Back Together, Test Drive

In my last posts, I covered the hazardous re-assembly of the engine-to-transaxle and the install of the combined unit at 15*.  Today, completes that journey.  In order to do the re-assembly as quickly as possible, I tried doing it a little differently.  I usually do system by system.  This time, I did it based on where I was and did everything I could before I moved.  I'm not sure I'll do that again, but it was interesting.  I cleaned every part with brake cleaner before installing it.  It made a world of difference, and I'll do that every time now.  Handling a clean part is just so much better than the oily, greasy alternative.

Lower Right Rear

Starting below the right side of the engine, there are a few things to do, starting with the CV joint.  I place a jack under the lower shock-absorber mount and lift until the tire just barely leaves the ground.  Then, with 6 new Allen-head bolts (one striped last time), attach the CV joint to the side of the transaxle and drop the tire back onto the ground.  At the front of the transaxle on the right side, is the ground strap.  It requires a 13mm socket.  Install the starter.  It requires a 17mm socket (need to verify) for the 2 bolts plus a 13mm for the B+ cable from the battery.  Plug in the trigger signal wire to the starter.  Connect the B+ wire to the Atlernator and plug in the sensor wires.  Double check all the other visible sensor wires (like on the cooling system) are plugged in.  Last, zip-tie the cooling pipes up out of the way from the axle.

Rear

Put in the rear support bar.  Don't forget to put the rear bumper mounts back in when you do the bar; they use the same bolts.  Install the support tower and the rear engine-frame mount.  If you get this far and the mount isn't lining up, check the support bar install.  If the mount and tower are on different angles, you probably mated the engine to the transaxle at something other than 15*.  Go back one posting :)  Once the rear mount is in, hook up the exhaust.  The muffler pipe has a hook that fits onto the rubber mount which is hanging off the right side of the rear support bar.  Once hanging, it should fit with enough room to maneuver the rest of the pipe without it hitting the ground nor the bus and no jacking required.

The exhaust-to-turbo mating has a gasket and 3 13mm nut/bolts.  One mount is a stud coming out of the turbo.  Because of the design, at least one of the 13mm needs to be tightened with a wrench instead of a socket.  Next comes the intake system.  Start with the non-charged air pipe from the air cleaner to the turbo.  This is held on with 10mm bolts, and most of the work is from above rather than through the rear hatch.  Next, the charged-air plumbing with the intercooler is most easily installed as a unit.  Slide the turbo-end on first, then set the intercooler and complete the system to the intake last.  The pipe clamps are a combination of slotted-screwdriver and 10mm socket.  The intercooler is held in place with bailing wire (yes, bailing wire) looped between the mounting hole on the intercooler and the open loop in the engine mount attached to the engine.  This allows for the vibration of the entire system to resonate as one.  Route the vacuum to the turbo and snap it into the channels on the plastic tubes.

Lower Left Rear

Shifting back under the bus, repeat the CV joint process for the left side.  Verify what's been done thus far from the new perspective: the turbo plumbing, the air system, the vacuum.  Hook up the bowden tube and the clutch cable to the clutch activation arm.  If you run out of adjustment threads, you need some head-washers (I used 4) between the bowden tube and the mount it slides into.  That mount is held on with 2 13mm bolts.

Lower Middle
Mount the nose of the transaxle.  Plug in the reverse wires for the reverse light switch.  Don't brain yourself on the radiator.  Thread the short hollow tube to connect the gear selector at the front of the transaxle to the long gear shift tube coming from the front of the bus.  Zip-tie the tube into place.  I'm sure that last line will upset some purists (as if the whole project hasn't already), but the original bolt/nut solution falls out; the zip-tie doesn't.

From Above

There's little left now.  Mount the coolant overflow bottle, verifing the top coolant line runs where it's suppoed to.  Plug the sensor into the bottle.  Note the coolant level, and come back and check again if its not spot-on.  Verify the vacuum bulb is set and tight.  Put the fuel filter into it's mount and tighten it down, making sure that the lines run properly.  I have a cheap $1 clear filter in front of the spendy stock filter to extend its life, but it also shows me that fuel is getting that far.  I check that for a fuel level at this point.

All Over
Last, the battery is hooked back up.  Before that, all of the electrical connections, including all sensor plugs should be double checked.  This is where the "do everything you can see" model falls apart.  By doing it one system at a time, you know everything was done.  By working zonally, you don't really know for sure without checking system by system.  At that point, you may as well have just done it that way.

Testing
This is the part everyone wants to jump to: grabbing the keys and giving a test fire.  The first time I tried this time around, I got nothing: I'd failed to hook up the battery.  Once resolved, he started right up.  I applied the clutch and shifted through the gears.  Nice and smooth.  Seatbelt on, and on the road to test.  There was less noise than I remembered.  The gears shifted easily up through 3rd (never got to  4th), and the bus felt peppy.  Overall, it was a great, albeit short, drive.  I declare the bus road-worthy again.  By the way, there wasn't a single drop of oil on the transaxle nor engine after the test drive and cool-down.  Success!

Thanks for following along.  Next time, I look at the ceiling of the bus and/or knocking the dents out of and painting the rear bumper.

Transaxle Transition

I heard once that the most productive time in the US is between Labor Day and Thanksgiving Day.  Something like 40% of all work is performed in this period.  When I think about it, it makes sense.  Come Thanksgiving, the holidaze kicks in.  Shopping, vacations, etc through NewYears.  Then, the Winter blues take hold, and sun-seeking vacation get-aways.  Not that I take those, mind you.  Then there's Spring Break, Spring fever and then end-of-school Summer break.  Family vacations end at Labor Day, school starts, so no one is taking vacation, etc.  With this in mind, my work load is peaking, so I've been too distracted to get back to the blog.

Transaxle Arrives

starter adapter on new

I've already mentioned the gearing, etc. in another posting, and that I got it from AA Transaxle in Seattle. Daryl shipped it in a basic cardboard box wrapped in bubblewrap.  Crazy, but simple.  Since I'm living in a condo without a garage, I was in a bit of a spot for doing the work.  Boo had a funny idea of doing the work in my real estate agent's (we'll call him MS) driveway as a motivation to get a house solution.  So... we asked and that's where I did the transaxle swap.  Since I packed my storage space thinking it was only going to be a couple months, finding my tools and the ATV jack adapter was a fun adventure but I was ready to go leading into Labor Day weekend.

Out with the Old
Dropping the engine has become a bit of a predictable system now.  Disconnect the coolant, fuel, and support the engine with the adapter/ATV jack.  Disconnect the axles, lower electrical, exhaust and intake (with intercooler).  Last disconnect the rear engine support and bellhousing support bolts.  Lower the engine and transaxle as a unit.  Once on the ground, I removed the starter and the other 3 bolts between the engine and the transaxle.  Separating the 2 components was simplified with a furniture dolly (covered with a tarp) under the transaxle and simply pulling on the front mount.  The input shaft slide off of the clutch.  I pulled the transaxle into MS's garage, cleaned up my workspace and called it a Saturday.

Prepping the New

'72 stud on left
'75 stud on right

The nose (front) mount on a '75 transaxle is not identical to the nose mount on a '72.  Fortunately, the mounts attach to the transaxle the same way: 2 bolt holes.  The '72 has longer studs, though, so if you do the swap, the studs need to be swapped with the mounts.  The new transaxle was completely redone, but came without a throw-out bearing.  I know the one that was on the original 002 was relatively new, but I put on a new one anyway.  It made a racket during the initial tests at first, but its nice and quiet now.  Getting the wire clips from the throw-out bearing onto the arm takes a little willingness to get after it, but its much easier if you put a longer crescent wrench onto the clutch activation arm and press the bearing hanger away from the depths of the bellhousing.  Attaching the starter and adapter were straight-forward. That old fast-forward adapter needed the custom detailing to fit the '75 002 as well (I did this before.  There's a post in the archives).  I replaced the radiator fan switch, but I haven't seen it actually work yet.  Too paranoid; I hit the manual switch first.

Mating
When mating a transaxle to the engine, it is important to remember one key thing: remove the mounting studs first.  In reading this, it seems obvious, but when you're removing things, its easy to overlook.  After some sweaty attempts to get the transaxle on (input shaft aligning with the clutch), and a beer in the shade, I remembered.  They were easy to back out and slide back in through the ears of the bellhousing easily too.  Once the studs were out, the input shaft slid easily into the clutch and with a little twist of the transaxle, the stud holes were aligned.  Minutes later, the transaxle was torqued down, the starter was wired and the deal was ready for re-install.  I took the opportunity to get the engine harness buttoned down right, and put a new c-clip on the temperature sensor.

In with the New

new throw-out bearing
on input shaft

Classic instructions: install is the reverse.  hahaha... it was that instruction for the control arm replacement in the Type2.com library that started this blog all those years ago.  Raise the nose of the transaxle more aggressively than the engine.  The shifter needs to get over the rear beam.  If you planned ahead, and put the shifter cage on first, you'll appreciate it later.  I hadn't planned, and regretted it.  Once the shifter clears the beam, raise the engine with the ATV jack into place.  Test alignment with the bellhousing mounts, and when its aligned front-to-back, install the rear mounts.  Then install the nose mount, and then do the bellhousing mounts.  That takes a second to write, but many minutes to get done.  I packed the tranny-side of the CV joints, peanut-buttered grease into the valleys where the CV joints mount, and wrenched it together.  All the remaining electrical bits from underneath were all i had energy left for and I called it a Sunday.  Finish the job by reconnecting the coolant lines, fuel, electrical.  Install the intake and exhaust.  Fill with coolant and burp the system.
I've been having issues with that burping bit.  In fact, I spent Monday wrestling with coolant leak issues, and trying to get a replacement c-clip onto that coolant sensor again.  That thing has been killing me.  I think there's air trapped in my cooling system that's creating funky pressure issues and the weak point is the temp sensor.  So, that's where the coolant leaks out.

What to Do with the Old?
On Labor Day, I drove the bus home.  The coolant leak appeared to be resolved, and he drove unbelievably well.  The amount of pep even in the lower gears was fantastic.  We played it safe at first, taking city streets, but he was able to cruise at city speed limits in the low 2000's (RPM).  Just to see how he'd respond, I spun onto the freeway for one exit, and I got up to 55MPH on the onramp with RPM headroom.  Fantastic drive home.  Since then, I've returned my tools to storage, and I have the old transaxle... sitting on the floor of the bus.... making the bus smell like axle grease..  What to do with a viable 002 transaxle?  Sell it to a dune buggy guy?  Sell it to someone who wants a rebuild core?  Welcoming ideas.

Okay, so this was ridiculously long.  Once I add the pictures, this will be epic-long.  Sorry.  I could have done this over the course of multiple postings, but its been 2 weeks already anyway.

looking up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

scattered and dashing

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

after many weeks, Hapy speaks

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.

Clutch Cable Conundrum

I haven't given a great deal of background on our other cars, but now is as good a time as any. This is relevant, eventually. We have a Jetta TDI that we call Flash. We've had him for a few years, and now that the intake has been cleaned, he lives up to his namesake again. Although we originally bought him as a work-commuter car, its been the fam-transporter for the last year. A few days ago, we bought an '85 Mercedes 300TD turbo-diesel wagon that we call Ella. This is the new fam-transporter, that should move Flash back into a commuter car and move Hapy back into a Summer-only funbus. That was how we started the day yesterday, but things got interesting by nightfall.

First, something happened to Ella and she wouldn't start. I had to beat feet home from work so the kids could make their after school events. Ella sounds like she's fuel-starved, but I don't have a filter or anything for this car. So it sat overnight and went off to the shop this morning on the back of a towtruck.

Second, I noticed when I drove Flash last night after the kids got home that the check engine light was on. He ran fine, so I'm thinking its something minor, but I'd like to run the codes just the same. Anyway, with Ella in the shop, the wife and kids get Flash today, and Hapy needed to be the commuter car for one more day. Apparently, that was one day more than he wanted to be a commuter car. Which leads us to "third"...

On the drive into work this morning, Hapy's clutch cable broke. I fully admit, I knew it was on borrowed time. I had recently adjusted the cable and I had practically run out of threading. This told me that the cable was stretching, which only happens at the beginning and the end of a cable's useful life. Since I knew it wasn't new, I knew it was dying. I made a note of it and promised Hapy that I'd deal with it after he was allowed to rest (not commuting every day). I guess Hapy thought I went back on our deal. So, in less than 24 hours all 3 of our cars went from trouble-free to troublesome.

Hapy's first tell was when I clutched to shift into 4th during the morning rush hour and felt a little "doink" through my foot. I knew something wasn't quite right. My first thought turned out to be the right one: the clutch cable snapped, but the pedal didn't drop to the floor, so I was a little unsure. Fortunately, traffic was moving at a pretty steady pace through the Terwilliger curves on I-5, so I was able to stay with it from the Terwilliger on-ramp through to the OR26 offramp. At this point, traffic started to gum up so I took the exit and turned onto a side street. I only clutched once and that was just to get out of 4th so I could coast. This may have saved the rest of the cable and, more importantly, the wingnut on the end.

I was pretty angry at myself for not having kept my promise to Hapy, and the whole vehicular nightmare that we were living: 2 cars down, 1 unknown. After cursing for a minute or so, I climbed into the back of the bus and checked under the rear benchseat for a new cable. Ahh... I had one. I remembered buying it a long time ago "just in case", but I wasn't sure if it was in the bus where it should have been or in the garage. Carry an extra clutch cable, wingnut and clevis pin. I had to reuse the clevis pin, but if the wingnut had been lost, I would have been too - I had no spare.

Now comes the fun part: getting out of my docker-world monkey-suit and into my coveralls to see what's what. There's something very surreal about stripping down inside your bus while the morning commute rushes past the windows. What I don't realize when I'm driving with them is that no one ever looks out their side windows except to check the blindspot. I'm practically naked with the curtains spread wide and I didn't get a single look. Funny.

Anyway, I had my bag of books so I opened the Muir book to the clutch cable replacement section. Turns out he's completely wrong for buses after 1968. I realized this after removing the front belly pan only to discover that I couldn't get to the front of the clutch cable from there. Grr... If you ever need to replace
your cable, the Bentley chapter 5, section 15.5 is right. I was able to pull the old cable out and inspect it for wear. There was an old fray about 2 feet from the end and the end itself was split in 2. Fortunately, the tail of the cable was still there, connected to the clutch arm and the wingnut was still attached. I think if I had gone to town on the clutch pedal trying to will it to work, I would not have been so lucky. I greased the snot out of that new cable while I slid it in from the front. The front end of the tube into which the cable is supposed to feed can be hard to spot if you aren't sure where to look, so make a note of it before you pull the old one out. I could have saved myself a few minutes if I had.

The whole process, from the "doink" feeling in my left foot to pulling back onto the interstate was less than 2 hours. If I had to do it again, I could probably half that time. Regardless, as always seems to happen, every time I do a small repair on the bus, I get that satisfaction feeling of having been self-sufficient again. In
contrast, Ella has been at the shop all morning and we have yet to find out what's wrong. I think it would be terribly ironic if it was the fuel filter. This would just further prove that while doing your own diagnosis and work is important, having the part immediately available is more so. I guess I need to start making a list of Mercedes parts to have around.

until next time...