Couldn't Stand the Weather

Car stuff today.  Brief?  Is it ever?.  Complains about no garage?  No, actually.  I have to remind myself that owning cars that are over 10 years old with more than 150k miles on them requires owner responsibility.  In that spirit, no complaints; just doing.

Silence Canyon at the pull-out.
Note the snow line in the trees

Cold Shot

While I was getting Flash back from Johnny, he pointed out that the he (Flash) still didn't want to start first thing in the morning.  I thought it had something to do with the vacuum lines.  So, I spent the beautiful Saturday afternoon re-running the vacuum lines.  Some folks may not see that as a perfect Saturday, but it was in the low 60's (F), sunny and the birds were out.  I have evidence of that last part on the side of Flash, but I digress.  Some of the vacuum lines were original.  Yikes.  Most seemed okay, but I replaced them anyway.  I needed about 8 feet of 3mm and 7 feet of 5mm line to do the job.  I have a few extra feet of the 3mm after over-buying.  Anyway, the cold-start trouble persists, so I'll be hitting the interweb (read:TDIClub) for clues.  No codes, no smoke (except on that cold start) and Flash runs fantastically otherwise.

Couldn't Stand the Weather

Sunday (today) was a day for the bus, and a change in the weather.  I mean that both ways.  The clouds rolled back in, dropping spittle-rain this morning.  After running T over to a youth group meeting in Flash, I decided I'd give the bus a go for the pick-up trip.  Remember, that I hadn't taken a test drive to verify whether I'd actually fixed the leak, but I felt pretty confident that I'd nailed it.  He started on the first try.  No real hesitations, but he was chilly.  The drive over was an exercise in getting the gears all slippery.  Shifting was stiff and he wanted to pop out of second.  I sat with the engine running in the parking lot while waiting for T to appear.  He was out of sight, but apparently heard the rumbly rumbly and tore around the corner, beaming.  e knew exactly what I was driving.  As we pulled out of the parking lot, he asked, "how's he driving?".  I responded with driving the bus like I stole him (well, as much as you can with a microbus).  "Zippy," T said.  At this point, the engine temp finally got high enough to trigger the thermostat and allow coolant to really move through the flange and into the radiator.  The temp climbed to 196* and crawled back down.  It see-sawed from 188* to 194* from then on during the drive home.  We stopped to look at the house we had tried to short-sale purchase last Summer.  We saw a puddle forming under the bus and knew then that the "fix" wasn't.  Back to the condo we went, a little dejected after such a promising start.

germane to nothing, it's a Nutria 

When the House is a-Rockin' Don't Bother Knockin'

As we pulled into the parking lot of the condo complex, I noticed the neighbor walking towards our parking spot.  Now, this neighbor isn't one of the condo folks.  He lives in a house that shares the property line.  In front of his house are parked many cars (some volksies).  They split and sell firewood.  They build and sell picnic tables.  There are always one or two folks out front, and a radio is always playing alternative radio.  Modern hippies?  Maybe.  Anyway, one of the guys who live there walked over and asked if we (T & I) could solve a debate.  Apparently, they heard me drive off, and that sparked a whole debate about whether it had a diesel in it or if it was just tuned crazy.  Big smile.  I pushed back the matress and the engine hatch I cut and watched is eyes bug-out.  LOL.  Made my day. Apparently, he and a bunch of folks he knows are mechanics and they specialize on VW's.... mostly the older ones, but they work at a shop I know if (omitted to protect everybody).  I encouraged any one of them to stop on by if they wanna see the crazy TDI-powered microbus.  I added, "if they wanna elp figure out the coolant leak, I live right there (pointing)".  :-D  I'm no dummy, and I'm tired of trying to isolate the leak.

That's it for today.  I'll revisit the leak next weekend.  Hopefully, I'll have a few extra pairs of hands around, even if they're just there to talk and point and drink beers.  To avoid the questions, I spotted that Nutria in the picture on my way into work as I passed a water hazard / green space.  If you've never seen one before, it was big, like a 16" long body plus a nearly 10" tail, nibbling on the grass.  Sometimes Mother Nature is just plain weird.

Paneling

Brief post today. It was pouring rain this weekend, so I wasn't all that ready to work outside. So, I did some finish work on the rear cabinet (in my garage), and got the rear bumper installed when it lightened to a sprinkle. I'll have to remove it again to paint it, eventually, but Id rather have the bumper on the bus for the test drives.

Access Panel
As you can see from these pictures, I cut a small square access panel out of the bottom of the unit. Its about 4" square. When looking at the rear cabinet from the rear hatch (it would be on the left side), this hatch would be reachable through the bottom cubie. Under the hatch, I plan to have the original ignition, so I'll have a remote-starter capability.

OBDII Sensor
Those little metal squares will just hold the panel in place - as in keep it from falling into the spare tire-hole. In the picture that doesn't have my hand in it, you can make out where the OBDII port will poke in. Again, its in the bottom cubie, but on the forward wall. Once the engine is running right and the cabinet is re-installed, the OBDII connector will fit into that black housing. Since most, if not all, of the times I'll need to plug in a laptop I'll be looking at the engine, it seemed reasonable to place access near the engine. Still, we wouldn't want to disrupt the look of the cabinet, so its buried.

Otherwise, I got one of those Saab Blackstone inter-coolers off of eBarf. It looks good, arrived a little dirty, but the cooling surface looks larger than the stock one, and as you can see the input/output ports are both on the same end. I'll take some measurements and some side-by-side pictures with the stock one later on. I hear it may not rain tomorrow night or maybe Thursday. If the rumors hold true, I may get out there and start seeing how it can fit under the engine bay. If I can get a good strong fit, I can plan the air routes and get the silicone pipes on a truck before the Christmas shipping rush really kills package movement. We'll see.

Thanks for following along. Oh, it looks like the snow on Mt. Hood is getting really good. I may need to take another day at Meadows before Christmas... but then I definitely won't be test driving before NewYearsEve. Grr... the snow will have to wait :(

Engine Hatching

Last time I said there were 4 different things I could focus on next. Turns out, there was a 5th - finishing the engine hatch. I did 90% of that finish work today. I'll cover that, and then rough out a plan for the inter-cooler mounting.

Where'd that hole come from?
Over a year ago, I needed to put a hole over the engine compartment so I could fit the new engine. After some examination, it was really only a short section of support bar, but I really didn't like not having a hatch. (see "it's in the hole" for a longer post about the hole). Anyway, I put a roughly square hole over the engine compartment.


Don't cut your lip
In December, I posted about the radiator cowling. Within that post ("Radiator Shrouded") I talked about wrapping the edge of the hatch door with drip-irrigation vinyl tubing to protect my fingers from getting cut on the lip. Well, I discovered today that it does a pretty good job of sealing off the engine compartment from the passenger cabin. I will have to pull it off to remove the remaining bits of blue tape, to put some paint on the exposed steel and to glue it back, but its a keeper. I did file all the way around so it isn't sharp. That took much longer than I expected, but so much of this project falls into that category.


hinging on what?
I thought about piano hinging this door so it lifted from right to left instead of front to back. I thought is would be more useful or that I could figure out a way to get it to stay put using the cabinet. I discovered, though, that the square-ish hatch and the roundy roof wouldn't support that. So, we're going with front-to-rear. The shape of the floor is all lumpy, though, so a simple piano hinge would look weird. Instead, I got 4 1" hinges at Lowes and a small packet of 4-40 1/2 machine bolt/nuts. The hinges were set into the floor of the bus with rivets. Maybe I should have gone with bolt/nut on both sides. We'll see. Once the hinges were set, it was just a matter of patiently aligning the hatch, marking, drilling and bolting.


keeping it closed
Now that the door will go up and down, how do we hold it in position? First, we need something to keep it from falling into the engine. Since the hole was cut without regard for where the supports were, the rear edge was hanging 4" +/- from the rear support. To remedy that, I got a 1" angle of steel (36" long) and cut a 1-1/2" square from each end. After bending the remaining tab, I had a 33" long angle bar with a tab for mounting to the front-to-back supports. (I'll post a picture). I had to hammer on it a bit to get it to fit, leaving about 3/8" sticking into the open space. I riveting the tab's into the front-to-back supports. That left defining a knob of some kind to hold it closed.

I rooted around in the box of spare parts I got with the bus and found an old glove-box knob. "Perfect," I thought. Like setting the hinge holes, it was just a matter of patiently aligning, marking drilling, dremeling and filing. The hole is about the size of a nickle. I found, though, that the hole was a touch too close to the support bar I installed in the last paragraph, and the catch was too low. I took on of the cut-off squares I cut off the bar and fab'd a striker. After an afternoon of messing with it, I have a hinged hatch that holds shut.

All that's left is pulling the tape, sealing the hinge-side with vinyl tubing and maybe putting down a strip of weather stripping along the support bar. I think that might help eliminate any rattling. Oh, yeah, I'll probably put some noise/heat protector on the underside of the hatch. I already mentioned a little paint and glue. That's 10% left.

Inter-cooling planning
Well, I thought that by the time I got to this part of the post, I'd have a plan. I really don't. I'm going to use some thin flat-bar that I have lying around from my different radiator mounting experiments. Now that I have a cross-bar supporting the top-side of the hatch, I can tie into that for the top support. The bottom should be able to tie into the base pretty easily. I doubt I'll get to that work during the week, but it should be a small enough job to complete next Saturday. With luck, I'll be able to finish the hatch stuff too.

That's it for this one. Thanks again for following along.

pictures-
top: after installing hinges. You can see how I spread them out. That red circle is where the knob goes.
mid-top: while installing hinges. You can already see how it will look like it used to, except for a big black square. That rubber hanging over the seat back is a rear hatch seal.
middle: close-up of a hinge install.
mid-bottom: the striker during a test-install. I cut it down about 1/4" from that to work better.
bottom: hatch closed. close-up of glove-box knob holding it down.

Radiator shouded

First, I hope everyone had a happy healthy holiday, and I wish you the best for the new calendar year. Any NewYears resolutions? This year, I again resolve to have my bus moving under its own power by year's end. Ok, I have made that resolution pretty much every year for the last 3, but I think it might actually stick this year. I've been fortunate enough to have had the last week off (without pay). With this open time, I've been able to clear off some honey-do-list items and still get something done on the bus. Since its NewYearsEve, I thought this would probably be short-ish, but if you've read my blog you know I'm not exactly brief. This one is no exception :)

Honey-Do
With any stretch of time off, there are going to be home projects to be completed. My house is no different. I had to move a few bookshelves (and all the books) from one floor to another, and tear down the indoor Christmas decorations. We re-arranged our bedroom a bit, but otherwise, the list was pretty short. I did have to re-clean the garage, though. It seems with all of the packages at Christmas-time, the rubbish just gets thrown into a heap in our sub-sized single-car garage. I think I ended up with 2 55-gallon drums worth of recycling out of it. Crazy.

One Fan
Once the garage was navigable again, I started poking around my shop bench. I didn't want to jump into the shrouding right away because I knew there was a hardware store stop blocking me, but I couldn't remember all the things I needed. So, I set to mounting the low-profile high-volume fan to the underside of the radiator while my coffee kicked in. The mounting instructions and hardware were perfect, and I had the fan attached without much trouble at all:
Set the fan where you want it. Make a little space with a thin nail between the fins to make room for the mounting sticks at points where holes in the fan housing align with space between the radiator runs. Then, thread through the fan housing, then through a foam spacer... through the radiator then through another foam spacers and finally through the keeper/foot. Last, cut the extra off the mounting sticks.

I set the fan to the rear, thinking I will add a second (slightly smaller) one on the front end when I get another $100 lying around. Since installing the fan is so easy, I see no reason to jump into that immediately. The wiring runs straight out the back, and consists of 2 wires, so it should be easy to wire it up. You can see from the picture on the left that the inlet/outlet is longer than the fan is thick. You can also see there's a little space between the fan and the radiator - this space is created with foam spacers to protect the radiator from the fan, and vibrations. These same spacers are on the feet on the other side.

Shrouding the Radiator
After the fan was on, I dashed to Lowes for the nuts and bolts I needed to mount the shrouding. Wrestling the shrouding onto the brackets took longer than I expected it to. In the end, I was able to get both sides bolted on. I think I'll have to do something across the underside to help hold the sides in. I was planning to re-use a furnace grate, and I think I still will. This would perform 2 functions: protect the underside of the radiator/fans and hold the sides against the radiator.

Vinyl
I bought about 20' of black vinyl irrigation tubing when I was at Lowes. My original thought was to use this tubing to protect the edges of the engine lid. I figured I wouldn't get cut a much, and it might help insulate the opening. I cut a slit along the tube and wrapped three sides of the "hatch door". I think it just might work. I took this idea to the radiator shrouding too. In my last post, I mentioned a concern for what happens when the radiator bounces up and hits one of the "junk tubes". Hopefully, this vinyl tubing will help reduce any bad breaks. Now that I see how it fits, I'll let it sit for a few days to get used to its positioning and then glue it into place. I'll be waiting on the hatch door until I'm ready to paint it before gluing it.

That's it for today. I hope everyone has a nice NewYearsEve.

pictures:
top - vinyl tubing along the "hatch door".
top mid left - low profile fan showing standoff space.
top mid right - fan disposition: near inlet/outlet end of radiator
lower mid - shroud mount point at front left corner
lower - shroud sides done. vinyl tubing on top. note fan mounting feet.

starter follow-up

First, the westyventures auto-tranny adapter fits perfectly for the 002 (early bay manual) transaxle. I was able to slide the adapter into place, and physically connect the starter to the adapter. It seemed like everything lined up, gears-wise, but it was hard to tell from underneath. I am going to have another go at it before final connection to make sure.

There are a couple of things to note. On the original bay window bus, the upper starter bolt runs from inside the engine compartment through a tab on the block, through the bellhousing and out to the starter. On the engine compartment end, it has what's called a captive nut which is a semi-circular end that hangs up against the block so it doesn't turn when you're putting the nut on the other end. This works great for the original starter. It doesn't work at all for the adapter. The adapter has a small counter-sink hole, but it isn't large enough for a full-sized nut. The counter-sink was designed for the vanagon upper bolt which is an Allen-head bolt that runs from the starter side through the bellhousing.

If you are going to use this adapter with a TDI starter on an original 002 with an aircooled engine, you will need a vanagon upper starter bolt (over-length) and a fitting nut. The bolt will go in from the starter side through to the engine compartment and the nut will thread on from that side.

In my case, where I'm using an a Kennedy adapter to mate a TDI engine to the 002, there isn't a captive nut. Instead, there is a stud threaded into the adapter. I covered some of this in this post from last Summer. To make the adapter fit, the stud needs to be pulled and replaced with a vanagon-style Allen-head bolt. I didn't have one handy, so I'll be finishing this when I do.

My sister and nephew are visiting from SoCal this week, and my other sister (with family) will be visiting next week. Add a camping trip at the end, and not much progress will be made for a little while. I hope to have some idle moments to start filing the sharp edge of the hole where the engine lid will go. This is lower priority than lots of other things, but with the engine mount work in mid-stream, I don't want to move it or otherwise get something started that would slow that progress one minute. I probably won't post again until I get back from Lake Billy Chinook unless some news breaks.

Engine into Bus, Part III

Simply put, the ALH TDI engine from a 1998 VW New Beetle is in. Once the hole was cut, it was a matter of jacking it up into the air, and hooking it up. I'll give greater detail below, but this was a huge "diamond" on the project plan. Now that the engine and bus are a single unit, I can roll the bus into the garage for the Winter. I need to re-assess what I'm going to do next, but the huge blocking task has been completed.

So, how'd I do it?

Because I haven't built a wooden jack adapter yet, it wasn't as easy as the next and all future ones will be. I tilted the engine as much as I safely could with stacked 2x4's on the ATV jack arms, but I couldn't get it all the way to 15*. So, I put a 2-ton rolling jack under the front (front is front) of the transaxle and the ATV jack is working the engine. I slowly jacked up the unit to just under the rear transaxle mounts. At this point, the lack of a hole was previously getting in the way. Now that there's a huge opening, I was able to get the engine that little bit higher. To be fair, the barrier wasa a support beam running under the ceiling, not the ceiling itself. I probably could have made the engine fit just by removingthe beam (in retrospect). Regardless, it would have made the rest of these efforts much more difficult had the ceiling remained.

Between shoving and manipulating the angle of the engine/transaxle unit with the jacks, I was able to slide the left (driver's) side bolt through. Much more angle playing, and I was finally able to thread the bolt through the mount-nut on the rear side of the mount.

Next, I switched around the ATV jack a little bit by lifting the engine (with my hands/arms) and moving the jack with my foot. This would have been a great time for a neighbor to stop by to ask what I was up to. No such luck. So, with a little good fortune, I was able to get the engine cranking back up again. With the right side rising, the left was relatively still, but I was losing control of the pitch. The front of the transaxle was getting far too high, so I couldn't slide the bolt through. New tack: lower the engine a little bit until I can attach the transaxle front mount. I connected it loosely - enough to hold the transaxle level, but it still allowed movement. Then, I moved the jack again, this time so that as I cranked it up, it would move with the rotation a little better (jack was parallel with the rear bumper). Upwent the engine right into the mount. I was able to thread the second bolt pretty easily after that.

So, now the engine is in. I lowered the jacks and danced around my driveway. By now, it had gotten dark, but I was able to snap a few pictures with flashlights, cliplights and dwindling daylight. I need a rear engine mount still, but I can do that on my schedule. In the meantime, I can focus on detailing the next steps and determine the order based on interest, desire and dependence instead of what needs to be done because the bus is sitting in the driveway.

its in the hole!

In March of 2007, I had a post about gaining access to the engine in a 1972 VW bus. I outlined the 3 different sizes of standard openings that VW offered in their aircooled bus (and the type 3/4). After a year and a half, and a decision to swap a diesel engine into Hapy, I've put topside access into my 1972 bus. I didn't come to this decision easily (nor quickly, obviously), but now that its there, its incredible. Even if it is just a hole.

Measure, and then re-measure for good measure.
In the link above, I provided 3 possible stock-ish sizes. I liked the access idea from the typ3/4, so I took those dimensions, and made it a little smaller at 20" deep and 30" across. The hole can be expanded, if the type3/4 cover/lid becomes available. That's a decision for another day. As it is, the right side (facing front) is butted up against the support rail that runs front-to back on the right side. The front side runs along the firewall.

mark it, tape it, mark it again.
Centering the 30" on the latch, draw the lines with a T-square. 16" from center to the right is the support beam, but 15" off leaves just enough space to fit a 1" square tube in the future. 20" from the firewall leaves about 4 inches from the latch (see the picture to the right here). I'll need to weld in a support there along the backside later. Anyway, with a T-Square mark the rectangle with a pencil, over-shooting the intersections. Double check the lengths and the squared corners. Take masking tape and tape over the lines, centering the tape on the pencil lines. The tape will help keep the cuts smooth. Re-mark the lines with a sharpie so you can see them when you're working the grinder.

cut with care.
Break out your angle grinder with a cutting wheel. I bought a 4 1/2" for this job and got a DeWalt cutting wheel. Start near a corner and work one line. Stop before you get to the end and switch to another line. I did the left side then the front, then right and finally the rear. This order allowed me to climb into the bus to cut the front without stressing it. Once the lines were done, I went in through the back and finished the cross-support bar off. Finally, complete the corners, and the hole is finished.

enjoy.
The resulting hole needs to be filed or otherwise protected, or you'll cut yourself up on it. I'm putting that off for now. Same goes to creating a hatch. I didn't realize just how much better it was until I got back to putting the engine in and was able to see the whole thing. As it got dark, I set up a cliplight from the rear door support and it was incredible. Imagine crawling through your front grill to work on your engine for 4 years and then to finally have a hood. Wow.

Engine not in bus....

In brief, my measurements let me down again. First, my measurements for the vacuum pump and coolant flange were off. As a result, I spent the afternoon banging the engine/transaxle against the fuel tank. So, I pulled the fuel tank yesterday. Today, I set to installing the engine/transaxle again. This time, no matter how I tried, I was unable to get the transaxle mount points together. The intake and oil filler were banging against the ceiling of the engine compartment. So, what does this mean? I have to cut an access hole of some kind into that ceiling. I suspected this over a year ago, but after taking measurements over and over again, and determining it would fit, I moved on. Now, I need to get a sawzall or an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel and cut a hole in the ceiling.

Based on the measurements I took before, there should have been about an inch of space. That's what makes this so frustrating and confusing. To be fair, I've seen another TDI install in a splitty, and he put a hatch in. I guess this was inevitable. So, tomorrow, I'll be off to Harbor Freight for a cheap 4 1/2" angle grinder. Yes, I'll check craigslist first. The more important question, though, is how large a hole to cut? I have decided to cut a hole that will fit a type4 lid. I'll get a lid from the nice folks over at the DDB here in Portland at some point. I am approaching this from a "do what needs to be done to get the bus in the garage before Winter fully takes hold" perspective. I would rather move more predictably. I would rather have a firmer plan than react to problems, but that's where we are. I don't have a fuel tank solution. I don't know how big a hole I need, or how I'll fit a cover. I may have to "build a box" over the hole - some Vanagon conversions have to do that. It doesn't matter. For now, I'll be measuring and cutting a hole 2" smaller on all sides than the type4, thinking I can make it larger later, if I need to.

I'm taking all of these events as opportunities to learn something about working on the bleeding edge, and something about patience. I don't think of myself as a very patient person, but other people seem to think I am. I guess I just freak out about things on the inside. The goal hasn't moved: bus in garage asap. The limitations have been dropped, though, and that can be freeing.

I'll take pictures of the hole, and of the engine install, once its in place. I was able to see that nothing else would prevent the transaxle from mating. I take that as a great sign. Once the hole is cut, the engine/transaxle will mate, and I can roll the bus into the garage. I'll figure out a fuel tank and a hatch solution then. Thanks for reading, and I'll have more later.

Head Banging without the Music

One of the unique characteristics of a 1972 VW Bus is how you get at the engine. For those used to leaning over the front fender of your favorite car, cold beverage in hand, while considering your timing, or the next oil change, or the Red Sox pitching staff, its a little different with an old bus. First off, the engine is in the back, which makes for some funny conversations at the annual smog check. It makes leaning on a fender impossible too, though the rounded corners are good for leaning :)

Once you're realized that the engine is back there, you discover that its behind a little door where the license plate sits. Pop that thing up, and you're in wonderland. Alice's wonderland, that is. For in the 1972 bus, that little door is the only way to get at your engine. I think of it as vehicular proctology. Between the coveralls, flashlight and tools, you can barely get in the door, much less do anything. Makes you wish for a little "eat me" cake, but that feeling only gets stronger when you realize you forgot a tool or need a sandwich and try to remove yourself from that doorway. *BANG* the back of your head hits the upper threshhold. That's why I always pop on a snow-hat before climbing into my engine door. I admit, its awfully hot doing that in the Summer, but its better than the inevitable headsmack. This one-door deal is really only a 1972 bus issue, as a top-hatch was added in 1973 and continued through the vanagon.

I'm tired of wearing a ski hat in the Summer. I want to be able to check something on my engine without getting down on all fours. I want to be able to lean against the engine opening and talk about the Red Sox pitching staff, and actually be able to see the engine when I'm doing it. So, what to do... why, cut a hole! Well, that sounds rash, but installing a door on the topside isn't such a bad idea. The question is how big a door? Would putting in a door compromise the structure of the bus or would additional bracing be necessary? Here are a few choices:

Baywindow bus hatch is 11" deep by 31 1/2" wide. Not too big, but engine access is achieved. Additional support or bracing is probably not needed, but I'd probably do something just to be sure. I don't think these are of much real use, though, because they're really quite small. With the coveralls and tools, can you really reach through an opening 11" deep and do anything other than utter muffled curses?

Vanagon Hatch. is 42 3/8" x 25 1/8". Huge. Makes one wonder "how much of your back would not be a door?" Well, I measured my back panel just for kicks and its 34" deep and 42" across to the westy closet. I'll remeasure tonight and repost if the numbers from memory are off. Its actually 44" across by 32" deep, but there's really only about 23", maybe a touch more, from the firewall to the rear door. Regardless, it tight. Additional supports or bracing would totally be necessary. A removable support in the center might be a good idea too. Big enough? Heck yeah. The lid would open like the hood on an old Monte Carlo. Of course, you'd breach the firewall with a hatch like that, at least according to my measurements, so this may not be such a good idea after all.

Type3/4 Hatch is 22" x 31" give or take a 1/4", with 34" on the diagonal from rounded corner to corner. Sounds about twice the size of the bus hatch, but not as big as the vanagon. It would barely fit, but bracing would be a good idea. Also, finding a lip might be a challenge, as the type3 and type4 cars are not as plentiful, and there are multiple layers of steel that would have to be cut through to get the original lip. Considering the closeness in size to the baywindow hatch (times 2) maybe 2 donor hatch frames could make a single lip. Sounds like it could be a lot of work.

make your own is always a choice, but rarely a good one. Lots of cutting, fabricating a door, maybe from the cut out steel doesn't sound like too great an idea. The edge of the cut out would need to be strengthened by something like a home-made lip. In the end, it won't look too good, probably won't be structurally sound, and will probably leak emissions into the bus. Bad idea.

Of the 3 decent ideas, I like the size and lineage of the type3/4 hatch, but the amount of work does give me pause. If I really need engine access from above, it will take more than cutting a hole and glueing in a vinyl window. Accordingly, I'll have to really plan this out before I do anything.

If you're thinking of putting in a hatch, I hope these dimensions were helpful to you. I collected them from different owners and part suppliers and should be pretty accurate. Thanks to the BusCo, theSamba and theDDB for helping collect the measurements.