Sunshade to Shelf

All bus content today, covering a little experiment I've been working on over the last few months, around my various travels.

How it started
Last Spring/Summer, I stripped the interior of the bus, pulled the glass, etc for painting. The result was pretty fantastic, with a mellow gray interior and bright white upper 1/3 exterior. The main 2/3 lower body is still primer, but that's another story. Part of the tear-down for paint included removing the sun-shades from the front ceiling of the cab. As it was, they weren't stock bus visors; they were from a beetle. One of them was broken, half of the fasteners weren't stock... they simply looked junky. But they worked, mostly. With an intention to buy replacements, I junked them. I never bought the replacements, and then lost the few fasteners which were stock. So, I've been driving around without sun shade/visors. In the winter, when the sun hangs low, that's kind of a problem, but mostly, it created a much brighter view.

Basic Idea

view of top before shelf liner

I started shopping for visors. They are not inexpensive. While I was trolling the various sites (BusDepot, Cip1, etc), I would see these "parcel shelves" that were designed to fit under the dashboard around knee level. I've never traveled with a set of those, but it prompted thinking. First, I wondered if your legs ever bumped into them, and whether things would fall off them onto your feet. Neither thought was very appealing. They weren't inexpensive either. But, the idea of more storage in the cab was appealing. Looking at my cab, I had installed a double accessory plug near the right edge of the passenger (right) front ceiling. This was to power a Garmin and allow my passenger to charge her phone. I thought: could I put a shelf above the rear-view mirror?

Starting Simple

finished. view from bottom

The short answer is "yes, you can put a shelf above the rear-view mirror".
When I stripped out the interior, I decided to junk the old wood floor, and leaned it against my shop bench. I decided to use it to try to fabricate a shelf. It is 3/8" thick plywood. Working in an Agile manner, I tested the idea first with newspaper, cutting and taping a mock shelf until I had a rough shape for the front (nearest the windscreen). I transferred the line onto cardboard for a more firm example which I taped into place so I could observe it from lots of angles. This model included a cut-out for the rear view mirror mount so it could slide into place as a single piece. Last, I transferred the cardboard line to plywood and started cutting. With each iteration, from paper to cardboard to wood the front line shifted a little bit. i shaped the rear edge of the shelf to taper at the ends, running straight lines from the tapered end to about 3/8 of the way towards the middle. This left a section in the center that was straight across, parallel to the dashboard.

Mounts

cutting and shaping

Once I had the shelf cut, I started thinking about how I could best mount this shelf to the bus, and concluded that re-using existing holes is better than drilling new ones, if possible. Similar to the evolution of the shelf, the mounts evolved as well. I started with 1x3" wood scrap. This proved to be too hard to work with, since the angles needed to be precise (where the bus angels aren't), and wood isn't flexible in such a small size, so the body roll during driving could cause problems. I resolved to using sheet metal cut with tin snips and then shaped to fit the lines of the bus. The result was a more forgiving mount that could leverage the original holes and fasteners.

Get Stiff
I wanted the front edge of the shelf to have a finished look, and for there to be a lip to prevent things from flopping off the shelf into either my or my passenger's face. I went looking for simple 1/4-round at the home supply store, but their offerings of millwork has really dropped off. I found 90* angle aluminum in 4' sections, though. After a quick cleaning of sticker residue with peanut butter, I cut the angle aluminum to length, drilled holes every 3 inches and bottom-mounted the lip to the shelf. This stiffened the shelf considerably, making the concept seem much more plausible.

Front or Back

installed.
Ignore the mess in the background :)

After I had the front lip, I test fit and confirmed my thinking that I needed something on the "back" of the shelf to stop things from falling out the back/front and either into the windshield or onto the dashboard. Staying with the make-it-cheap mantra, I pulled some roofing paper out of a supply heap, and cut 2 curved sections, one for each side of the rear view mirror. Using a staple gun, I attached these two sections. I added a third much shorter piece to go into the rear-view mirror cut-out. I test fit again. This time, no daylight appeared over or around the shelf. Sweet.

Testing
Before I mounted the finished work, I shot the topside with spray epoxy and applied a rubber shelf liner. Just one more level of protection against parcel shelf contents going flying. The install now was more involved. First, the mounts are installed to the bus body. Then, the shelf is lifted into place, leading with the front (windscreen) edge. I press the roofing paper against the bus body while rotating the shelf flat and aligning the mounts to the holes in the shelf. The mounts are bolted to the mounts from below, using washers both above and below the shelf. Just as I finished this initial install, I got a call that one of the kids needed to be picked up from a couple miles away. "Perfect test," I thought. "That run has lots of turns and speed bumps". So, I placed my cell phone on the shelf and did a 4 mile loop of kid collection, hitting turns and speed bumps with abandon. The phone didn't move.

Reflections

installed

The shelf is a complete success. Out of curiosity, I put an old car stereo on there, and it didn't waver. I still need to really stress test it, but for now, I'm going to drive around with my prototype. OVer time, I could improve the design with thicker mounts or something, but I think for now, in this form, I could install a small car stereo, like the one I put in Flash (See: Flash Gets Sounds) or some down-lighting for reading a map. As it is, Boo and I can put our phones up there when we're travelling and have them on the charger without wires hanging everywhere. Very nice.

Thanks for following along. Lots of personal stuff happening over the next couple of weeks, so you know what that means: few to no new posts, but lots of content getting created in the form of adventures.

A Couple Cards Short

Totally focused on bus stuff today.  I spent the weekend loving on the bus, mostly focused on cleaning.

Interior Plan, or Lack Thereof
In Setting and Resetting Expectations, I set a few goals for the Spring, including getting the front doors sealed up.  Before going too far down that path, I should have a plan.  Well, I really don't.  Still, there's lots of pre-work, so I focused on that while I thought about how this should go.  First, it's gotta be clean.

Goof Off and Rub
The inside skin of both front doors were gummy, and dirty.  Years of poor sealing plastic film allowed moisture in, destroying the original door cards, and leaving nastiness on the steel.  So, I started my Saturday with a tin of Goof Off and a roll of paper towels.  The driver door took 2 hours of effort, but the results are fantastic.  While it doesn't look like it was freshly painted, it does look better than most of the inside of my bus had looked up to that point.  The passenger door wasn't as bad, and only took about 90 minutes of effort to get to a better state.

native state

clean

While taking the passenger door bits apart to clean up, I discovered a few things that were not on the driver door.  First, around the window crank, a small piece (about 1-1/2 inches by 3 inches) of foam was glued to the door.  I figured that was to keep drafts out.  Then, between the crank handle and the foam, I found a small plastic ring (pn 111-837-595A).  Our friends at AirCooled.net and BusDepot have them.  Neat.  I'll need another one of those for the driver side.  Maybe I'll get a new crank too, since my driver's one is kind of broken.

More Sound Dampening

note black mat near front
foil-insulation in the middle

I had previously put vibration matting into the driver door and a few other areas around the bus (see More Sound Killing).  I have used 2 different types, they work pretty much the same, and they do work.  When I did the driver door a few years ago, I still had some of the foil-backed stuff.  By the time I got to the passenger door this weekend, though, I only had the McMaster-Carr stiff rubber sheet.  Still, I covered over half the steel with one or the other.  On top of that, I glued closed-cell shiny-foil insulation I got at Home Depot (like this) with spray epoxy-glue.  While it doesn't really have an R-value, it is effective at keeping noise down, and keep direct sun-heat down.

Roll Your Own Door Card?

Once the doors were clean, and sound-proofed, all that remained was applying the plastic and putting in the cards, right?  Well, what if you don't have any cards?  Or, in my case, just one ratty card?  Back to Home Depot for a 3' x 8' sheet of 1/8" MDF.  I had an adventure getting the sheet into the Jetta, but I'll go into that another day.  I simply laid the sheet on the garage floor and traced my ratty old card with a pencil.  With my Dremel, I cut along the line.  I should have used a different attachment, but I got it cut, and the primary holes (door pull, window crank & latch) created.  It took me about an hour, but I still need to place the mounting holes.  I could buy a pair of pre-cut MDF cards from BusDepot for $55 plus shipping (link here).  In the end, it will cost me more in time, but just barely.  I think the numbers really become interesting when I look at all of the missing interior bits.  BusDepot offers the full set of MDF for $200 plus shipping (link here) and shipping to the PacNW is quoted at only $15 by their site.  Compelling, but that shipping amount couldn't be right.  I may have to wait while I pull together the cabbage to do the full set.  Even then, the full set doesn't have bits for the sides in the storage area, so I'll be making my own with the leftover MDF I got at HomeDepot.

That's about all I have time for today.  I drove the bus to work today, and he ran like a champ.  The rains return tomorrow, but today, we can smile in the sunshine.  Thanks for following along...

Switcheroo

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.

Radiator mounting planned

I was fortunate to get a couple of hours on Sunday with limited distraction, so I rolled under the bus between showers and I believe i have a plan for mounting the radiator under the bus. I ran out to Lowes, got a bunch of hardware, and started what I believe to be the final run on the brackets before installing this beast. Most of today's post will deal with that. I have no further news about Tom or Marianne. My wife will be traveling to visit with them in a few weeks, so she'll dig up what's really going on when she's there.

Concerns
One of my lingering concerns about mounting a radidator under the bus is that it will be subjected to road debris abuse. Beyond just simple plastic bags, and gravel, there can be large obstacles in the road. I've seen mattresses, sheet rock, lumber, a ladder, etc, all in the last year on the Oregon highways. Add to that the ice and snow that we got last winter, where my Jetta was getting high-centered by the mid-road snow pack, and I think the concerns are justifiable. I have looked at many designs by different people, and they seem to fall into 2 categories: avoidance and strength.

Avoidance
The under-mount radiator designs that follow this pattern are purposely placed as flat as possible, and as close to the floor of the bus as possible. These achieve some degree of safety because the debris can't really get to them. The downside of this design is that the air can't get there naturally either so any cooling is done exclusively by fans. This puts considerable pressure on the system working correctly, leaving little margin for error for a failed fan. Some kind of fan monitoring should be used to indicate when the fans are on / off at the dashboard so the driver can know when the fan(s) has failed.

Strength
The under-mount radiator designs that follow this pattern are angled to catch the air, and have a cage of sorts around the radiator. This cage deflects debris from getting to the radiator, in theory. I would think that there is the possibility of high-centering or having the entire thing ripped off by passing debris, if the debris is something like a tree stump or some other non-movable object. These do have the benefit of naturally grabbing some air on its way by, so they can operate with some success if a fan(s) fails.

Flexibility
This is the pattern that I'm going to try. It is a take on the strength pattern, but allows for travel within the mounting so that the radiator mount can partially absorb, and partially avoid debris. This pattern should allow for natural air passage and the use of fans like the "strength" pattern, but with the ability to move up and down if a tree stump or other immovable object is traversed.

Implementation
First, I made the bracket relatively simply - it is just a simple "c" wrapping each of the 4 mount points on the radiator. These "c" wrappers then tied into one of 3 brackets - one for the front and 1 for each of the 2 rear. The front is a basic square tube the should assist in the strength of the front bracket while partially obstructing the temperature sensor from direct contact by flying debris. I covered this in previous postings.

To these brackets, I have attached eye-hooks. These eye hooks will connect, through chain, to eye-hooks that are connected to the cross-members under the belly of the bus (the point at the cross-member will be re-enforced with some extra steel). This chain will add the flexibility to move. To prevent the radiator from bouncing up into the floor of the bus, I will add a rubber travel-stop (think snubber from the front end). I will be able to vary the depth of the angle of the front end by adding or removing chain links. I have selected chain and single-links that can handle up to 450 pounds. Anything less seemed too thin and anything more seemed excessive.

Protection
Across the front bracket, I will attach a larger round pipe (like a 16" stretch of fencepost). This will serve as a bumper that will absorb the initial contact with the immovable object and cause the front lip to bounce up - at least that's the theory. Behind the post, I'll put in a security screen style grid to prevent larger rocks from getting past and into the radiator area.

Shrouding
Last, surrounding the floating radiator, I will put a small cowling / shroud. This will help guide the air to the radiator and keep the rad-heated air from recirculating when at a dead stop. This shroud won't be more than a half-dozen inches tall. If it were much taller, it would prevent the movement that the chain is allowing. If I can figure out a clever way, I'll curve the shroud so it rounds off at the top. This would allow the shroud to be taller. Regardless, it needs to be removable so I can get to the chain for maintenance.

That's it for today. I was able to get started on the eye-hooks, but I ran out of bolt-nuts, and daylight. I need to stop at the hardward store for lock washers and nuts. I doubt I'll have much more time before Thanksgiving to work on Hapy. I may not get any time on him for another week, actually, so, I won't post until after the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for reading.

Pictures:
top - the rear brackets with the eye-hooks attached. The long eye-hooks will go into the thick cross member in front of the transaxle
bottom - the front bracket with the long eye-hooks attached. These will be connected via a chain to one of the shorter cross members (which will be re-enforced / backed with some steel at the mount point)

Engine mount tower fab'ed

On Sunday, Hal was able to make some progress on the custom bracket for holding the stock mount to the bus frame. A few weeks back, he fabricated a bar to go across the rear of the engine bay (See Mount Re-started). Upon that bar, a "tower" of some kind was needed to meet the stock engine mount. Now, we spent some time thinking about going another route with engine side-brackets, but we return to the original plan.




The tower is a pretty simple looking box that will bolt to the bar and then bolt to the mount. Some kind of cross-bar will probably appear to help control any torquing, but the general appearance can be seen in the photos. The top of the tower needed to be slightly cut-out to accommodate a dip in the mount. That may be visible in the close-up.




That's all for today. Early this week was spent visiting with or helping friends, and this weekend I'll be out of town, so there won't be any headway until Sunday afternoon at the earliest. Even then, I have a bedroom to paint and a pile of wood trim I need to stain, seal, sand and clear-coat, so next week doesn't look too good either. It can't be all fun & games I guess :)

WALSTIB - 4

The weekend after the trip to Mt. View, we hit the road again into the Columbia River Gorge to see the Dead again in George, Washington. Some say it's Quincy Washington, but either way, you're out in the high desert. Concerts at the Gorge Amphitheater are different from most others in a few ways. First, it is in the middle of nowhere. So, it takes a while to get there, and there's no one around to complain if the band plays "too late". Second, it is one of the few camping venues left. If you pay $20, you can camp overnight in the grass parking lot (watered with those large argricultural sprinkling systems) with thousands of your fellow concert-goers. I'm sure this has a positive impact on their beer sales. Anyway, we drove up the day before and camped both the night before and the night after. Like the last few posts, I'll upload some pictures going to, at the venue and heading home.

Unlike the drive down to CA, we had a 4th passenger with us (my wife), making the drive and the company all the better. My folks stepped up and watched the boys for the weekend, so we had no issues on the home front.

On the bus-work side, I've been making steady headway. I bought some MDF (compressed cardboard-ish building material) sticks at Home Depot for less than $.50 a foot. I think a 1" x 2" x 6' stick cost about $2.80. Anyway, I constructed a mock-up of the radiator mount using them. Its pretty simple: 20" across, 6" drop from lower front edge of radiator to floor, ~26" long. I should have done this in the first place. Some simple measuring lead me to give about 2.5" of clearance from the front edge of the top of the radiator to the underside of the bus floor. This should give adequate room to manipulate hoses, as well as give the exhaust air some space before existing the rear. I mention the 6" drop above because that is how far below the bottom edge of the under-belly the radiator cowl will hang. Since the belly was over 11.5" above the ground, I still have over 5" of clearance. My Jetta has about 3", so I figure I'm ok for speed bumps, etc.

After fabricating a mock-up, I was able to get the unit under the bus and held into place from underneath using my ramps. This gave me the opportunity to look at how th radiator would be in-place, and make design adjustments. I think the clearance will be fine in terms of road exposure, and I can reach the hose bibs. The exhaust side looks really big too, so I think I'm a go. I'll accumulate some steel this week and try some welding this weekend.

Pictures of the mock up, it in place with th rad, and maybe some welded stuff later on...

picture explanations:

top: Mike and Ed wrestling the spare parts bin and camping kitchen into the forward luggage rack. Both ended up being very important.

2nd from top: leaving the lush Willamette Valley side of Mt. Hood / Columbia Gorge, right before the tunnel. cool looking melty picture.

2nd from bottom: crossing the Columbia, I think. Either that or we were just down by the river's edge.

bottom: our neighbor and his friend doing a carabus through Central Washington. That is one nice original double cab.

WALSTIB - 3

As promised.... here are a few pictures from the drive home from Mt. View. In the meantime, there's been talk about another run in late August down to Eugene for the Rat Dog show. Not sure if that will happen.

On the bus work, I have applied the Rust Encapsulator to the underside of the bus where the radiator unit will be going. I will spray some high-temp paint on top of it before I get the radiator in there. Like I said in the last post, I bought a welding helmet, some 1/16" rod and a monster magnet for the fabrication to come. I picked up some MDF sticks to construct a model of the radiator unit. I should have started this way in the first place, I could have been much further along by now. Lesson learned. Once the mock-up is finished, I'll test fit it into the bus. I'll snap some pictures along the way. Oh, I almost forgot, I bought an emergency pusher-fan to go inside this unit in case the temps get too high for the stock fans to handle.

picture contents:
top: Lake Shasta. The water levels look awfully low to me for May. The folks at the small store in Lakehead didn't seem concerned, though.

middle: Belle in front of Bus Boys. I picked up a new rear driver-side window there - this one won't have that little flapper window at the front.

bottom: We don't know what mountain that is. On the way south, we thought it was Mt. Shasta, but it does't have the dual peaks. It was too far South to by Mt. Ashland (we think), so we're at a loss.

More next time...

engine mounting again

Not much headway, unfortunately, since the last post. I found a guy that is in the process of putting a Quantum diesel engine into his '73 bus, though. I had forgotten about his efforts completely, even though it was corresponding with him that gave me that extra push to do this. swiss-cheese brain. Anyway, he solved his mounting problem pretty simply: reuse the existing bar from the old air-cooled engine. Here's a picture of what he built.

That's what I wanted to do. He even welded his own, and has been encouraging me to do the same. Considering the last thing I welded was in 5th grade as a part of an industrial arts project, I'm not sure that's such a hot idea. What I did get out of this, though, was a general design that I can take to someone else. The key, again, is finding a non-flakey fabricator. I did order and receive a used engine bar so we can do the work without having to drop the existing engine and reuse that bar. The more I look at the pictures of the work my friend did, the less difficult this should really be. I just need someone with a welder, some skills with it, some steel stock and a few hours.
Hopefully, my next post will have some good news.

Fabricator Flakes, engine mounting

Well... I said that I was concerned about the fabricator not returning emails. I never heard from him again. Good thing I hadn't paid him for any of his time yet. After finally giving up on him, I hit craigslist.org again, looking for someone else. I figured,"if they're advertising services in craigslist, they must want some business". WRONG! I just contacted individuals thata listed in the services area, described automotive welding/fabrication experience (like building rollcages or something), and clearly stated that they wanted work. Apparently, those advertisers are just as flakey as the people who email or call about stuff you're selling on craigslist. I've email threaded with 4 different fabricators now (including the first one), and they have all disappeared.

So, I started reaching out beyond the Pacific NorthWest. There's a guy that lists conversion kits on eBay (vanamania). I sent him email asking if he'd just sell the engine mounting parts as a sub-kit. I already have the adapter plate and flywheel, so why should I buy his, right? No response. Then, I asked the guys at greaseworks in Corvalis, OR about making some minor modifications to the support bar that they sell for vanagon conversions. They said it would cost a couple thousand dollars and they couldn't think about it until March. If they were trying to scare me off: mission accomplished.

I guess its back to craigslist, hoping someone that wants to buy his kids some really cool Christmas presents will respond to my emails. I realize that I'm not a big-time fabricator, but if the original engine was held up by a simple bended bar with some mounts attached to it, and the Greaseworks guys did the same thing for an ALH TDI (into a 1987 Vanagon), why can't we do the same thing in my bus?