Now Water-COOLed

Before I begin, our family lost a brother over the weekend (14 September). Travis was taken from us too soon, but he left doing what he loved most, riding his Harley on a beautiful early autumn afternoon. To meet him was to know him, and to know him was to love him. You will be greatly missed, brother. On to today's post...

The cooling system for Hapy's new engine has been a journey. Looking back on multiple years of efforts to get Hapy to be genuinely water-cooled, today's post covers what may be the last thing I needed to do. I have lots of links referencing pretty much all of the things I've done, but I probably missed a few at the beginning of the project because many of those early posts covered multiple project aspects.

Initial Cooling System
Recall when I started this project, I sourced a radiator off craigslist for $30 (See TDI - Day 2). At the time, I was even offered the air-conditioning condenser, and it had the original fans. I passed on the air-conditioning condenser, which he subsequently sold, and I removed the fans. I added 2 flex-cool fans and wrapped the radiator with an aluminum frame (See bracketing the radiator and rad brackets continue) and put sides on it (See Radiator shrouded) to reduce the amount of air allowed to slip back around from the rad exhaust back into the rad intake. This sort of worked, though I always had my eye on the temperature. Along the way, I removed a bunch of extra wiring from the original harness that was part of the air conditioning circuit, and added a switch to the dash for turning the fans on.

Troubles

Then the leaks started. I spent many hours trying to solve outlet flange leaks (See Reality Strikes, for example). Ultimately, I learned that the plastic parts were designed to fail first, so more expensive parts didn't fail when the engine got too hot and the coolant expanded faster than the expansion tank could handle. Still, replacing that outlet flange and getting the coolant temperature sensor to seat properly are two of the most patience-testing things I've done on this conversion. Having these components by the fuel tank makes the reach and visibility particularly difficult.

Still, with the system seemingly in-tact, the engine temperature would still climb and not come back down easily. As the miles and years passed, the engine would heat up faster and cool down slower. We had a super-long return from 4Peaks in 2017 (See 4Peaks 2017 - Road Report), and had our first vagabonding experience when we were unable to make it to Frog Lake due to an overheat, and big coolant loss (See Almost Frog Lake Part 1 and Part 2). The whole time, Boo was incredibly supportive, and heroically kept my spirits up. My last, most tragic failure was when I added the wrong kind of coolant. That amplified the problems, and ultimately led to the troubled drive to Newberry this Summer (See Newberry 2019 - Getting There).

Resolution Path
I promised Hapy that I would start fixing the cooling system when we were on the side of the US-26 outside Rhododendron, unable to make it to Frog Lake. So, that next Spring, I replaced the old Jetta radiator with a Mishimoto all-aluminum radiator (See Back to the Bus: Rad Swap Part 1 and Part 2). Things were not that much better on the way to 4Peaks in 2018 (See 4Peaks 2018 - Road Report), but with the ignition fire on the way home, it quickly moved to the back burner. I removed the wiring for the heater fan controls when I did the ignition replacement, believing it was causing large load spikes. While that didn't really change the cooling system, its a change worth documenting. By the time the ignition was done, festival season was over. But before I covered Hapy for the winter, I replacing the fans with a real dual-fan shroud (See Cowling the Hapy Radiator). I thought this was the final solve. The drive to 4Peaks seemed fairly good (See 4Peaks 2019 - Road Report), with temperature spiking at 196*, but the drive home was again spent watching the temperature gauge. We peaked at 205*, but the alternate route through the farm country allowed us to keep our speed (and therefore temperatures) down. The drive to Newberry, though, was enough for me to know that I had not solved the problem, and I really needed to fix it right if I was going to truly enjoy driving distances with Hapy.

Last Solve

In my last post, I described the issues with the fuel I bought in Oakridge (See Green Diesel isn't BioDiesel). That bad fuel held my speed so low, I didn't have temperature issues the rest of the way home. I knew they still lurked, so after the fuel system was drained, new filter system installed and new fuel added, I shifted back to my nemesis: the cooling system. I started with a basic drain and water-flush. Then, I removed the thermostat and filled with water, ran the engine, and drained. I did this a couple of times. Then, I went nuclear and did a chemical flush with Thoroflush. The Prestone radiator flush is weak tea compared to this stuff.

The directions are hard to find on the internet, but it's fairly clear:
Remove 1 gallon of coolant from your system
Mix one gallon of water with the right amount of Thoroflush mix for your application
Add mixture to cooling system
Get engine up to temperature (to open thermostat) and run for 10-15 minutes. DO NOT RUN LONGER THAN 15 MINUTES
Drain and flush with water until drainage is clear (no pink from chemicals)

Seems fairly straightforward. But, I pulled my thermostat, so how long do I need to run it? I was unable to find any direction for this case. I concluded that since my engine was fairly warm (upper 160's), if I added the mixture and ran it for less than 15 minutes, I would do no harm, but might not get maximum benefits. So, that's what I did. I used the water from the 2nd rinse-flush and added the mixture to that, ran the engine for just shy of 15 minutes, drained, flushed, and flushed again. After flushing everything out, I re-installed the thermostat with a new housing and O-ring. I determined that the old housing was slightly warped (possibly from the flushing efforts), and found that removing the hose from the thermostat housing makes re-install 100x easier. I filled with G40 and distilled water, clearing the bleeders so there were no air pockets trapped in the system.

Testing and Proving

gmap image of 99W steep

I wanted to demonstrate that this was the fix. So, I drove around town like a total dick: jack-rabbit starts, rapid accelerations... basically zooming around West Beaverton pushing the bus as hard as I could for a good 15 or 20 minutes. It wasn't until I pulled over onto our quiet street that the temperature raised above 185*F (to 188*F), and even then it was only for a second before it dropped back down to 185*F. The real test came later in the week when we drove to Honeyman State Park, up to Newport, through Lincoln City and home again. I'll post on that trip later, but I'll summarize the coolant test with a simple number: 194. 194*F was the highest the temperature ever got the entire 300+ mile road trip, including climbing the coast range and driving in slow, heavy traffic. At no time did I need to pull over because of the temperature. I did not drive especially gingerly either.

There is a hill climb on 99W between Newberg and Sherwood. Every time we take the back road alternate route, we drive up this hill as our last big pull. Accordingly, it is a consistent gauge for how Hapy is doing. When I drove this hill after Newberry, I barely kept the temperature under 203*F, driving with the flashers on in 2nd gear (25mph* tops). This time, Hapy's temp peaked at 194*F running at the speed of traffic (55mph*) in 4th. In both cases, this was at the end of a multi-hour daytime summer-heat drive. This feels like strong evidence the cooling issues have been solved.

That's it for today's saga. Sorry there weren't any real pictures, there really wasn't much to take a picture of, except, maybe, a picture of the cooling system map. That reminds me, I never did document system-by-system how the conversion was done. Hmm.. maybe I should dust off that documentation effort over the winter. Anyway, thanks, as always, for following along.

Little British Car (part 1)

I've mentioned the move. I've mentioned the job change. Both of these things take quite a toll on your time and energy. Before I left that last job, though, I received that one last, albeit disappointing, bonus. I had received enough to cover my share of T's college tuition and had about a grand left over to piss away on something stupid. Enter something stupid:

Little British Car

sample, but it looked like this

My first real girlfriend had older siblings, a sister and a brother. Her sister used to hassle us about our shared love for Led Zeppelin. Her brother had an old racing green chrome-bumper MGB he had been carefully restoring that looked like the picture on the right here. I remember the family got him a wood steering wheel for his birthday and watching him melt before our eyes as he unwrapped it. As I think about it, that may have been my first within-arms-length exposure to fixing up an old car that wasn't a piece of crap. Anyway, I really liked his old MGB. I liked it so much that when I later won some money on a radio contest, I started making plans to go buy one of my own. Well... the radio contest turned to bust when they learned I wasn't 18, so my dream of an MGB drifted away. Until this past September.

Garage-eesh
As I mentioned in the move-again post, this new-to-me house is 20% smaller than the last one. I have found that the shrinkage applies to the garage as well since the laundry facility is out there. Careful measuring demonstrates that the bus can technically fit in the garage, there won't be any maintenance work performed upon it in there. Truth be told, there aren't many projects left on it that I want to tackle anyway. I really just want to drive it. So, combining the small garage, bus fitment and interest in something new, I went looking for something small. Like a Ghia or a Beetle... or maybe something not German.

Seek and Ye Shall Find
I admit that I spend more time than I probably should cruising around Craigslist cars_and_trucks and auto_parts sections. When I had some stupid money around, of course I went there. I'm always pricing cars in one way or another, so I had a pretty good idea of what I could get in a 30 year old project for a grand. The market for Ghia's is off the chart and even older Beetles are fetching a high price for no-floor, no engine/tranny projects. In the case of MG's, I found a concrete floored barn-car in Molalla, some yard art in Eugene and a few projects that looked like parts car sell-offs. Not exactly the treasure trove I'd hoped for, but with high hopes, T and I hopped into his Subbie and set off for cowboy country.

Molalla

GoogleMap of Molalla

If you've never been to Molalla Oregon, it is a contemporary version of an old west town. For example, if you pull it up on Google maps, the first business that appears is the Molalla Buckaroo Association (the Molalla Buckaroo is a rodeo). Through the center of town runs main street, and this is where you'll find most of all the businesses that operate within the city. T and I spotted a Mexican restaurant (el Charrito), and stopped to eat. It was happy hour, and the place was about 1/2 full. All locals, all friendly. We were seated in a booth, served well and ate well. We figured that since we were in the center of town, we had to be pretty close to where our barn-find lived.

Where in God's Green Earth Are We?
Not exactly. Our Google Map had us driving seemingly all over the hills surrounding Mollalla. We had to turn around a few times, but we spotted a driveway hidden by bushes on both sides. The No Trespassing sign was also obscured, but since we were invited, we turned in and headed down the gravel drive. After about a 1/4 mile, the shrubs gave way to grassy lawn spread out in front of a farmhouse. There was a large barn on it's left and a vermillion (c'mon, it's orange) MGB parked in between.

sample MGB image. Actual car much crappier

That's it for today. More next time...

new engine options: used / collect parts

The final entry of the multi-part posting. This time its about helping me make a decision on Hapy's stock 1700 engine. The choices are below, and this post is for the last 2: used engine or collect parts. I'll have one post for each choice, so they don't get too long. Hopefully, I'll get some good feedback and be able to make a good choice.

1) keep the limper
2) a Raby Camper Special
3) the TDI engine I have on my garage floor
4) a BusDepot special
5) some used engine off of craigslist
6) build one from parts collected off the 'net, parts stores, etc

The final 2 choices aren't really viable, but I'm adding them as alternatives anyway.

5) buy a used engine off of craigslist or wherever.
This is dicey. Obviously, the person selling it has their reasons. Maybe they're just killing a project. Maybe they're selling a dud. Assuming there's a good compression test to go on, a decent engine could be found this way. This doesn't get me any closer to where I want to be, though: more powerful, better known engine. Actually, the best I could hope for is slightly better power, but a lesser known engine. Which is better? *shrug* They can be found for $500, though. That's pretty cheap. And no shipping, but you gotta be fast, know what you're looking at, have a way of getting it home, and cash in pocket. You have to be willing to drive to the very edges of town as, inevitably, that's where the current owner of your engine lives.

Choice summary ranking as compared to other choices (1st, 2nd, etc):
cost (1-6): 2nd
work (1-6): 3rd
power (1-6): 5th
mpg (1-6): 4th
reliable (1-6): 5th

6) buy parts and assemble it myself.
This has the bad side of having to assemble it (Raby) without the power boost, reliability and general well-being found in getting a full kit. For some reason, no other manufacturer has gotten into the space of complete rebuild kits. You can get piston/cylinder (P&C) sets, camshaft and lifter sets, and gasket sets, but there's no complete set. So, you're wading through the shiny magazines trying to figure out what won't blow up if you put them together. There's your recipe for a restful vacation - put one of those mystery combo's in your bus and head for the outback. Uh... no. The pricing probably lands below the AVP, but with assembly. MPG is really anyone's guess... just like the engine :)

Choice summary ranking as compared to other choices (1st, 2nd, etc):
cost (1-6): 3rd
work (1-6): 5th
power (1-6): 4th
mpg (1-6): 5th
reliable (1-6): 6th