Front Bumper (part 1)

In my last post, I celebrated returning Flash to drive-able Hapy to daily-driver status.  With one extra car than I need, I immediately returned Hapy to the garage to start improving his looks.  Today, I'll cover what I'm getting into, but none of this changes my re-set expectations.  I'll have some or all of the front bumper back on the bus in the next 2 weeks or I'll drive him to the mountain without it.

Bigger Plan

front bumper in pieces

I have visions of a new (albeit amateur applied) paint job.  I thought about getting a nice one, but this isn't a car-show vehicle.  I take him camping... where branches scrape the sides... and state parks put short unexpected tree-colored posts around camping spots that dent bumpers.  I plan to take him into the snow where skis, poles, boots and boards will bang against the sides, doors and floor.  In the end, a nice paint job would just get destroyed.  So, I'm at the other end of the spectrum; the $50 paint job end.  Okay, not really $50, but pretty close.  I bought a can of white Rustoleum at Home Depot for $20 and I painted the poptop with it 2 years ago.  I intend to bring that bright white down to the belt line as well as paint the bumpers and camping outlets.  For the rest of the body, I'm looking at Neptune Blue (thanks Wolfsburg West for the color image) or something in a darker blue.  I haven't decided on whether I'll paint with colored Rustoleum or use a truck-bed paint without the non-slip agent.  The bed paint would withstand more punishment, but would probably look worse and would definitely cost more.

Front is First

rubber step: what lies beneath

I started down this path on Sunday after adjusting the shifter.  I set aside the afternoon, and it took me about 15 minutes.  So, I grabbed the plain wood panels I had cut for the rear driver's side window and quickly painted them with the white Rustoleum.  I'll get into that plan another day.  Regardless, I had now stepped into make-it-look-nice mode, which is nothing but trouble.  I found some sandpaper and cleaned up the windshield wiper arms.  "They need paint," I thought and then I looked down at the haggard front bumper.  Dented and scratched, it still had a political bumper sticker from the Bush-era.  So, I grabbed my ratchets and removed it.  4 13mm nuts hold cap-bolts to the bumper mounts.  4 15mm bolts hold the bumper mounts to the body.  On the ends, 2 pairs of 13mm bolts hold the steps to the body.  Last, 2 pairs of 13mm nuts mate the steps to the front bar.  The license plate is held on with square nuts backing bladed-screws.  Lastly, on the passenger side there is a tow hook bolted to the body with the same bolts as the bumper mount.

Banging Around

smashed tow hook

Once separated, I looked at the rubber bits.  They're all original, so 40 years old.  The steps were hiding 40 years of water seepage and the seam-rubber had hardened to stiff plastic.  Once the steel was exposed, I could start getting a sense for how much work there is.  There's a bunch.  I focused on the dents.  Even the small ones were easy to find: there was a corresponding rust mark on the inside of the bumper.  Someone with skills or access to good tools will probably cringe at this, but I grabbed by framing hammer and started backing out the dents.  With one hand behind the dent to feel for progress, I slowly moved the steel back to around where it was supposed to be.  I'm not going to make it sound like I got it all perfect, but in a couple of hours my bumper went from moonscape to dimpled.  I'm not done yet, though.  There's one more big dent and the lower lip near the driver's mount still needs wrangling.  Overall, though, it should look a lot better.  Next, I'll grind out the rust, prime and paint it.

Parting Thoughts
My tow-hook was completely flattened (see picture).  I have feelers out for a viable replacement, but I think its pretty common for them to get smashed.  When I removed the driver-side bumper bracket, I broke-off one of the bolts.  Overall, some part of every nut-washer-bolt combination was rusty.  In some cases, the entire bit was heavily rusted.  I chose to order a full bolt-set from Wolfsburg West for $21 as well as the new rubber steps and seam-seals.

In my last post, I said that I'd upload pictures of the parts we removed.  Well... Boo was very helpful and got rid of all those parts before I could photograph them.  So, you'll have to take my word for it that the coolant pump had all this sealant all over it and the rollers looked heavily worn.  That's it for today.  Thanks, as always, for following along.

Tight Topside

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.

Going Topless

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

Seeing Red, Pushing White, Grooving Blue

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.

rad moves again

The momentum on the bus has improved considerably lately. In my past post, I mentioned that the radiator was going to move up into the luggage rack like the roadcow. I really didn't love that, but I was becoming resigned to it. I pulled the luggage rack off the last weekend of June to prep for welding up a radiator support. I didn't realize how dirty it got up under there. Eeek.

It is removed with a simple phillips screwdriver. There are 3 screws that run through the rear of the rack, through a rubber foot and into the steel top. One of mine broke off, and the other 2 were badly eaten by rust, so I bought some replacements at Lowes. The front is held down on the front lip by 2 screws and 2 bolts. All 4 are phillips heads, and the 2 bolts ( the middle 2) have a 10mm nut on the bottom. These can be reached between the ceiling wood skin and the steel top. It takes a thin wrist, but a rachet fits.

With the rack off, I was able to really sweep off the roof. There were years of built up crap on there. I still need to go back at it with a strong cleanser. Anyway, I hit the luggage rack with soft-scrub w/bleach and a stiff brush. Three times around on the outside and once around on the inside was enough to get it pretty nice. In the process all but 2 of the metal racks fell out. Upon deeper examination, many of them had their rivets replaced with screws or bolts by previous owners. I resolved to remove the rest of the racks, rust treat and paint them before re-assembling. After all this, I'm not going to put the radiator up there.

"What?" you ask. Yeah, well.. I had a friend over that works on more than just a few VW's, and he was convinced we could fit one in the engine compartment. His thinking is that no matter where you try to hide a radiator, it won't get sufficient air flow unless its on the nose. Figure, we're pushing a loaf of bread through space so there is considerable disruption of the air. To think that it will hug the bus in any way, in retrospect, isn't really thinking it through. As a result, any placement would require fans running most of the time when the radiator is on a cooling cycle, so we might as well plan for no air flow. This lead us to the engine compartment idea. Now, this isn't new either. I know a guy that's running a naturally aspirated (NA) / non turbo diesel powered '73 bus that has radiators inside the engine compartment. Turns out, my friend was right, there are a number of radiators that fit in there. Just the '98 Jetta TDI radiator that I have doesn't. I'll be acquiring a different rad and selling off the old one.

The picture is from the Astoria waterfront.

We'll be welding engine mounts tomorrow. We'll make design decisions on the radiator as well. Plus, there is news on the starter front, and the ATV jack adapter. Last, I need to finish the story of the Dead in the Gorge too. Next time will be sooner,