Hapy Re-Assembly Continues

First, thanks for following along. I know blogs have fallen far out of favor, with videos and such being the preferred means for getting information. I can't watch videos at work, but I can read, so for me, this is still viable. There's an old saying about not having a face for video, or a voice for radio, you can still print. That's me. Besides, I barely have time to do my thing and write about it, much less shoot and produce video. I don't know how those content producers get any sleep, especially the ones who aren't making any money at it, which, lets be honest, that's most of them. More power to them, and I greatly appreciate their efforts. When I finally wind down at night, I love me some car-fixin videos.

 

So, where were we? Oh yeah, Hapy was almost assembled. Well, his engine and transaxle were mated and they were mounted to the bus. That's the fun, exciting, sexy part. What's left is everything else. I stayed under the bus and finished everything there first before getting after the from-above stuff. I didn't take any pictures, mostly because with all the extra layers simply moving around under the bus is a challenge.

 

Transaxle Finish

I started at the front and worked by way backwards. This started with the nose-mount. At some point when the transaxle was removed, one of the mounting bolts broke off inside the threaded body mount. I know I need to resolve this, and practically every time I get under the bus, I shoot that broken-off bolt with some penetrating oil. I believe the front mount carries very little actual weight, but it does make sure the transaxle remains aligned. I gotta get that bolt out and replaced, but not today. With the one bolt in, I connected the grounding strap. I slid to the left side and connected the Bowden tube and clutch cable. I make a point of leaving bolts partly threaded into where they go so (a) I don't lose them and (b) so I know where they go when I return to a project 6 months later. This made installing the Bowden tube just the usual challenge and not accentuated with a bolt search first. To make the threading of the butterfly nut on the end of the cable easier, I prop up the clutch pedal and then put vice-grips where the cable meets the threaded end. Lots of tightening later, I then test the play of the pedal and slide back under a few times to make sure the pedal has an inch or so of travel before the pedal meets resistance.

 

The last thing on the transaxle is the reverse light plug. In my efforts to install, I smashed the reverse light plug quite a bit. Perhaps this happened when the transaxle fell of the jack this past summer. Hard to know. Anyway, with needle-nose pliers I straightened them out. The leads, have been in the same position for so many years that they were already pre-oriented for the right spots to plug in. 

 

Rear (Anti-)Sway Bar 

Sliding further rearward, I got after the rear sway bar. I will again mention how helpful this bar has been for handling, especially in a strong cross-wind. I will also stress how important it is to have it out of the way for a transaxle R&R. I raised the center of the bar with the TravisJack so I could use both hands on the various mounts. I made sure to put a small smear of clear, hi-temp grease (not black axle grease) on the hard bushings, finger-threaded everything and then nutted every thing down. The grease extends the life of the hard bushings, by reducing the direct-wear of hard bar twisting against them. I had not greased these previously, but we really have not run more than a few hundred miles since I put this bar on.

 

Starter

Now we're getting near the end of the below-the-bus stuff, with the starter going in. With the newer starter adapter, with the studs to hang the starter on, the install is much easier. It really is as easy as popping on there and nutting down with a 17mm socket. The top nut can be a challenge to reach, but the rest of it is easy. Pop on the 12V send from the battery and the 12V send-to-front onto the main post, nut down with a 14mm. Last, pop on the starter trigger. Done. Next!

from warmer summer days

Before sliding out, I hooked up the ground from the right side of the engine to the frame.

 

Fueling

For the most part, I left the fuel system in-tact. Right now, I start to feel the advantages of not pulling the motor all the way out of the engine bay. All I did to enable this job was remove the big Caterpillar fuel filter from the frame, and drape it on the engine. So, a couple of bolts later, the fuel system is back together, hopefully holding prime.

 

Cooling

Similar to the fueling system, I minimally disconnected the cooling system. So, I thought it would be just as easy. I lifted the overflow bottle and noticed the bottle was low, and could hear splashing noise coming from the driver side. I lowered the bottle and the steady stream stopped, so clearly there was a breach up higher in the system, and not a breech in the radiator cooling lines or something that would have potentially cost me all of the coolant. Sure enough, the coolant temperature sensor that plugs into the coolant outlet flange was loose and the c-clip was no where to be seen. It is highly likely that the clip was lost last Summer. At this point, I ordered a replacement, and moved on, but not without laughing at how, again, the coolant outlet flange bit me again. 

 

Charged Air

All I removed from the charged air system were the 2 silicone elbows that connect the inter-cooler to the system. Then, the inter-cooler can be moved out of the way for the work. The silicone elbows are held in-place with large clamps that require a special tool (or lots of patience with channel-lock pliers). I used both. Once complete, I noticed that the little blower fan I have on the inter-cooler was barely clinging to the inter-cooler so I fixed that with some new zip-ties. I intend to one day replace the air-to-air inter-cooler with an air-to-water system, reducing overall inbound air temperatures and freeing up some engine compartment space.

 

This was as far as I could really go without that little clip. So, this is where I stopped while waiting for them to arrive from ECS Tuning. While waiting for the coolant temperature sensor c-clip to arrive, I put the battery on the charger. Next time, we'll get after that little clip and whatever other adventures we uncover.

 

Thanks, as always, for following along- 

 

Hapy Re-Assembly

I have been waiting to do this post until after Hapy was completely back in one piece, but after many hours and days out there, he is still not quite together. Still, seems like as good a time as any to update, and, like seems to happen so often, this got long, so this is going to get split out. Perhaps he will be in one piece by the time I get the next post done. Anyway, I left off last time after having moved Hapy from the sloped and badly cracked driveway into the shop. That was in early October. With extreme work expectations, I had very little free time, so there he sat until winter break (mid-to-late December).

 

Time to Lean, Time to Clean

engine in, oriented

First, I moved the ATV jack with my wooden cradle under the engine and supported the engine. I started by removing the ratchet-straps I had used to hold the front of the engine to the frame and the axles from dragging on the ground. Then, I removed the rear mount, support tower and cross-bar. Last, I removed the rear tow-hitch / rear bumper assembly.

 

I was on a cleaning adventure, so I cleaned the engine bay and the parts I had just removed with de-greaser. Then, I painted those parts and the underside of the bus's rear end and lower engine bay with Eastwood's rust converter. I felt this set the stage for a less filthy job. Since I failed to clean the engine, however, I was only half right. But, the parts which were painted look really good now and I hope the rust growth is at least slowed, if not stopped, by the application of the rust converter. As they say "rust never sleeps" so it will remain on the inspect-every-time list regardless.

 

Transaxle Together

output flange going on

We start our assembly adventure by just returning the transaxle back to its state before I removed it. Recall that during my efforts to get the transaxle and engine to mate on the cracky driveway, the transaxle awkwardly fell off a small jack and onto the concrete, causing the left (driver in US) side output flange to pop off. This was what put the re-assembly effort into dead stop last Summer. After getting some advice, a new plastic cover and a few packets of grease from a shop around the way, I again did nothing about it for weeks. Work has been all-consuming this year, did I mention that? Anyway, continuing my cleaning frenzy, I cleaned everything (except the engine, it seems): the transaxle, the various parts, the area I was going to work in, my tools... you get the point. The little c-clip that was responsible for holding the flange to the transaxle was a little bent from it's rapid extraction by the driveway. The shop owner suggested that the original clip was higher quality than the EMPI stuff on the market now and encouraged me to flatten/fix that clip. So I did, with a vice and a hammer. With the mating points all clean, and the old little plastic cover gone, re-attaching the output flange, setting the c-clip and then setting the new plastic cover actually took as long to do as it just took to type. I was stunned it was that easy and felt rather stupid for avoiding this for, like, 6 months.

 

While I was there, I also took the shop owners other advice about removing the throw-out bearing, greasing the slide and re-installing the throw-out bearing. While the parts were apart, I hit the teeth on the output shaft with a wire brush, getting all the gunk out of the teeth. With the transaxle now back in one piece, I set it on a big sheet of cardboard and slid it under the bus, from the rear around the left side of the engine and over the rear sway-bar lying on the ground. 

 

I will make an aside about the rear sway-bar here. While it is great for handling, it is awful for getting the engine/transaxle in and out. It really is great for handing, though, especially in windy conditions. Simply disconnecting the frame mounts and letting it hang on the ground, leaving the shock mount ends connected, makes for a tall, virtually uncross-able, speed-bump for your floor jack. In the future, when I (and I suggest any reader who has the rear sway-bar) remove my transaxle again, I will completely remove the rear sway-bar from under the bus, leaving the space completely clear.

 

Tranny Meet Diesel

strapped to rotate

With the transaxle on the ground under the bus, I set to mating it to the engine. Right here is when I wish I'd remembered a few things:

1- while you can still interact with your transaxle, put the little cage on the shifter rod that comes out the front. I didn't and while it still isn't done yet I have already spent an hour trying to get the grub screw to thread in after the transaxle is already installed. Word to the wise: do this beforehand.

2- that shifter rod goes OVER the rear main frame tube. I don't know what it's real name is, but you need to put that rod over the tube before you try to put the transaxle into place. I forgot, mated the engine:transaxle and then had to do it again because I could not get the engine far enough back to get the shift rod over the tube. Total facepalm. Lost hours facepalm.

 

I am going to draft on this moment and drop a placeholder for consideration: Cutting in a removable rear valence like the earlier bus's had. I know the engineers made the fixed, permanent valence for structural integrity. Any other 1972 and later bus might still require it. For that matter, this bus may still require it. My bus, my risk ; I encourage others to not follow this advice without giving it some serious thought and even then, ask friends. My bus has 2 additional side-to-side heavy bars bolted into the side frames: one for the rear engine mount and one for the rear tow hitch. Both of these are heavy steel bars bolted in separately from each other. I submit that if I cut the rear to have a removable valence, I would suffer no structural loss. So, I think the next time I need to remove the engine, I will give this serious thought. How I do it so it doesn't look trash will be the fun part.

 

Anyway, once I got the shift rod over the tube, I set the transaxle on the "race" jack I got from our dearly departed brother-in-law, Travis (and named it accordingly). With the transaxle easily balancing on the Travis I was able to get the output shaft of the transaxle to align with the clutch. It is noteworthy that I did not use the "small" jack the transaxle fell off of this time; the big pad on the Travis is way more stable. I got the 2 to mate and threaded in 4 bolts to snug them together: 2 on the very bottom, one just above the clutch throw-out arm and one which threads through the starter mount.

 

Central Mounting

With the engine and transaxle as one large and heavy assembly, I needed to get it aligned with the 2 central mount holes: the 2 which pass through the ears on the top rear of the transaxle. I believe this mount handles the lion's share of the weight. The left side aligned fairly easily (20 minutes of wrestling) but it took a couple of hours of fighting the right side. I could not remember having such a hard time reaching and seeing. With a shrug, I went to put things away and noticed that I could not lower the overhead engine lid I'd cut in all those years ago. It was bopping on the intake. I realized that the engine and transaxle were clocked for an upright install, not a "stock" orientation (same tilt as native install in a Jetta or NewBeetle) as I had before. I had mated the engine and transaxle wrong. I called it a day, and took a long shower.

 

For Clock's Sake

nearly buttoned below

I have some of my best (and sometimes worst) ideas in the shower. I figured that I could put a ratchet strap around the front of the engine, hooking the ends on the frame like I had it when I moved the bus, and use the webbing as a cradle for rotating the engine, re-clocking it against the transaxle. Suspending the weight of the engine on some webbing was not going to be enough so I put in the rear engine mount cross bar and tower. Then, I connected the engine mount to the engine, letting the body-side of the mount float free. As an extra precaution, I moved the ATV jack and cradle under the engine and raised it so it was just below the engine. Then, I put the ratchet strap in place and cranked it down as snug as I could. Feeling a little anxious, I removed the 4 bolts and nothing moved nor settled at all. So, feeling bold, I grabbed the engine by the alternator mount with my right hand and the turbo with my left and slowly rotated the engine anti-clockwise. I was able to key off of the bottom bolt on the left side, switching from on my back with the bolt in hand to on my feet and shifting the engine and back again. Ultimately, I found that using a small screwdriver to help fine-tune the bolt location was most effective, but once I had that one bolt, the upper left and starter-bolts went in easily. I was unable to seat the lower right bolt and I will have to go through my notes to see how many bolts I've used before to see if I'm chasing something a false memory of 4 bolts.

 

Once the bolts were through, I removed the ratchet strap, wrenched down the engine mount on the engine side and then connected it to the tower. I am going to stop here, mostly because this is as far as I've gotten. By next time, I will have solved the grub-screw in the shift linkage and have the rest of Hapy put together. I hope I will even be able to tell a tale of a test run.

 

Thanks, as always, for following along. I know my posts have become few and far between. We had some staffing changes at my employer late in 2024 and that meant lots more work for me ever since. I do not anticipate that significantly changing, so my attitude about it needs to. Working on it.

Hapy Engine-Transaxle Dropped

Around the concrete work, I ordered a replacement flywheel, clutch and pressure plate from Kennedy Engineering for Hapy (TDI-powered 1972 VW camperbus). The flywheel entered fabrication early last week, so I spent part of the Independence Day weekend dropping and separating the engine and transaxle not-in-a-shop for hopefully the last time. Today's post covers the drop and separation; it took 10 hours spread across 2 days.

 

How Did We Get Here

hockey player smile

I have been queuing this most recent engine drop for over a year. Recall all of the starter swaps I have made in hopes of solving the intermittent starting issue. And, I replaced the starter adapter hoping that was the issue. Nope and nope. The flywheel had suffered sufficient incomplete meshing of the starter gear with the flywheel's ring gear, chipping teeth and wearing down others. During my research, I learned that oftentimes (not always) engines will tend to stop running at the same spot in their rotation. So, if the circle is 360 degrees, the engine will stop most of the time at the same point. I know that seems counter-intuitive when you assume an engine is a well-balanced smooth machine, but the 4 cylinders and the 4 steps in the combustion cycle create a frequency, if you will, that for some engines means that when you kill power it will naturally stop at the same point. In those cases, you would think having a complete ring gear is unnecessary, right? I mean, if you only ever use 15 degrees of gear, why have 360? Ok, in re-reading this, obviously you need an entire gear for the starter to spin the engine. LOL.

 

I found on my flywheel there was one spot in particular which was especially bad and 3 other spots which looked like there was wear, but not so much that the starter was really having trouble. This would explain why all the other times I looked at the flywheel I could not see an issue. The starter was not on the really bad spot, just one of the not-so-great spots. When I was unable to get the engine to start on the first try, but I got the gear-on-gear sound, I think I was starting on one of those spots. Inevitably, the engine would eventually land on the really bad one, and the sound would change from gear-on-gear to gear-in-the-air. 

 

Continuing this nonsensical thread, the TDI engine's flywheel can only fit on the engine one way, based on the bolt pattern. If there were any way I could have retained the flywheel and simply removed and re-installed it so that the really bad spot was in one of the zones where the teeth are never facing the starter at dead-stop... I would have. I mean, this flywheel has lasted 15 years of starting issues and abuse and for the most part it's fine. Well, fine except for the 1 big chunk that's missing and some other kinda-worn spots.

 

Getting Down

So, we enter Saturday, July 5th, the traditional first day Pacific NorthWest summer, tools in hand, blues festival on the radio, ready to get after the engine drop. To prepare, I re-read the last engine drop I can remember doing on this bus: to swap the transaxle from the original 002 to the AA Transaxle (Seattle) 1975 CM 002 transaxle. I did that on Labor Day 2012 in my real estate agent's driveway (See Transaxle Transition). It took 1 day to get the engine/transaxle out and separated. It took 1-1/2 days to get the new transaxle mated and the whole operation installed. I figured I would have a similar path, but my real estate agent's driveway was flat and smooth. The square of concrete outside my tiny garage is neither flat nor smooth. Quite the opposite, actually, it slopes away from the garage slightly and it has massive deep cracks in it. Like 2 or 3 inches deep cracks where blocks of concrete are lower/higher than the section next to it. This makes moving an engine on a jack much harder.

 

air disconnected

High level, my plan was to not raise the bus, and to only remove that which was necessary to allow me to separate the transaxle from the engine (and the bus) so I could do a clutch service with a flywheel swap out. So, I chocked the front tires and got after it. I started with the easier stuff: disconnect the air side first (cold air/filter to intake, unplugging the AFM and a vacuum line, then removed the charged air from turbo to intercooler). Then, the 13mm nut/bolts on the exhaust side of the turbo and removed the exhaust. Since I did not have to really move the engine other than up and down, I chose to leave the coolant related systems alone other than disconnecting the overflow bottle to prevent tension on the hoses. I made the same decision wit the fueling system, and chose to only disconnect the large filter, again to eliminate potential tension on the fuel hose. Last thing on the engine was to disconnect the battery and the 12V exciter from the alternator.

 

Shifting to the transaxle, I set a small jack under the center of the ribs and started removing things. First, I removed the CV joints and stuffed the greasy bits into plastic bags held on with rubber bands. The clutch cable and the mount for the bowden tube were next. Once free, I disconnected the shifter at the front of the transaxle, the grounding strap near the front and finished with the nose mount. At this point, the only things connected to the engine/transaxle I needed to address were the rear engine mount and the main carrier mounts.

 

simple coolant solve

I located and set the engine cradle on the ATV jack and supported the engine while I removed the rear mount and the tower between the support bar and the mount. With the engine supported, I removed the 2 bolts which attach the top of the bellhousing to the main center carrier.

 

Well, Now Its Down

This was all I thought I had to do to drop the engine. When I read the old steps, this was how far I had to go. Since then, however, I added the rear sway bar and it was set such that removing and then re-installing the transaxle was going to be more difficult. I removed the 4 14mm nuts that held the middle of the bar to the frame and it swung down far enough for the transaxle nose to clear. But there was not enough room for the shifter linkage above the side-to-side main support to clear. The engine needed to move backwards a couple of inches. So, I removed the rear engine support bar. In retrospect, I realized that I had removed that bar last time too. Now, I could pull the engine far enough back to get the transaxle off of the engine, rotated and then onto the ground. Sitting on cardboard, I pulled the transaxle out the driver side. I regret not taking a picture of the inside of the bellhousing, but it had so many little metal flakes (from the flywheel). I shot the bellhousing with brake cleaner and then, after I had wrapped the cv-joint mount points with plastic film, I shot the whole transaxle with de-greaser. I hosed it off and let it dry in the sun. While I had the de-greaser out, I cleaned the rear engine support bar too.

 

Pressure Plate and Flywheel

jack on crack

Now, I was basically ready for a clutch job. The pressure plate came off with little fanfare. It looks like its in great shape. The clutch still has most of it's friction material, so in a pinch I could probably reuse them. I got new replacements for both, so I may retain them for an emergency. Honestly, after 12 years of running this clutch and still have that much friction material left, I figure I may not have to replace this clutch ever again. I did notice a couple of spots on the flywheel which had a slight blue-ish hue, though. That's usually a sign that the clutch got hot and sticky. Something to think about. Maybe going with the stage 1 clutch this time rather than the stock pre-1972 VW bus clutch was the right call after-all, and the old clutch/pressure plate are not worth keeping.

 

Last, I had to pull the flywheel. Fortunately, I have a flywheel lock for old VW's and since this is a 200mm flywheel designed to fit inside a 002 transaxle, the lock fit. I could not get good leverage lying on my back under the bus so I smacked a rubber mallet against the end of a ratchet to pop the torqued bolt. All 6 came out without too much trouble. Applying a torque wrench on install will be interesting. Because of how snug the flywheel mates to the engine output, I needed to work the flywheel off with a small prybar. Once on the ground, I could more clearly identify the really badly worn spot (pictured above), but the other spots did not look as bad. Perhaps, once I have the new one to compare, the damage on this flywheel will be more apparent.

 

Conclusion

no downhill roll please

That's as far I've been able to get. I am still waiting for the flywheel, clutch, pressure place, throw-out bearing, etc. It took me most of 2 days to get to this point, so I expect the re-install will be similarly extended from 1-1/2 days to maybe 3. It is interesting to see how an uneven surface and 12 years of personal aging can slow a process down. The sway bar and engine support bars each represented maybe an hour of extra work, so I can't attribute it to them. This is probably really about me getting slower and the work location making everything that little bit harder.

 

For those tracking on the shop construction, we may be falling onto their schedule as early as the end of next week. Fingers crossed, I may have a structure before I have Hapy back in one piece. 

 

Anyway, that's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along- 

Building a Shop - Excavation

I return to the construction effort today. I expect this to be brief.

 

Measure Twice Dig Once

driveway approach

The concrete company we chose to work with arrived mid-morning and set to measuring and stringing lines. As they started, I talked to the supervisor/owner Vai and we agreed that since the eastern property boundary was 100% confirmed and the west was squishy, we would base all measurements off of the east line. The southern line was not as clear, but the pin in the south eastern corner was still protruding from the ground, so that was a known good point. We extrapolated where the line was, but since the minimum rear setback (distance from rear property line to a permitted structure) is 15 feet and the shop was going to be 50 feet, there was little risk of getting dinged by the inspector for possibly being a few inches off.

 

With stakes and string Vai and his team defined the target space. Using a level, they determined, and then showed me, that the grade from south to north was actually at least as pronounced as the west-to-east grade that sent us down that straw wattle search. Because of the grade, the south west corner will be the closest to the ground, leaving the north east corner (the corner opposite) the highest at nearly a foot above grade. Since the entire building will have a 1-foot tall footer, there won't be gavel spilling out from under the foundation, but it does raise the driveway entry, creating a new problem to solve later: garage access for broken (and working) cars.

 

The Dig

diggin

I will admit that when I first thought about the excavation, I expected to have to manage many yards of dirt. I was grossly mistaken. Because of the grades we discovered, most of the digging was along the southern and western edges with only a slight scrape at the north east corner. The biggest removal of dirt was for the storm outflow at the back (south east direction, but still at least 15 feet from the property lines) and the trench leading from the back of the building to it. The operator lost one of the hard rubber tracks, but otherwise they would have had the dig complete in a couple of hours.

 

Framing and Ground Shaping

With the trenches done, Vai and his team framed in the outer edges of the foundation and leveled it. We could really get a sense of the foundation at that point. They added some large blocks of broken up concrete into the space near the eastern edge, leaving space for the footer. The idea is that having the large concrete blocks is superior to 8 or 10 inches of packed gravel under a foundation pad. That much compacted crushed rock can still shift where having large concrete shapes mixed in underneath the upper layer creates more stability.

 

Preliminary Inspection

south west corner

At this point, Vai wanted to have the county inspector come in and consider the work so far. Since we based all measurements off of the eastern line, we wanted to make sure the location of the structure would be approved before we got gravel and rebar in there. Washington County, while it has its flaws, has been highly responsive to my engagements for this project. Getting a preliminary inspection was no different: go to the website, request a 106 (foundation and locating) inspection and then in the comments explain that you want a preliminary inspection. The inspector arrived first thing and after handing him the packet of permitted plans we walked the property, and I explained how we arrived at the location. He agreed with the process, checked the measurements and approved our progress. He even approved of the use of the broken up concrete and explained to me why it was a good thing. His approval went into the system, attached to the permit and it generated an email to me indicating the the location portion of the inspection has passed.

 

Wrapping Up

storm outflow

This is where we are at this point. The reason our bid was so good was in part because our job was getting fit around other ones. So, Vai and his team are floating concrete on another job and the gravel is due in the new few days. They will be returning to place and compact the gravel, do the rebar and everything else shortly after that. At least that's the plan.

 

car stuff:

Hapy: After talking with the fine folks at Kennedy Engineering, I just ordered a replacement flywheel with a stage1 clutch kit. It will arrive in a few weeks. In the meantime, Hapy is in one piece and could be roll-started into service if needed. I am looking forward to seeing the condition of the old flywheel and clutch once I get things apart and on the ground... which won't start until after the new flywheel/clutch kit arrive.

Hapy's Flywheel Needs Dentures

This last year has been distraction-filled at least with regards to my loving on my cars. We don't have a garage and we don't really even have a driveway. We have a small square patch of concrete just outside the garage door. Between that and the street are wood chips on dirt. Added to that was this recurring issue with Hapy not starting, I did not have much motivation. I did not want to lie in the mud, or work in the rain. So, I didn't. Instead, I focused on getting a garage built. Well, it's getting to nice weather again, and it would be great to have Hapy running. So, I looked back on the posts over the last year and I only lightly mentioned the recurring no-start or starting challenges in passing during the Road Report from 2024 Four Peaks. So, there's more story there. Today, I'll fill in the history and diagnosis.

 

Flat Beddin

ready for work

I mentioned that I drove Hapy, loaded with gear, to a Sunkicks show and after-party last June. That was actually the last show with all of the original members, but I digress. The prior year I had been having sporadic not wanting to start issues that I thought I had traced to the Injection Pump (IP) leaks. While the leaking IP was part of the problem, 12 years of ongoing Hapy-won't-start-easily issues has brought a cost. So, he didn't start the following day and he was towed home. I replaced the starter, he fired up, but I had little faith in him. So, for the 4Peaks trip (See 2024 4Peaks Road Report), we did not shut him off when we hit rest areas or whatever, and only had to start him twice the entire trip: once to leave the Winco parking lot and once to leave the 4Peaks camping lot. Both times he started with little fanfare.

 

Once.. Twice... Three Times a Starter

bad teeth

After we returned home, however, he would not start again. I did all that work with the doors (see The Doors) and the door cards (See Door Cards), believing that the new starter was all I needed. Wrong. The next time I went to start him was to take a road trip, again, loaded with gear. Nope. Afterwards, I tried replacing the starter, and had the same issue. I tried with a couple of other ones over the winter, thinking that I was just getting garbage starters. I replaced the transaxle -to- starter adapter, thinking it was the starter not engaging with the ring gear on the flywheel, but peeking through the starter hole did not reveal much.... until this last time (Sat, 24-May). After removing the starter for what felt like the 50th time, I got my phone up in there and took a picture of the ring gear on the flywheel. You can see in the picture on the right here, it's badly chewed up with many broken teeth. So, we have to lower the engine/transaxle, separate them so I can remove the flywheel and send it down to Kennedy Engineering in Southern California to have the ring gear replaced... if it can be replaced. Some of their older flywheels were all one unit, and this one is approaching 20 years old. A replacement flywheel with ring gear installed is a 4 week wait and $215US while getting the ring gear removed and replaced is 2 weeks and $40US (an additional $45US to have the flywheel resurfaced, if needed). I am hoping the ring gear can be separated. Otherwise, we lose all of June.

 

What a Drag

Nina's temporary home

Last Fall, when I was unable to get Hapy running, I hooked a tow chain to the front and hauled him around the back of the farmhouse. He was left parked on a bed of wood-chips and over time he was sinking into the ground. It got to the point that this last time I went to R&R the starter, I could barely get under the rear sway bar. Boo and I decided that doing an in-place engine drop there would not be fruitful, so we again hooked up a tow chain, this time to Hapy's rear. With Boo driving the truck, I steered Hapy backwards out of the yard, through the fence and out onto the street. Our plan was to roll downhill about 50 feet and then drive the truck in nose-first, dragging Hapy into the driveway where we would push him onto the concrete slab in front of the garage. Boo suggested I try to roll-start him. She figured, if we have to tow him all the way up the hill, it's not really any different than the 50 feet we were already going to do. So, we unhooked the tow chain and let gravity (and some Boo-shoving) get him rolling. I put Hapy into 3rd (kept poppin out of 2nd), and after some rough revs he fired up. I drove him down the street, and within 10 meters the black smoke stopped and the engine settled. I turned around triumphant to a dancing-in-the-street Boo. With her help I backed him onto the concrete pad, leaving about half a meter between his rear and the garage door. It was only for a few minutes, but dang I miss driving him. So much fun.

 

With Hapy in place, I used the tow chain and the come-along to move Nina, the 1964 VW Beetle into the spot where Hapy was. This cleared the rear pathway back to where the shop is going too. I wrapped the weekend with Hapy's usual spring wash. Next weekend starts the engine/transaxle drop. The following week I will send the flywheel off to Kennedy. It will be 2-4 weeks before I have a replacement in hand.

 

That's it for now. We expect the excavation work for the shop to start this week. It will be interesting to see whether we have a shop, or if Hapy is running again first. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Oh Crud, I Broke a Stud

It's been a busy month of moving and trying to wrestle a clutch into T's Subaru, so I haven't had many adventures worth documenting. Since T's Subbie is on ramps with a transmission sitting in front of it, he is driving my car, so I've been daily-driving the bus. It's really been great, with a few little hassles. Today is about those hassles.

Shake Much? Funky Clutch
Have you ever been pulling away from a stoplight and a semi-truck next to you starts shaking like there's no tomorrow as it pulls away from dead stop? That happens when something has been introduced onto the clutch or flywheel or pressure plate causing the clutch to not completely grab correctly. When I last pulled out the transmission (Transaxle Re-Assembled) in the Fall of 2014 I must not have completely cleaned either the flywheel or the pressure plate. MAybe I got a greasy finger on the clutch disk. The bus shudders as I pull away from dead stop now.. especially when it's cold. I'll probably have premature wear-out on my stage-one clutch as a result. Grr. The shaking, though, brings about it's own troubles.

No Power Rush Hour
I was on my way home from work a couple of weeks ago when suddenly and unexpectedly the engine stopped running. Turning the key had no effect. Since I was coasting to a stop at a pretty major intersection, I let the bus roll into the bike/breakdown lane and slipped out the slider door. I popped open the rear gate and looked at the wiring that ties my ignition key to the TDI harness. Knowing that there was probably an issue there, I pulled the pins out of the TDI ignition plug and popped in the original plastic plug. The engine fired up with the turn of a screwdriver, demonstrating that my remote starter was working. Back in business, I climbed back into the driver seat and motored around the corner, only to have the ECU drop into "limp mode". I fixed the "no power" by re-wiring the relays and wiring around the TDI harness ignition switch while taking a break from the moving fun. The root cause was one of the wires had freed itself from what it was plugged into. I blame the shaking mentioned above.

Limper
The computer needs to get a clean signal from the drive-by-wire accelerator potentiometer (usually called a "pot"). In the bus, this pot is attached to the underside of the cab and controlled by the stock accelerator pedal. The wire bundle running back to the computer is probably 15 feet long. In the original donor car, the wire bundle was about 4 inches long. If you add all that extra wire, there is additional resistance which can get in the way of that clean signal. When this happens, the computer drops into "limp mode", bringing the engine with it. Limp mode pins the engine speed at 1200RPM. While frustrating, the limp mode can be cleared simply by shutting off and restarting the engine. When this happened in the Rush Hour example above, I had to get off the road to shut down and restart because the "ignition" was 10 feet behind the driver seat.

4 out of 5 Recommended
Last March, I posted about getting some new wheels for the bus. They look great, but they are thicker than the stock wheels. Since the tires I had on the bus were 12 years old, I couldn't safely go back to the old tires, but the studs don't stick out far enough for the lug nut to get all the way on with stud sticking out the other end of the nut. I pulled a classic prior-owner-worthy fail in not double-checking the 94 foot-pound torque on the nuts, and then threw 2 nuts off the rear right wheel before noticing a "wub wub wub" noise. I pulled a lug nut from the other rear wheel to get 4-a-side, but one of the studs broke off and won't thread a nut anymore. The internet is not consistent about driving on 4 nuts when the vehicle delivered with 5. I've been doing it for a little while now, and I check my torque while looking for fluid drips.

Some of these hassles represent work I need to perform. Okay, most of them do. I have replacement wheel hubs on the way from Ken at TheBusCo and I already have the over-length studs I mentioned in my post about wheels (see Wheels, Studs, Chrome and Backspace) so I'm going to start preparing for that work. It could mushroom into more things since the rear suspension and brakes haven't gotten the deserved love in a while.

That's it for now. I'm in the process of getting T's car back together and him through high school graduation before I tear into solving some of the bus' issues. Thanks, as always, for following along..

Transaxle Re-assembled

Last weekend, I got the transaxle put back together and back into the bus.  Fast sentence to write.  Lots of effort to do.  Today covers the first half of that 'effort to do': getting the transaxle ready.

Slinging Oil

slinger by hole in bell housing
where it's supposed to be attached

The bellhousing for the 002 and 091 transaxles are supposed to have this ringed collar around the input shaft to help guide the hypoid oil away from the input shaft seal and back towards the gears.  There are a few names for this bit, but the boards call it an "Oil Slinger".  According to the Bentley, this was supposed to be a non-repair item that was pressed into the bellhousing with a 4-ton press.  If it separates, you get a new bellhousing or re-press it in.  Well, the VW world has discovered that's not exactly right anymore.  Instead, you create a rough edge on the inner edge and along the rear (engine side) of the bellhousing.  I used a chisel and a file for this.  Then, rough up the lip and outside of the slinger near the lip.  Peanut butter the edge with JB Weld and press it into place by hand.  I treated the excess like caulking, and ran a gloved finger along the edges, pressing it in and making the edge clean.  Last, hold it firm with a simple weight and gravity.  Once its cured (18 hours), its ready.

Install Input Shaft Seal

roughed up edges

This was actually quite simple.  Lightly brush the inner and outer edge with hypoid oil.  Set into place by hand, and press it enough by hand so it sits still.  Find a short section of 3/4" PVC pipe (I used a 3/4" - 1/2" T from Home Depot).  With a rubber mallet, smack the seal until it seats flush with the face of the bellhousing.

Into One Piece
When the transaxle was built by AA Transaxle in Seattle, the bellhousing was sealed to the transaxle body with what looked like clear silicone caulking.  Not a fan.  I scraped all that out and instead ran hi-temp form-a-gasket along all of the mating surfaces.  Once it becomes tacky, set the 2 sides together and set the bolts in.  Rubber mallet the bellhousing into place and finger-tighten the bolts.  Following the jump-the-center torquing process, set them to 18ft-pounds (if memory serves. check the Bentley).

Topped Off and Ready

slinger with JB Weld

Before I put the bellhousing on, I made sure the oil drain plug could be loosened.  I had vaguely remembered that it was frozen in-place.  I was right.  After some hard torquing, I got the nut out.  I cleaned off the tiny metal filings off the attached magnetized rod, cleaned the threads and re-seated it.
Once the transaxle and bellhousing were one piece again, you need to give the form-a-gasket time to cure.  I gave it 24 hours and then opened up the fill hole.  It took all the gear oil I had on hand, and was still a touch low.  I'll need a fresh bottle to top it off before I take much of a test drive.  Remember, the tranny is full when oil spills out of the fill-hole when the tranny is on level ground.

That's it for today.  The tranny looks good, the input shaft has almost 0 wiggle to it and the seal / form-a-gasket are holding oil.  Hazah!

Engine Drop Thoughts

Over Labor Day weekend 2012, I dropped and re-installed the TDI engine so I could swap transaxles.  I had bought a newly rebuilt one from AA Transaxle in Seattle (See Transaxle Transition).  This Labor Day weekend (2014), I dropped the engine again to remove that transaxle so I could replace the input shaft seal.  In both cases, I leveraged the notes I made in 2011 when I removed and re-installed the fuel tank (see Engine Extraction).

In preparation for the drop, I re-read the notes and realized that I didn't explicitly state whether the bus had to be put on stands for the engine drop.  So, I thought I'd try it this time with the bus on the ground.  It can be done.  Once the engine is down, unless you're going to work on it right there, you still need to lift the bus to get the engine or transaxle out.  Admittedly, you only need to jack-up the passenger side so the transaxle can slide out, but still, its worth noting.  To get the engine out, it is a big hairy deal.

I am seriously considering changing the rear-end to have a removable valence like the early bay and the split-window buses.  Consider, I have a thick steel bar running across the rear from frame-to-frame, holding the engine.  This is creating increased stiffness at the rear, which (reportedly) was the motivation to eliminate the removable valence.  My thinking is that if I can remove the valence, I could lower and remove the engine/transaxle as one unit without having to lift the bus 3+ feet into the air or parking over a ditch (yes, I did that to install it the first time).

The transaxle is still on the ground in my garage, and the engine is still on the ground (on the ATV jack) under the bus.  I have pulled together all the bits and parts I need to fix the leak and re-install, and I hope to start some of that before the weekend.  For my own future reference, here are a couple fruitful notes on parts:

The pilot bearing for the KEP flywheel (all 200mm clutch adaptions): '99-'03 VW (Jetta, Golf, Beetle) 1.8 Turbo bearing
The stud / mounting bolts from the transaxle to the adapter are 3/8", standard (not fine) right-hand threaded.
The Circlip which holds the input shaft tight to the reverse gear is part number 004 311 317.

That's it for this time.  Hopefully, I'll be able to get under the bus tonight or tomorrow night to get the clutch/pressure plate off so I can seat the pilot bearing.  As always, thanks for following along-

Flywheel fun

I mentioned last post that I've been distracted with job searching, school starting etc. In fact, I was wrestling with taking a contract in another city working for a missile manufacturer. The money was good, the project interesting, but I just couldn't face helping build missiles and bombs that were eventually going to land on people. The travel would have been unpleasant for the family (and me), too, but we would have accepted that as part of the new information job market dynamic.
In the end, we rarely have the opportunity to actually test our ethics like this. Given the alternative of possibly not working at all, not being able to support my family, pay the mortgage, buy food -or- helping build missiles for the government 2 airflights away from that family, what do you do? There are people that probably think they can make the decision easily, but I think if you really thought about it, you'd see why this was so difficult. Between the potential involvement (albeit indirectly) innocent deaths and the time away from my family, I couldn't do it. Anyway, here's hoping I find a job soon and this just becomes another interesting story to tell years from now. Returning to the bus...

After conferring with Kennedy Engineering (KEP), I resisted taking the flywheel to a machine shop. KEP indicated that the flywheel wouldn't have fit onto their balancing machine if the center hole were too small. In the meantime, I ordered a KEP pressure plate and heavy duty clutch disk from CIP1. They arrived today - and that was with their 10-14 day free shipping. Good to know that time window can be that pessimistic.
Last night, I followed their advice and slowly pressed the flywheel on using the old "jump the center" approach to torquing things down. Basically, crank one down a little bit and then jump across the centerpoint to the opposite bolt. Keep doing that until you need to set torque. It worked great. I cranked the flywheel down using a 17mm socket and torqued to 55 ft/lbs as specified in the KEP instructions.

It was starting to get late, but I figured I still had a little in the tank, so I unboxed the clutch disk and pressure plate from CIP1. They look like nice parts. I still had an output shaft from the old 091/1 transaxle I sold early in the Summer, so I had a way of aligning things. About 15 minutes later, I had the clutch and pressure plate aligned and installed. It was pretty easy, actually. Take the clutch disk and put the flat side down on a clean spot on your bench. Set the pressure plate on top, and move them as a unit. Set the pressure plate / clutch disk unit onto the flywheel and align the 6 bolt holes. Thread in the bolts enough so that the will hold the pressure plate on, but not in a fixed spot. Then, thread the extra output shaft (or alignment tool, if you have one) through the center until it comes to rest deep inside the flywheel. Then, tighten the bolts.

The pressure plate does not come with bolts, so I used some stainless 13mm bolts that I had from when I removed Hapy's old exhaust. Torqued to 25 ft/lbs per Kennedy instructions, and I'm ready to re-mate the engine and clutch. I have a picture of this assembled flywheel / clutch / pressure plate on my phone, but I didn't have time to sync the phone and my home computer. I'll push the picture up tonight, if I remember.

More next time...

KEP on keeping on

Still no seal, but my man Justin says its in his hands, so its just a matter of a few days before its getting put onto Hapy's new engine. Justin offered to help install it. The rubber edge has a tendency to miss an edge, leaving a gap, so I welcomed his expertise. The rear seal is one of those items that is replaced once, maybe twice in an engine's life before it is entirely rebuilt, so I figured this isn't something I need to do on my own. I recognize Justin's time is valuable, so I thought I would test-fit the engine and transaxle. I figured that having the parts together once, and then pulled apart for the seal would make re-assembly later on (when he was here) much faster.

So, how works KEP adapter? I've had the adapter plate for almost a year. I didn't realize it had been that long until I went through the instructions and email threads. Whoa. I found, while digging through the paperwork and emails that I didn't really have a good idea of how to put the whole thing together. The instructions are accurate, but not at all detailed, so I had to contact the company about simple things like "which way does it go on?". After giving it a try, it turned out to be pretty straightforward. I detail the "how" below in case someone else needs a pictoral of the plate install.


Step 1 - decide your angle
The KEP adapter fits in 3 possible positions: upright , 15* (degree) and 50*. I didn't realize they had an upright option when I ordered it. The TDi engine sits at a 15* angle in the Jetta, Beetle and Golf, so I had initially planned to go with that. The 50* angle is necessary for a vanagon install (because their rear deck is so much lower). This could be a choice for a bus too, but some custom fabrication is needed to deal with the turbo. Personally, I'd rather have the engine look like it does in the Bentley manual for the TDi so when I have to do maintenance, I know where everything is.


Step 2 - find the "dowel" holes
Once you know your angle, take the adapter with the "KEP" lettering facing away from you. Place the adapter onto the bellhousing, fitting the lip of the plate inside the bellhousing. Rotate the plate into your desired angle from upright rotating counter-clockwise to 15* or more to 50*. Align the small holes with the mounting holes on the transaxle. I did this by croutching down and looking through the holes until I could see light. Mark all 4 holes with tape. I found that once the plate came off the bellhousing, it wasn't easy to be 100% sure which ones were the "right" ones. You can see the blue tape in the picture below.


Step 3 - put in the "dowels"
Pull off the plate and set it on your bench. In my case, I used the garage floor because my bench is covered in tools. Anyway, take the 4 "dowels" that came with the plate. They are the shiny silver bolt-looking things with threads at both ends. There are 3 that are the same length and one that is longer. Take the longer one (shorter threads away from you) and thread it into the upper left-hand dowel hole that you marked. This will become one of the bolts the starter hangs on. Then, thread the other 3 in the same way: shorter threads into the plate, longer threads sticking out. The picture to the left, here, shows which hole the longer one goes in. Depending on your orientation (upright, 15* or 50*, you will use the hole above, the same hole or the one below respectively.


Step 4 - hang it on the engine
Once the dowels are in, place the plate onto the engine. With the dowels, there's only one way to put it on: KEP facing out. If you kept the 2 upper transmission bolts (like I did), you'll have enough bolts to put the plate on a 002. I can't speak for the 091 bellhousing, but I was able to use the original bolts for the 2 upper holes that are on either side of the KEP lettering. You can make out one of them at the top of the picture on the right. There are 3 other holes in the plate that align with holes in the engine block. The 2 holes on the left do not require a nut and thread right in with 2 of the bolts provided. I used a longer one in the upper left hole, and a shorter one in the lower left hole. The one on the right requires a nut. I finger tightened everything, knowing I was going to have to separate the whole thing later.

Next, you put on the flywheel, the clutch and pressure plate, and mate the engine and transaxle. I'll cover that next time. As you can see from the 2 last pictures, there's no seal on right now. Not how you want to store your engine for very long. Fortunately, my engine is in an insect-free, warmed garage, and it will only be like this for a few more days. More next time--