting that effort. Unfortunately, that means that the little bit I did get done, I'll be doing again.

Since the top isn't really "on", I can't test drive it. With a planned first camping trip just a few weeks away, my evenings and weekends are going to become very full very soon, starting tonight. I have my boys with me this week, so I'll have to figure out a way of getting their hands involved too.

I wanted to post something, since it's been nearly 10 days since my last post, but, like the headline says, "No New Tales to Tell". Once I have the scissor-supports solved, I'll share the pictures I've taken along the way. Suffice to say, the supports have 2 long steel feet that run the length of the bus. If they are not positioned exactly right, the top won't close, and it won't sit right. Mine aren't, so it doesn't. I think the driver's side rail is too far forward, so I'll try moving it towards the rear to see if that helps. Since the support "feet" don't have channels for the screws to pass through (instead its just a tiny hole), adjusting the top means new holes in the roof for every adjustment. Something to think about improving if you are thinking about putting a Riviera top on your non-Riviera bus.

That's all for now. Like I said, I'll post when I have the top solved, and explain what I found as the cause. I'll back-post a picture of the mis-aligned top to this posting later.

Riviera Top on... Mostly

2011-07-26T23:57:00.000-07:00

With the help of a couple of friends, and my 2 boys, the new Riviera pop top moved from my garage floor to the top of the bus. We made some discoveries along the way. Today, I'll back-document what happened. It was hot and long, so I'm very grateful to both Ed and Toby for sacrificing a nice Saturday afternoon with their families to be with mine.

Preparations and Discoveries

initial placement. Toby eyeing things

After the test run last Thursday, I felt comfortable moving the bus out into the driveway of the complex. So, as Ed was arriving, I got the bus into position just outside my garage. While still exchanging pleasantries, Toby arrived, and we were ready to go. I'd spent a couple of hours before they arrived digging through Toby's photo album dedicated to the Riviera pop top removal he performed. Through examining his pictures, and my interior, I made some important discoveries. These were confirmed, as you'll see.

showing cut-out "X"

First and foremost, the Westy was based on the sunroof style transporter while the Riviera was based on a standard transporter. This drove a few differences which are important. The sunroof bus has 2 roof panels with a 2" gap between them running from the rear of the opening back to the rear of the bus. This is where the sunroof slider would hide when the roof was open. The front of the sunroof opening is not straight, either. There's a kick-out off-center on the driver's side where the sunroof crank would appear. Contrast these 2 conditions with the hole cut at the Riviera factory in Beaverton Oregon (where Riviera's were made), and things get interesting. The transporter has only the one roof section, for starters. The front of the hole is straight.... and about 3 inches closer to the front. Also the sides were closer to the drip-rails in the Riviera bus than the Westy hole. When we looked at how the interior foamy bits all tied together, its clear there will be some customization needed. More importantly, though, the Riviera facto

after cutting p-side

ry firmed-up the hole by applying wood strips around the underside of the hole and mounting wood strips (which are a-fixed to the bellows) through the steel from above into the wood strips below. Since these lower wood strips roughly aligned with the support steel Volkswagen installed in the sunroof transporter, the lower strips can be ignored for our install.

Top On

extra 6mm screws. frame sits in the rail

It is with those differences in mind that I chose to not do anything to prepare for the top install prior to the guys arriving. This meant that the first step was actually the step I needed them for: muscling the top onto the bus. They kindly recognized that I'd just painted the roof, but there wasn't a way we were going to get that top installed without scratching it, so I said as much and we jumped in. I took the back, Ed took the passenger front corner and Toby took the driver front corner. This put Toby in the spot of having to climb into the bus during the install. We approached the bus from the rear passenger corner, lifting vertically while moving towards the front. The 3 of us were better able to get it on the bus than we'd expected. The quick-part ended there, though.

thanks Toby.

The lower bellows frame for the Riviera top is not flat. There is a portion of the wood frame that hangs down into the hole. The Riviera-shaped hole. I have a sunroof-shaped hole. They aren't the same. Enter saws. To make the frame fit, 3 inches of lower frame needs to be notched out. The notch needs to be 1" high (up to the bottom edge of the bellows). With the notch cut out of both the driver and passenger side fronts, the lower frame started to fit. We spent the next couple of hours measuring and remeasuring, shoving the lower bellows wood frame around to get it into the right spot. Once we got the spot set, we started chewing through drill bits trying to get a pilot hole bored. Fun times. There are 3 hex-topped (6mm) screws on each side holding the lower bellows frame to the bus-roof. Since we omitted the lower wood strips, we put 2 more 6mm hex screws through the lower bellows frame into the sides of the sunroof hole. To make sure we were square, we brought the bed plywood sheet (under the bellow frame) and set everything. Re-measuring. Re-setting. Then, we marked the holes, moved the lower frame out of the way, bored the holes and screwed it down. We're square, and the bellows are fixed to the bus-roof.

back home w/top on

Next, I need to resolve the water barrier at the bottom of the bellows and get the scissors-supports mounted. Then, I'll clean-up the top interior and the foamy customization I mentioned earlier in this post. Should be a productive weekend. Oh, I almost forgot: he fits in the garage.... once I disconnect the auto-door opening, push the door as open as I can make it, and hold the door open with a vice-grip! Love it! As always, thanks for following along,

Fear, Loathing and Driving in Circles

2011-07-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

2 items today. Broken alarm on my Jetta, and test driving the bus. Its a beautiful day and I want to get out into it, so this post may not be as tidy as some of my others. Apologies in advance.

Fear and Loathing

I have the boys this week, and that brings a different rhythm and a very different schedule around the house. They enjoyed a camp at the local Park&Rec except for Thursday. Which is where our tale begins. I've had on-and-off problems with the door lock on my Jetta over the years. 3 years ago, I took it to my good friend Justin to fix the door switch. The computer couldn't register when the door was open or shut, and thought it was open all the time. This caused the puddle light to stay on all the time and run down the battery. It eventually caused that annoying door-ding to go off while I was driving, etc. Well, he tore the door don, pulled out the switch cleaned the snot out of it, and re-installed. Problem solved. Until recently. Thursday, to be exact. I couldn't disarm the alarm with the key. Triple-A came out with a locksmith and he couldn't do it. He said "take it to a dealer. My guys tried to fix one of these once and it took 4 of us 4 hours".

Fear.

Loathing.

I called work, took the day off, and set to fixing it myself, with the help of VWVortex and my Bentley. In just over 2 hours, I had the door in pieces, the switch cleaned and tested and re-assembled. I do want to cover the testing process a little bit since this isn't documented anywhere that I could see. The door lock mechanism has an 8-pin plug receiver on it (male pins sticking out of mechanism surrounded with a plastic ring for the plug to snap into). After checking the electrical diagram in the Bentley, the #7 pin is ground. Frankly, it wasn't clear which was the signal from the Bentley. So, I figured when the switch was engaged, it either was set to ground when the door was open or set to 12V when the door was open. I just needed to determine which was the signal pin. How? I tested connectivity between pin #7 and all 7 of the remaining pins each time I passed through a cleaning. In the end, the #8 pin is the signal pin, and it goes to ground when the switch is open (IIRC).

Knowing this, I can think through a means of testing that circuit, and cleaning the switch without tearing the door apart every time. I say that because I know this will happen again. The switch is located under the locking mechanism, so dirt and grease get into the switch eventually. This causes the switch to no longer make contact, fouling the signal. Perhaps this could be solved simply by boring a hole near the switch so cleaner can be shot into the switch from the outside. Sealing the hole with a rubber bit would keep dirt and water from getting in, but this would make the whole thing much more maintainable.

the Rounder We Go, the Faster We Get

I test drove the bus yesterday. After struggling to get him going, and spending an hour trolling web sites for clutch engagement hints, I think it was again just a case of lack of movement. Figure he hasn't moved since April, and even then it was just from a trailer into the garage. Yesterday, though, he got a little workout, test-track style. I drove him around and around the same loop of streets (right turns, so anti-NASCAR style) until his temperature got up into where the thermostat should open. Worked. I got him up to 185* and he sat there for a full loop. The temp fluctuated up and down after that, but steadily climbed. I don't think the fans kicked on, but I wasn't sure. Rather than risk troubles, I parked him and noticed the coolant was leaking from the same hose-connection. Drat! I tightened the connection until I couldn't tighten no more and the leak stopped. I topped off the coolant (and some distilled water), and I'm ready to test again. He drove very well. Peppy, and not nearly as loud as I expected. Remember, he has no roof, so there's air-noise there, and the windows were all down. Still, I could hear the "tink-tink" of the turn signal. I think we have a winner.

Ed and Toby are headed over today to help me any my boys (T&C) put on the new pop-top. Its gonna be a hot day, so I need to prep as much as I can to reduce the time we need to be hefting that top in the heat. That means getting off this PC and digging into the bag of parts Toby gave me when I bought the top. If they're all laid out, and I have some idea where they're supposed to go ahead of time, this could go a little faster. Still, its gonna be quite an undertaking. I'll take pictures and post on it soon.

Thanks for following along-

pictures:
top - driver door in pieces just before I removed the lock mechanism.
middle - test driving, "view from the bus" :)
bottom - the UltaGauge showing 186.8*, near the end of the drive

Road-Ready when Rain Relents

2011-07-17T21:50:00.000-07:00

I didn't have the boys last week, so in theory I could have gotten some things done on the bus. Instead, I went out for drinks, messed around with my media-center-acting PC and worked late a couple of times. So, that left me entering this weekend with the bus in the same shape it was in when I left it on July 4th, pretty much. With Fall-like weather pressing in around us in the Pacific Northwest (read: pouring rain almost all day), I appreciated the garage all the more, and I want to be ready when the Summer days (read: sunny and dry) return. I'm about an hour away from being truly ready, but I'll cover what I got done to get that close. In the background, I'm watching the Overhaulin' episode when they did a 21 window bus. Never seen this one...

Harness Swap #7
I mentioned in my last post that I'm giving up on the original harness. I've lost too much time to it now, though a replacement is spendy at $150 on eBarf. I've put so many hours into the original, I hate giving up. I could charge $5 per hour on my time with the original and be able to pay that $150. I used to decide whether to hire someone to do something based on how many hours it would take me to do it. We should all highly value our time, and I need to think that way again. If I'd thought that way, I would have given up on that old harness after a few hours and bought one by now.

I had a "shower epiphany" yesterday for how to use Justin's harness without damaging it while still getting an oil pressure signal. I don't want to cut a single wire on his harness, but the plug end on his "newer" harness doesn't fit my blade-style sensor. I could buy a newer sensor, but instead, I took a short 18gauge wire with a female-blade end on it. I stripped the other end and simply jammed it into the plug. Taking care not to mess anything up, I verified the connectivity, and a-fixed it with some simple electrical tape. Will this stand the test of time? Heck, no, but it's not supposed to. It just needs to last until I have $150, which should be the middle of next month. So, out came the original for the last time, and in went Justin's... again, hopefully for the last time. That was this morning.

Cool and Clean
With the engine harness resolved for test-driving, next I needed to be sure the fans would fire. I hit the Bentley to the test procedure. I should have done this before, but I was installing this outdoors in the rain, so I'll forgive my self. On the test, though, it failed. I dug into the Bentley wiring diagrams, and that big fan control module isn't even useful in my installation. From what I could tell, it is necessary for A/C, and if you have the auxiliary coolant pump to continue to circulate the coolant if it's hot on shutdown. I don't have that, nor do I have A/C. Honestly, if I need that kind of thing, I'll buy an electric coolant pump from a yard and tie it in with a simply relay.

Anyway, by not needing all that, I had a bunch of extra wiring I needed to get rid of. The view from the rear is now much cleaner too. The small wire bundle that used to run down along the engine harness is now gone. Now, there's a single fan power wire running from the fuse block a-top the battery running up to the rad. It passes through the temp-switch there. It is a "2-speed" fan switch, so I have the front fan running to the "slow" and the rear running to "fast". I will eventually tie both fans into the "fast", but I need an isolator of some kind. Regardless, I re-performed the tests, and we have power to the fan. Just to prove it, I cross-wired the source to the fan, and "whirrr", the fan spun to life. Sweet... we're ready to test fly.

So that's what I did today. I messed around yesterday too, but I'll get to that in another post. With the pouring rain today, and rain forecast into the week, I don't know when I'll be able to try giving the bus a drive. Remember, he doesn't have a top, he looks like a sunroof model, except... there's no slider! So, once the rain stops, I'll start test driving to work, the boys to camp, etc. I guess I should start with starting him and driving out of the garage, eh? Stay tuned.... This last picture here stands as a reminder to take a seat in the driver's seat from time to time to remind yourself why you're going through all this trouble. There is no view like the one out the front of a flat-nosed vehicle. Thanks for following along...

pictures:
top - retrofitting a plug for a spade connector
middle - cleaned up view of wiring through rear-access
bottom - view through the windscreen in current spot. that thing suctioned to the windshield in the middle there is the holder for the UltraGauge

Going Topless

2011-07-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

This should be the last posting about my July 4th weekend activities. I'll get to the subject line in a second here, but first, a funny story from the weekend: Remember, it was a hot weekend for NW Oregon, so the doors were wide open, the blues from the festival were playing, and I was toiling away. My apartment is right on one of the 2 exits from the complex, so half the folks that live there drive past my door.. and my garage. So, mid-afternoon on Monday, a guy with a european accent driving a black Audi stops in the middle of the driveway and shouts "is that a Looney?" out the window. After 2-1/2 days of work on the beast, I must have shot him an ugly look cuz he immediately retreated his tone and explained that when he was a kid that was what the folks called them because the hippie kids drove around in them. Huh, I thought. I'd never heard that one. In fact, I can't find that reference via Google either, but I'll take his anecdote over the "series of tubes" :) And I decided then that I needed to start cutting down on the caffeine. Wish me luck.

Single Cot Removal
In order to remove the old Westy pop-top, the cot needs to come out. The cot is held to the top of the bus with 4 bolts and 2 screws. All of these are Phillips-head, and the nut on the bolts fit a very small cresent (6mm or smaller). With the bolts and screws removed, the cot can be slid out of its spot. Rotate the rear end towards the driver side, and the rear mount can drop through the hole. Then, slide the cot out to the rear.

Luggage Rack Removal
The Luggage rack has been off my bus a couple of times already, so this was just a re-run for me. The rear of the rack is held on with 3 long Phillips-head screws: 2 through the corners and one in the center. Under the top, there are rubber snubbers to allow water to pass under the edge of the rack. The front has 2 screws and a few bolts. I say a few, because I think at least one of mine was missing. Regardless, the screws are on the far right and left edges and the bolts are through the more centered holes. Once removed, the rack, comes off pretty easily.

Pop-top Removal
First, my removal was driven by my top suffering significant dry-rot. It was so bad, that the whole thing started falling apart, tearing along the sew-lines and right through the middle of the material. So, my removal was much more destructive than yours may need to be. I started with the removal of the lower billow hold-downs. These are flat silver metal bars that are screwed into the top of the bus, pinning the bottom edge of the billow to the top of the bus. There are many many screws, probably one every 4-1/2 inches. There are 4 bars, one each across the front and back ad one each along the sides - each one wrapping the front and rear curves. I was unable to free all of the billows because of clearance at the front (hinge-end). Next, I removed the 3 bolts which hold the hinges to the bus-top. This created some instability for the rest of the removal, as you can imagine. I then moved back to the rear and removed the bendy-arms. These are held to the bus with 2 small Phillips-head screws and to the top with a single bolt per side. The nut on the bolt is the same size as tiny nut from the cot I mentioned above. The bolt, again, it s Phillips head. Seeing a pattern? At this point, the only thing holding the top to the bus it the front bit of lower billow hold-down, so I cut the billows with a pair of scissors, freeing the top. I then slid the top off the top of the bus off the driver side, easing it to where I had been storing the Riviera top.

Dirt Removal

I was amazed by how dirty it was under that top. First, I shop-vac'd. Then I hand-scrubbed it with soapy water (and a scrubby-sided sponge). Now its clean, but if you have one of these buses, think about how you are cleaning the inside of your camper when you open it up for the summer. I admit I hadn't been cleaning there, but it never really looked that dirty. With the Riviera top, the bus-roof will be more covered, so I'm not sure how I'll keep that clean.

That's it for now. I still need to resolve my bad engine harness, and that's bugging me. I'm still cash-strapped, so I can't buy a new one, and I'm afraid the summer will be over before I get running reliably. I still haven't proven the cooling system ,and if I've learned anything on this project, its to assume that whatever you did will need to be redone. So, I suspect the cooling system will need some attention before its road-ready.

pictures:
top - removing the cot
middle - bus without top
bottom - dirt scum-line just from the shop-vac

Musical Instruments

2011-07-08T20:55:00.000-07:00

More from last weekend... a while back I talked about adding a second OBDII plug output up at the steering wheel. Knowing that I wouldn't have the TDI dash-pod up front at any point in the near future, I figured I needed some instrumentation. If you haven't seen the instrumentation on an old bus, Lemme paint a picture for you.

Original Bus Dash
On one side, you have the speedometer. Next to it is the fuel gauge and on the other side you either have an analog clock (if you own a deluxe) or a big blank spot. The fuel gauge also is home to all the other "instruments". First, you have the turn signals. When you turn on the flashers or fiddle with the turn signal arm, both green arrows flash. Neat, eh? Yes, and only a little confusing to a first-time bus driver. Below the green flashers are 2 "idiot" lights. The OIL light lets you know when you're out of oil, or your engine is about to explode. If this light flickers, you need a rebuild, but if it lights up nice and bright, your oil pressure has dropped below 3psi and you're basically hosed. Shut off the engine, its already dead. The other light (GEN or ALT) lets you know that your electrical system is in trouble. Like the OIL light, a fully lit buld means you're basically hosed, electrically. A dim light means your alternator or generator is failing to produce a full 12V (it should be more like 14V, really). A flickering light means you have regulator issues, but a full light could mean a bad alternator or a bad regulator. There could be other reasons too, but those are the 2 most common.

Going above Stock
Why am I going on about this? Well, those lights won't do my any good with this TDI engine. Many original-engine drivers add gauges for exhaust temp and oil pressure, a tach, maybe other things. So, this isn't terribly out of character for a bus. Rather than spend a small fortune on different monitoring gauges, I wanted to do something a little different. First, I thought "wouldn't it be neat to be able to plug in the VAG-COM on my laptop and use that". I've since purchased an UltraGauge, which has all kinds of meters and things on it. Most importantly, it has the coolant temperature on the front page, which is the most important one at this point. So, on to the extending of the OBDII...

Add a Plug
I bought a made-in-China 3-wire OBDII output plug. The plug was poorly documented (as was mine of the install), but I'll try to cover that a little bit now. The plug has 3 wires: red for switched B+, black for ground and blue for the signal from the ECU. From the original OBDII plug, the brown/white wire needs to be tapped into and extended. I had run a few extra wires from front to back, and with the interior all torn open, the tie-in (after figuring out what to do) was pretty easy. In an earlier post, I showed a picture of an early mounting. I've since removed it from the e-brake mount and moved it up into the stock-radio hole. It needs to be a-fixed, but that should be relatively straightforward once I get around to it. I need to figure out what I'll be using that hole for before I do that.

Add-on OBDII Testing
Actually testing the install turned out to be very easy. Apply B+ to the red wire. Plug in the UltraGauge. Turn ignition key to run. Wait. It was at this point that I discovered that my engine harness efforts were not yet complete..... much to my dismay. The P-codes returned. I swapped Justin's borrowed engine harness in again, and the codes lingered, but it may have been because the ECU remembered them from before. So, I figured I missed a bad wire and completed the verification of the harness, even some wires I had no reason to believe were bad. This is where things got interesting.

Broken Harness. New one needed
I documented every wire, and verified connectivity through them all. I'll convert the documentation to a colored drawing later, but the important bit is every wire was confirmed. When I put the original harness back in, not only were the codes back, but now the ECU thought my engine temp had increased from ambient (69*) to 419*. Clearly, that wasn't right, but it was telling. I think my efforts to diagnose the problem actually caused the problem. Argh. I've spent a few hours trying to find a replacement plug or harness, or some other solution, but I think in the end, I'll be needing to buy another harness at a premium - eBarf prices. Sigh... I did mention I was flat busted in my last post, so that won't be happening soon. Rather than cut up the borrowed harness so it can receive my oil pressure signal, I may take short flights in the bus to see if the fans come on when they should. I figure it shouldn't take much driving to figure it out. I'm afraid of losing my window of opportunity this summer.

That's it for today. I still have one last chunk of effort from last weekend to talk about. I've had the boys this past week and it's been awesome. Lots of computer gaming and movie watching after days of heavy play involving camp and hitting the apartment complex pool. They head to their mom's on Sunday, and I'll be returning to bus work shortly thereafter. Thanks for following along...

Seeing Red, Pushing White, Grooving Blue

2011-07-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day. Its been over a week again, and again I apologize for not posting in the middle at some point. I actually broke out of my norm and had drinks with friends a few times this past week. Good times. I did get a bunch of stuff done on the bus, though, especially this weekend. I'll pick one of the projects and focus on that. I'll come back around on the other stuff.

Seeing Red
After paying the bills, and legal fees, I'm outta dough for a while. Boo. This doesn't change what I can and can't fix, just the order I operate in. I can't do the interior carpeting, for example, cuz that requires carpet. And, rather than focus on test drives (read: buying diesel @$4.30/gal), I'll be focusing on the pop-top. I have all the necessary materials for prepping the work. I'll need a few extra hands in a couple of weeks for actual install, but I'll get to that later. First, the replacement...

I bought an old Riviera pop top (and all the corresponding guts) from a friend of mine almost by accident. I originally went looking for just a replacement bellows for my original Westy pop top. The old one had dry-rotted. I'd planned to figure out a way of making the penthouse space large enough for 2 people, but the cost of a new bellows was like $300 plus shipping. Ye-ouch! Then, once I add in the cost and effort of making a double bed up there, it starts becoming some real scratch. I hit the Samba and found a complete, local top. I discovered, though that as I prepped the top and luggage rack, both had damage. The luggage rack was / is especially bad, with at least 3 repair spots, none of which looked all that great. I spent about 3 hours sanding them down, and they look passable now. It was too late to go back and not go with the new top, but I'm kinda bummed about the damage spots.

Pushing White
The top, other than having the damage, had been sitting outside under a tarp for a while. Being the great Northwest, that means a green haze appeared on it. A full scrub-down, followed by running over both the rack and the top with 60-grit sandpaper prepared the surface for paint. I already had a gallon of hi-gloss white, so I finished my Saturday rolling a coat of white oil onto them. Since I don't have a clean room or a spray-booth, or even a vented garage, the inevitable bugs and dirt appeared in the paint. Sunday, I sanded the bugs and dirt out, and then sanded everything with 220-grit. Today, I rolled a second thin coat on. Looks nice, but I'm concerned about how the high gloss on the damaged rack will look outside. We'll see.

Grooving Blue
The 4th of July is the annual Oregon Food Bank Portland Blues Festival. I hit the first day (Friday night), and listened on KBOO to all of the rest of the festival. Great sounds, and it really powered me through all the stuff I did this weekend. If I had a complaint, it would be KBOO's consistently losing their feed from the stage through the first 3 days. I don't think they went more than an hour and 20 minutes without the music getting interupted with this horrible "GRZZT" noise, and then dead-air. In fact, I'd bet they didn't have a single artist go through their entire set on the radio on Saturday or Sunday. Whatever the problem, they had it solved for Sunday, though.

That's it for tonight. I did a bunch of other things this weekend, so I have other posts to produce this week. I have the boys, so my time may be limited. Still, I'll try to at least hit some highlights. Hal, I got your comment, and I was thinking the same thing! I have an old bilge-blower around here somewhere. I can tie that into some drier venting and whamo, I have a vented garage. After I find the bilge-blower, it'll be a little easier... and after I get paid again :)

pictures:
top - the luggage rack after lots of sanding. Still looks pretty awful
upper middle - the luggage rack after the first coat of paint.
lower middle - the state of the original paint. boom box playing the Blues Festival in the background
bottom - mid-sanding. I don't have a picture of it finished! Ay.

widiculously wonderful weekend weather

2011-06-26T17:58:00.000-07:00

From my last post, you'd think I was nearly done with the accessory electrical stuff. Well, just like everything else when you're working on old cars, there's always more to it than it looks on the surface. I'll roll through my weekend in today's post, and you'll see what I mean.

Thank God It's Friday
I am fortunate to work at a company that has a "summer hours" concept. "What is this 'sumer hours' of which you speak," you ask with curiosity. Simply put, if you're done with your work for the week at noon on Friday (between Memorial Day and Labor Day), you can (and are encouraged to) leave. "Zoiks!" Is what I said when I first learned of this perk. I took the afternoon this weekend, but I didn't have much to show for it. Or, maybe I did. My internet was out when I got home, so I spent an hour or so banging my head against that (and the cable company operator). I ran laundry while I was on hold, though, so the time wasn't completely wasted. I got a service appointment for the following morning, and set to running errands. I hit CostCo for the next month's food-stuffs, and O'Reilly's for more wiring bits. Since I'd be waiting for the cable guy anyway, I figured I better have all my supplies ready. When I got home, my internet was working (of course), so I cancelled the appointment.

Beautiful Day
June in Northwestern Oregon is usually rain-filled. Portland has a big festival in the middle of the month that is usally peppered with rain. In fact, a native Oregonian once told me "its not Rose Festival until the Rose Queen is crying in the rain". Funny, yet twisted. Still, he's right. June is usually 20 days of rain and 10 days of threatening to rain, if not worse. Summer may officially start on June 21st, but it doesn't start here until July 5th, at least weather-wise. So, with that contextual backdrop, enter Saturday, June 25 2011. 72 degrees and sunny with a light breeze. Abso-frickin-perfect weather. With an open double-garage door, the commuter Jetta pulled back into the drive, tunes rolling, I set to knockin' that bus out.... until it was time to get my younger son (C) for the rest of the weekend.

Electric Feel
First, I figured I'd quick hammer-out the rest of the electrical stuff. I ran another 12V accessory outlet next to the sliding door. Reusing the original fire-extinguisher bolt, it is hidden from view, but easily accessible by either the rear seat (passenger side) passenger or from outside by just reaching in. This will be handy when I tailgate with someone with a 12V blender. Margarita's anyone? :) The rest of the rough electrical was relatively quick-work too. I left the ceiling wiring wrapped up out of sight for now, but tying those wires in will be easy work once I'm ready to install the cabinets. The fusebox is wood-screwed into the top of the wood box / surround over the transformer. The feed-side wires (14G each) are tied into their proper fuses, and at a reasonable length, keeping things a little clearer looking than the rat-nest of wires around the engine computer. That harness cleanup is a project by itself. I'll deal with that between camping and snow seasons. I still need to mount the 12V plug by the passenger's visor, but I did tie-in the water pump and 12V accessory from the stove.

Living in Stereo
One of the components I've been wanting to install is my old Pioneer 10-disk CD changer. I know, in this day of iTunes and MP3 players, why would I want to wire in some old-skool technology. Simple, actually. I'm a self-admitted Dead-Head. I have many bootlegs on CD. Ripping those CD's into MP3 or iTunes format is labor intensive, and usually requires re-tagging every track. Yuk. Also, bootlegs don't lend themselves to library-wide shuffles like my studio music does. I don't have time to create special playlists either. Honestly, I don't know who does, but that's a conversation for another day. So, I'll be putting complete shows in the CD changer for when I need some Jerry-therapy, and the shuffle on my iPhone when I need random.
I spent more time than I expected trying to figure out where to put that thing. Its kinda big (10.5" wide, 8" deep, 4" high). First, I thought I could hide it under the dry-goods storage. That would have been uber-clever. I was thinking I could remove that little grille, and have the CD magazine reachable through that. To make it work, though, I would have had to cut a hole in the floor of the cabinet, and it looked like the magazine would not have cleared the bottom of the grille-hole. Sadness. So clever, but not reasonable. Instead, it will fit perfectly in the false-floor I'm putting in the closet. Not as clever, but clever enough. Determining this was important so I could run the wires. The power wires run from the rat-nest under the cabinets to the fuse box under the bed. The signal wires run along the backside of the cabinets, through a hole in the steel behind the driver seat, and will run along the floor of the cab. I don't know where the stereo-head will go, but I ran power wires from the fuse box towards the front as a part of the bundle from the CD changer. I still need to run speaker wires through that hole and behind the cabinets, but once that's done, I should be ready for closing the walls.

She don't Lie, She don't Lie, She don't Lie..... Propane
Okay, that heading stretched the song-title metaphor a bit. shrug. Anyway, when I got the '79 interior a few years back, I got the gray bomb shaped propane tank with it. I never connected it, nor installed it. Instead, the stove was just a space-taker. I pulled the old tank and lines out of the box, and looks into what it would take to install it. My old '72 has those blasted belly pans under the sides of the mid-section, so I'd have to cut most of the passenger-side pan out to fit it. Hmm... Even if I cut out the pan, I can't tell if the cross-members are in the right places to bolt it on. While I thought about it, I straightened the stove/sink unit so it was upright. Then, I pulled the stiffer (inside bus) flexi-hose out of the box, connected it to the stove, threading it out the bottom hole where the waste water goes. All of that fit well, and I now have a way of conecting low-pressure (post regulator) propane to the stove.

This is about where I ran out of time this weekend, so I put everything away, re-parked the Jetta, cleaned up and dashed off to get C. We had a me-cooked dinner and watched "the Return of the King" together. Perfect end to a pretty perfect day.

So, I still haven't test-fired the engine with the new harness. Ideally, I'd have some way of pulling the exhaust out of the garage before I start the engine and perform all kinds of tests. I'll think on that, but I need to at least verify that the original harness is good so I can return the borrowed one to Justin. I should be able to get the computer into "run" position and verify the harness and the additional OBDII without actually starting the engine. I'll try that this week. As always, thanks for following along.

pictures-
top: power inlet. I didn't mention it, but I finished assembling this and installed it too. It's wrapped in plastic film so my greasy mitts don't foul the paint.
middle: accessory fuse box test-positioning. this is where it now lives.
bottom: looking down at the top of the 12V accessory plug near the sliding door (the bed is "open").

fused

2011-06-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

I can't believe its been 10 days since I updated. There have been many nice days, and a few productive ones. I have been keeping a checklist of action so I can post. Before I get into it, I want to apologize to the folks who have commented on this blog who I have not responded to. I'm not all that great about posting, so just because I've now figured out how to deal with the comments, it doesn't mean that I'll be better about responding. I will try, though.

Fuse Box

After looking at different after-market and RV fuse boxes, I decided to go old-skool. I bought a VW bus fuse box off of TheSamba (www.thesamba.com/vw). I figured, it has 12 fuse locations, so, why not? After pulling out the extra relays (which I'll re-sell) and some of the wires, it's ready for re-purposing. For reference, I'm going to document my fuse assignments below.

There are a couple of interesting things to note about these boxes that I only figured out by digging into them this way. Some of the "supply-side" fuse locations are electrically connected. Obviously, this was by design, but if you're going to re-purpose a fusebox, you need to be aware of that. Also, some of the relay holes are sub-sized. this is again by design so a relay can only fit one way, but it makes "input" side decisions a little more limited.

FUSES

in - out - purpose

32 - 1 - cab, kitchen overhead lights

32 - 2 - OPEN

18 - 3 - stereo

06 - 4 - stove 12V plug

06 - 5 - overhead NAV 12V plug

14 - 6 - CD changer

30 - 7 - pop-top light

30 - 8 - OPEN

07 - 9 - OPEN

07 - 10 - slider 12V plug

02 - 11 - OPEN

02 - 12 - OPEN

I followed a simple rule of pairing circuits which wouldn't be used at the same time.

One thing to call out here is I'm re-using the old fridge electricals. Meaning, the city/battery switch, charging timer, fridge on/off switch all come into play. All of the circuits above will pull directly from the battery, except for the 2 dedicated to lights: 1/2 and 7/8. Those 2 inputs (32 and 30 respectively) will be fed by the wire that used to feed the fridge. So, the lights will have a main switch (fridge on/off switch), and will be capable of being fed directly from the shore power line. I don't know if it will really matter that much, but I think its important to remember. Since the battery charging mechanism feeds the accessory battery(s), everything will benefit from the shore power in some way.

Stringing Wire

The rest of my time these past few days has been pushing wire around. I mentioned a "NAV" 12V plug, for example. I'm putting a 12V accessory plug over the passenger-side sun visor so I can plug in my Garmin, string it across the top of my windscreen, and post it next to my rear-view mirror. This will keep the wires out of my line-of-sight while placing the NAV screen where my eyes will already be looking regularly. While switching the source to the accessory battery (reducing the risk to draining the primary if I left the NAV on by accident), this also leaves the original 12V cigarette lighter socket open. I had to run the wire for that from under the rear seat (where the fuse box is headed), into the driver-side cabinets, towards the rear and then into the headliner, all the way to the front passenger corner. The lighting wiring is in, and I started the CD changer and stereo wiring. I'll finish that up, with some speaker wiring following that, and then I should be getting ready to start re-assembling the interior.

That's it for today. I need to get back to the engine electrical stuff. I've been delaying that, waiting for a full workday window to work in. I think this Saturday will be my opportunity. Wish me luck starting it for the first time since mid-April with the now-repaired engine harness, additional OBDII plug and re-wired radiator fan circuit.

looking up

2011-06-12T21:21:00.001-07:00

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.

scattered and dashing

2011-06-11T15:52:00.001-07:00

I've been kinda zig-zagging on this project lately, but at least I've been tacking in the right general direction. Its another weekend day without the boys, so I've been trying to get a bunch of different things done all at once. None of them are necessarily finished, but I'm making some headway. I'll hit the highlights.

Clutchy
After some additional poking around the 'net, and remembering the condition of my bowden tube from when I replaced my clutch cable (that's a story I don't think I shared, actually), I think my clutch troubles are a bad bowden tube. So, I got one at Discount Import Parts here in Beaverton. I didn't feel like sliding under the bus today, so I focused on other stuff. I know, I know. I can't put it off forever, but the interior stuff is more fun.

Carpet
I rough-measured everywhere I figured I was planning to put carpeting. With these numbers, I should be able to tell how many square feet I need. Like everything on these old cars, every project gets bigger than originally planned. I did resolve to a color scheme, though, that will mirror my plan for the outside. These old bus's have a 2-tone tradition with the upper 1/3 white and the lower 2/3 under the belt-line being something else. I'm going with a nice dark blue. To mirror this, I'm putting a door-outdoor carpeting on the interior up to the belt-line. At the belt line and above, I'm going with a beach-sand colored carpet. White wouldn't look white for very long, and the sand color should visually soften things a little bit. It should soften noise a lot.

Insulation rip-out continues
I focused on getting the passenger side to the same place as the driver side within the main cabin. This meant removing the interior walls next to the bench seat and removing the interior wall on the slider. This was messy. I didn't take the bed (bench seat) out, but it was not installed when the walls were first put in. Nothing broke, but the cleanup of the loose insulation was a pain. Nothing the shop-vac couldn't solve tho. Just like the driver-side, after I got the last scraps of insulation out, I shot the cavity with rubberized undercoating. It was still drying this evening, so I'll lay the reflecty-flashy insulation in tomorrow.

15A Inlet revert
Last, I attacked the power inlet. I never really liked the solution I had before. When I removed the original 1972 power inlet a few years ago, the socket broke. Rather than try to repair it, I tried to make the 1979 power inlet work. It didn't quite fit in the same hole, but it worked well enough. Now that I have everything open again, I've decided to fix the old inlet, and sell off the 1979 inlet. This meant separating the broken plastic socket from the steel. After hitting the rivets with a 1/8" drill, I was able to rough-fit the new socket. The old inlet was tired and rusty looking. I mean, it looked bad. I hit it with Naval Jelly, and some 240 grit sandpaper, and it cleaned up pretty nicely. Knowing that I plan to paint the top 1/3 white (as well as the pop top and bumpers), I figured painting the inlet white would tie it in nicely. It certainly looks better. It will need another cuff-down with 240 grit and a light mist-coat of white to be done, but it sure looks close. Unfortunately, when I removed this inlet 5 years ago, I misplaced the body panel that fits around the inlet to help make a better body seal. I put out feelers for a replacement, but I haven't landed one yet. Since this effectively stops me from re-installing the kitchen, I guess I'll have to go back to the clutch and engine wiring stuff now.

That's it for today. I'll be putting in a few hours tomorrow before my nephew's birthday party, and then its another fun-filled work week..... and a Stanley Cup game on Monday. I probably won't get much done before Wednesday, if even then. Gotta maximize these weekend opportunities.

pictures-
top: inlet after brushing it off, removing old (all scratched up) warning sticker
middle: inlet after cleaning and Naval Jelly
bottom: inlet (and inlet door bits) drying in their new white coats

More sound killing

2011-06-06T21:06:00.001-07:00

Sorry I didn't get back to the final bit about Memorial Day weekend. I covered most of it in the last 2 posts. Today, I'll focus on additional sound dampening, but this time without the batting. There are 2 different kinds of noise we need to deal with, and I'm looking at reducing both of them but without killing my budget in the process.

Vibration Noise

I think the stuff I bought all those years ago was called Dynamat. I blew about $200 on vibration deadener, betwen this stuff and the McMaster-Carr rubber sheets. The "Dynamat" is basically a sticky asphalty black tar with a shiny foil side. The sticky side comes protected with a wax paper which peels off as you stick it. The general concept of Dynamat (or Brown Bread or any of these contact noise dampeners) is to convert the vibration into heat, reducing the noise. For it to be effective, it needs to seal with the metal as completely as possible, so really work it in when you lay it down. On the websites that I visited at the time, the manufacturers and the sound installer experts all said you only really needed to cover about 50% of the exposed steel to notice a meaningful reduction. More often than not, no sooner was this said than the poster/manufacturer shows their install, and they used 2 layers of the stuff on every square inch of metal. What gives?

I guess it all comes down to what you're trying to do. Personally, I want to be able to drive down the freeway without feeling like I'm sitting inside a jet engine. Or a diesel engine. Or any engine.

Others (like those posters I mentioned) are trying to get to an acoustic nirvana where all you can hear is the slight whistle of the road.... until your 2000watt stereo kicks in. Okay, I'll admit, I want to hear some music when I drive. One of the reasons I'm doing the TDI conversion is because driving with one ear listening for an engine failure is tiring. And its boring for your passengers who plainly don't understand the tonal changes of an air cooled engine. Pooh on them, but I guess I'm one of them now. I kinda want to hear some Jerry when I'm driving around sometimes. Anyway, on to what I did with the Dynamat I found.

First, I double-checked the exposed wall where I removed the old insulation. This was before I shot it with the rubberized under-coating. This "check" was basically light rapping on the metal with my knuckles to hear for a rattley clang. I had put Dynamat over about 2/3 of the exposed sheet metal before I'd insulated before. The knocking produced an acceptable thunk-thunk, so I left it and moved on to the rear end.

When I drove this beast to and from the muffler shop (and to/from the tow-trailer), it was loud. I mean real loud. Like "I think there's an airplane landing behind me" loud. I looked at the rear engine hatch. Dynamatted. Rear cargo access? Dynamatted (but only on the large sections of sheet metal). Top-side engine hatch? Nada. Ah ha! I covered it almost completely with Dynamat. Each time I test-closed the hatch the "chunk" became more certain and the "clatter" disappeared. Now, I can drop the lid from about 6" up and it slams shut. Then, I attacked the last 4" of rear deck from inside the engine compartment. And then the short stretch between the spare wheel well and the left side of the top-hatch opening, test knocking along the way. This should meaningfully reduce vibration noise.

Ambient Noise

So, with a well adjusted clutch, a new engine mount and a warmed up engine, how much vibration noise is getting produced compared to the racket of a 100+ HP diesel engine? My guess? Not much. So, how do we reduce the ambient noise? Well, think about your house. In the rooms with the hardwood floors or tile, everything's loud. In your carpeted rooms, its a lot quieter. This simple case explains how we can address ambient noise in a bus: carpet the bugger. We can reduce noise with a vehicular version of a carpet pad first - closed cell insulation. You can buy 1/4" reflective insulation at Home Depot or Lowes that works great for this. I can't remember how much I paid for a roll, but I don't think it was more than $20. It covers a large area. I put some of this same roll under the floor of my bus years ago (between the 2 layers of thin plywood), and it definitely helped noise-wise. I still have a bunch left. I put some in the wall where the old batting insulation was. I'll be putting more behind every spot where I put carpet: walls, ceiling, doors.

This simple step should reduce more noise than the dynamat does. Why? The dynamat enthusiasts mostly are driving cars which have little ambient noise. They have nice foam headliners and plastic interior parts which absorb sound. The 1972 VW Bus has a wood ceiling and steel walls. No wonder it sounds like I'm launching a Mars probe when I'm driving! Once the dynamat is in, followed by closed cell insulation, topped with carpet, it could be a conversational volume in there. We'll see...

More next time,

pictures:

top: top-side engine hatch with dynamat applied.

middle: behind the stove/sink unit closed-cell reflector insulation installed

bottom: behind refer/storage unit closed-cell reflector insulation installed

From Fridge to Storage

2011-06-01T21:08:00.000-07:00

the saga continues.... so, last post, I talked about Saturday, and the interior tear-out. It was fun. Sunday, I laid low and Monday I got back to it. I'll get into some of it, but I'll probably split into 2 posts anyway.

Using that Fridge?

In the 5+ years I've had the '79 interior in my bus, I've used the fridge exactly 0 times. It's heavy, takes up a bunch of useful space, and can't really fit much. At least that's my opinion. So, I decided I'd yank the fridge unit out of the cabinet, and do something else with it.

Pull the Dometic

First, a quick review. Looking at the cabinet with the icebox looking part to the right, there are 2 top-load covers; the left (rear) one is vented, the right (front) one has a thermal thing on the inside. The hinges on the back are attached to the metal trim, which is attached to the cabinet with Phillips head screws. Some of these screws double as a means of attaching the cabinet to the neighboring cabinets.

The ice-boxy thing is also held in with another screw from the side. Within the left-side cabinet, is the compressor, under a weird wood shelf thing. That shelf thing is attached with a metal bracket that also is attached to the metal trim with Phillips head screws. Underneath, the compressor is only held in with 2 more small Phillips head screws. Then, the whole unit slides out through the large opening behind the ice-boxy thing. There are a couple of electrical plugs in the circuit, but only the 3-prong should need to be unplugged to separate the fridge completely from the bus.

More Storage

It occurred to me while camping one time that the big cabinet holding the fridge is wasted space. The fridge unit was so small with the cooling bit in the middle of it that you couldn't even put cereal boxes in there. Once I pulled the ice-boxy thing and compressor out, there was all kinds of space. However, without the ice-boxy thing, there was nothing separating the two seemingly separate sections. So, I bought a single glue-board shelf (11.8" x 36") at Home Depot for $7. Cutting a 16" section off, I created 2 spaces by screwing the section into the wood base for the ice-boxy thing and then a single screw from the top.

And Even More Storage

The left-side (where the compressor used to be) was a little more tricky. First, that's the part of the cabinet that contours to the rear driver-side wheel well. Additionally, I decided to move the battery control panel from the wall into that cabinet. I thought it would look better anyway, and I have other ideas for how the wall will be redone. I'll get to that later. Anyway, the control panel mounting took a little time to get right, but I made the wall-side mount with some leftover flashing. I pop-riveted it to the side (with some more flashing on the opposite side for strength, and screwed the panel to the flashing.

For the other side, I sacrificed some of the wood bits from that weird wood shelf thing. I took some of the remaining shelf and cut another section about 12" long for a shelf for the "rear" section. This was screwed in with 2 Phillips head screws from the "front" cabinet and one from the side (near the back). Underneath the rear shelf, I stapled some closed cell insulation in hopes of stopping some radiant noise.

The end result is a nice solid storage spot for travel items reachable by the passenger riding in the seat behind the driver. I expect stuffed animals this Summer, but I'm sure it'll evolve into iPods and other electronica. The rear of the storage area is still open, but I need to be able to access wires and stuff, so it'll stay that way. I suspect a day will come when I hear my son exclaim that his something-or-other fell into "the hole".

That's it for today. After I finished the assembly, I deep-cleaned the whole thing. Its nice a purdy now. Next time I'll go into the rest of my weekend working on the bus. See, I told ya I totally tore it up this Memorial Day weekend.

Pictures:

top: yes, that's my boot and yes I do need a newer pair. In front of that is the battery control panel as I'm working thru attachment ideas.

middle: sizing the separation panel between the 2 new storage cabinets

bottom: finished cabinet.

tear it up

2011-05-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

As I hoped, I was able to hit it hard this weekend. I mean hit... it... hard. Some 3-day weekends can be a mis-spent Saturday and then 2 Sundays - nothing gets done, and you laze around. This wasn't one of them. This was more like a Saturday sandwich with a mini-Sunday in the middle. I did too much to cover in one post, so I'll spread it out over a couple.

So I said how the battery was dead on Friday. After slow-cha
rging (2A setting) all night, it was still half-dead, so I let it be and switched to
othe
r things.
Now, first on the list was adjusting the clutch. Of course, that slid right off the list for the weekend. hahaha... so much for priorities. Well, hear me out now... I figured I couldn't really get the electrical done until I straightened up the wires I ran from back to front. That meant pulling the driver-side cabinets out, but first, I had to empty it of all the parts I jammed in there for the move. Yeah, when I said I didn't unpack the garage, that included the bus. So, anyway, I yanked all the crap out and then set to pulling the stove/sink unit and the refer out.

Interior Removal

The late-70's units are not held in by much. I kinda forgot from when I installed it. There are 2 Phillip's head screws behind the driver's seat passing through the partition into the stove/sink cabinet.

One of the screws that holds the top on the refer feeds through into the side of the stove/sink cabinet. The only other thing holding it down (other than weight and gravity) is a bolt through the floor inside the left cabinet door near the hinge. Now, out the backside there's the gray water vent and down through the floor there's the waste-water outlet. Of course, if the propane and city water are hooked up, they're in the way too. The only way to remove the cabinet and not break or scratch things is to slightly tilt it forward so the vent clears and then lift it straight up. Its heavy, so get a friend to help you or you'll feel it the next day - like I did :)

The refer is held down by even less. Like the stove/sink, nothing is holding it to the side.

There's at least one (may be 2) screws again from the refer going into the rear closet. Like the sink/stove, if you're gonna remove it (and not the bed first) without scratching it, you need to lift it straight up. It's heavier than it looks with the fridge stuff in there. Then, the fun started.

Insulation Rip-Out

Behind the cabinets I had put in some cellulose-based insulation. Not a good plan. That stuff absorbs water and can foster mold. Surprisingly, after 4 years of nearly constant rain, and very little fresh air to dry the bus out, the insulation was not in any way compromised. I don't think it even got damp, much less wet. Still, I plan of keeping this thing, and I don't want to take chances.

So, I pulled it all out, scraped the fuzz off the interior and shop-vac'd. The little bits I couldn't get off had to be dealt with. I still had a can of rubberized undercoating, so I shot the walls with that.

That was Saturday. I'll post the rest of the weekend at some point this week. It's a short week, though. I've got the boys tomorrow night (yes!), and I'll be watching the Bruin/Canucks Stanley Cup Final game 1 on Wednesday (stop by if you're local. should be a great game). Before we know it, the weekend will be here again.

pictures:

top - after refer removed, insulation taken out

upper middle - after sink/stove tipped onto its front, insulation taken out

lower middle - after interior shot with rubberized undercoating

bottom - after interior shot with rubberized undercoating

Where'd May Go?

2011-05-28T09:45:00.001-07:00

I'm probably not the only one asking that this weekend. All those great plans we made over beers during Cinco-de-Mayo turned into timing conflicts and over-scheduling, resulting in less than planned getting done. At least that's my story. My last post was almost 4 weeks ago, and I apologize for not sharing along the way. I'll bring you up to date on things. We still have almost a week of May left, and this weekend is open, so let's get crackin!

Boys and Beaverton
The pattern of the boys being with me on Tuesdays and every other weekend has worked pretty well. With school nearing a close for the Summer, schedules rotate a bit and I'll have them every other week instead of this night, that weekend as it has been. We'll go back to that when school re-starts. Between lacrosse practices and games, our time together just hanging out has been constrained. We still have lots of fun though. They've really settled into it, and I still greatly enjoy hearing their voices whenever they're here. I think in some respects we're actually closer than we were before.

Harnessing the Electrical Demons
Even though settling into this new place has taken twice as long as I expected, I was able to attack the engine harness problem. After unwrapping nearly all of the harness tape, and checking the connectivity on about a third of the wires prior to that (before finding a breach), I found the problem. It seems that when the engine was removed from the donor, Jason (the guy I bought the engine from in GA) pulled a little too hard on the harness when it got caught on something. Within the taped up wires, there was a crimp that cover-bared a few wires and cut through a couple. Ah Ha! This was a simple fix, once found: strip, twist together, tape heavily and tightly. Since 80% of the cloth tape was removed to expose the broken wires, I re-taped it - this time with blue cloth tape It'll kinda match the final paint color now.

Installing the harness was something I was concerned about. The last time I wrestled an engine harness into this bus, the coolant temperature sensor was such a bear to connect. I did it wrong a few times back then, and even ended up with the coolant sensor not fully seated at one point. Removing Justin's borrowed harness was surprisingly easy, simply threading or peeling the harness out back to the cabin pass-thru. Installing the original (now blue) harness wasn't nearly as much trouble as I expected. Working from the end (oil pressure sensor), through the 10-pin plug to the coolant sensor was a snap. I needed to think a bit about the coolant sensor, and cram my arm under/around the intake, but it snapped into place with a satisfying "click". Routing the rest was easy now. In fact, with the custom intake, it needed a different route than was originally there, and different from the good-enough-for-now placement we did with Justin's harness.

Charging along
When I moved in, there was a lot of chaos. During that chaos, I didn't turn the key all the way off after parking the bus. So, the battery ran down to empty. Doh! Adding insult to injury, I misplaced my battery charger in the move too. This did give me the opportunity to dig through all my garage boxes, underscoring the need to unpack in there. I need shelving first. Sigh. The fun never ends. Anyway, it turns out that my kids' mom lent my charger to a neighbor before I moved, which is why I couldn't find it. Now that I have it back, I'll be charging the battery this weekend. I also need to fix the cab-to-engine-bay starter switch. For some reason, it didn't work on moving day, and I had to use the remote starter switch.

So, for today...
In an earlier post, I made a punch list of all the things I need to do to have the bus "complete". Clearly, I won't get all that done before camping season starts. I need to get the electrical working reliably, and get the clutch adjusted so I can test-fly. If I can, I'll attack the strip / clean / re-install of the interior too, but even living on my own there are limits to how much time I can create for this work. After I post this, I'll be heading for the garage for the day. With good fortune, I may have a lot to report later this weekend. Thanks for following along-

pictures:
top - harness surgery. lots of tools, reference material. most important: kitchen table
middle - the "crimp" where the broken wires were found
bottom - harness ready for install, sitting a-top my other VW's hood.

Life Rhythm finding a Beat

2011-05-02T21:12:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. I've moved, and started getting settled in. I've gone from seeing my boys every couple of days for a few hours at a time to actually having them stay overnight. This new-ish life is starting to take a shape, though I can't tell exactly what shape it is yet. I'll try to be brief on the chronology.

Keys
I got the keys on the 12th, and started moving in the flotsam from my folks place by the car load. I had the boys that evening, so we had a pizza-picnic on the carpet. They tried and approved of the pool. Great start.

Moving Day
The following weekend I moved the big stuff. I scheduled the move weekend without considering work impacts (not wise, but that was the available day). So, while moving things out of the garage, I got a call from work about some kinds of problems. Perfect. I got through the U-Haul rental stuff in record time, and then I was sidelined with a firefight. boo. Fortunately, by the time my helpers arrived, the panic at work had passed and we were back on track. Big thanks to my brothers and my folks for helping out. Before noon, we had the truck loaded and the bus on the tow dolly. 30 minutes of caravan-ing later, we're in an office park across the street from the new place. I dropped the bus there (and the tow-dolly), so we could empty the truck. By 2:30, the truck was empty, and the bus was snuggled into his new shelter. eye-witnesses tell me there was a good 5 inches of clearance above his roof as I backed him in. That gives me the room for bigger rims and the Riviera poptop... maybe.

Life Rhythm finding a Beat
The 14' truck carried a small subset of what's needed to create a home. That's where my sister-in-law jumped in. While I was returning the truck, she and Tim (a friend helping on the move) hit Ross and created an insta-home with dishes and decorations and stuff. Crazy. I was totally floored. We truly are measured by the depths of our relations, not by the content of our bank accounts.

Still, I didn't have the things needed to host my boys, so for the next 2 weeks, I saw very little of them. As much as I wanted to be enjoying the new-space creation, I missed them so terribly, it was very hard to. Work was chaotic, with a major release looming and budget cuts rumored. I was in a very negative emotional space. I pressed forward, though, locating the final items to host the boys, and finally having them for a sleepover this past weekend.

It is hard to describe the emotion of hearing them together in the morning when I got up. I can't tell you what exactly they were talking about, but it doesn't really matter. From the top of the stairs, I could hear quiet voices and giggling.... made my heart leap. It really felt like home. The morning of cereal and hanging out topped a weekend that included C shooting a hat-trick at his lacrosse game and a family get-together (uncles, aunts, cousins, grand-parents) to celebrate T's 13th birthday. Dropping them off was extremely hard, so I worked it out at the gym, like I used to. I'll have them over on Tuesday for the first week-night sleep over. It will be interesting to see how that morning goes. Now that it's started, though, I can make it through those days without them.

Thanks for following along. I don't have the boys this next weekend, so I may start looking at the bus as soon as Saturday. We'll see. Then, you just might hear about that progress again :)

pictures:
top - my helpers taking a break by the truck
upper middle - bus on the dolly
lower middle - bus and car in their new home
bottom - T hanging out (mostly) in the pool

after many weeks, Hapy speaks

2011-04-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

I uncovered and moved Hapy out of the driveway yesterday. This was a tiny, yet monumental event. It represents the first time he's been legally parked on the street in over 3 years. To me legal means: registered, tagged and capable of movement under its own power.

This also represents the beginning of the end of my days living in Lake Oswego. Its been 8.5 years, and a new chapter opens on Tuesday - tomorrow - for I get the keys to my new residence then. I am not as melancholy as I expected to be today. Maybe it will hit me on Saturday after I move the items we've negotiated. Maybe it will hit when I next pick up the boys and I don't actually enter the old house. I don't know how or when, but I'm pretty certain the grieving process hasn't concluded yet.

Once I do get re-located, though, there is a rather sizable list of things I need to deal with. Of course, there are the usual just-moved-in things, like getting paper products, cleaning stuff, fill-in furniture, etc. More importantly, though, is the establishment of a new life rhythm. The material matters will resolve themselves; its the spiritual groove that will be more interesting. And then there's the bus work. I think I will find that putting effort onto the bus could act as a 'security blanket', of sorts, helping me bridge from my former life to me new one. I guess its a good thing I have so much left to do :) I'll detail below the stuff I'll be focusing on for the short term. Camping season doesn't really get fully going around here until Independence Day, so I have more time than my East Coast friends do.

Bus Fix-It Punch List:
- clutch cable adjustment. may require new bowden tube or adding spacers.
- OBDII plug at driver seat. should just require a single wire. necessary for coolant temp monitoring during test flights
- engine harness replacement. borrowed harness doesn't have oil pressure sensor wired in. Not good for regular driving.
---- could start test flights at this point ----
- interior cleanup. strip interior (behind front seats), deep clean, re-insulate / noise baffling
- pop top replacement. remove westy top, install Riviera top w/bed, etc.
- secondary battery re-install. with the new engine, the old set-up doesn't work. This step will include re-routing lots of secondary systems (radio, interior lights, eg) to the secondary battery.
- finish water supply install. exterior shore-water inlet was never added.
- propane system install. the stove is there, but none of the propane (tank, lines) is. This will include integrating the "extend-a-stay" system.

That looks like a lot. That's cuz it is. I probably won't get it all done, but I'll do it in that order, with some of the lower priority items fitting into the bare-interior period. Thanks for following along, and I'll post once I'm moved in with pictures of moving day :)

pictures:
top - C at the edge of the Willamette River looking for cool rocks
bottom - me at the set break at Dark Star Orchestra a couple of weeks ago at the Crystal. Yes, that's a crying splittie t-shirt.

Hey Strangers

2011-03-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

I apologize for not posting anything in the last couple of months. After that last post, describing a pretty radical life change event, I kinda left you hanging. Honestly, not much has really happened since then... at least it doesn't seem like it. I'll run down some highlights, though.

New Digs
I have a lease on a place near where I work in Beaverton that I found on rent.com. I tried the usual CL, but it wasn't as effective as I would have expected. I take possession in the middle of April, so I'll be couch-surfing for a few more weeks. I was unexpectedly able to land a townhouse with a 2-car garage, so I'll be able to complete the bus work in a dry location. When I consider that my commute will shrink from 30-45 minutes each way to 5 minutes (by car or 10 by foot), I will gain almost an hour. The key will be not wasting that time at work :)
I have lots of unfinished projects on the bus that I could get after with that time. I intend to return to my regular postings here to keep me honest about that. The townhouse has the usual apartment complex amenities, and the boys liked that - swimming pools... movie stars... The fact that a 7-11 and a Subway are very close met with their approval as well. Its funny what boys find most important. They were unmoved by how far it is from their mom's place (30 minutes), for example. Funny.

Office Move
As if there weren't enough changes already, by employer is moving a handful of departments from over-crowded conditions into a couple of new buildings. My department is one of them, so the end of March will be consumed with that move too. To paraphrase an old Jerry Seinfeld bit "when you're moving your whole world becomes all about boxes". Yeah, I totally hear that. Boxing the office, and boxing my at-home possessions have an eerie parallel.

Allergies Again
My St. Patrick's Day joke has arrived a few days early this year. I don't think I made a big deal about this in previous years, but every March, around the start of March Madness, my allergies kick in without warning. I think of it as the St. Patrick's leprechaun cursing me. I get dizzy so I can't maintain vertical and sleep like 20 hours a day while I remember again that its allergies and take lots of anti-histamine. This year is no different, and after spending a long Saturday at the house packing up the last of my bus parts, CD's, some books, etc, I spent Sunday couch-ridden. Like previous years, it will take a few days of Benadryl at night and Zyrtec in the morning to chase this nastiness away. Now that I have a clear pattern, though, I hope next year, I'll remember better and start taking my Zyrtec on the first of March.
If you're suffering now, trees are blooming, so you probably have tree pollen allergies. The trees of interest are cherry and apple, for fruit trees, but there are many non-fruit trees producing pollen right now: maple, red cedar, sycamore, oak, elm, walnut, birch, hickory, ash, poplar, and cypress. Of course, if you live in the Pacific NorthWest, you have mold and moss at this time of year too, so you could have an allergy there.

That's all I have for now. I haven't touched the bus except to load stuff into him for moving. I'll be car-hauling him behind the truck rather than driving him. I haven't taken enough test flights to be sure I won't have a cooling issue. One more thing for Spring-

Grounded

2011-01-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

It was ging to be a small posting tonight. Like usual, it didn't turn out that way. The tail lights work now, and my distance grows.

Tail Lighting
Well, I haven't really been able to get to the bus in the past week, but I did correct the ground issue in the right tail light yesterday. These old buses are funny sometimes. I removed the ground wire from its post on the rear pillar adjacent to the rear hatch door, wiped the post with my fingers and pushed the wire back on the post. Bing! The directionals work again. Funny. Otherwise, I have cleaned up and swept out the area where the bus used to live next to the garage, and I've re-covered the bus to keep the damp out. Next weekend, if I get to work at all, will include swapping engine harnesses (I think I found the bad wire).

Life Bottoms
I've mentioed my separation from my project bus, and this has been an unusual perspective on everything that is going on. I'm temporarily living in SE PDX (Brooklyn neighborhood for my fellow Puddletown dwellers) while my 2 boys remain in Lake Oswego with their mother. As part of an agreement with their mother, I took clothing and am crashing at my folks' place. Humbling would be the best word for it. My eventual residence is uncertain, but it won't be in that house again. The highlights of my week now, as before this change, are centered on my time with the two of them.

This blog was dedicated to the bus, not my relationship with my boys, so I haven't really articulated their importance here. They know they are first with me, though, and they know I would prefer to be with them rather than anything. Since my last post, I made the change in where I lay my head to sleep, though my heart remains with the boys. Oddly enough, while writing this, T forwarded me this chain text (neuvo chain letters), which seems right on point:

if one day u feel like crying... call me.
i don't promise that i will make u laugh but i can cry with u.
if one day u want to run away - don't be afraid to call me.
i don't promise to ask you to stop.... but i can run with u.
if one day u don't want to listen to anyone.... call me.
i promise to be there for u but also promise to remain quiet.
but one day if u call.... and there is no answer.... come fast to see me.
maybe i need u.

I saw the boys 3 times this past week and during the day on Saturday. The weekday visits were a blending of all-business (putting them to bed), school activities (C art night) and fun (Blazer game). I tried to express that most weeks would not be that way, but they won't really get that until they see it. Saturday morning we took the lacrosse sticks and the dog down to Mary S. Young park for some "its not raining!" fun. For a couple of hours, everything felt normal-ish, chasing the dog around the off-leash area and then throwing the ball in a circle. Returning back to the house, and their mother working in her office, brought things back into perspective. I won't see them again until Wednesday, which will be the longest I've ever gone without them. I've found distracting myself with my gym membership somewhat effective, but not terribly satisfying. I expect I'll be trying that tomorrow and Tuesday.

My entries will change to reflect this situation more, and improvements on my bus less. Still, I will document any changes in his condition or improvements in postings, but with my limited access, I doubt much will happen. Instead, I'll be very focused on bridging this situation to whatever the new arrangement will be. There's lots of back-story and what not, and I'll get to that as I do.

Exhausted

2011-01-15T18:06:00.000-08:00

So, we have ourselves a nearly road-ready bus. I said I was going to get the exhaust put on in my last post. Add to that, the kids' mom is home from Las Vegas, so the celebration continues.

Plumb that Thing
Around 9:30 Thursday morning, the exhaust guys at Meineke started their efforts. By 11:30, they were done, and Hapy was ready. Between work and single-parenting, I couldn't pay for it until after 5 and pick it up until after the kids were in bed. The guys are Meineke were as curious about this conversion as most folks I've encountered along the way. They had the misfortune of trying to drive it, though, and they gave me warnings about the linkage. Yeah, I knew it was a little wonky, and the clutch made some horrible noise when trying to get the thing in gear. Still, they came out when I fired it up, and we all got a chuckle out of how it runs - really freakin' good. "Sounds like a bus," the guy says. He's no VeeDubber, so he meant city bus, but I took it as a compliment. He added,"careful not to pift the front end off the ground with all that torque." Hahaha... yeah, like anyone has ever said that about a street-legal bus before. Anyway, we checked the rear lights, and the ground in the passenger side tail light is disconnected: none of the light illuminate. I paid the $320 (lifetime warranty), and hopped back into my other TDI and drove off to pick up the boys.

Lookee Here
After the usual round of dinner making and clean up, assembling lunches, running the kids through showers and bedtime routines, I contacted my good friend Ed for a ride to the muffler shop. I didn't mind riding home in the sprinkling rain that morning, but I wasn't up for riding in the heavier drizzle in the dark. We fired it up (once we got there, of course), and we surveyed the install a little bit. From the rear, it almost looks stock with that cylindrical left-to-right muffler routing the exhaust out to the rear. I haven't gotten underneath yet, to see it from end to end, but it looks like a relatively simple design: from the turbo, it gently curves down and to the rear until it approaches the bellhousing where it runs straight to the rear. Once it reaches the side-to-side engine support bar, it bends right and enters the muffler. From the muffler it hits a simple 90* bend out the rear. It all looks like basic mild steel, so I'll probably remove it and shoot it with some exhaust paint to inhibit rust. I suspect the warranty only applies to the muffler, not the piping.

What Gear You In?
After the lookee-loo, we fired it up. The look on Ed's face was priceless - yeah... that's power baby. Finding reverse had always been easy, but the rest of the gears have been a little evasive. I found myself pulling out of the parking lot into traffic in 3rd. Still, he drove really nice, the brakes were nice and responsive / firm. By the time I was off the main road, I was able to find and use 1st through 3rd. There is a straight-shot street that sees very little traffic that I use to get home. For fun, I took the corner at low speed (in second) and stood on the pedal. Hapy took off like a shot. I heard the turbo spin up, rode it up a litle bit, slammed it into 3rd and stood on the pedal again. Shazam, we're off to the races! Now, I disconnected the speedometer cable, so we probably weren't going that fast, but the sheer acceleration was something I'd never felt in any bus before. It didn't feel forced either, it sounded and felt like it was business as usual for this engine - which is just flat out scary. So, add in some larger tires or a properly geared tranny and this could get crazy. I think the hard-to-find gears thing is more of a result of lack of use, and needing to get the gear oil up off the bottom and into the synchro's. We'll see.

Home Again, for now
I pulled into the driveway as the heat from the defroster was really getting warm. Now, I mean warm for a 1972 air-cooled bus (my frame of reference). The windscreen was nice and clear since the straight-shot street, but now there's tangible heat. I'll need to integrate a temp gauge so I can audit the radiator effectiveness. I can't see the TDI dashpod, so I'll either have to take it back off the road to extend all those wires, buy a water temp gauge or buy a real OBDII cable and use my laptop. I have basically no money, so I'll probably go with the gauge.
The kids' mom arrived this afternoon after 2 weeks in Las Vegas. Between the boys staying at friends' houses after school, and my parents dropping by, I have been able to work. Still, being the only parent in one town while working in another is not easy. Especially when you don't want to use after-care (day-care).

I won't be able to do much on the bus over the next couple of months. I won't go into details, but Hapy and I won't be near each other much, so there is only so much I can do remotely. I'll be working through my bad-ground engine harness with a multi-meter when I can. Anyway, after all this recent progress, this blog may fall silent, or take a departure from the usual "bus progress" theme. It seems a shame, but that's how these things go. I greatly appreciate your interest and feedback (both as comments and via email), and I will post as interesting things happen.

pictures:
top - the down-tube from the turbo (unpainted)
middle - view from the back see how the muffler looks kinda stock-ish
bottom - from inside the engine compartment along the engine. That's the serpentine on the right, the engine support bar on the left and the muffler in the middle

it moves, its loud, but it moves!

2011-01-13T11:56:00.000-08:00

Progress, progress. With an appointment at Meineke to build out an exhaust system set for today, I had a little extra motivation. Knowing everything was "good" according to my trusted mechanic friend, Justin, I moved quickly and confidently. I'll hit the highlights today, though there will definitely be more tomorrow.

Battery
Last night, I stopped at Batteries Plus and bought a replacement battery. With the instant discount and the mail-in rebate, it'll cost around $65 for a Group 40 (or is it 48?) Rayovac battery. I hadn't heard of Rayovak batteries since the old "I dare you to knock this battery off my shoulder" advertising. Apparently, they're deep into automotive batteries now. Anyway, I called them yesterday morning, and verified they had one, I picked it up and installed it last night after the kids were fed. I fired up the engine, grabbed T and backed the bus out of his hiding place into the driveway. There was much rejoicing.

Test Drive
T hopped into the passenger seat, and we tried to take a little spin around the neighborhood. We noticed a few things. First, an un-mufflered diesel engine is still really bloddy loud even if there is a turbo absorbing some of the noise. Second, while the engine was cold, the bus shook like a mother. After about 30 seconds it settled down. The clutch made all kinds of noise, and finding the gears was a challenge. I think I have some shifter adjusting I need to do. Reverse is easy to find, but I can't find first, so there's something batty happening there. Regardless, we drove around our little circle and around the neighbors little circle (cul-de-sac's) and pulled into the driveway. Our little test was over, but it totally passed.

Belly Pan, Clutch Cable Tightening
Before I could drive it to the muffler shop, though I had a couple of things I needed to do. First, I had to put the kids to bed, feed the animals, etc. Next, the belly pan that lives under the pedals needed to be re-installed. This keeps the weather from getting in there, which is especially important with the placement of the brake switch and the accelerator pedal switch. With the wet weather we've been having, we wouldn't want a puddle-splash to fritz the switches. I couldn't find the original bolts, but I found a handful of stainless 10mm bolts that fit. Last, the clutch cable needed adjusting. Now, the cable itself was relatively new before the project started, so it probably isn't fully warn-in. The clutch and pressure plate are brand new, so they will take some seasoning too. I expect to be performing some level of cable adjustment for the next few months accordingly. It had gotten to be about 9:30, so I called it good.

Drive to Meineke
My appointment was at 7:30, T needed to leave for school at 7 and C needed to leave for school at 8:45 (with a parent wake-up at 8). I am the only adult in the house, and I hadn't a ride home from the muffler shop. So, I woke before 6, with a funny plan for getting everything to align. First, I grabbed one of the kid's bikes and tossed it into the bus. I like bus-traveling with a bike anyway - its like a lifeboat. In case of trouble, you can pedal to a parts store from a roadside breakdown much faster and farther than on foot. Anyway, I pulled out of the driveway, and drove to the shop, using 2nd and 3rd gears all the way. Without the benefit of a tachometer, and not being familiar with the sound of an un-mufflered diesel engine, it wasn't easy guestimating the shift points. I relied on some common sense, though, figuring my shifts should come earlier than in the old pancake engine, and knowing that the accelerator only went to 78% meant I couldn't really get the RPM's into redline.
I arrived at Meineke as the defroster was starting to produce some warmth. I topped off the brake fluid (remember, I had it open to change the rubber lines earlier), pulled the bike out and rode home. I arrived home by 6:35, so I had time to prep for the day. T ended up staying home from school sick with that phflemmy coff thing that's gonig around, but I dashed back to the muffler shop to hand off the keys and talk about the project with the manager. "I want it quiet," I said. He accepted the keys nad I drove home to get C up for school. Again, I was ahead of schedule, and could enjoy some coffee before wrestling him out of bed. He got ready, ate and split for school (taking the lunch I made for him ) and I hit the road for work. I've spoken to Meineke from work, and the exhaust is done, with a lifetime warranty. Sweet. I'll drive it home, and post an update in the next couple of days about how it ran, sounded, etc.

It is hard to believe I'm actually at this point. There have been a couple of wrenchers without whom this would not have been possible. Hal and Justin, your assistance has been immeasurable and so, so greatly appreciated. I want both of you to sign the partition behind the passenger seat that's exposed to the main open area so your names will forever be connected with what we've done. There is time tomorrow to talk about what the next steps are, etc. For today, we smile. And nod. And bask in the gravity of the achievement we accomplished. Today, we have a 1972 VW camperbus getting pushed down the road by a 1998 NewBeetle 1.9 liter TDI engine.

pictures:
top - Justin fooling with the low-pressure return lines (we replaced them on Sunday)
middle - Hap's parking spot for nearly 2 years, now vacant (rain)
bottom - in the driveway, ready to go get an exhaust (rain)

running again

2011-01-10T19:22:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it's halftime during the college football national championship game, so this will be brief. My friend Justin stopped over on Sunday afternoon, and we got the engine running again. For the second time, we needed to fake the clutch pedal switch. The jumper we did before either fell out or I knocked it out. Regardless, once we jumpered that switch, the starter would engage again.

Fuel System Alteration
we removed the one-way valve from the fuel feed line, believing it was restricting the fuel flow. I'm still concerned that we won't get sufficient prime after sitting overnight, but I'll be able to test that theory tomorrow night. In its place, we put a Mercedes secondary (clear) filter. We should be able to see if there is prime in the fuel line just by looking at that.

Battery suck-eth
The battery I nabbed from the old Mercedes was pretty much drained by the time we got to being able to test-fire, it wasn't able to turn the engine. We tried the Harbor Freight battery charger/jumper, but that didn't have the juice. Then, we charged the battery a bit, tried again... no avail. Finally, charging through jumpers running off of Justin's Golf was the winner. Regardless, the engine is running again, and the battery is sitting on the slow-charge. I'll fire that engine up again to drive to the muffler shop hopefully this week.

Justin's Discoveries
In looking at and poking at the engine, Justin noticed a few things. Some items, we were able to fix on the spot, like a loose fuel pressure sensor on the IP, but others may need future attention. The VNT actuator was not responding very well. We think that may self-correct just from use - remember the engine has only run a handful of times in the past 3 years. While we were banging away, Justin re-checked my accelerator switch, and it runs from 0% to 77% now. I need to extend the throw of the pedal somehow, but that can wait. Also, he verified the IP timing, and the flow of the injectors - all good. We're ready for test flights.

That's it for tonight. The game is coming back on. If we don't get snow, I'll be taking a test flight tomorrow night. I hope to get into the Meineke shop around the corner between Wednesday and Friday so I'm road-able. Then, it is just a matter of increased length test fights, minor tweaks and cosmetics. Unbelievable. As an Oregonian, I say "Go DUCKS".

Buttoned and Bowed

2011-01-01T15:15:00.000-08:00

All those tired of reading about my inter-cooler woes raise your hand. Okay, mine was up too. I spent from 10:AM yesterday until close to 4:PM working on the inter-cooler and it is done. [pause for cheers :)]. I'll cover the different attacks I did to get it in, with the parts I had on hand. I have a health update for my MIL Marianne too.

Marianne
As you're read in earlier posts, my mother-in-law Marianne was diagnosed with cancer in November of 2008. Her son (my bro-in-law), Tom, was diagnosed with cancer at the same time and ultimately surrendered to it last Spring. Marianne has battled hers, from stage-4 to cancer-free and back to stage-4 again. Recently, she was admitted to the hospital with a pneumonia that has not been responsive to treatments. There is a general feeling around her caregivers and friends that her time is getting short, so my wife (D) flew down there today. She'll be in Las Vegas for the next 2 weeks, but she expects Marianne will pass during her visit there. The boys don't fully understand, but they were able to visit with her in October, when she was in remission and walking around. Fortunately, their last memory of Gramma will be of her walking through the buffet under Planet Hollywood, and sitting by the pool at the Hard Rock Hotel. We'll be lighting a candle for her at church tomorrow.

Re-hashing My IC History
Before I get into the solution, I'll recap some of the different things I've tried. First, I went with the original inter-cooler (IC). This has the inlet and the outlet on different ends of the unit. I cut part of the original body tin in the engine compartment to create a pocket in which the inter-cooler would sit. I fabricated some pipe, re-used the softer rubber connectors, and had a closed system. I bore a hole into the inter cooler for the pressure / temperature sensor.
Enter Heat. Once I placed the heater core, that first try at the IC needed to be changed. The front-side of the IC was now pressed up against the heater flexi-hose, effectively preventing the inter-cooler from getting cooling air. So, I removed it, and started working through alternatives. I couldn't get the stock IC to work in another position, so I bought a SAAB Blackstone IC. So started my adventures in bracket-building. This bracket adventure turned out to be a waste of time. I would advise the reader to get the hoses and everything all hooked up first and then figure out how to bracket it in-place. I bought a bunch of 2" pipe, 2.5" pipe, some elbows, connectors and hose clamps for a full-court press on this thing. Queue yesterday's efforts. I started with the SAAB Blackstone and my available hoses and pipes. I couldn't get it together. I switched back to the stock IC and couldn't get it going, so I switched back to the Blackstone.

Induction Complication Discussion
The trouble was with the space available from the turbo outlet to the IC inlet. The turbo outlet is 1.5" in diameter while the IC inlet is 2 3/8". The distance from the turbo outlet to the support bar is less than 8", so I have less than 8" to turn the air flow 90* to route on-plane with the air-stream and then another 90* to route into the IC while expanding the pipe from 1.5" to 2 3/8". Routing the IC outlet to the intake is much easier. The IC outlet is also 2 3/8", and the intake is 2" in diameter. There is considerable space (relative to the inlet side), requiring, again, 2 90* bends, but there was a foot from the intake to the engine support bar and nearly a foot from that bend to the IC outlet.

Induction Solution
First, I solved the turbo-to-inlet challenge. I cut up the original turbo outlet hose to a very short 90* bend. To the IC side of the bend, I pressed in a thin-walled 1.5" diameter pipe to act as a joiner between the 90* bend and the Silicone Intakes 1.5" to 2" reducer. This reducer was then pressed into a copper water pipe 90* 'street' bend. This bend has an expander on the end so it can fit into another 2" pipe. For my purposes, this expanded the diameter to 2 3/8" so it could mate with a straight rubber / silicone coupler at the IC.
Once the inlet was in, I held the IC in place with a bungy-cord. The intake had the stock 90* rubber connector on it, pointing straight down. The IC outlet had a straight rubber / silicone coupler on it. Into this, I pressed a 5" long 2.5" pipe. The other end of the pipe has a 2.5" 90* silicone bend. Fitted between the 2.5" 90* bend and the stock intake rubber I put a stock plastic pipe that narrows from 2.5" to 2". It fit very well, and had a few flat spots on it. Into one of the flat spots, I bored a hole for the temperature / pressure sensor. Once everything test-fit, I final-fit the connections with clamps, buttoning it down. It needs a support bracket, but I can start test starts while figuring that out.

Air Dressing
Last, I clamped the air route from the air filter to the turbo intake. This needed to be done, but not necessarily with fancy clamps. I figured for about 50 cents more per clamp, it looks nice, like putting a bow on it. Anyway, that's my adventure in inter cooling. In the end, I needed a few pieces from Silicone Intakes, and some of the stock parts. If I hadn't lost the plastic pipe which originally holds the sensor, I would only have needed connectors and bends - no pipe. Ah well.
It is already getting dark here, so my attempts to start the engine will have to wait until tomorrow. Still, being able to say I'll be trying to start it tomorrow feels pretty darn good.

Happy New Year!

pictures:
top - turbo outlet to IC inlet resolved
upper middle - stock plastic pipe with sensor installed
lower middle - IC pipes and hoses installed. (needs bracket)
bottom - the dressed air hoses from filter to turbo inlet

Waiting for Guffman

2010-12-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

There's not a whole lot to post about, other than Christmas, and waiting for the shipper. Today, I'll touch on both. Though, I did hit most of the Hitchcock references in my last film-related thread, I doubt I'll be able to hit all of Christopher Guest's or Eugene Levy's, but I'll hit my favorites from the troupe (Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, etc) that appears in many of their movies.

Best in Show
Christmas was a hoot. The custom in my house has been that Christmas is all about the kids, and not at all about the adults. This held true again this year with the boys getting lots of cool new clothes, and a couple of larger things. My wife was well adorned with yoga items (and jewelry of course). My haul was exceptionally small this year, but I don't expect anything anymore, and really truly treasure watching the boys respond to things I've selected for them anyway. I wasn't disappointed. Now that I work for a company that offers employees deep discounts, I can get some pretty cool stuff for them. For at least one day, I was "the best". :)

A Mighty Wind
First, I got the hoses that I ordered from Silicone Intakes. Of the 3, I was able to install one, the 45* angled 2.75" runner that fits between the air flow meter and the air tap for the vacuum. This ties off that, but it needs clamps. Of course. Still, the raw air source has been at least defined.

Waiting for Guffman
With the clamps mentioned above, I also discovered that the 90* angled 2.5" part is right, but it will also require clamps, and a few other things. I decided that rather than nickle-and-dime any more on the induction, I mapped out what I needed and made one single buy for all of the remaining pieces. This includes clamps, but now I'm waiting for the postman again.

This is Spinal Tap
I have this whole week out-of-work, so if I had planned better, I could have made better use of this time. I would have loved to have had all of the intake stuff in hand at the beginning of the week. I learn from this to jump in and over-buy early, when you work with a retailer with a great return policy (like Silicone Intakes does). Translation: make your amp's go to 11 :)
Still, I'm taking the boys up to Mt. Hood tomorrow for a day with the aunt's, uncle's and cousins in the snow. On Wednesday, we have the extended family Christmas party-dinner thing. In between the events and the passing showers, I'll be looking at the auxiliary battery stuff. I need to get it a-fixed to the floor (under the rock'n'roll bed), grounded, and the B+ wired to the little fuse block. I'll tie the battery into the Alternator later, but having some juice flowing to the inside lights will be handy.

That's it for today. I'll post about our day on the mountain, my progress on the electrical and my in-bound package next time. If FedEx Ground is as fast as I've experienced before, I may still be able to button-down the induction before NYE. Thanks again for following along, and I'll have more later-

Bracing for the Holidaze

2010-12-19T16:05:00.000-08:00

I mentioned over the Summer that I got a new job. I haven't really talked much about the gig, other than to complain about the hours. Looking at the job numbers, and seeing how hard some folks are having it, I'm going to stop complaining about it. I read back through some old posts, and it seems like I gripe about not having time an awful lot. Seeing how I can't really do much about it, I'm not going to do that anymore. I should be grateful to have work doing something I'm pretty good at, and I get paid regularly.

Holidaze
The craziness started for most folks around Thanksgiving. I have a tradition where I take my boys out shopping the Saturday before Christmas. In past years, we've gone to Macy's or Fred Meyer. This year, my brother called and asked if the boys wanted to go shopping with their 3 year old cousin around the city of Portland. It was a blast, and it gave me a great reminder of how wonderful a city Portland is. The energy... the people... we truly live in an amazing place. The boys and I found a few unusual items for "mom", visited with our uncle/brother and cousin/niece. Last, we enjoyed some fresh Thai food for lunch off one of the street-carts. Yummy.

Today, my sister and her daughter arrived from Austin. They will be staying with my folks in close-in SE Portland for a few days before heading over to her mother-in-law's place. Her husband flies in on Xmas-eve. We'll have almost the entire extended family in town this year, but with the usual extended family challenges, I don't think we'll be celebrating as a full group until the middle of next week.

Bracket Progress
With an unexpected change in the weather, we were given a few dry hours today. After cleaning up the house, and wrapping what we got yesterday, I could think about the bus guilt-free. I had spent about 30 minutes in the dark on Friday night figuring out where the inter cooler could fit, and what I would need for pressure hose. That night, I ordered a couple 90* bends and a 45* bend (for the air filter end of the operation). Today, I figured I could start working on the bracket to hold the inter-cooler in place. I know my welding skills aren't that great, and I know that welding up a simple triangular brace would have taken me days. With this in mind, I grabbed a straight 1" steel bar and headed for the rear of the bus, prepped for the worst.

In looking at the scene, I didn't need a simple triangle; this thing needed to have an angled side and one corner was further forward than the other, meaning it couldn't be a closed triangle. I took the bar and bent it most of the way back on itself, and then twisted it so the top was a few inches further forward than the rear. I test fit the idea and noticed that the top corner needed a mount point that required another 90* bend. Luck was with me, though, as the bar had a couple inches of extra material on the top. I made another small bend, and it looked right. I guess I've paid some luck-dues, because I drilled 5/8" holes, and after some twisting and tweaking, they lined up about perfectly.

Looking at the finished product, the top of the inter-cooler is a couple inches lower than I expected, but the entire unit is in the slip-stream, but not below the low-point of the engine. It should be worth noting that the radiator and the front beam are both lower than the inter cooler, as placed. A front bracket still needs to be made, but I would rather have the exhaust in first, so I know what I have to work around.

The hoses should arrive some time this next week. This sets me up to get the induction system sealed up next weekend. My hopes to have test drives before New Years Eve could still become a reality. I still don't have an exhaust, of course. This will limit how far I can test a drive, but any movement out of the driveway would be a successful drive at this point. We'll see....

pictures:
top: rough-in placement of inter-cooler for hose need assessment
upper-middle: bracket in-place before attaching the cooler
lower-middle: same shot as the one above, but after the inter-cooler was attached
bottom: view from the side showing the road clearance of the inter-cooler. Consider the front bracket will raise it about an inch.

Paneling

2010-12-14T17:47:00.000-08:00

Brief post today. It was pouring rain this weekend, so I wasn't all that ready to work outside. So, I did some finish work on the rear cabinet (in my garage), and got the rear bumper installed when it lightened to a sprinkle. I'll have to remove it again to paint it, eventually, but Id rather have the bumper on the bus for the test drives.

Access Panel
As you can see from these pictures, I cut a small square access panel out of the bottom of the unit. Its about 4" square. When looking at the rear cabinet from the rear hatch (it would be on the left side), this hatch would be reachable through the bottom cubie. Under the hatch, I plan to have the original ignition, so I'll have a remote-starter capability.

OBDII Sensor
Those little metal squares will just hold the panel in place - as in keep it from falling into the spare tire-hole. In the picture that doesn't have my hand in it, you can make out where the OBDII port will poke in. Again, its in the bottom cubie, but on the forward wall. Once the engine is running right and the cabinet is re-installed, the OBDII connector will fit into that black housing. Since most, if not all, of the times I'll need to plug in a laptop I'll be looking at the engine, it seemed reasonable to place access near the engine. Still, we wouldn't want to disrupt the look of the cabinet, so its buried.

Otherwise, I got one of those Saab Blackstone inter-coolers off of eBarf. It looks good, arrived a little dirty, but the cooling surface looks larger than the stock one, and as you can see the input/output ports are both on the same end. I'll take some measurements and some side-by-side pictures with the stock one later on. I hear it may not rain tomorrow night or maybe Thursday. If the rumors hold true, I may get out there and start seeing how it can fit under the engine bay. If I can get a good strong fit, I can plan the air routes and get the silicone pipes on a truck before the Christmas shipping rush really kills package movement. We'll see.

Thanks for following along. Oh, it looks like the snow on Mt. Hood is getting really good. I may need to take another day at Meadows before Christmas... but then I definitely won't be test driving before NewYearsEve. Grr... the snow will have to wait :(

the Wheels on the Bus

2010-12-05T15:16:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've noticed that the once wide-array of tire choices for the bay-window bus are disappearing. When I combine this with the need to handle a lower RPM output engine than the stock one, I am starting to think about larger rims. It all started with that drive up to Mt. Hood Meadows through the snow flurries. I got to thinking about what it would be like to drive up for a day of snowboarding in the bus.

First, I got all romantic-like. Thoughts of taking a break in the bus with a propane heater running, making hot chocolate, etc. Plus, the room for 4 of us to roll up there and popping the top for head-room to stand up. Sounds great. Add in a working stove to make hot beverages or food, and it sounds frickin' great.

Then, I started thinking about how well my tires would grip. I have Saturn 720's from Les Schwab that I bought about 4 years ago. Since then, I haven't put many miles on them, but they are not M+S tires, much less snow tires. I hit the web to see what my tire options were, and that's when I had my discovery: they don't make many tires that fit my need anymore. After reading and re-reading one of my favorite bus-related websites I started looking in earnest for another wheel / tire alternative. My current thinking now, is to upgrade to 16" rims. I know the tire wells and the steering mechanism can only handle so much of an upgrade, though. I'd like to find Mercedes 16" x 6" steelies rather than the seemingly abundant 16" x 7.5" chrome rims. Rims this size would support the standard tire for a Ford Ranger, and these would fit within the tire wells.

I know this is a total non sequitur from all the other work that I need to complete. Still, just thinking about what could be helps to motivate. It also serves as a reminder of all the things left to complete. The stove doesn't work because the under-belly propane tank was never installed (though I have it). The pop-top replacement is still waiting to be installed. Of course, the bus isn't running. Lots to do, but if I can figure out a way to continue to work when the bus is parked outside and its 40* (and windy), I can get it done. Maybe I should rent someone's garage....

More next time, and I'll post pictures of the trip to Mt. Hood Meadows from work this week. UPDATE: added picture from parking lot at Meadows.

Fanning the flames of progress

2010-11-27T11:51:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted much in a while. Honestly, there hasn't been much to post about. I have a small update on the defrost efforts, and a new revelation about the inter cooler. Last, I took my son T up to Mt. Hood Meadows for a day of snowboarding - total Fall highlight.

Fan Fun
I have the rear heater unit in-place, the switch in-place and the wiring run. After spending a few hours trying to figure out which wire should be connected to which male plug on the heater unit, I found this thread on TheSamba (http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=435597). With the picture, and some logic, it totally makes sense. I made the wiring corrections, but... the resistor doesn't work anymore. Fun stuff. I got the highly-maligned symptom of the fan only blowing on the "middle" setting, which, it turns out, means the resistor is bad. So, now comes the question: do I replace the resistor with a stock replacement, or go new-style? "what's this new-style," you ask. You install a true-rheostat concept like this. For the stock-lovers out there, I've already pissed you off with this whole project, but bear with me for a sec. The true-rheostat solution is $60 where the stock solution is around $35, assuming you can find it. I haven't had any luck finding a stock resistor, but I'll be leaving the fan in this on-off configuration for now. I have a defroster, and that's all that matters at this point.

Inter not-cooling
I am unable to place the stock inter cooler within the space I have after the heater is in. I'm looking for a Saab Blackstone inter cooler instead. Why? They take up a little less space, but are reportedly more efficient. Also, the inlet and outlet are both on the same end, improving the placement choices. Assuming I find one, and have it in-hand relatively soon, I'll cover that install. I know I will need more silicone tubing, so the install will take 2 delivery cycles - one for the inter cooler, and one for the tubes. net-net, I won't be test-driving over Christmas.

Snow good to see ya
Last Sunday, my some T and I drove up to Mt Hood Meadows for some snowboarding. I've gone sliding a couple of times, but I haven't really had good conditions before. Mt. Hood had received fresh snow the night before, and we had some flurries while we were there. The result? Groomed powder runs, and some great sliding. Our first ride on the lift was just after 9:AM, and after 7-8 runs, we called it a day around 2:30. I'll upload pictures later.

With the heater troubles and the ridiculous darkness this time of year, my motivation has slipped. Its been a couple months since I heard the engine run, and that doesn't help. I'm trying to re-motivate, and get the inter cooler resolved. Once that's in, I can test-start the engine again, focus on finishing out the little bits, and take a test drive. I won't feel close to finished again until I hear that engine run again. Sigh.

Switcheroo

2010-11-21T16:56:00.000-08:00

Today, I got a couple of hours, so, with a steady rain and 35* work conditions, I decided to focus on something inside the bus rather than underneath it. I had a choice, either the fan control or the coolant flow valve control. I decided on the fans. I'll go into that today.

Wire Bundle
I had already bought the wire, so I figured I had all the parts for doing the fan controls. Using 14-gauge wire, I created a 3-wire cable bundle. I chose yellow-white-blue rather than the usual red/green/black combination, simply to be different. Like the wire bundle I ran for the ignition controls (link), I ran the cable through the large rear cabinet, along the outside of the low cabinet and stove/sink unit to the spare tire hole. I had drilled a small hole in the partition wall for the ignition cable, but I needed a new one for this new bundle. The wires then followed the same path along the edge of the door opening under the carpet to the A-pillar (next to the clutch pedal). The wires routed behind the fusebox and over the steering wheel support to the series of switches to the right of the ignition.

Switch a switch
My old 1972 dash controls were extremely simply by modern standards. To the right are 3 switches: dome light, wipers and hazard (left to right). The dome light switch doesn't actually do anything anymore. My dome is wired directly to the accessory battery fuse-block now, so this switch was useless. I chose to remove this switch and re-use the dash-hole for the fan control. After looking through both the Bentley and the Idiot's book, I was unable to find printed instructions for removing a switch. I went digging through my old parts and found a few old switches. By examining their construction, you can tell that the hand-knob just twists off (lefty-loosey). This leaves the stem and a round threaded silver collar sticking out of the switch body. The round silver collar also hand-twists off (lefty-loosey again), leaving a gray female collar attached to the switch body. By applying this learning, I was able to remove the dome light switch. If you have a switch that is correct for your model year, the install is the reverse of that removal. My fan switch, though, is from a Vanagon, so I had some more work to do.

Retrofitting a Switch
The Vanagon switch is much more modern. The switch housing clicks into the outer skin and the outer skin clicks into the dash. The outer skin of the fan housing does not integrate with an old bus, so I set it aside, leaving me with the switch body and the hand-knob. Unlike the older knobs, this one just slides into place and remains in place through friction. This may be useful later if I can figure out a way of re-using some of the outer skin. Anyway, to get the switch housing to hold in place like an old-style switch, you need to re-use the threaded silver collar. Since the new-style switch doesn't have anything to thread into, things get interesting. I went through my spare switches and found one that didn't work (tested with multi-meter) consistently. I cut the gray female collar off of the bad switch, filed off the rough edges and crazy-glued it to the Vanagon fan switch. I love how one sentence can summarize 30 minutes of effort and who-knows-how-much problem-solving time. With the gray collar firmly in place, I was able to wire up the switch and install it.

Wire Color Notes
As I mentioned above, I chose to use yellow / white / blue as my wire color choices for the fan controls. I'm sure a time will come when I'll have to diagnose a problem, so, for future reference, the yellow is for "low", the white is for "middle" and the blue is for "high". I striped and wired up connectors for the bundle. I tied them into the fan switch following the pattern I just mentioned. The switch still needed a power source, though so I located the B+ source for the original blower fan signal.

Once wired, the switch settled into the old dome light hole, and hand-tightened in. From the picture, it doesn't look straight-stock, but it does look pretty good. If I get all trailer-queen anal about it, I could probably find a hand-knob with a fan icon on it and figure out a way to get it to interface with the switch body. I just want it running and not have things looking half-assed or half-finished. This meets that bill. That's all I have for today. Over Thanksgiving, I'll get the heat box in, and I'll post on some changes / modifications I needed to do to get it run-ready.

Pictures:
top - view from the ground when I slide out from under the bus.
middle left - Vanagon switch modified with gray and silver collars.
middle right- 2 dome light switches, one after the gray collar was removed.
bottom - the fan switch installed next to the stock wiper control knob.

heat placed, intercooler displaced

2010-11-14T19:29:00.000-08:00

My time availability hasn't meaningfully improved since the last post. Somewhere I heard that the US is most productive (in GDP terms?) between Labor Day and Christmas. I can say that work has been distracting, but it wouldn't be fair to say that was the cause. Anyway, I have found a few hours here and there to get banging on the bus. I'll cover the highlights.

Heater Core Placed
After looking at putting the heater core inside the bus in a few locations, and trying to fit it under the floor of the cab, I have placed it in the alternate battery spot (under the spare wheel well). This location is already a little busy, with the intercooler and air filter as well as a bunch of wiring. So, this wasn't easy to get going. It still needs to be mounted. When I was working on the intercooler placement last Summer (or the Summer before..) I cut a section of tin out of the left side. To get the heater working in that space, I needed to cut the rest out of the way. The coolant lines will run from the left side of the engine, under the spare wheel well and along the body, curling back towards the right to the heater core. For a core, I'm using an old Vanagon rear-heater unit with a snorkel attached to it. The snorkel is still getting firmed up, but the mock-up worked well. Anyway, the snorkel will connect to a 4" diameter insulated flex-pipe that runs under the bus (over the axle) around the radiator to the original air line at the middle/front. Switching the fans and controlling the flow of coolant into the heater still needs to be devised.

Intercooler Displacement
Fitting the heater demonstrated that the intercooler was just in the wrong spot. As it was, getting in and out of the engine compartment on the left side was virtually impossible with it placed where it was. I found myself removing it frequently to do pretty much anything on the left side. Since the turbo an the intake are on the left side, the intercooler will stay on that side, but I'll be dropping it lower, down into the slipstream and rotating it flatter so access is much easier. Ultimately, it will operate much like the radiator does - with a puller fan placed underneath it.

Air Filter hassles
Another challenge on the left side is getting the air cleaner space to do its thing. I had something pulled together "well enough", but it wasn't game-ready. I'll need a 45* bend (another part to buy) to stitch into the set up, as the stock flex-tube is just too long to be effective. This became more obvious as the coolant lines and the flexi-hose for the heated air were introduced. Once the 45* bend arrives (still to be ordered), I'll be able to finish this off much more cleanly.

Exhaust Reroute
With the move of the heater into the engine compartment, and, more importantly, the insulated flexi-hose, the route of the exhaust has to move. The route from the turbo has been unchanged from stock, so it ran straight to the left out behind the rear tire. That was not ideal anyway, when we think about the "fresh" air we would want entering the heat system, or an open window when sitting at a red light. I was assuming I would need a custom run anyway, and now there's no question. The exhaust will route straight down, instead, and curve back to the rear along the bottom edge of the engine block. I will mock-up something so I can account for it while placing the intercooler. I don't want either the intercooler nor the engine to pick up heat from the exhaust as it passes. This will get interesting.

As you can see, things are getting more challenging, but I'm glad I'm finding these issues now rather than after a Summer of camping fun while winterizing. I'm going to focus on finishing the heat and the air filter completed first. Once they are done, I'll work on the exhaust and intercooler at the same time. I didn't mention that I did get the temperature sensor replaced, but with the different systems opened up, I can't test the engine. My plans for a holiday-season test flight may have to be pushed out. We'll see. Thanks for following along, and I'll post some pictures of this stuff when I'm on my other computer.

Baby Steps

2010-10-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't been able to get any real traction lately. I have made a couple of minor improvements, but I haven't had the engine running, and work has been very taxing.

Blue Thermometer
I have identified the missing plug for the coolant bottle. It turns out I was a little over-aggressive when I cut the harness apart and I cut that sensor out with a bunch of things I didn't need. I was able to find the brown/white ground wire and the red/purple send wire in the mass of clipped wires. I extended these two around the front side of the engine compartment to the overflow bottle, and its hooked up. Unfortunately, I am still getting a flashing blue thermometer signal on the dashpod. I tested the continuity of the bottle sensor wires all the way to the dashpod, and they are strong, so that sensor is not the problem.
After investigating this symptom a little bit on TDIClub, it appears that the ECU thinks this means there isn't any coolant or its too cold to start the engine, so it won't let me. This tells me the problem is in the coolant sensor, the wiring for that sensor or engine harness again. If time allows, I'll remove and re-seat the sensor to see if that does the trick.

Fuel Priming
In my post earlier this month (Won't Get Fueled Again) I mentioned that I had another one-way valve coming. I have added it into the mix and the fuel system seems to retain its prime now. I have tested with the MityVac, and I can get a solid flow of fuel even after it has sat for a week. The resolution: one-way valve between the tank and the fuel filter on both the supply and return sides, only allowing fuel (or air) flow in the correct direction.

Registration
In a swift move of optimism, I registered the bus. I haven't put the stickers on the tags, but I'll now be able to legally test drive it. Though a very minor thing, it feels like a diamond on the project plan - a big milestone. The possibility of actually driving it seems more real when the DMV says its legal.

That's all I have for now. Work has been very busy, and soccer season is just finishing up. When we reset our clocks next weekend, finding daylight for working on this project will be isolated to weekend days. To accommodate this, I'll be doing as many inside chores as possible during the week, to free that time. Hopefully, I'll still be able to keep some traction on this. I believe, once I have the blue light resolved, I will be able to consistently start the engine. Then, its getting the heat (read:defrost) working, getting Justin over to set the injector timing, and planning some short test drives. Thanks for following along, and for your positive words and ideas along the way.

Dew Tour: Las Vegas

2010-10-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

In a post this past August (Wine Tour, Dew Tour) I mentioned that my boys had won this crazy Nerf Dart Tag competition at the Dew Tour when they stopped in Portland. This past weekend was the Dew Tour Finals (coming to ESPN soon, I'm sure), and with it, the Nerf Dart Tag Nationals. Today's post will be all about that. No bus stuff; I haven't done a thing since ordering that part (which arrived when we were gone).

Lively Up Yourself
The Nerf folks pulled the whole travel itinerary together, and both Portland teams (8-12 and 13-17) flew together on both flights. This made for a common bond among the 8 players too.
The flight itself was actually very routine. My wife had checked us in on line 24 hours ahead of time, so within the Southwest Airlines scheme, we were in the lower end of the "B" group. So, the plane was about half full when we boarded. Fortunately, the teams were able to sit mostly together, and it was a typical raucous flight to Las Vegas. The Nerf folks met us at baggage, and shuttled us to the Hard Rock Hotel for our 3 day / 2 night mini-vacation. At this point, some of our group split off to see shows, while the rest of us hit the the Dew Tour for some shwag and then the pool (it was 86* and mid-afternoon). If you've never been to the pool at the Hard Rock, its kinda like Spring Break all the time. There's rock music cranking at one set of pools while a DJ is spinning beats at the main pool. Crazy time. Fortunately, the only pool that had a slide wasn't the pool with the half-dressed (drunken staggering) 20-somethings. The boys stayed near the slide, and so did I :)

Them Belly Full
After enjoying the pool, and connecting with Gramma Marianne, everyone was hungry. Marianne lives in Las Vegas and has done so for 20 years, so she was able to route us to the best buffet in town under Planet Hollywood. Incredible eats spanning many different cuisines. The desserts were amazing - I had a chocolate mousse pie, and we shared a crape. The boys ate like they hadn't seen food in days, and we actually welcomed the very long walk back to the car. That's one thing I forgot about Las Vegas - everything is so spread out, you have to walk, like 1/2 a mile from the hotel lobby, to your room. We fell asleep early-ish, hoping to boost energy for the competition on Saturday. Not all of our teammates had luck getting to sleep early, however.

I Shot the Sheriff
Saturday was competition day. First thing in the morning, I got a text from T that he had seen Shaun White walking through the hotel. We had many such encounters this weekend, and grabbed some pictures along the way. For example, we met Ryan Sheckler in the Bell-Hop line. Great guy, nice as can be and totally down to earth. The competition wasn't supposed to start until 2:30, and it started late. By the time they figured out the competition round-robin it was almost 3:30. Still, our team was in the first match, and they lost to the eventual champs (Salt Lake City) by 1 point. The boys got upset about some calls, but we parents tried to explain that if they had played their usual run-n-gun style, the points wouldn't have been close. They took that to heart the next 2 games and blew out Boston and Las Vegas. As they announced their last match, I could see the boys grow uneasy. The ref said "with this win, (our boys) go into the finals". Well, they tensed up, didn't play their style and lost by a less than 10 points. So, they were out of the competition, but they bounced back. Before the finals had even started, C went bull riding at the Matador booth and T was off getting shwag from the Verizon booth.

Exodus
Leaving the Tour grounds, the boys were a little dejected, but a dinner of pizza and soda turned them around. The following morning, we hit the pool for one last dip, and visited Las Vegas a little bit. T rode the roller coaster at the New York - New York, and C won prizes in the arcade. Then we hopped the train over to the Luxor to see the inside of the great pyramid. Time was getting tight, so we hopped a cab back to the Hard Rock, and joined the teams for the shuttle back to the airport. The other Portland team also came in third. Oh well, we all agreed that the trip was a great prize for winning the regional, and look forward to competing again next year. The final flight was delayed on the ground for 2 hours because of lightning, and we had some turbulence in-air, but otherwise, passing through McCarran Airport was a breeze for a Sunday.

I think we all agree that it was a great trip, and the boys plan to compete again next year. They can't be on the same team, as the age grouping has pushed T and the other boys into the higher age group. Still, C will figure out another trio of boys to compete with while T finds one more shooter. That's it for now. I'll post on the bus when I actually have a few minutes to work on him.

pictures:
top - The Hard Rock Guitar in front of the hotel - now my phone desktop picture :)
middle - the Nerf team enjoying their pre-contest breakfast
bottom - a huge Ozzy lithograph hanging in the Hard Rock Hotel

Won't Get Fueled Again

2010-10-12T15:42:00.001-07:00

In my last post, I said I finally figured out what was going on with my fuel system. I'll explain that today, though I won't have pictures of the fix as I'm still waiting for a part. Also, the vacuum system is finally finished, marking one more completed subsystem. Queue the Who: "Yeah!"

Fuel Me Once, Shame On, Shame On Me
So, I tested and re-tested trying to get fuel to travel through the lines up to the injection pump. I determined that if I put a one-way valve into the vent / return line from the filter to the tank, fuel would travel up the feed line. This was true, so I put a valve in, and I was able to get the engine to run once I primed the lines. The problem is, once the engine shuts off, and the operation sits for a while, the Injection Pump loses its prime. Huh? Wha' Happen'd?

Fuel Me Twice, Um... Uh... Won't Get Fueled Again
The fuel slowly trickles back into the tank via the feed line. I hit TDIClub, and found that the stock TDI placement has a one-way valve at the tank to prevent a loss of prime. Dumbly, I took the one-way valve from the return line and put it into the feed line. Well, this didn't work, since the return line was now plling air again. Grr... ordered another one-way valve. It'll arrive i na couple of days, and I'll slap it into place and re-prime the lines.

Fresh Air, Sucka
The last bit I completed was getting the vacuum system all sealed up. I had a posting a while back that traced the vacuum system. At that time, I didn't have the turbo line in, nor the filtered air tap. I completed the turbo line when I got the intake work done a couple of months ago, but it wasn't until this past weekend that I got the filtered air tap done. In the bits and pieces that make up my filter -to- intake, I have an AMSOIL air filter connected to a MAF body. This MAF body is connected to a short flexi-hose which connects to a second MAF body. This second body has the actual sensor in it. This real MAF is connected to a rubber 135* switchback sleeve which connects to the stock intake. The first MAF body has a diamond-shaped blockoff plate on it, and it is into this block-off plate that the vacuum nipple was inserted. The vacuum line fit easily, and is routed behind the filter -to- intake chain I just described. I don't have a good picture of this (it is under the rear cabinet), but it fits well, even with the wiring mess in that corner of the engine compartment.

I'll touch on my efforts with the heat later on. Thanks for following along-

Hitchcock'd Saturday

2010-10-10T17:57:00.001-07:00

Friday night's post suggested that I might have some time this weekend to get something done on the bus. That proved right, so I'll hit on the detail of what I got done around a soccer game, and the usual familial chaos around here. To be clear, I love the chaos, I just wish I had a big enough garage to work in so when the chaos settles down at night I can work somewhere warm, dry and well lit. Instead, I have a cold, damp and dark spot outside. I should be grateful for that. I could not have the space to do this at all. I did so much, I'll spread the tasks across a series of posts rather than making this one ridiculously long.

Rear Window
Removing a sealed-in-place window is actually easier than you'd think. With a box-cutter, repeatedly cut the seal at a 90* angle with the glass. Once you've gotten a few cuts in, wedge the knife between the seal and the glass and cut as deep as you can. The rubber should start separating and pulling off with your fingers. Once the glass to rubber seal is breached, push out from the inside of the vehicle and grab hold on the outside. Pull the glass out and then pull the remaining rubber. The window that I was removing also had a little pop-out window in it. Once the outer seal was cut out, the metal frame for the little window could slide back towards the rear and be removed. It was this little window that was leaking - the lower post was rusted away, so even when it was closed a little water could get in. Honestly, it was this leak that prompted the purchase of the cover, the new window and the new seal.

North by North Rust
Once the old seal was out, I could see the effects of the leak. Over time, rust has built up. Under the window is an odd body panel held on with 3 Phillips screws on the bottom and clips across the top. A couple shots of PB Blaster and the screws released. Pop-pop with a rubber mallet, and the panel was off, showing the extent of the rust. I'm not a body man by any stretch, but I try to inhibit the spread of rust when I see it. Dust, sand, re-dust, then spray with rust converter. Once the converter dries, I spray some paint and let that dry. There are some pictures here to show the before-after. The paint is not an exact match, but its close enough for now. One day I'll paint this beast for real.

The 39 Steps
While the paint was drying, I started fighting the new seal around the new-to-me glass. First, I tried simple brute force. I had read somewhere about warming the seal in the drier, but my wife suggested using the hairdryer. This proved to be the best solution as it gave me a way to focus the heat onto the bit of glass and seal that I was trying to mate. The picture to the right here shows what I'm trying to get at. After an interesting wrestling match in my living room that included multiple implements, a gash in my palm and 2 complete re-starts, I did get the seal on.

Notorious
Weather is always a concern when doing anything outside, and no where is this more true than in the Pacific Northwest after October 1st (and before July 4th). With the rainy weather starting, I was concerned that while waiting for the paint to dry the rain would come and mess things up. I got lucky, though, and the rain was only that light misty rain that we used to get a lot of (years ago), so it didn't really make it past the tree canopy. It did make everything damp, though, so the drying time ran a little long.

Vertigo
Getting the now-sealed window to sit into the window-hole is actually kinda easy, but doing all the things the internet sites say to do make it challenging. Most sites recommend slobbering dish soap or KY Jelly on the seal and wrapping thin nylon rope (more like twine) around the seal a couple of times. This twine is then supposed to be slobbered with lube too. Then, the whole operation is fed into the window-hole with the rope ends dangling inside the vehicle. Without a partner, this is virtually impossible. I got dizzy trying to get it all straight, and actually bonked my head on the side of the bus before removing the twine and going brute force.

Psycho
So, I got the window seated in the window hole, and whacked around the edge with my rubber mallet until the seal was pressed hard against the metal sill that runs along the inner edge of the window hole. This sill completely encircles the inner edge except for about 1/2" on the top where the little pop-out window once was. Here's where the brute force started. If you've ever gotten those paint-can openers from the home-paint stores, one end is a great bottle opener. For this reason, I've kept a few around. The paint-can opener end is great for grabbing a window seal and pulling it over the inner sill. I reached through that 1/2" opening, grabbed the seal and pulled it over the sill. Using the paint-can opener (and a Phillips screw driver at times), I pulled the seal on over this sill all the way around. You can see the tool in the picture to the right, here. I re-hammered the seal with the rubber mallet from the outside to make sure it seated completely.

The Birds
I used simple glass-cleaner to get the new window nice an clean - removing all the different lubricants and other soaps along the way. I have used the rope trick to get my windshield in a few years ago, or should I say I watched the windshield guy do it. For a one-person operation, this takes some practice. I wouldn't encourage others to use the technique I used unless they are very careful not to damage the seal in the process. A torn seal will not keep water out, defeating the purpose of the efforts. Getting the new glass into the bus by myself took much more time than a professional would have taken, and I probably should have had someone around to help out. Next time I will.

I have identified the problem with the fuel system, and I'll talk about that in one of the next few posts. I also got under the bus a bit today and did some more thinking about how to get a heater core in there. I'll post on those thoughts soon too. Thanks for following along, and yes I know I missed "Strangers on a Train" and "The Lady Vanishes" in my Hitchcock references. Some of my references were a bit of a stretch to begin with, and adding those would have been exceptionally challenging.

Pictures:
Top - front top edge of window hole after removing old window. Note the notch in the inner sill.
Upper Middle - Eeew. Rust.
Middle - using the hairdryer to warm the glass and the seal.
Lower Middle - window installed-ish from the outside before the seal was pulled over the sill.
Bottom - window fully installed as viewed from the inside. Note that it is over the inner sill.

October? I hardly know her

2010-10-08T20:28:00.001-07:00

Someone commented on the blog a while back about how if I was working in corporate America, the demands weren't going to go away. Well... she was right (dammit!). I got pulled into a production issue this week that really sapped me. Fortunately, I was able to snag a few hours last weekend before the issue popped. I'm only now able to get to posting about those hours. I'll hit those bits today, and set the stage for this weekend. I should have a few hours again this Saturday (after coaching a kids soccer game in the morning). Hopefully, it will only be a gentle rain.

Cabinet Cut up
There were 2 things I wanted to do to the cabinet before re-installing it. This took the majority of the time I had. I unplugged the OBDII connector from the plastic surround and traced around the surround to mark where to cut. I wanted the plug to be somewhat discrete, but easily accessible when approaching the bus from behind. Also, it couldn't be somewhere that dirt could easily get into it. The picture tells it much better than I could. Basically, it is in the lowest cubby in the "front" (front is front of bus) wall just above the floor.
The other thing I wanted to add was an access hatch of sorts so I could switch from driver's seat ignition to remote starting easily. This was a lot easier than the OBDII hole. Since the cabinet has been in a bus since the late 70's, the underside had some pretty obvious markings to show where the tire hole is. You can see the stains in the picture. Since the underside of the cabinet is just a few thin layers of veneer, I cut the hole with a box-cutter. I won't be installing the cabinet until after we get the injection timing and other computer-related stuff dealt with.

Buen Provecho
Maybe I didn't really "eat" the wiring spaghetti, I just moved it around a bit. But, the ignition switch and OBDII are where they need to be, the computer and relays will fit under the cabinet (in the tire hole, mostly). I did color coordinate the wiring and the ignition plug. This should make switching the wires from front to remote start much easier. There's a picture of the color / paint markings here.

Pedal Recoil
I don't have any pictures of this, but I found a spring in my parts bin that I think will fit the need to pull the accelerator pedal back upright without placing that last bit of stress on the rheostat. Hopefully, this will take the reading down to 0% when there is no pressure on the pedal. I won't know for sure until I can get a computer reading the OBDII.

I think that's all I got done last weekend. Tomorrow, I hope to look into the cabin heat a little bit, maybe replace the driver's rear window (the one the cabinet faces), and wire in the front ignition. We'll see what the weather allows.

pictures:
top - masked off the OBDII hole for cutting.
upper middle - underside of cabinet showing where the access hatch was cut in. You can see the OBDII hole in the side.
lower middle - the color coordination in the book, on the wires, and the ignition block
bottom - the wires hooked into the ignition block

Brrrrrrmmmmm

2010-09-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, so maybe that last post was premature. While I was writing it, the battery was on the 2Amp charge again. I gave it one last start try and after about 10 seconds of Rrrrr-ing, the tone changed. I concluded the fuel pressure was increasing as the engine started to sputter. Another few moments, and it started running. And running strong! I shot a 1 minute video of it running for your enjoyment.

I can't get over the weight-lifted feeling I have now. Sure, there are lots of things to get done to clean it up, but now that it runs, I can hit that list:

Cabinet Prep & Install
The rear cabinet needs a cutout for the OBDII plug for monitoring. I'd like a little door so I can work in a remote start opportunity. Once I wire-in the front ignition, I'll like the ability to start it from the back. The cab prep shouldn't take very long. Install will be easy, but first I need to deal with...

Wiring Spaghetti
The wires are not set up for an easy re-install of the rear cabinet. The wires have been pulled around a bit, and the smaller engine harness is still the borrowed one. I can resolve my bad cable independently, but its on the longer list. Still, the ignition switch will need to be re-positioned for easier reach for remote starting. Of course, I'll need to get the front ignition relay thing wired back up. Speaking of wires up front...

Accelerator Pedal Spring
The accelerator pedal switch is over 30% "on" when at rest. To offset that, I have added some slack into the pedal:switch connection, but the pedal needs a spring (or 2) to hold it in the upright position, and to help resist the temptation to rest at 30%. It needs to rest at 0%. In order to verify that I've got it right, though...

Justin Re-visit
Justin, the TDI-guru, needs to complete the timing belt work by setting the injector timing. While he's here, we can verify the accelerator pedal 0% - 100% range. When that's finished, I can move on to...

Belly Pan
The pan under the cab needs to be re-installed and seam-sealed so moisture can't get into the brake and accelerator switches.

Heat?
Okay, sure, why not? I have the vanagon rear-heater, and I can't drive this time of year without some way of defogging the windscreen. This is more than just clean-up, but it will be necessary if I want to drive before next Summer without having to squiggie the inside of the windscreen.

Today's post is quite the relief. Pardon the crappy camera work. I wanted to show that it is indeed inside a VW Bus, but I probably could/should have pulled the car-cover first. Anyway, the weather changed and we've had some nice days. Unfortunately, my work load and other commitments haven't. As such, I haven't been able to try any of the things on this list this week. Maybe Saturday...

Battery of Tests

2010-09-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

Well, its been too long since my last post, but I didn't want to post anything until I got a breakthrough. Unfortunately, I haven't had one, but I figured I'd left the blog out in the cold too long. Speaking of "out in the cold"... the weather has been a regular topic in this blog, and in conversations with fellow Pacific North-westerners all Summer. Now that Fall is officially here, most folks are expecting the rains to set in. My wife and a few of her friends are trying to stay optimistic, but I'm not betting on any more warm, dry days. This makes for a very unpleasant effort on the bus project, exacerbating my current frustrations.

Feeling Fuelly
After getting the engine to run for a few seconds here and there, I thought my troubles were to be quickly resolved. I felt that if I could get the air bubbles out of the fuel system, I could get the engine to run reliably. I moved the large stock fuel filter operation from where Hal had installed it (you can see the mount holes in the top picture there), up to near the top-hatch (see bottom picture). I figured part of the problem was that the Injection Pump was the high point of the system, so air bubbles were getting trapped in the pump. I checked my Jetta and noticed that the fuel filter was right next to the coolant bottle, so I thought, "maybe the height matters". There's a picture here to the right. I don't know if it does at this point, because the engine still doesn't start. I pulled the clear filter I put in between the tank and the stick filter as well. I thought maybe this was allowing air in, or at least giving it a place to collect. This didn't help either.

Battery of testing
With all of the attempts to start the engine, the battery keeps running down. I find that the quick 10Amp charge doesn't actually work, and I need to charge the battery on the slower 2Amp cycle. This introduces a considerable amount of lag between starts. As I write this, the battery is getting charged again. I have noticed that the primary cable running from the battery to the starter gets warm at one of the splices. I am a little concerned about that. Of course, the engine should start quite quickly under most conditions, and little current runs through there other than to start the engine.

My latest attempts have been surrounding the fuel supply again. I have routed the return line from the injection pump to a jar that's 1/2 full of diesel. As the engine start attempts are run, I can watch the fuel level move up and down, as well as watch the air bubbles appear. I'm hoping this is helping to bleed the air out. The port on the fuel filter that the return line connects to has been closed off, so no new source of air is introduced. I have not had much luck with this arrangement yet. I am starting to worry that I messed something up the last time I had it running and it got a little rough-sounding. To me, it sounded like it was running out of fuel, so I shut it off. Maybe something more worrisome happened. :(

That's it for now. If you have any ideas for why its not catching, I'd love your input. They say insanity is repeating an action with a different result expectation. With that, I'll keep trying to start this thing while trying to think of what could be the cause other than air in the fuel system.

Pictures:
top - where the fuel filter was mounted before. Note the clear plastic filter has some air in it.
middle - fuel filter in the Jetta.
bottom - new fuel filter location to mimic the height of the filter in the Jetta

brakes hosed

2010-09-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

I was able to grab a couple of hours since that last post. In that time, I replaced the front rubber flex hoses and figured out why the engine won't run for more than a few seconds.

Brakes Hosed
The front flex hoses are much easier to replace than the rears. The rear flex hoses are a good foot from the outer edge of the bus, so you really need the bus lifted to get to them. The left and right hoses aren't the same, so you need to be very careful when you purchase, and match them up during the replacement. The front hoses, by contrast, are identical and they can be reached around the tire when the bus is on the ground. The process of removal and replacement is pretty much the same for the fronts as the rears, though. First, hit the joints and the C-clips with PB Blaster. Wipe the excess off, and then disconnect the flex hose from the wheel-end using a 9/16" wrench and a flare wrench. Catch the fluid in a pan, and disconnect the C-clip. Then, disconnect the upper end and pull the C-clip. Install is the reverse, and be sure to get the C-clips in there; they are very important in holding the connections to the body, and removing any stress from the joint between the flex line and the hard lines.

Air Brakes
After the lines were replaced, I started topping off brakes fluid. Just from the flex line and the wheel cylinder replacements, the brake reservoir was nearly empty. We never want that to happen. So, I poured in some fluid and waited while the bubbles gurgled up. After a few rounds of this, I started filling, sealing the system and pumping the brakes... and then waiting for the gurgling. This removed much of the air, but I know there is more trapped deep in the brake lines. This is where true bleeding fits in. For that, I'll need a helper and the boys were both busy. In fact, I was out of time, so I'll get one of them to help me this weekend, if there's time.

Fuel Air'd
So, in the last posting, I mentioned that I couldn't get the engine to run for more than a few seconds. Since then, I haven't been able to get the engine to really catch. I discovered that fuel was not making it into the injector pump (IP) by connecting a MityVac to the supply line. After trying a few different ideas, I realized that fuel wasn't traveling from the tank to the filters. The pump wasn't able to create vacuum because the return line from the filter back to the tank was open. When I vice-gripped that line, I could get fuel. So, I'm adding a fuel check valve to that line. I doubt it will arrive before the weekend, but at least I know the resolution.

I guess that's it. The new job has kept me really busy. With the kids starting school, and soccer season beginning, free time is disappearing. I'd hoped that the bus would be running before the weather changed, but the rains have already arrived (at least 4 weeks early). It seems that if I am going to do much driving before next Summer, I will need to figure out a way of running a defroster. *sigh* I hadn't planned on doing that work until next year, but I don't want to get him running and then let him sit all winter either.

More next time...

braking better

2010-09-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned that I was working on the brakes while alternating between charging and attempting to start the bus. I have continued to do that, and now have the rear brakes completed. I'll cover that work today. I did get the engine to run for about 15 seconds, though, so that's a break-through.

Ain't Broke, Don't Fix it, but are you sure it Ain't Broke?
Brakes on these old buses are not that complicated, but they do require regualr attention, even if everything seems fine. They slowly become less responsive over time if they aren't regularly adjusted, for example. The rubber flex-hoses fail from the inside-out, so you can't see that they are slowly restricting the brake fluid. The fluid itself attracts water moisture, so it needs to be changed every few years. Many times, none of these areas are looked at. "The bus stops (eventually) when I step on the brake pedal, and its old, so I know its supposed to talk a while to completely stop", you may think. That is just dangerous thinking; waiting for a failure.

Brake Fluid
The VW Bus required DOT3 brake fluid. It needs to be bled (air bubbles removed) out of the lines when you perform your oil changes. You're gonna be there when you do your brake adjusting anyway. The old bus brake system is not perfectly sealed, no matter how well maintained it is. This allows moisture into the system, and into the fluid. This reduces its boiling point considerably which lowers its ability to stop you after a few hours of driving. So, when you're getting tired, so are your brakes. To resolve this, every 3 years, the fluid should be changed. This is done by using the same process used to bleed the brakes only much more fluid is removed at the wheel cylinder while the new stuff is fed in at the top (behind the driver seat in the '72.

Adjusting Stars
The old bus has drum brakes on the rear. This was typical in its day. These older brakes were adjusted manually - as the brake shoe wears down, the wear needs to be adjusted in the placement of the shoe against the drum. The biggest pain is knowing which way to turn the star. Follow this:

to move the shoe towards the drum (opposite direction to move away)...
right wheel front: turn down
right wheel rear: turn up
left wheel front : turn up
left wheel rear: turn down

When adjusting, have the wheel raised so you can tell when the brake shoe is against the drum (by turning it). Once you've hit that spot, crank the adjusting star the other direction 3 'clicks'. The wheel should rotate well, though there may be some dragging noise, the brake is well adjusted.

Flex-Hoses and Wheel Cylinders
The rubber lines that connect the hard lines together are rarely replaced by owners anymore. They should be replaced every 10 years or so, but that knowledge is fleeting. The work is not mentally hard, but the lines differ from year to year and wheel to wheel, so order carefully. Most hoses are held into the bus by rusty clips, and the mate point with the hard lines is usually rusty too. PB Blaster everything before you open the system. Get the flare wrench - it will protect your hard line unlike a typical open-end 11mm wrench. Replace the lines and the wheel cylinders one at a time, and do it if you don't know when it was done last. Allow yourself plenty of time.

Baby needs new shoes
I knew the rear shoes hadn't been replaced since I bought my bus 7 or 8 years ago. I did the front brakes when I re-did the front end 3 or 4 years ago. It was that job that spawned this blog, actually. Anyway, 1972 is a switch-over year for rear shoes, and my bus has the "later" model shoes. This is good, as most bay window buses have these, so they should be getting manufactured longer. Unfortunately, I had the older version on-hand, so I need to unload them. The process for replacing drum shoes is pretty well documented in the Bentley book as well as online, so in the interest of length I won't go into it here. I do encourage anyone reading this to buy new adjusting stars, the spring set and wheel cylinders if this is the first time you're doing this bus.

Well, that's it for this time. I need to replace the flex-lines on the front, get the fluid in, bleed the lines etc before the brakes are fully done, but its close. Figure another few hours. Like I said, I was able to get the engine running for about 15 seconds, but that's it. We'll see if I can get more than that. I should have a whole post celebrating that, but I'll hold off until it actually runs for a couple of minutes.

... and we're back

2010-08-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

I may have mentioned in my last post that I was going to be traveling for a bit, so I wouldn't be getting much done on the bus. We've returned from our 10-day visit to Milwaukee, Wisconsin with many memories, experiences and additional pounds around the middle. I'll touch on different aspects of our trip over the next few posts while I get back to work, and back to getting the bus running. This time, I'll focus on frozen custard while my taste comparisons are still fresh.

Frozen Custard
When I think of Milwaukee, the first thing I think of (after the smiling, loving faces of my wife's family) is the frozen custard. Folks in the Pacific North West don't have access to this special cold treat, and I have had a hard time explaining it. The closest I've come is this: think of the step from sherbet to ice cream, now take that same step in depth and creamy-ness and you're in custard. Very rich, very creamy, very yummy.
There are many different variants of frozen custard, and it seems to differ regionally. For example, Illinois custard isn't quite as rich, and is more "ice cream -like", according to a custard vendor I've had the opportunity to talk to Even within the city of Milwaukee, though, there are definite differences. We tried 4 different vendors, but did not coordinate a taste-off of all of them in the same place at the same time. The next time we go, though, we definitely will. Maybe there will be a few additional contestants too. :)

Kopps
Kopps is the hands-down best frozen custard experience. They have 2 daily flavors (like mint chip or strawberry), and the usual vanilla and chocolate. I take my taste comparisons seriously, so I'll only rate them based on the chocolate/vanilla. Kopps chocolate is the creamiest and richest, and flat-out tastiest. Their vanilla is good, but not as good as Leon's vanilla. They have a nice water feature around which you and other patrons can sit to enjoy a giant burger, fries, onion rings or just a custard. 4 stars.

Leon's
Leon's takes a close second to Kopps for their custard, but 3rd in ambiance behind Gillie's. Leon's vanilla is probably the best of the bunch, but their chocolate was over-chocolated. It almost had a Nestle-Quik thing happening to it. Maybe the kids like that better, but I like a nice balance. Leon's is the location that was the basis for "Big Al's" on the TV show Happy Days, so it deserves a nod for that. There is no seating, and the parking runs almost right into the order windows, making safety a question for the patrons (especially children who run all over the place once the word "custard" is uttered). I didn't try their sandwiches, but T had a sloppy-joe from them and liked it. "not as good as Kopps," he says.

Gillie's
Gillies chocolate was better than Leon's, but not quite as good as Kopps. Their vanilla was better than Kopps, but not quite as good as Leon's, so they fall into third. They have seating and a nice parking situation, though. I didn't try the food from the grille, and we didn't have their custard fresh - we picked it up on our way home, popped it into the freezer and ate it the next day. It held up well, but I think it may have affected our enjoyment. Custard is always best fresh :) Gillie's is the "original" custard stand Milwaukee, and their patronage has definitely held up. We were there around 9:30 on a Thursday evening, and they were hoppin'.

Culver's
Culver's was definitely the worst. It was not much better than Dairy Queen, so it really wasn't custard. The food was mediocre and the service was lack-luster. We visited the Culver's in the Delles, so the service should have been extrodinary (the Delles being a major tourism spot in central Wisconsin). Still, we left disappointed.

We visited those 4 stores at least once during our 10 days in Wisconsin. Of them, we repeatedly visited Kopps, trying their daily flavors as well as burgers, onion rings, fries, malted shakes, etc. We really couldn't say enough good things about Kopps. The service is great, the choices favorable and the outdoor dining area the best of the 4.

That's all for this one. I wrote this on the plane home, so I haven't been able to work on the bus yet. I plan to get the wiring to the starter first and then R&R the starter. I figure if I can get the starter to spin from the driver's seat, then the R&R should be easy. Doing it the other way seems harder to test. I'll be spending my Sunday worknig on this stuff, and may have new info by the time this is posted.
More next time -

--Added--
The starter wiring has been resolved, and the starter has been removed and re-installed. I have the air intake and filter installed, so all that remains on that bit is the vacuum nipple (which I need to get from the store). I will be attempting my first engine start after I post this. The next post will include pictures / explanation of the air filter, and more detail on what I did this morning.

Wine Tour, Dew Tour

2010-08-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

I'll be brief today, since I haven't been able to touch the bus since the last post. My sister and her family were visiting last week, and that put a small crimp in that work. I'll touch on some of the visit, and a little surprise at the Dew Tour.

San Diegans Strike
My sister, her husband and 2 kids visited last week, and just left on Sunday. We were able to keep each other entertained for 6 or 7 days. More importantly, though, my kids and her kids had an opportunity to really get to know each other again (its been a couple of years). The last time we saw them it was at their place in San Diego for 2 days after we blew our vacation energy at Disneyland. This time they visited us here in Oregon. We showed them the local lake-side swim park, and had the whole extended family in for a big day-long picnic / swim-fest. Good times. I had to work (new job = no vacation time), but my wife took them around to different attractions here ranging from Oaks Park Amusement Park to Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI).

Yamhill County
I've lived in Oregon since the early 1990's, but I've never done the "wine tour" bit through Yamhill County. I've complained about the traffic snarl in Dundee like all the rest of the non-locals trying to get to the Oregon Coast down US99, but I hadn't ever stopped in Dundee. My wife and I took my sister and her husband there this past Friday. I'm not a wine drinker, so I was the designated driver. My passengers enjoyed Pino from 3 different wineries, and purchased a few bottles along the way (they really liked DePonte). We overnighted at Hotel Oregon in McMinnville, enjoyed a night of music in their main-level bar, as well as whatever was pouring behind the bar.

Dew Tour
Saturday morning, we readied ourselves, enjoyed a breakfast at the Hotel and headed home. No sooner did we arrive home than I needed to truck the boys down to the Rose Garden for the annual stop of the Dew Tour. For skateboarders and BMX-bike enthusiasts, this event is pretty amazing. Beyond the large selection of tents swinging schwag (like Nike, Powerbar, and Mountain Dew), there are the large acts. In the middle of it all, though, is the Nerf Dart Tag Battledome. This was the destination we sought when we left home. My older son competed in the Nerf Tag Tournament during last year's Dew Tour and they lost by a split second to the eventual World Championship team. They were disappointed they didn't win the Regional, but the consolation prize was a set of Nerf guns for each of the team members. Not bad. Since they didn't even know the competition existed last year before they arrived at the event, they recovered quickly and took their prizes happily.

This year, they knew about the tournament, and collected a team. Unfortunately, the age bracket tops-out at 12years old, and many of my son's friends were not eligible. T said, "how about C?" The parents were concerned that if C made a mistake, the whole team would blame him, and he'd be crushed. Still, the other guys on the team thought C was a great addition, so they went ahead with him. They learned to really appreciate that decision, and called themselves the Beta Squad.

In Round 1, C captured the flag once and shot many of the other team with his gun. Meanwhile, he was only hit once. His brother, captured the flag multiple times and also hit the other team multiple times. In the end, the won the first round easily 37-15. The second round proved much harder than the first. The opposing team shot well and had good speed, but neither team captured the flag very much. In a mostly defensive battle, the Beta Squad won again, this time by 3, 26-23. This placed them into the finals against a team that had won using heavy defense and sharp-shooting. They were much larger boys, but they didn't move as fast as the hip-less Beta Squad. In a contest that wasn't close after the first minute, the Beta Squad won the finals going away with a final score of 31-13. As the final ticks spun off the clock, they started jumping up and down realizing that they had just won a trip to Las Vegas for the Dew Tour Finals - and a chance to be crowned National Champions.

That's all for today. I'm traveling for a while, so it'll be radio-silence.

Code Free

2010-08-11T07:41:00.000-07:00

My friend (and TDI Mechanical Guru) Justin visited last night, and we made some progress on the VAG-COM codes. We had a minor discovery with the accelerator pedal controller as well, but overall, it was a very positive few hours. That "red ball" project has moved on, and work has settled a bit. We'll see how long that lasts....

Code Free
Justin arrived before I got home from work, ready to get the bus running. He confirmed that seeing the mileage on the dashpod was a significant step, and was able to get his VAG-COM reading application on his laptop to communicate with the engine computer. He brought a 99.5 Jetta harness with him - the complete harness for the entire car. We picked through the harness and noted a single 2-plug connector that hooked the smaller engine harness with the other engine-ish harness. Connecting this did not relieve any codes, but it reminded us of the research I mentioned in the last post about all of the codes appearing on elements contained within that same harness. We took his 99.5 harness and hooked it into my engine, leaving the glow-plugs disconnected, to test this theory. VAG-COM was unable to find any error codes / faults. For the time being, I'll be leaving the 99.5 harness in-place and removing my 98 harness. I'll find the bad connectivity wire and fix it off-line. Meanwhile, this resolution brought us to the edge of being able to start the engine.

Clutch Pedal switch
For some reason that I really don't understand, VW included a switch on the clutch pedal to prevent anyone from being able to start their car with the clutch out. I suppose there were complaints about this, or maybe this is one of those Ralph Nader safety things, but I think its pretty stupid. Accidentally trying to start it in gear has its own notification system: that uncomfortable lurch followed by not starting. Anyway, this switch needs to be depressed to allow the starter to get the signal to start. In the early TDI (ALH model), the switch runs through the comfort system, which I tore out. The only signal that matters, though, is a single signal from that system to the #3 relay (number 185 printed on the top) which is the starter lockout relay. That relay takes start-switched power (50b) and routes it to the starter solenoid when 12V are applied to the relay switch from the comfort system wire. Since the send-side of the relay only has 12V when the ignition is turned to "start", the relay, the comfort system, and the clutch pedal switch are not needed... in my application. We jumpered across the relay, and got around the clutch switch problem.

Still NOT Starter-ing
After we got around the clutch pedal switch, the starter still wouldn't turn. To rule out a bad starter, we sent a test wire directly from the solenoid to the battery and proved that the motor turned. Unfortunately, we discovered that the spacer that I introduced between the adapter and the starter caused the teeth on the starter to fail to reach the flywheel. I will be removing the starter, removing the spacer and re-installing the starter. Figure 30 minutes, but unfortunate that it stood in the way. Also, this indicated that the wire running from the relay to the starter solenoid had a break in it. I will need to cut up the wiring zip-ties and find the continuity break. Since there are 2 splices, it shouldn't take long to find which splice failed.

Throttled
Our last discovery was that the direct connection of the bus accelerator pedal to the throttle switch was pre-loading the throttle signal. This means that even without a foot on the pedal, the computer thought we were trying to be at about 35% (not 0%). This is because the old pedal needs some kind of pull from the old carburetor to keep the pedal upright. I will add some space between the throttle switch and the pedal and add a return spring to provide that pressure. That shouldn't take me very long, once I find a return spring.

That's it for today. There was a lot of progress, and the outlook is very bright. I won't be able to put much time in over the next few weeks for travel reasons, but I know what I have in front of me. First, fix the starter signal, R&R the starter and prove the starter can turn the motor. Then, fix the accelerator pedal bit. Once I have that, I'll re-focus on the air cleaner (AMSOIL) and air-source for the vacuum and then look for the break in the engine harness so I can give Justin's back to him. As always, thanks for following along and enjoy the rest of your summer-

TDI-FEST: Portland, OR Labor Day Weekend

Dog Days and Catching Rays

2010-08-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

I'll admit that late July / early August isn't exactly the Dog Days of Summer, but it's pretty darn close. After that last posting, my family and I focused on a camping trip into Central Oregon, and didn't really think about the bus. I'll talk about our camping trip some and then touch on some recent discoveries that I think will be useful as I push through the VAG-COM codes.

East Lake
Since the bus isn't running, we drove my wife's Subaru on a 3 night trip to East Lake, in Central Oregon towing an open-top trailer full of stuff for 2 families. I wasn't familiar with the location, but it is 6400' above sea-level in a dormant volcano crater. This crater is so large, there are 2 lakes within it as well as a large central peak (Paulina Peak) that reaches over 6800' above sea level. if you live in the Rocky Mountains, you may remember what those first few days or weeks were like after moving there - every breath counts. I couldn't believe how quickly I'd get a head-rush, or run out of breath just walking at a NYC pace. the Lake was beautiful, and the kids loved swimming in the clear cool water. The camp sites are large (though without hookups, if you're into that) and clean. While we were there, we visited the Big Obsidian Flow, Paulina Peak and the East Lake Resort as well as tooled about on Ed's electric-motored 10' inflate-a-raft.
On a vehicular note, we got over 25 miles per gallon hauling that trailer. 2 weeks earlier, we took a 2 night trip our to the coast with one of those soft-shell things on the roof and only got 22mpg. I thought it was interesting that we could bring twice as much stuff and get better mileage just by changing the way we transported it. The trailer was a 7' x 4' U-Haul costing us $15 a day. Considering we don't have much use for a trailer, nor a place to store it, renting one was a great solution for us. We'll be doing that again, I'm sure.

VAG-COM Discoveries
If you read my last posting, you'll remember that I was able to get the main electrical systems to power up. Unfortunately, I received 6 different codes that need to be resolved for reliable running. After investigating these codes through the internets, I think I have been able to determine a pattern for 2/3 of them:

00765 - Modulating Piston Movement Sensor (G149) Intermittent

01268 - Quantity Adjuster Upper Limit (N146)

01268 - Quantity Adjuster Lower Limit (N146)
00626 - Glow Plug Indicator Open or Short to Ground Intermittent
All of these codes could be caused by a short in the harness dealing with the injection pump. When next I get a few hours, I'll start working that harness with the multi-meter and find the bad ground / short to the engine.

00522 - Engine Coolant Temp Sensor Open or Short to +
This could be a simple case of an air bubble around the sensor. Since the coolant pump hasn't actually tried to work the fluid around, there are probably lots of air pockets that need to be flushed out. Once the 4 codes above are dealt with, I think starting the engine and getting the air out will be next, and this code should disappear through that process.

00626 - Glow Plug Indicator Open or Short to Ground Intermittent
This could be one or more bad glow plugs. I remembered that I used this engine as a glow plug donor when I was trying to clear this (or a similar) code on my 2000 Jetta so it could clear DEQ. I probably took one or more of the good ones and left one or more bad ones in this engine. I'll deal with this last, after the other codes are gone. It could require a new glow plug harness, but I thought I already did that on this engine. I'll have to check my old posts :)

That's it for now. Work has been very hectic, trying to get up to speed while juggling a "red ball" project. Hopefully, things will settle a little bit now that the red-ball is over, but to that respondent's point, corporate America is always hungry for your time.

Mental Notes Get Lost Too

2010-07-23T22:05:00.001-07:00

Back when I was going through the electrical stuff, there were a few things that I didn't identify from the ETKA diagrams. Basically, they weren't in the drawings. If you aren't familiar with the ETKA, its a software program that has drawings of sections of VW and Audi (and a few other non-US vehicles) vehicles. Included in the drawings, there are drawings of the wiring cables with the plugs, and even a brief description of what the plug is (or may be) connected to. Unfortunately, some of the plugs on my harnesses are not on the drawings. When I encountered these, I said "I'll figure that out later". Well... later is now, for some of them. I'll get to that along the way, but first a few things I've done over the last couple of weeks.

Prep for Starting

I figured fluids were the next logical step, assuming everything was ready to go. After getting back from another weekend camping on the Oregon Coast, I grabbed a couple gallons of distilled water and a gallon of diesel, and headed for the bus. The oil was pretty simple. Since the engine orientation is the same in the bus as it is in the stock vehicle, its just a matter of pouring it in the fill hole and checking the levels. I should need to add a little more once it has been started, since there is no oil pressured into any of the lines. Justin and I have already talked about changing the oil pretty soon after the first start anyway since the engine has sat so long. I then used a mity-vac to force diesel into the large filter from both sides. It didn't seem like much got in, but we'll see. Last, coolant. 2 1.5L bottles of PentaFrost(++) G12 and 3L of distilled water. I suspect some air pockets, so I have an extra bottle of coolant and more distilled water. Seemed like I was ready...

Tuesday with Justin

After getting things as close as I thought I could get the bus for a test start, I reached out to Justin (TDI guru) to help me with the initial start of the bus. He stopped in after work on Tuesday, and we set to looking at where we're at. He seemed pretty pleased with the layout so we set to trying the electrical. Our initial tests were very positive - the ECU (or DFI, in the wiring diagrams) didn't fry; it powered up when the ignition was switched to "run", and we were able to run VAG-COM diagnosis on it. Unfortunately, we got a few codes, and we were unable to get the dashpod to recognize power. I'll detail the codes below, as I am still getting those codes. When Justin left, he said "keep looking for the cause, and when you get the dash to show you the milage when the battery is hooked up, you're ready for me".

Small Success

Justin and I worked until twilight trying to find the power break that was causing the dashpod to fail. Today, I traced the wires from the glow plug relay and realized that they terminated in one of those plugs I couldn't find in the ETKA. I then ran my fingers along the cable bundle from the glow plugs towards the ECU and found a corresponding 2-prong plug. I plugged them together and re-tested what happens when the battery is tied in again. I saw milage on the dashpod. Sweet! Just to satisfy curiosity I hooked up my freeware VAG-COM to see if any of the codes went away. Nope. Ah well... more to look into next time around. If you recognize any pattern in the codes, please let me know. I noticed that all of the offending sensors are in the same harness, and some of them tie together. More when there's more...

VAG-COM error output:

01050 - Glow Plug monitor intermittent

01268 - Quantity Adjuster Upper Limit (N146)

01268 - Quantity Adjuster Lower Limit (N146)

00765 - Modulating Piston Movement Sensor (G149) Intermittent

00522 - Engine Coolant Temp Sensor Open or Short to +

00626 - Glow Plug Indicator Open or Short to Ground Intermittent

Inch by Inch

2010-07-08T19:17:00.001-07:00

Row by Row... gonna make that westy go.

After that last posting, I had Monday off. I was planning to drive my son T to camp, but last minute his mom chose to car-pool to camp, so I had the day with my other son, C. C spent most of the day playing outside in the neighborhood with his friends (checking in on me from time to time), so I suddenly had a bunch of time to finish things up... or so I thought.

Ignition control
After digging through the wiring diagrams and internet advice, I settled on my own way of dealing with triggering the ignition. I decided that the best way to pretend the key was turning was to connect the circuits with relays that are triggered from the original switch. To make this possible, I took apart the NewBeetle ignition switch. This is actually much easier than you'd think. 2 tiny bolts and the switch mechanism comes apart. This allowed me to test which pin showed resistance when the key was turned. From this, I drew a diagram (which was then confirmed with my friend's drawing). With 2 Radio Shack relays, I wired up the corresponding sockets in the ignition switch plug (in the main harness) so that when the bus ignition is turned to run, the "15" circuit, the lights circuit and the warning buzzer circuits are all fed power from "30". When the bus key is turned to start, the 50b circuit and the "15" are powered from the "30".

Grounding
There are many many ground wires in the TDI engine stuff. Many, if not most, wire together into big bundles with ring terminals on them. Many wires, though, were cut as I removed chunks of the harness, so I had to wire these back into the mix. Also, there were the grounds for the 2 relays that I added above. I simply drilled a hole in the body inside the westy closet and threaded a bolt through from the underside (above fuel tank on driver side). The ring terminals dropped onto the bolt and I threaded a nut on top. Easy peasey.

Coolant Shmoolant
I went back to the engine bay to admire my work and mess around with the vacuum (move the ball so there's more room for the air intake) when I noticed that the bracket that I fab'd for holding the coolant bottle was broken. Me bad welder. Rather than grid it all down and re-weld it, I cut 2 new tabs from some 1" steel bar I had lying around and riveted them into place. I figured that if they start to get wobbly, I can always lay down some weld along the edges. While I had the bottle out, I decided to get the temperature sensor in the coolant-to-radiator send line rotated and tied into the electrical system. So, I did that too. Funny how just looking at something creates a few hours of work.

Now, I feel like I'm where I said I was in my last post: very close. I have ordered some intake rubber so I can tie-in the MAF (Mass Air Flow) sensor and an air filter. I thought I had an air filter solution, but it won't fit, so I'm looking at ordering a cheap import cone filter for now. We'll see. Meanwhile, I've made contact with my old friend Justin to come over for the initial firing of the engine. We should be ready for that in a couple of weeks. I figure I need some time to get the fluid in, but also to get the intake completed. I'd like to clean up the wire mess in the westy closet, but now that I have a cover for it, I doubt that will ever happen. I will at least verify the relays and fuses before I start it up though.

I'll post again when there's some thing interesting gonig on. I'm off camping tomorrow night with C, so I don't think the bus will get much of a look-see until next week.

Pictures:
top - the inside of the ignition switch, showing the pins
middle - my diagram for what pin corresponds to which slot in the ignition plug
bottom - the inside of the westy closet with the cover in place. the 2 wires are for the NB dashpod. There's another one (not visible in the picture) of the OBDII plug.