Where There's Smoke...

With a title like that, this post could go almost anywhere. I could ramble about the elections, or about newspaper articles, lying public officials, whistle-blowers, conspiracy theories, you name it. Instead, today I will focus on literally smoke. As in the smoke that has sat outside my house, and up and down the west coast for almost 2 weeks. Fortunately, we were hit with a big storm at the end of last week that washed the smoke away. Still, 10+ days of hazardous air was absolutely post-worthy. Before I begin, Hapy first day of Fall.

AQI
The various Star Trek series like to have moments sprinkled through episodes where they get to say how "adaptive" humans are. While this is awfully self-congratulatory, we see it every day, if we look for it. Case-in-point, we have the "AQI" (Air Quality Index) that tells us how badly polluted the air is. I'm sure this measure has been around for decades, and folks who are much closer to air quality or environmental spaces have known about it and its importance for years. For the rest of us, this is a new number, like when we learned about Kelvin or Hg (vacuum measurement, not Mercury) in science class. 2 weeks ago, someone would say "it's, like, 90 in here" and we, Americans, would all know that they were saying it is hot. For my worldly readers, 90*F is about 32*C.

Fast forward 2 weeks where we have had dangerous air in the Willamette Valley. When it started, we just heard "it's bad. don't go outside" and that it will be gone in a couple of days. Knowing that the weather folks are about as good at predicting weather as coin-flips, the industrious, curious Oregonians searched for something that would give us a little more to go on than "its bad. stay inside watching our program, after this commercial". I first spotted the PM on the AccuWeather app on my phone, but it would only show current state. I want to see if it is getting better or worse. So, I downloaded the Plume Labs app. This thing shows a pollution forecast. While it isn't very good at projecting, or showing historical data, at least it tries. I can see that it will be getting worse, so if I have to go outside for something, I understand that waiting would be a worse idea than just going now... with a mask on. By the way, the picture on the side here is a T-selfie fighting the Obenchain fire in Southern Oregon.

Going back to talking to our friends and relatives, 2 weeks ago, we would talk about temperature and compare how much cooler it was on the west side versus downtown Portland. "It's 85 here". "Oh, it's over 90 there?". That was pre-LaborDay2020 thinking. Now, our conversation is like "it was 350 earlier today, but now it's 460". Or "overnight it looks like it dropped down below 100, but now it's over 250 again." The number itself is super important, but without context a 3-digit number could be super-bad (like over 130*F mid-day outside temp would be) or a 3-digit number could be virtually meaningless (like how many meters from my house my mailbox is). So, what do these numbers mean?

range	rating	description
0-20	Excellent	typical air in Oregon, perfect for any outside activity for everyone
20-50	Fair	generally good for most. Sensitive people might feel some minor to moderate symptoms from long term exposure. So... sensitive folks can take short walks, but no soccer
50-100	Poor	unhealthy for sensitive folks. non-sensitive people may feel some minor to moderate symptoms. Sensitive people should reduce time outside
100 - 150	Unhealthy	Health effects felt immediately by sensitive. Healthy folks may have difficulty breathing or feel a sore throat
150 - 150	Very Unhealthy	Health effects felt immediately by sensitive. Healthy folks will probably have difficulty breathing or feel a sore throat
250+	Dangerous	Health effects felt immediately by everyone. Any exposure, even for a few minutes, can have serious health effects

So, when I tell you that it's 368 here, you understand just how bad that is.

Car Content
I bring all this up because the smoke has been keeping me from my cars. Mostly. After a week of dangerous smoke, I heard that we were going to be getting rain. Before the rain was supposed to arrive, we were supposed to get fog blended in with the smoke. So, smog. Literally. The ash from the forest fires is not a big deal to your car while it is dry. Once it gets wet, however, it can start to damage your paint. So, before the rain was due, and shortly after the fog rolled in, I pulled on my old house-painting respirator and hosed down the herd. I was not looking for clean, I was looking for dust-free. The fog passed, and the rain did not arrive for another week. Instead, we got morning dew, in the smoke. Still, my preventative placement of a tarp on the stripped-to-metal Zed and a tarp on the convertible top of Oliver should help them from getting damaged even worse.

... there's FIRE (Political Rant warning)

One upside to all the mask-wearing we need to endure to protect our fellow citizens from CoViD-19 is we have grown accustomed to wearing one. So, when pollution is so bad that we need to wear a mask outside to simply get the mail, we already have the masks on hand (I hope, for your sake). Thanks for screwing up the CoViD response, Mr. Trump, or many of us wouldn't have had a mask available when the forest fires grew so large that most of the population on the West Coast now needed to wear a mask all the time just to avoid pulmonary issues. But, will this finally get the anti-maskers to put on a mask? Unlikely, based on the pictures of the Estacada gun-toters who are stopping cars they don't recognize and asking the persons inside about their political views. When better to debate politics than maskless, in "Dangerous" air, in the middle of a pandemic, while a forest fire is forcing an evacuation around you, at gunpoint? Really... just... wow.

/Political Rant
Looking back, my first post of this year, or last post of last year, was on December 31, 2019 (See GenXplained). Looking at that post about a dystopian present seems almost prophetic. When I consider how much has gone down the tubes in this country since I wrote that post, it is staggering. If you told me then that I would have spent 6 months working from home followed by 2 weeks locked inside because of a pandemic and historically unprecedented fire season respectively, I would have thought you were a total doomsdayer. Let's not forget the police violence, protests, unmarked vans nabbing people off the Portland streets and protester-versus-protester violence. And yet, here we are.

I have spent my woulda-been-wrenching time watching how-to-paint-your-car videos. I hope I will learn enough to paint the Zed well enough that Boo will want to drive it, and proudly so. Time will tell.

Thanks, as always, for following along. This has been a hard few weeks/months for all of us. I sincerely hope this rough road is coming to an end. Better days lie ahead, I'm sure of it. I wish they would just arrive already. In the meantime, please wear a mask when in public and remember that a mask covers your mouth and nose. It is not a fabric chinstrap.

If You Love... Set It Free

Weird post today, but it IS car-related. Before I begin, today is the birthday of my lovely wife of 7.75 years. Boo, you are amazing, an inspiration and the love of my life. So glad we found each other, and we can enjoy this life together, laughing through the good times and leaning into each other through the hard times.

If You Love Someone (or something)

So, In my last post, I mentioned how T is leaving Eugene for music school in LA (well, Burbank, actually). Similar to my barely-escaped-disaster departure from southern Nevada when I was his age, he had to sell his car for money for that new life. So, he had to sell Nemo. But, in another twist for how to make money for music school, he got hired by a forest fire fighting crew.... and got sent into the bush. So, how does someone sell a car when they are nowhere near it? Consider too, that he is effectively homeless, having vacated the house, and crashing on a friend's couch when he's not fighting fires. The answer? Your dad buys it from you. Yeah, I'm a big frickin' softy, and I bought that A4.

Set It Free

The decision to buy it was actually the easy part. Then, we had to figure out how to get it from Eugene back to the corral. I say corral, because now I have an absolute embarrassment of riches in terms of cars. I mean, this is ridiculous. It's a good thing I have a long and somewhat hidden driveway or my neighbors would be rightfully wondering WTF is going on over here. It was almost like Nemo didn't want to be set free. He did everything he could to stymie our efforts. First, he got his passenger window smashed in... twice, and had the stereo and T's new forest-fire fighting boots stolen. Then, he popped the charged air hose off the intercooler, stranding T. Last, he started leaking oil, leaving spots everywhere, but also forcing regular pull-overs on the drive from Eugene to Beaverton to top off the oil. After an Odyssey worthy of epic poetry, T arrived with Nemo, packed with stuff we'll be holding for him until fire season ends. Oh, did I mention that part? Yeah... my once-viable-as-a-shop garage is now full of not-my-stuff.

If They Come Back

At this point, the expectation is that fire season will end or the start of school will arrive and T will come back to Beaverton for his stuff. That won't include Nemo. As for Nemo, I will be fixing the smashed window, and fixing the oil leak. I may have to do other things, but eventually I'll be selling him... I think. I don't know. Now that he's in the driveway, Boo thinks he looks pretty darn good. With the upgraded suspension, turbo and intercooler, it is a super-fun sled. T did the timing belt and the clutch as well as the master/slave clutch hydraulics and replaced the sunroof while he had it. I did the head gasket, and a few random things over the years, so we have gone through a lot of the expensive stuff already. So.... maybe we will jettison a different member of the fleet.

He/She/It is Yours

Which brings us to what am I going to do with all of these cars. While I may not be at "Rust Valley" level, for a suburban cul-de-sac, I kind of am. For posterity, this is what is currently in the corral:

Hapy - 1972 VW camperbus (TDI transplant from '98 Beetle, Riviera top, '79 westy bits)

Oliver - 1978 MGB (Mikoni side-draft carb, stainless header-back exhaust, new interior)

Zed - 1979 Datsun 280ZX (still in pieces, still not ready for paint)

K'Lack - 2004 VW Jetta Wagon TDI (Boo daily-driver car)

Flash - 2001 VW Jetta TDI (my car, tho with CoViD it hasn't seen tarmac since June)

unnamed - 2006 Subaru (C's car)

Nemo - 1997 A4 1.8T Quattro (up-rated suspension, turbo, intercooler)

Yeah, that's 7 cars. All in one suburban driveway. Again, like my complaints about having that house in Eugene, this is just too far into first-world problem for most folks, and I apologize for any who are offended. I'm a little offended. Like smelling myself after a particularly good hot sweat. Yuck. So, what's the shower in this metaphor? I think it is selling off or long-term lending out cars that we don't use, starting with Flash. Then, finish the Zed and sell it. Last, make a decision on Nemo.

If They Don't,

Years ago, I set out to get a $1000 car for each of my boys when they were entering high school. I figured that they could learn about cars and we would have something to work on together. In many ways, that was true. Psychologists believe that one great way to connect with your kids is to do something with them. While their hands are busy with whatever that something is, you talk about stuff. Before you know it. you're maintaining a relationship through the awful puberty high school years and maybe they learned something about cars. In all of those ways, this worked. I was wrong in one significant way, though: I thought that by putting this time into a car, they would love it more, and want to keep it, drive it carefully, etc. Nope. Instead, I just put my $1000 in a 0 percent-interest account for a few years, so I could spend that same $1000 later, to buy the car from them to finish.

They Never Were

Ultimately, they learned that ...having an unreliable car is a major pain in the butt. ...not having a car at all is preferable to breaking down on the side of the road and then having your window smashed in because you didn't get it towed soon enough. ...having a car in pieces in the garage for years at a time is not really the same as actually having a car. ...choosing between food and car parts is not a choice they want to make. So, C saved all his money for a reliable car that will require no more than routine maintenance. And T? He sold me Nemo and has decided that he won't have a car in Burbank.

That's it for today. As to the house in Eugene, Boo and I have finished the work down there. Our road trip got cancelled, so I will be shifting focus back onto cars. It is hard to imagine the rainy season approaching when it is 37*C (100*F) and clear skies, but I know my time is limited. So, even though I could probably thin the herd faster by getting Flash and Nemo ready first, I will probably focus on Zed so he can possibly have paint before the cold wet arrives in mid-October.

Thanks, as always for following along. I guess the break wasn't as long as I thought it would be. That's what happens when your life-partner works harder than you do, and you both are 100% focused on the same goals. More when there's more-

Hapy Rides Again

My last 2 posts have been about my efforts to resolve the electrical melt-down we had on the way home from 4Peaks. Today, we hit bottom and work our way back to operational.


No Start
With so many good signals, I wanted to try starting the engine. So, I turned the key to run and nothing happened. At first, this was because the wire to the starter (circuit 50) out of the ignition wasn't connected. Once that was solved, things got worse. I tried the start again and everything went dead. Nothing worked. I went around to check the voltage on the battery and it was crazy low, like 5V. Huh? While watching the voltmeter, it climbed back up to 12.5V. I checked other circuits and they started to show 12V too. By the time I had worked by way to the front of the bus, everything was working again.

I was able to demonstrate this a few times, and it seemed like no matter what wires I tested, I couldn't find a new burned wire. "Could the starter have fried," Boo asked. Why, yes. Yes, it could have. Since so much power routes through the positive post on the starter, the electrical fry that smoked between my knees could have caused a short there too. So, I pulled the starter and tried a ShadeTree starter test.

ShadeTree Starter Test

First, I checked for resistance between the positive and negative sides of the starter solenoid. It was infinite, which told me that the solenoid was probably fine. Still, I couldn't find a good recommendation for testing the starter motor on the internet. Most folks encouraged various tests while the starter was in the car. Mine was on the ground, and I wanted to test just the starter motor without all the other variables. So, I tried my own ShadeTree bench test. I grabbed an old battery that I had lying around. It had around 9V charge. That's enough to trigger the start, but not enough to do much else.

I took my jumper cables, and clipped one black end to the mounting ear (ground) and the negative battery post. I clipped one red end to the positive post on the starter and the positive battery post. I double checked the voltage. No change, indicating again that the solenoid is not blown. If it had been the solenoid, I would have expected current to travel through the starter all the time (solenoid broken with the current open) or none of the time. I worked the leads for the multi-meter into the clips on the starter so I could see how voltage changed when I triggered the start. Using a short section of insulated wire, I touched one stripped copper end to the positive post on the starter and the other stripped copper end to the trigger tab.

The starter did not fire, but the voltage dropped to almost 0. I immediately removed the trigger wire and watched multi-meter. The voltage climbed slowly, but steadily back to 9V. Yep. That starter got toasted, but the solenoid was doing it's job: open the circuit to fire the starter when 12V (or in this case 9V) is applied to the switch. I phoned over to the no-longer-local VW Friendly Auto Parts Store and they had one for me on the following Monday.

Assuming the starter was fried during the initial issue, replacing it should be fine. What if the starter was fried by my test-start because something else was still wrong? Then, the next test-start will cause the new starter to fry as well, right? Eek.

Re-Start-er
My fears, ultimately, were not realized. I swapped out the rebuilt Bosch I installed less than 3 months earlier with another rebuilt Bosch from Discount Import Parts (still only on the east side... and still not Hapy about it). I followed the instructions I laid out back then, and the test start provided the same disheartening click noise. So, I removed the starter and performed a very similar ShadeTree test. I used the battery and battery-to-starter cable from the bus for the positive side. I clamped a black jumper cable on the negative battery post and to the mounting ear on the starter for the negative side. Using the same little jumper wire from before, I triggered the starter and it fired. So, I haven't re-fried a starter and so maybe some of the wiring has been improved. But something remained. So, I looked at what was still an unknown around the starter while I re-installed it again.

Wiring

There's the 30 circuit (always hot) that runs to the front of the bus from the positive post and there's the trigger signal plug (circuit 50). I checked the 30 circuit first next because I felt it would be easy to rule it out. The 30-circuit is a red-with-white-stripe wire that runs from the starter positive post to the fuse box. In the Bentley book it is labeled as a "4" thick. That's in cubic millimeters and translated to AWG 12 (see my handy conversion reference here). The plastic on the wire near the fuse box was a little melted or swollen from the ignition failure, but I assumed (possibly a mistake) that it was just from being near the issues and that it was fine. To prove it wasn't an issue, I tried a few things. First, I did a continuity test to show that the wire didn't have a break in it. I believed that wasn't the case and the continuity test proved it. Resistance tests didn't show anything either (very low resistance). I didn't want to run voltage through that wire again, so I ran a long wire from the positive post on the battery along the ground under the bus through the driver door and into the same spot on the fuse box as the red-white stripped wire. This eliminated that wire from the equation as a variable. Then, I tried to start again. Just a "click" again. I tried swapping out the "50" wire that triggers the starter to fire. "Click".

Clumping the Circuits
In the interests of reducing variables, I considered the wiring as 3 large units or clumps.
There's "front-of-bus": that's the original wiring, including the ignition switch, fuse box,etc.
There's the "back-of-bus": that's the '98 NewBeetle engine related wiring. I include the battery in the back-of-bus not because its in the back, but because there are lots of wires routing to the NewBeetle stuff and only one heading to the front-of-bus.
Last, there's the "accessory" that is the deep cycle battery that powers the cabin lights. The accessory is completely separate, only connected by a common ground: the bus chassis. So, we rule that out.
If we consider that the front and the back only connect through a few wires, and I just tested replacements for them above, maybe we can unplug those and test. So, I disconnected the trigger wire for the starter (50), the always hot wire from the starter (30) and the signal wire for switched power (15) from the front-to-back connections, completely separating the clumps. Using my remote starter, I tried to start. "Click". From this, I concluded that the issue was not a front-of-bus problem nor a connection between problem. It resided squarely in the back. That's when Boo dropped by to see how things were going. "Could the battery have gotten affected," she asked. I had been checking voltage and it had been consistently 12.5V, but maybe there just isn't power (amps) behind that voltage. So, following that question, I put the battery on the charger.

Start
I left the battery charging at low amps (2A setting) overnight while Boo and I went to catch the new Incredibles movie. The next day, I re-set all my wiring was back at normal (front-to-back returned, nothing left unplugged, etc), and verified that the battery charger was complete. Everything looked good. So, I tried the new key. It fired right up. Ahh... much rejoicing.

Dollars and Sense

old housing,
melted and hammered

In the end, we add one starter ($160) to the total of the running costs from the last post, and we're approaching $1000. That's pretty darn expensive, but I can't say it was because of either owner neglect nor because of the engine upgrade. The interfaces between the front and rear of bus are very few, insulated with fuses or relays and weren't part of the problem. Ultimately, 50 year old wiring eventually fails. I need to commit to a complete rewire one of these days... but not while there's camping to be had this Summer. As to the total cost, if I remove the wiring harness I didn't need, the cost of the hotel that was just a bad timing thing and the steering wheel I chipped due to being dumb, this electrical repair cost me $295US ($85 for new housing and switch, $25 sub-harness, $25 headlight switch which is another whole story, $160 new starter) plus a $300 tow.

I do want to point out that the 2 major failures found along the way after the original ignition was solved were both identified by Boo. Obviously, she's amazing, but this also serves to illustrate something so important on projects like this: this is a team sport. You need input from a random friend leaning against the fender while drinking a beer pointing at stuff and asking questions. Or, a helpful wife wandering over with a lemonade innocently asking if the starter or battery could have been affected. I'm looking at trees, and she asked about the forest. Brilliant.

That's the end of the ignition smoked saga. While we may have missed String Cheese in the bus, it looks like our other musical (and simple summering) events can include Hapy. Thanks, as always, for following along.

Ignition Re-Assembly

In my last post, I described the tear-down of the ignition assembly of the old 1972 VW microbus. Today's post covers the re-assembly.

Some Part Suppliers Are Better Than Others
I mentioned that I found a bus wrecker in Washington who sold me a lock housing for $75 plus shipping. What I learned when I opened the box was that the lock housing came with an original key cylinder and key. The seller had stored the housing, cylinder and key all oiled up and in a zip-lock baggy. The key works the mechanism flawlessly. They included the small set-screws which hold the housing into the black box. Avery's Air Cooled, you rock. I wish I'd found you years ago. You'll be my first call now.

Lock Cylinder, Housing and Sub-Harness

new plug has exposed
solder so I taped it off

The Bentley has re-assembly instructions. I tried them. They didn't work. The book says to install the housing, then put in the lock cylinder and then, once everything else is in place, install the electrical sub-harness. Yeah.. that last bit doesn't work. The harness is constructed so that the wire bundle comes out to the side, not straight out. In general, that's good, but once you orient the plug to the housing, you realize that the wire bundle comes out the completely wrong way, running almost rear-wards. Holding the housing up with the plug facing you, it comes out around 4:30. Ideally it comes out around 9:00. So, to plug it in, and have it click home, the wires needs to double-back on themselves in a very tight area while you are somehow applying leverage for it to snug in. Physics just won't comply.

So, we do it differently. Before I started, I removed the lock cylinder from the housing and test fit everything. First the harness, then trying the lock cylinder first to see if there were any serious issues with doing the lock cylinder last. Nope. Since the harness was already wired into the bus, all of this was done using the driver seat as a work bench. So glad it's Summer, by the way. I plugged the harness into the lock cylinder and made sure it clicked home. There is only one way to get this all the way seated, with a larger tab fitting into the larger slot and a smaller tab into the smaller. I even tested whether the key, housing and sub-harness would trigger power, so I hooked up the battery and turned the key to the run position. I could hear the click-click of things getting juice, so I considered the test a pass.

Into Darkness

turn signal wire bundle

With the harness in the housing, we now twist into a pretzel to fit the housing into the black box. For reference, consider that the entire steering post, etc had been back together only to discover that the old housing wouldn't work. Recognizing how difficult the tear down was before (3 full days), I wasn't going to do that again. So, the black box is on the steering column with the rubber bushing, and such in place. The housing takes some fiddling to get into the right orientation, in part because the harness is plugged in, but mostly because it is not exactly parallel to the bottom of the black box. It tilts up to the right (towards the key opening). Once the tabs find the slots, you need to press the housing firmly as deep as it can go into the slots while tightening the set screws. This took a few tries, but once it was in the right place and the set-screws cinched down, I could start to see the light out of the dark

Key Lock
With the housing in-place, the lock cylinder can slide home. This is a do-it-once kind of thing. If everything isn't lined up right, and you need to pull the lock cylinder again, its a multi-day job. Things looked good, so I slid it home. It fortunately had no issues.

Other Discoveries
In my case, we believed the ignition fry was caused by either the heat/defrost fan or by the headlight switch. So, I removed the wiring for the heat/defrost fan and replaced the headlight switch. As happens these days, the headlight switch was faulty out of the box. I had to wire both the running lights and the headlights out of the same pin because the pin for the headlights simply didn't work. Also, the new switches don't come with a pin for the idiot-light on the dash, so I wired that into that same pin. Now, when I pull the stalk out one spot, the running lights, headlights and idiot light all illuminate. Nice.

While I was removing wires for the heat/defrost fan, I installed a new switched 12V wire along the same route. Following older VW coloring, I used black, and tied it into the furthest right fuse, the switched 12V for the coil used to come from. Now, when I turned the key to run, I have a nice strong signal for the new-engine electronics. But there was more darkness ahead. I'll get into that next time.

Thanks for following along. I'll wrap this up next time

Ignition Switch Teardown

This will be the first of 2 posts covering the efforts to resolve the damage caused during the electrical fire we had while driving home from 4Peaks (See 4Peaks 2018 - Road Report).

Recall... I looked down and smoke started first as a wisp and then as a billow from between my knees. We were fortunate to have a small road intersecting with the highway, so we dodged onto the shoulder at the corner, turned off the ignition and flipped on the hazard lights. I jumped out to make sure the hazards were on and saw the headlights were lit even though that switch was off. I went around back and removed the positive battery cable, thinking that the electrical was completely borked....

Roadside Findings
As I mentioned in the road report, we pushed Hapy under a tree. While Boo made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I twisted into a pretzel between the front seat and the steering column to see what was going on. The wires leading into the steering column were still hot. One of them was down to bare copper wire from just past the fuse box all the way past where my fingers could reach: a goot foot of plastic insulation had vaporized into smoke. I think if we'd gone much further without killing the electric, we would have either fried the battery or had the fire spread into the fuse box. Either could have spelled ruin for Hapy. As I said in that prior post, getting into the electrical solve required a 27mm socket to remove the steering wheel, so we got a tow.

Home-Drive Findings
160 miles (and $300US) later, Hapy was back in his usual tarmac-paved spot in front of the house. With the camping gear removed, and a good night's sleep, I was able to look at what was going on. My initial fears that my entire wiring harness had failed were not realized. I don't think. The sub-harness that runs from the fuse box to the ignition switch, however, was completely toasted. I concluded that the headlight switch was in need of replacing too, since the headlights flickered on the way to 4Peaks and were on without explanation when we broke down.

Extractions
I started following the Bentley to get access to the badness. Bentley documents this fairly well: remove the horn button and cancel ring, remove the steering wheel nut (27mm socket). Using a gear puller, remove the steering wheel, but they don't say anything about pushing the wire for the horn into the steering column. If you don't, the gear puller will probably cut it off for you nice and cleanly right where it comes out the steering column. Ask me how I know.

With the steering wheel off, you can remove the turn signal housing, leaving the turn signal hanging by it's bundle of wires from the black box. The black box is held to a silver support with 4 Phillips bolts. When these are removed, the steering column can pivot at the bottom. So, it is wise to remove the clip-ring, washer and rubber bushing. At least that's what Bentley says. The top of my clip-ring was so full of crap, I couldn't get to it. Also, that rubber bushing had never been off, so it wasn't inclined to move. Fortunately, the ignition sub-harness had burned so badly that it just fell out of the black box. So, the only things holding the steering column and wires was the column base and the wire bundle for the turn signal. The turn signal wires unplugged and the whole steering column came out as an assembly.

I had to loosen the black box from the column thru judicious use of a rubber mallet. First, I cleaned the top, removed the clip-ring and washer and shot lubricant around the rubber. It wouldn't give without a fight. Once apart, I could focus on getting the ignition cylinder separated from the housing. Now, the housing and lock cylinder were also original, so they had become very friendly. The housing removes (with the lock cylinder still attached) by removing these 2 little hidden bolts from within the rear-most bolt holes that held the black box to the silver support. With a little coaxing, the housing will come out with the lock cylinder still attached. The 72 and later (not sure about how much earlier) lock cylinders are held in with a small spring. This spring can only be compressed through a hole through the housing near the end where the cylinder goes in. This spring can also only be compressed if it hasn't been compromised. Mine was. Badly.

Pieces
I tried compressing the spring in the hole with various pokey tools. None would budge it. Lubricants couldn't do it. I finally resorted to drilling the lock cylinder like a safe cracker. It didn't matter. When I finally got the cylinder pieces out of the housing, the housing was unusable. The fire had melted some of the plastic inside and my man-handling of the housing and cylinder had made it's use uncertain. I figured I'd just order another one and be on my merry way. Uh... no. This housing isn't manufactured anymore. It's not on the internet enthusiast site classifieds. I found one on eBarf for almost $180 (shipped), but the seller wouldn't guarantee that it either worked nor that it would arrive within a month. So, I spent several hours hunting down small VW crackers, and found one in Washington who had one and sold it to me. $85US shipped.

Costly costly
So, the running tally for this mishap.... $300 for the tow home. $20 for that old switch I had lying around. $85 for a new housing. $25 for a new ignition sub-harness. I decided to replace the headlight switch, in case that was part of the problem, so add another $25. Add in the $180 for the complete wiring harness I bought but BusDepot won't accept as a return. Add in the $200 spent on a hotel for the shows in Eugene where we intended to camp but couldn't because Hapy was stuck in the driveway. Add $150 for a replacement steering wheel after I chipped my original during the extraction. AND, I haven't even done the assembly yet, so there may be more costs yet to come. Running tally: $785.

I'm ending this post genuinely more optimistic than I sound. This is an opportunity to improve lots of things as I go. The black box and the turn signal housing can get cleaned up so they look nicer. I can upgrade the steering wheel to one of those fancy wood ones for another $100. The key cylinder will be new so turning the key will no longer be a frustrating experience. All told, the ignition control and the area where I spend the most time will be much improved once this is done. Oh, and the engine will start and run again. So that's nice.

Thanks, as always, for following along.

Chinook Fest 2017 - Road Report

I inverted the road and festival reports this time around, in terms of their writing and posting. The festival was so great, the organizers and festers so nice, I didn't want to color the reader's opinion based on our travel adventures. And it was an adventure... at least getting there was.

The Set-up

Here in the States, we celebrate "Labor Day" as the last long weekend of a typical Summer. It is often the last-gasp for those looking to maximize their sunny season. Boo and I celebrated with a weekend on the Oregon Coast. While this post isn't about that, it is important in the greater context. We didn't get home from the beach until after dark on Monday, and we decided to leave for Chinook Fest the following Thursday night. This prevented any last-minute test flights of the bus, and restricted time for general packing. Actually, we packed Monday night as clothes we took to the beach went through laundry cycles.

Our other prep-work was similarly haphazard. Most of our camping gear had been stored in the bus, so packing the rest seemed easy. In truth, it was, except for forgetting the french press. In the end, that didn't matter anyway since we also forgot coffee. Boo pre-cooked a bunch of chicken, getting up in the middle of the night Wednesday to complete it.

Almost Not a Departure

This summer has been historic in terms of wild fires across the western US. While news people have been highly focused on the hurricanes in the southeastern US, we have seen over 1.5 million acres burned across 6 western continental states. There are more burning in western Canada and Alaska. Those who don't live here may not know how widespread it is. It's bad. You can smell smoke most days, and see orange skies with a red sun many days. Thousands have been displaced, uncounted animals (both wild and livestock) lost, homes destroyed, etc. As we plotted our trip, elevation climbs were secondary to genuinely open routes from home to fest and back again, trying to forecast where the fires and smoke would go so we could make the round trip at all. I found this US Forestry Service Beta site where smoke forecast models can be run. Once you get past the scary fires part, it's really very cool.

This story starts like so many of our get-outta-Dodge stories: with simply getting home from work. Boo had to work a little late, so she hit typical rush hour traffic, delaying our departure a little bit. The gas and grocery stop wasn't too time consuming, though we doubled back home for a few things.
In fact, between the traffic delay, gas, groceries, final packing and the double-back, the sun had set before we got on the road around 8:30PM. We drove through downtown Beaverton and got onto OR217 North and saw our temps start to climb. Again. Since we hadn't hit normal temps, we pressed on, but I kept my eye on the gauge.

One Exit at a Time

By the time we got to the Sylvan exit, we had crossed over 194* and I had to pull over. No sooner did I start pulling off than the temp started to drop. We pulled through the intersection at the end of the ramp and onto the on-ramp before pulling to the side. We idled and watched the temp drop down to 185* (the temp the thermostat is rated) and then settle there. There was no backing up; in order to head anywhere, we needed to get back on the freeway. So, we nosed onto the on-ramp, and elected to just go one more exit (to the Oregon Zoo) and turn around. Maybe we could find a spot to vagabond.

From the Sylvan on-ramp, the highway goes downhill, and the temps didn't move. So, we kept going. The made it through the tunnel and onto I-405 North without issue, though the temp started to climb again as we turned onto the Fremont Bridge. We stayed right, thinking we could just take the Kirby Street exit and camp in front of my brother's house. But the temp started dropping again, so just before the exit started to fork off of the highway, I drifted left, back into the slow lane. We continued north onto I-5. As we approached the Interstate Bridge into Washington, the possibility of making it to Chinook Fest started entering our thoughts. We talked about what the best route would be: over the reportedly very steep White Pass on US-12 or through the potentially toxic smoke in the Columbia Gorge? Hapy answered by raising his temp, so we turned onto Washington State Route (SR) 14.

Smoke on the Water
Once on SR-14, Hapy and I settled into a rhythm. I wouldn't push him too fast, and he wouldn't raise his temperature too high. We followed the Columbia River past the I-205 interchange where the highway narrows to 2 lanes (one each direction with a pair of yellow lines down the middle). By now, it was after 10:PM, but the road was still quite busy. The major interstate (I-84) on the Oregon side of the river was closed from Troutdale to Hood River, and the last open river crossing until the other side of the closure was the I-205. This increased traffic held with us until Hood River, and then almost everyone turned off to I-84. We stayed. And we were suddenly alone.

As we traveled East, we could taste the smoke in the air, but didn't really see it until after Hood River. The wind had been blowing east, so the massive wild fire which was so close was not really perceptible. Once past Hood River, though, we found that we needed to put surgical masks on so we could breathe more easily. With masks on, we navigated the twists and turns of SR-14 as well as ascending / descending the summits. The smoke created an eerie fog-like space, changing perceptions of time and speed. With our speeds lowered for visibility, Hapy stayed below 192* and we didn't need to pull off to let him cool. Hapy was happy and keeping him cool wasn't a constant affair. Just East of Wishram, we turned North onto US-97, passed through Goldendale and entered the Yakima Indian Reservation. As remote as SR-14 felt after our fellow travelers turned south, we felt completely isolated now. The hour grew later, and while conversation was lively, we were both growing tired. So, as we entered Toppenish we saw the always-open Branding Iron Restaurant and pulled in for a bite.

Not Toppenish. More Bottomish

It was well after midnight by the time we stopped, and there were 2 cars and a semi in the parking lot plus our bus. The service at the Branding Iron was fast and friendly, the food was good, and more than we could consume in a single seating. Being 1 in the morning, and the only place open in Toppenish, strange people came and went while we were there. The waitress explained about the homeless, and about the serial drug users who will try to get a handout. With Toppenish being such a small town, I was a little surprised, but I guess meth has made it everywhere now.

As we were leaving, Boo suddenly became ill. We were out of the restaurant and heading back onto US-97, so we just kept going, and chose to follow the hospital signs. We found a small E/R clinic just off the main road. After a bunch of tests, and a couple of hours, they prescribed antibiotics for an infection, gave her one to start with and sent us on our way. It was 4:15AM. We had actually spent more time in Toppenish than we had spent getting there. With the gates opening at 8 and an hour left in our drive, we chose to keep going as long as we could.

Naches, WA

We entered the town of Naches just before 5:AM. We thought we would see a place to camp along the way, or at least a place to get Boo's prescription, but we found neither. At the far edge of town, we pulled into the Forest Service Ranger Station and parked under a tree to take a nap. Hapy had been a champ getting us this far, and we only had about 30 minutes further to the festival grounds. We zonked very quickly and awoke without prompting at 8:10. While wild fare smoke seemed to be increasing around us, we fired up Hapy and drove the last few miles out of cell-phone coverage to a festival that had eluded us for the last time.

Homeward
As much as the drive there was an adventure, the drive home was relatively uneventful. We filled up with regular Diesel #2 as a stop in Naches that gave Hapy sporadic fits and starts, but his temps stayed relatively predictable. When they got high, we pulled over. That happened quite a bit, especially through the Yakima Indian Reservation. We stopped for lunch and a prescription pick-up at a Fred Meyers in Yakima. We hit heavy traffic east of Stevenson because of the I-84 closure, and watched the traffic lighten as we passed I-205. We left the festival after 1:30 and arrived home around 8:30 after just one extended stop, and a handful of pull-overs for Hapy cool-downs.

We thought we were going to vagabond in Portland. Then, we spent 3 hours in the E/R. The fact that we entered the gates at all was a miracle. Boo was incredible, between over-work, under-sleep and fighting an infection, her constitution amazes me.

As to Hapy, I talked to lots of fellow car folks at Chinook Fest. The consensus is that my thermostat may be sticking (replace it), but my radiator is under-powered for the amount of heat I ask it to shed. I will look into replacing it with a new high-performance radiator. You know I'll post about it when I get it done. One closing point: we got just over 33MPG round trip.
#ChinookFest
As always, thanks for following along. More to come...