Rack 'em, Snow Bum

Sure, I know its August.  Yep, most folks are taking vacations or at the least thinking about the sweltering heat.  Even here in usually-temperate Oregon, the humidity has been over 65% (which is downright humid for these parts in August).  Sweaty.  It reminds me of my old lawn-mowing days in upstate New York with 80%+ humidity, 80*+ temps.  To combat the weight of the dog-day heat, I think cool thoughts.  T and I will talk about the drop into the bowl on the Thunder run at Timberline or Ski Bowl's Lower Surprise trail.  It's funny how talking about losing an edge and cartwheeling downhill in deep powder can cool you off.  I spent yesterday afternoon in my 90* garage building a ski/board rack for the bus.  I'll detail that today.  Stay cool my friends.  2013-2014 Fusion season passes go on sale in less than 3 weeks (Sept 3rd!).

Starting with What?

thinking about it

The bus was a 1972 Westy when I first bought it.  It ran a 1700CC air-cooled non-original engine with a Weber 32/36 Progressive carb, 009 dizzy and a worthless heat-exchanger exhaust (65HP, 18mpg @best).  It had the original 1972 Westvalia interior and canvas bellowed pop-top.  Today, it runs a 1.9L TDI from a 1998 New Beetle (90+HP, 30mpg).  Inside, it has the rock-n-roll bed, rear closet and refer cabinet from a '79 Westy plus a middle row seat from a Vanagon.  Up top, it has a 1972 Riviera (straight up) poptop and bed.  That may sound crowded inside, and it can be.  Since I've been working on the engine, I have had the rear closet (left side with a front-facing door and cubicles at the rear) out of the bus and sitting in the garage.  This leaves the engine electronics, which sit in the spare wheel well, exposed.  I have a solution for that, but that's for another day.  Anyway, I started looking at the 14" gap between the left side wall and the middle row / rear seat, thinking.... "couldn't we put our ski stuff there?"....

Think, Measure, Think

aligning the rails

I started simply by setting a shoe box on top of the refer cabinet and putting my snowboard on top.  Surely I could make something work there.  I grabbed a set of skis and held them above.  "Yep, I should be able to make 3 racks, each holding either 2 boards or 2 sets of ski's," I thought.  The racks need to be far enough apart so snowboard bindings fit between them, but close enough together so our youngest ski's fit.  That last part proved too much, but he needs new planks anyway, so it should all work out.  Holding the ski's in the air, I made pencil marks on the wall to give me a sense as to where the rails should sit.
I wanted the rack to have some give, so I chose to connect the rails to the side supports with hinges rather than angle braces.  On the other end, I thumb-screwed eye-hooks so we could pull one-to-all of the racks upwards, suspended from another eye-hook in the ceiling by a length of chain.  I haven't completed that part yet.  Last, the equipment needs to stay put.  To address that, I replaced one hinge wood-screw on each rail with a eye-hook bolt run through to the bottom.  On each rail, a 12" bungee is attached from hinge eye-hook to rail-end eye-hook.  I am waiting for the arrival of some bath-tub tread material that I will apply to the rails to make it complete.

parts list

Material List
2 6' lengths of 1x3 cedar for the side supports and rails.
3 packs of 2" utility hinges (2 in each pack)
3 packs of #8-32 x 1-5/8" eye-bolts (2 in each pack)
3 packs of #208 Screw Eyes (2 in each pack) - for rail ends
1 pack of #206 Screw Eyes (2 in pack) - for ceiling
1 8-pack of mini bungee's
some #10 washers

Cuts and Drills
I started with a clean-up cuts on the ends of the cedar.  Lumber yards don't make perfect square cuts, so this is always a good idea.  I cut 2 24" long pieces for the supports and 6 12" long pieces for the rails.  I set one of the supports against the sidewall to consider rail placement.  To make it simple, I pressed the support against the headliner support.  I transferred the pencil marks on the wall to the support. Recognizing that we need 9" between each rail (our tallest binding was 4-1/2"), I lined up the rails 9" apart, adjusting the pencil marks.  Once I had a plan, I set the support back against the wall, held the rails up to see how it would feel.  Then, I pre-drilled the holes for the hinges (making one on each rail large enough for the eye-bolt) and assembled.  I also pre-drilled holes at the top and bottom for wall-mounting.

Installation

testing installation

Once the rack was put together, I wanted to see it in-place.  I discovered that the bottom rail was so low that I had to remove the eye-bolt so the hinge would open enough for me to access the mounting holes.  Hmm.. opportunity for model improvement.. I pre-drilled one hole in the wall and mounted the rack with a 1" sheet metal screw.  This held the rack in place so I could pre-drill the remaining holes without the rack slipping.
A test installation wouldn't be complete without filling it with snow equipment.  I put 2 boards (mine and T's) on the bottom rack, 2 sets of ski's (K's and C's) and Boo's set on the top rack.  K2 gets new-to-us ski's this year, so I left his off.  With the bungee's, the equipment sits well.  I will apply bathtub treads to help hold things in place, but it looks like the passengers will be comfortable and safe, and the equipment a-fixed.

That's it for today.  I still have some clean-up to do, but in just 4 hours this went from concept to installed.  We may use the racks as garage wall-mounts too.  Each one attaches with 4 screws.  Neat.  More next time, and thanks for following along-

AirCooled Aftermarket Axis of Evil (Part II)

It seems like there are 3 different things that all get changed around the same time by folks that mean well, but don't realize they're doing their air-cooled VW a disservice. Maybe they got misled by some flashy advertisement. Maybe they were talked into it by a mechanic that "used to race" so he knew what he was doing. Regardless, if you find one of these aftermarket modifications, the odds are very good that the other 2 have been made as well. This is part II of a 3 part series dedicated to the different AirCooled Aftermarket Axis of Evil modifications.

Evil Aftermarket Modification #2: 009 distributor (010 and 050 too)
Some folks still swear by them. I swear at them. John Muir said the mechanical advance distributor was better than the vacuum/mechanical because the introduction of the vacuum was really for lazy people. Well.... I'd have to disagree. If you have one of these distributors, you probably find that you have almost no power at the very bottom of the RPM range. Pulling away from a stop sign requires that you really goose the gas. If you've always had a mechanical-only advance distributor (009, 010, 050) you may not realize the this is not how a VW is supposed to run. The vacuum is needed because the mechanical advance is too slow at the beginning of the curve, causing the bog-down effect from a full stop.

How do I recognize this evil?
There will not be a vaccum can on the side. The vacuum can is a circular brass thing (looks almost like a hockey puck) stuck to the side of the distributor near the top where the cap clicks on. Its about 2 inches across and has a little hose coming out of it that connects to your carb or fuel injection somewhere. Some distributors have a vacuum retard as well so there may be more than one hose. The important part is that you have a hose going from the distributor to something else. A 009, 010, and 050 have no hose, just wires... and bad times.

How do I eradicate the evil-doer?
Simply, toss it in a box and get a distributor with a vacuum advance component. Don't sell it or the terrorists win! Your local steel recycler is your ally! There are aftermarket replacement distributors that have a vacuum component. For example, I got a SVDA (Single Vacuum Dual Advance) from aircooled.net for about $150. You can get the stock distributor, but I've found them to be more expensive. The stock part number is 021905271 with a letter on the end that differs depending on your model year. You can find these new at BusDepot or used at theBusCo, BustedBus or Bus-Boys. Installing a distributor isn't as hard as it sounds. Just get your engine to top-dead-center (TDC) - that's where your engine is ready to fire in cylinder #1. Remove the old distributor and put the new one in. The guys at AirCooled.net supplied many pages of instructions, so this was a short afternoon's work to get it into my bus and running right. If you go the stock distributor route, there are decent instructions in the Bentley service manual for installing it. I took this opportunity to switch from points to electronic ignition. It cost $70 for the kit and an additional $10 for the labor at AirCooled to put it into the SVDA, but I like the fact that I don't have to mess with points when I do a tune up. Besides, I think the electronic ignition gives a better spark.

How to set the timing once the distributor has been installed has been a topic of great debate. I have found that setting the timing just retarded from the spec for the engine code has been the best for me. Advance too far, and you overheat. Overheat, and you're walkin'. Every bus has a different combination of parts if you aren't strict-stock, so your timing may not be exactly by-the-book either. Static timing of an 009 is practically impossible, so by removing this evil, you're actually making your bus more owner-maintainable. I've carried my old 009 around in my parts bin (the big cabinet under the Westfalia rock-n-roll bed) for 2 years just in case I needed it. I don't need it anymore, but selling the 009 is spreading the wrong message (letting the terrorists win), so its going to the steel recycler. Maybe, though the wonders of recycling, it can become an instrument of freedom.

Next time.... Evil AfterMarket Modification #3