Little British Car (part 1)

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

Little British Car

sample, but it looked like this

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

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

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

Molalla

GoogleMap of Molalla

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

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

sample MGB image. Actual car much crappier

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

Back from having fallen off the edge

So, yeah, its been 4 months of silence.  Now, I'm back in a somewhat stable space again, and I can take on the bus and the blog.  I didn't exactly fall off the edge of the Earth, but it probably seemed that way.  4 months ago, I wrote about a theory about the leak, but I wasn't able to really test that theory until today.  I'll touch on that and provide a whirlwind tour of my last 4 months.  First, the leak....

Dude, You Crushed It

ALH TDI cooling diagram

As you may remember, I've been suffering some coolant leak problems since I swapped Justin's engine harness out for mine.  We thought it was the coolant temperature sensor.  At this point, I think that actually was the original leak source.  I actually got it fixed last Labor Day when I last pulled the engine to trade out the old tranny for the new high-geared one.  Unfortunately, I believe that was when I damaged the coolant hard line that runs over the top of the bell-housing (part #11 in drawing).  In a stock install, this line is not in harm's way at all.  In fact, I'm not sure why they did that rather than just use rubber lines with junctions, but there was probably a penny saved in there somewhere.  Anyway,  In the bus, this hard line runs very close to the frame to which the trans-axle is mounted.  Adding insult to injury, the hard line has a bracket as part of it which needs to be attached to the front of the block,sharing a bolt through the outlet flange.  Its not obvious in the picture, but its the bolt that is referenced just above the #12 in the picture.  Anyway, it wasn't connected, so I thought the leak was being caused by that not being connected, and the lines allowed to flop around.  It's possible the hard line damage was caused by this.  Its also possible that I crushed the line, popping a little hole in it, when I did that Labor Day install.  Groovy.
Boo has to work tomorrow morning, so I'll start attacking the problem.  I plan to drain the coolant down below that level (assuming the leak hasn't done it for me), cut the hard line above the junctions and route rubber in its place.  I'll need to prevent the rubber from rubbing against things, but after examining the coolant schematic, there just isn't another explanation for why its leaking now.  The #20 and related bits are gone, replaced instead with just a simple heater circuit.  Hmm..

Move ah move ah
Shortly after that last post, Boo and I had finally had it with the condo, the idiots on the HOA board and the self-serving nature that same board spent the budget.  The last straw was after we attended a board meeting about nonsense, but the published minutes described decisions which were never discussed.  Crazy.  Representative government my ass.  So, we hit the rental papers, found and landed a house within a couple weeks.  The current occupants weren't ready to leave for a few weeks, but that gave us the time to rapid-pack 2 families worth of stuff while trying to helicopter boys to lacrosse practices and such.  It was a good time Spring.  We moved in early May.  Immediately following the move-in, we set our eyes on getting the condo ready for someone else.  We followed the Navy axiom of "if it moves, oil it; if it doesn't, paint it".  Needless to say, we pushed 1080 square feet of paint, replaced a ton of broken or worn down stuff, etc.  To be totally fair, 95% of the work was done by Boo.  W(Sh)e finished on Wednesday.  It looks amazing.  Now, we can really address the sea of boxes stacked up in our living room.
On move day, the garage (like any move) became the default staging area for stuff when we started running out of time.  After a Saturday of digging, I had room for the bus.  I am still digging out, but I was able to crack into the bus today.  I don't know where most of my parts or tools are, exactly, but that won't stop me from getting in there with a saw anyway.

That's it for today.  Now that we've moved, school's ended, the condo is done, etc, I expect I'll be back to updating more often.  Its nice to be back for sure.  Tomorrow, I'll get that hard line cut out of the deal and see if I can get a test drive in this next week...

Natural-born Amusement

More fun tales from the last 2 weeks.  Its been busy, and the bus is back home and daily-driving again.  The joy of looking out the windscreen of a bus is unlike anything else.  Even when looking at a dreary gray morning through barely caffeinated eyes, it brings deep deep joy. 

Big Ol' Rounder in my Foldin Bed

First things first, I'm fully moved into Boo's place.  My boys and her boys have really gelled, and the few nights a week when we're all home are rowdy and fun.  Its a little crazy come bed-time, though.  the place is small, and wasn't really built for 6 people to sleep in, so its a little crowded.  Between a loft space and a bunk bed, though, everyone has a spot.  Add one more, though, and we'd need a cot in the hallway.

Man Comes By Lookin' For His Hat

One of the challenges of temporarily staying somewhere, is finding your stuff.  Most of my things are in storage, but there are some regular things that need to find homes.  From bills to car keys, basic processes have had to change around from when I had my own place.  A month into it and we're down to the last few things that need a system.  This included where to park and how to best make use of the bus.  For the last 3 weeks, I had been parking the bus at various locations near my old apartment.  I'd move him from one spot to another or from one parking lot to another every other day.  This kept the towing companies away, but it was annoying.  At least the engine was getting started, but it wasn't really even getting warm.  But, it was the system until yesterday.

On the Road Again

Yesterday, Boo grabbed the keys and dashed over to where we'd last parked him: her friend's apartment complex parking lot.  She had never driven him before, but she's driven a bus before.  She got him home and the report wasn't completely rosey: "its hard. I couldn't find 1st or 2nd consistently. He played Alpha (male) on me."  Yeah... that transaxle has been a beast since I bought him.  I know a new one is in order, its just a question of finding $1500 - $1800 plus a core charge.  Regardless, she got him home.  Now, I'll be driving him to work, she'll be driving the Jetta and her 16 year old (K) will be driving her old car.  This leaves an old Mountaineer out of the rotation and back at the stable.  Since it gets about 8mpg, this should save us some money, longer term.  Since the HOA rules for teh condo-complex forbid any work being done on the bus while parked in the lot, I'll be parking on the street for those days when I want to work on something... like fixing the shift linkage... or the cabin lights... :)

Natural-Born Amusement

It felt great to wind-up the bus this morning.  He's as peppy as only the TDI could allow, and I only had a can't-find-the-gear moment once, while trying to down-shift into second as I passed through a busy intersection.  No worries.  As he gets used to being driven, the gears get easier to find.  And there's always that promise of a new gearbox with hopped up gears...  He didn't even get to thermostat-open temp (185*) before I got to work, so I'll have to take longer drives to prove out his real road-readiness.  Camping season approaches!

That's it for today.  Thanks for following along.  Now that I'm driving him every day, I expect to have more relevant adventures to document.  Besides that, camping season is coming, and there are things I'd like to have ready for this Summer of fun.  It should be a fun Spring!