Love on the Bus

Short post today, describing a day spent just doing little things on the bus in the middle of festival season.

Oil
When we got back from 4Peaks, we had a small electrical issue, that was solved in all of 5 minutes with a replacement 8amp fuse. With that quick satisfaction of a minor issue, I wanted more. Since we had driven through the desert and I wasn't really sure when I last changed his oil, I did that. Changing the oil on this engine is so easy. 15mm drain plug loosens easily and sits less than 2 inches above the drain pan, so there's virtually no mess. I remove the fill cap so it drains faster. While the last drips are coming out, I remove and replace the oil filter. This can get messy, but I have found that pulling the filter straight up with one hand while the other, wrapped in a single-use plastic grocery bag, grabs the bottom, you can contain all of the oil. This works best if you raise the filter and let it drip into the holder for a minute before you grab with the other hand. Replace both the upper and lower o-rings. You should have gotten both with the filter, unless you went super cheap, and why would you go cheap on an oil filter?

Rust

floor, when first uncovered

While hanging out in the camp zone with GratefulEd, we talked buses of course, and the topic of rust came up. He usually does some level of rust search-and-destroy every other year. Based on that model, I'm due. So, I removed the lot couch and the foam mats off the floor in the middle of the bus, and attacked the surface rust I found there. Years ago, I had cleaned up rust here after removing some il-planned noise absorption matting. The matting did not stick well, and trapped more moisture than noise. So, this time, I cleaned, sanded and re-cleaned the floor. I applied 2 coats of rust converter on the entire floor. Once cured, I applied rubberized undercoating. This should remove the threat of rust from above. This leaves the threat of rust from below, however, and this model of bus has the 2 welded-in belly pans. So, I will need to get creative in solving for that. Then, of course, there is the radiator under the center section. I will need to lower it to get after the rust potential there, but that will need to wait until October, when camping/festival season is over. I walked the bus a little bit, making note of where there was a wisp of rust either as a stain or as a bubble under the paint. There is quite a bit to look at, but none of it really terrible. It's just in lots of spots. More opportunity to love on Hapy while not taking him off the road.

Noise

after rust converter and undercoating

With the foam off the floor, I could really hear the echo coming off the steel floor. Rapping on floor with my knuckle was like knocking on the sidewall of a steel shed (clang-clang-clang). Yikes, that's just awful. No wonder my ears rang after the drive home from 4Peaks. So, I grabbed the 80mm Noico that I used on Oliver, the '78 MGB, and cut thin strips to set in the little ribs in the floor. Once all of the rib-divots had Noico applied and worked in with the roller tool, I placed 3 larger sheets down on top above the center section (effectively over the radiator). I figured the fans could be creating more vibration so having a little extra there couldn't hurt. Once rolled snug with the roller tool, I tested with my knuckles again. The clang-clang-clang wasn't as pronounced, but these sheets are not designed to lessen that kind of noise; they are designed to muffle vibrations. So, the real test is when the fans turn on and the engine is running at 2800 rpm. Noise reduction folks have said that only 25-50% of a surface area needs to be covered with these vibration things to have a noticeable impact. I covered over 50%, so, in theory, this should make a difference. Resigned to seeing how it felt when I next drove, I put the foam back down and the lot couch back in. There was no visible evidence that I had done anything, but it seemed like Hapy was sitting taller, like he was Hapy he got some love. Yes, I know that sounds silly.

When I was done with the oil, I remembered that I had an engine cover for the TDI engine in Flash that I took off years ago. I don't remember why I took it off, nor why I left it off, but there it was leaning against the wall on top of my shop bench. I think I had planned to use it in Hapy for years, but figured I needed to cut it to fit, so I just left it there. Well, today I was just puttering anyway, so I gave it a test fit. Wouldn't you know, it slipped right on. Now, the bracket which holds the vacuum ball had the cover mount cut off, so I can only hold it in place with 2 bolts (and I only had one). After pawing through a box of random fasteners, I found a M6 bolt that was 30mm long. Perfect. So, now the engine has a cover. Since I don't look at it hardly ever, the cover shouldn't be an access issue, but it should contain a little bit of the noise. We'll see.

That's really all I have today. I'm working on a new piece of furniture for when-camped, but it is still in the design stage. Until then, more shows and camping awaits!

Zup date

Its been a few weeks of sporadic work on the 280ZX we picked up in October. Today's post covers some of the work that's been done thus far.

Oil

When we bought the car, the owner was pretty up-front about the condition of the car. He had the transmission gone through, put in a new clutch and rebuilt the engine. My first thought when I heard that statement was "yeah, right". When we looked the engine bay over, though, the paint tells the story: the engine block has been recently painted purple. The exhaust, intake and all other components haven't any purple on them. So, either he went through considerable trouble to make it look like he rebuilt the engine or he actually did. He did share that the valves will need their post-rebuild adjusting, so we'll have to remember that.

Still, any used car probably has old fluids in it. With a recent rebuild, engines need oil changes more often, so one of the first things C did was an oil and oil filter change. Good man. The oil was not terribly black and we did not find any little metal bits in it. Even the magnetic drain plug was clean. All good signs.

Hammertime

Once the oil was done, C wanted to get after the bodywork. The front driver fender had a pretty good dent in it and the driver door was bad dented badly enough that it wouldn't close properly. The fender was extremely easy to remove. There is a series of bolts along the top, like any other car fender, but only a few on the bottom and none along the door frame. Stunned, we had the fender off in a matter of minutes. C thought about the cost of a replacement fender and decided that trying to get the dents out was a worthwhile learning experience. So, he grabbed a framing hammer, set the fender on an old tire and started wailing on the dents from the inside of the fender. Now, that sounds pretty horrible, but the execution was actually pretty damn good. He spent about an hour working the dents down smaller and smaller until all that's really left are framing hammer markings. We will need to finish the fender out with some real body tools, but I think for his purpose (daily driver) he will be able to get it looking decent.

The driver door was a bear to get off because of the dent. We needed to hammer and pry-bar the lip just so we could get a wrench onto the hinge bolts. Still, with a 12mm crescent, the 6 bolts came off with relative ease and the door was soon on the ground. We sourced a replacement outside Sacramento, but for now the driver door opening is protected with a tarp while the new door is stripped. As you can imagine, our front yard looks stunning.

De-Purple

As you could see in some of the pictures, the prior owner wanted the accent color to be purple rather than the stock blue. So, he painted all of the blue areas a plum color. It may have been great for him. C hated it. So, he went at it first with my angle grinder. It created lots of dust, but didn't really take out much of the purple. So, he bought some aircraft paint stripper. Now, this is some nasty stuff, but it totally worked. The key was letting a first coat of stripper set up and then put a second coat on. Once that's set up, we could strip it off. Some areas we did one coat to get the clear coat and a second pass to get all of the paint. Either way, C stripped all of the purple paint off: passenger fender, driver fender, passenger door, hood and even the little bits on the rear quarters.

That's as far as C (with a little help and guidance) has gotten. His progress has slowed as he has decided to get a job to help pay for things. Since school is his first job, and hourly wages for new-to-the-workforce jobs are rather low, the inflow of capital will be slow, so the rate of improvement to the 280ZX will reflect that.

Thanks, as always, for following along. If you happen to have a cache of 280ZX interior bits, we're looking for those too-

Zoom zoom

It seems that I've been gone long enough for the blogger format to have changed.  Apologies to my regular readers for both my delay and for any weirdness caused by the new blogger interface.  It'll be a basic update today, just touching on bus stuff.

Daily Driving
The ol' bus and I have been a tight-pair the last few weeks.  I've been driving him to work and back pretty much every day.  I've noticed a few things that are curious, but not necessarily alarming.  First, the coolant level continues to drop, but I can't spot a leak.  Also, the pressure (or is it vacuum?) build-up is so pure and strong that after a drive the coolant bottle is nearly empty.  When I remove the cap of the fill-bottle, coolant splashes back in all the way to the full line.  Crazy.  So, I hear the low-coolant alarm in the donor dash, but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm low on coolant... I really over-filled the bottle this morning.  I'll post what happens.
Second, there's an oil leak.  I don't know where it is, but the bus definitely leaves his mark when I park him. I think the oil line to or from the turbo could be it, or its the oil cooler or maybe the underside of the oil filter housing.  Regardless, I'll find a dry day next weekend and tighten everything.  I was just under there last weekend re-tightening all the coolant line hose clamps.  There's always something, but that's part of owning a 40 year old car.

Acceleration Interruption

fixed and re-installing

On the way home from work on Friday May 11th, I had a breakdown in the left-hand progress (not turn) lane during rush-hour.  The accelerator suddenly dropped to the floor and I was rolling without throttle control.  The RPM's dropped to 900, so I quickly scanned the traffic on Hall Blvd (in Beaverton).  I was unable to slide right, so I took a left turn into an apartment complex parking lot through the oncoming traffic.  Sketch.  I removed the front belly pan and discovered that my hack-awful welding job on the accelerator resistor bracket (see Accelerating Slowly) had failed.  Dandy.  With my welder deep in storage, getting this fixed could have been a real time killer.  Fortunately, Boo has a local mechanic guy (Johnny) who can do small welding repairs, so I asked him to do it.  Less than an hour (and only $15) after I gave it to him, the weld was done and the whole thing was painted.  I can''t find a business name for Johnny's garage, but the location is (9085 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, Beaverton, Oregon).  Great guy.  Talk your ear-off, if you let him, but he'll fix your car for a fair price.

Since I've neglected the blog a bit, I'll post again in a couple of days covering snow and personal experiences.... and, of course, another bus conundrum. :)  As always, thanks for following along, and another apology for my blog negligence.