Hapy not Spittin Fuel

I managed to get Hapy, the 1972 TDI-powered microbus, over to Justin to get the injection pump re-sealed this weekend. Today's post covers that adventure as well as a quick trip thru a K'Lack (2004 VW Jetta Wagon) issue.

 

Getting There

head seal complete

It has been 2 years since Hapy really went much of anywhere. Most of that time, he sat waiting for attention either in an unknown, but unstartable state or in pieces. Once I had him re-assembled with a new flywheel/ring gear and had a test drive, the original reason for him to have starting problems re-appeared: Injection Pump losing prime. I was able to prime the pump with a MityVac and then crack the injectors to get him running. And, in that way I took him on a short test drive, found some issues with the lights, etc. There remained many other issues, but at least I could get him running, stopping and had my lights so I could drive him an hour and 20 minutes to Justin's shop.

 

The night before our start-of-day appointment, I got Hapy out of the back and filled with B-20 biodiesel ($6.40/gal. same as dinoDiesel. Thanks, Trump). That morning, I filled up with coffee and hit the road. Most of the drive from West Beaverton to Justin's shop is on back country roads with few other drivers on an early Saturday morning and even fewer traffic lights. It was in the 50's (F low-teens C) and clear, making the drive very pleasant. At some point after I fixed the rear speakers, the stereo lost access to 12V so I drove in silence, a familiar scene for Hapy. The road was so easy, the thermostat never opened. I had the cabin heat on, so I may have been pulling just enough heat off the engine to keep the thermostat closed. Based on the UltraGauge, the engine temp was hovering around 180*F so running "cold". When I pulled into town off the country roads, I had a few cases of not finding 2nd gear. I noted that for followup later. When I arrived, Justin and I hung out for a bit before getting started. He has so many interesting projects all going at once, you have to absorb it all. I mean, who puts a TDI in an Audi TT while also putting one into a Rabbit pickup? Love that! The way he scraps discards and re-uses them for the basis of tools is pretty awesome too. He's even teaching himself TIG welding. Small crush, maybe. Okay, fine. He does do some impressive stuff.

 

Injection Pump (IP) Reseal

hammer mod perfecting IQ

Justin had encouraged me to get the seal kit from Cascade German, since they are local-to-Oregon, when we first set the apointment. I had already purchased the deluxe kit from DieselGeek. I didn't understand the difference. These 2 kits definitely vary in their intended purpose, so they have some meaningful differences. The Cascade German version is actually less expensive, but it includes all of the little seals usually replaced when a legit shop does the re-seal. The DieselGeek kit has far fewer seals (just the 2 on top and the head-to-base seal) and it is designed for the home-mechanic to re-seal the pump in their garage without removing the pump from the vehicle. The DieselGeek deluxe kit is more expensive because it includes specialty bits a car owner probably does not have, but are needed for the job. This differentiation is important and your case may lead you to the larger kit even if you do not intend to replace much more than the 3 included in the DieselGeek deluxe.

 

Once Justin discovered the gap, we made-do with the smaller kit. Justin replaced the top 2 seals first and then moved onto the head-to-base seal. Rather than use the included "retraction limiting bolt" and try to fit the new head seal over the top of it, the head was removed, and I held the guts of the pump in-place while Justin cleaned all the surfaces and installed the new seal onto the head. Once installed, he hooked up the VagCom and hammer-mod'd (link to Hammer Mod thread on TDIClub) the injection quantity (IQ). Justin was aiming for 6.0 mg/stk because the engine was cold (54*C).

 

The engine bay was pretty dirty, so lots of time was spent getting the IP clean before we began as well as afterwards when the whole engine got a cleaning. After it dried off a bit, we let the engine idle and we looked for leaks. None found. Justin did ask about how the starter was mating to the flywheel. It does sound loud, like it may not be meshing quite right. I'll need to remove and reinstall the starter and the starter adapter to see if I can get things to sit right. The original adapter and starter that I put in just worked for years. I would expect the new-also-stock starter would fit the same. Since this is a new adapter, that is actually designed for the application, versus one I dremel'd to fit, I would think it would fit better. It's a puzzler, but one I will consider carefully as I remove/reinstall (R&R) the starter to get it to hit the ring gear more cleanly.

 

Getting Home

If there is anything we have learned over the years about Hapy, its that he loves going places and really does not like going home. How many times have I left home and the road trip to 4 Peaks or some camping spot went great and the drive home was either very challenging or partially performed by a flatbed? Too many. This trip was no different. At first, Hapy ran great. The engine was responsive and stayed cool. Somewhere around McMinnville a charged air pipe popped off, leaving me running naturally aspirated the rest of the drive home. This served as yet another reminder to never leave home with Hapy without some tools. While the turbo is great for the overall power-band, its absence is really noticeable when trying to leave the line and get up to traffic speed. Now that it was about noon on an absolutely stunner of a day, the roads were busy where they had been empty a few hours before.

 

By the time I was approaching the Dundee Bypass, I was having increasing difficulty finding 1st and 2nd gear. Sometimes, one or the other would be right there. Other times, it was a "can't find it, grind it" experience. This persisted all the way home, forcing me to sometimes leave a stop line in 3rd. When you add in the no-turbo, I had some dissatisfied fellow travelers around me. I did get home, however, and I drove Hapy all the way into the shop so I can chase these issues.

K'Lack

After having something to eat, I switched over to K'Lack, the 2004 TDI Jetta Wagon with a BEW motor. It had been throwing a crank position sensor error, lighting up the check engine light (CEL), preventing it from passing smog. I had ordered a replacement from Cascade on Thursday, and it was in the morning mail on Saturday when I got home from Justin's. The removal/replacement of these is not complicated (remove bolt, unplug from harness, install is reverse), but getting to the sensor and the weird bolt head complicate things. The sensor sits right behind the oil filter on the front, when the engine installed transverse like normal. The bolt head is a 9mm 12-point. Half of my sockets are 6-point and the other half are 12's, designed, I think, for easier application onto hex bolts. In this weird case, that socket set perfectly onto the 12-point bolt head. With the right socket, short extension and ratchet the bolt comes out fairly easily. The plug end is fitted into a metal tang, but otherwise once unplugged, the whole thing can just get dropped through the gaps onto the ground.

 

To install, I plugged it in first and then covered the sensor with a rubber glove to lower it past the engine ick and then below the car. Could I have cleaned the engine bay before starting? Yes. But then I would have been lying in mud since the car was on my front lawn, not back in the shop and I didn't want to lay in a puddle. At this point, I found having another person to be your eyes is very helpful. I got under the car, un-gloved and suspended sensor in hand and had Boo tell me east-west, up down until I was able to send the sensor into the hole. By doing it in this order, the sensor wanted to be oriented such that the bolt holes lined up naturally. I sent the bolt thru, tightened with the socket/ratchet combo and I was done. Since I cleared the code we need to run a few cycles until it is ready to smog.

 

For the legal-minded, Oregon cops are interested in registration violations after years of looking the other way post-CoViD. K'Lack got a registration-violation ticket while legally parked in downtown Portland. Drivers beware.

 

Hapy Wrenching

Feeling confident, I switched back to Hapy, and re-connected the charged air hose. As I suspected, it was one of the rubber-to-metal bits. I cleaned both the outside of the metal pipe and the inside of the rubber with brake cleaner so they were more apt to stay together and then tightened the clamp down.

 

I next wanted to chase why the lower gears were sporadically missing. I checked the front of the transaxle to see if it was out of position at all. Nope. Right before Boo and I bought this house, I bought a Gene Berg shifter. The new-at-that-time seats were higher than stock, moving the approximately-stock-length Scat gear shift further away. The Gene Berg shifter is a few inches longer, so I figured there would be less leaning. I had not gotten to installing it before the house was bought and life took a turn. Anyway, at this point I looked at the Scat shifter I had installed, probably over 15 years ago and slid the vinyl boot up the shifter. The plastic bits on either side of the shifter appeared to be allowing more play than I remembered. Hmm. Then, I looked at the rest of that mechanism. It was very rusty, especially the foot that rests on the floor. I shot the bolts with Kroil and after waiting a couple of minutes, removed them with a 13mm spanner/socket combination.

 

rust under shifter

The floor under the shifter had meaningful rust to match the rust on the shifter foot. I don't know how much play was created by the plastic bits, nor how much may have been introduced by the rust. I do recall, however, that the Scat shifter instructions did not account for adjusting the placement of the shifter front/back nor left/right. When looking at the foot profile, it looks very much like it is designed to sit squarely in the oval without any adjustment at all. I don't know if this was a terribly good design, but I will be installing the Gene Berg shifter which does allow for adjusting. I cleaned up the rust dust, shot the floor and the shift-rod end with brake cleaner and got everything as clean as I could. Then, I painted the area with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulater (the new stuff is even better than the original) and called it a day. I still need to treat from below. I shot the picture on the right here as I was almost done applying the paint.

 

Wrap

Well, that's where we stand right now. I have been in and out of the shop a few times since Saturday and there is not a single drop of fuel on the floor under Hapy. So, we can close the book on the IP leak. I intend to complete the shifter swap and then R&R the starter next. I hope that will be the end of both issues, but I suspect there will be more to do than that. Then, of course, there are all the other things like a fuel level gauge, the radio, and the diesel heater just off the top of my head. There are many incomplete items on Hapy. Now that I have a mostly-inside (one doorway remains), concrete floor'd space to work, my desire to work on these cars has really kicked into a new level.

 

Thanks, as always, for following along and more next time-

Oliver Fuel Fun

Boo had to work on Easter, so I had a Sunday to work with. Knowing others around the neighborhood were celebrating Easter with their families, I wanted to keep my noise and smoke to a minimum. So, I started slow, throwing Oliver onto a charger and then doing inside stuff. By 11, I was mowing the front lawn with the electric mower. With hand tools, I fixed the gates to the fence by lowering the little swivel wheels and re-setting the patio block they set on. Now, the gates sit mostly level and mostly vertical. By 2PM, most of the family gatherings were breaking up, so I felt I could make engine noises and such. So, I headed out to the shop. Engine noises. Ha. Such optimism.

 

No Start

fuel works

I am sure this comes as no surprise, but my first attempt to start Oliver was not successful. I really didn't expect it to, tho. I had a little over a gallon of gas in a jug that I poured into the tank, but I noticed that the fuel pump noise never lessened. So, as I walked to the rear of the car, I expected there would be no fuel in the filter. And there wasn't. The series of things the fuel needs to pass through before arriving at the pump is: fuel level sender / pick up tube -> flexible fuel line -> clear plastic fuel filter -> flexible fuel line -> fuel pump. From there, it travels, at pressure, thru another flexible line, through a short section of 90* hard line, more flexible line and then to the hard line that runs along the frame to the engine compartment. That's a lot of junctions. I started at the pump, testing with a MityVac vacuum pump, working my way back towards the tank. In retrospect, it would have been smarter to work my way forward from the tank all the way to the carb. Lesson learned.

 

Fuel Shower

upper one is bad

One of the short hoses was bad, but there was nothing visibly wrong with it. The picture on the right here is of those 2 lines. The top one cannot hold vacuum; the lower one can. This serves as a great reminder for those driving gravity-fed fuel system'd vehicles like the old VW bus. Fuel lines fail, sometimes not that long after you've installed it and sometimes you can't tell from looking at them. For a gravity feed system, you discover the leak after you've filled your tank, and it gushes onto the ground it you're lucky. Onto your hot exhaust if you're not.

 

While looking for the cause, I cracked the fuel level sender on the tank to confirm that I had enough fuel. I did. Once the one short line was replaced, I went up front, turned the key and started looking for another leak. I did not have to look very far. Immediately forward of the fuel pump, I had fuel going everywhere, running down the rear differential.

 

I concluded that it was another short hose, but noticed that the combination of short hose, weird 90* hard line, longer hose made little sense. I think I did that when I installed the fuel pump because the outlet of the new fuel pump was not clocked the same as the original and I didn't want a kink in the hose. If I remember correctly, I had already cut that longer hose, and solved the wrong problem. Or solved the right problem the wrong way. I think, that 90* bend was from the original system to go from the sender to the pump, and in this installation, I have a clear plastic fuel filter serving that function. Regardless, I corrected this time with a longer hose that runs from the pump to the long hard line. The longer hose was long enough to have a gentle arc, preventing a pinch in the line I was probably trying to avoid with the weird combo of parts. In the bottom picture, you can see that I have a small fuse for the fuel pump. This was not there stock, but I felt that with so many things living on the switched circuit, having a fuse around the fuel pump was probably a good idea.

 

Still No Start 

fuel pump

With the rear end lines set, I turned the key again, and the fuel pump quieted down after a few seconds. I looked under the car and no puddle was forming. There was not a drip at all. I went to the engine compartment, and there were no leaks there either. So, I tried to start it. No love. By now, it was approaching 5PM, and I had to get dinner started. But first, I wanted to know if the hard line was blocked or if there was fuel at the inlet on the carb. I removed the fuel line and gasoline dribbled out. Win. We have fuel at the carb. I put everything back together. Before heading inside, I checked the lights and hazards to give myself a little "well that works" energy before calling it a day.

 

Wrap Up

That's as far as I got on Sunday. After the random home-repairs, I had left myself more than enough time, had Oliver actually started, to give him a deep cleaning. That still needs doing, but first I need for him to run. I rebuilt the carb a couple of years ago, and the engine ran with it on there, so I don't think the issue is fueling, but it still could be. I will start with the spark plugs next time, and confirm I have spark. It is absolutely possible that something worked free during the move into the shop. If that does not bring me the start I am seeking then I will re-examine the carb. Maybe some gas residue became a thin varnish holding the bowl float, or is clogging a jet or something. 

 

That's all for now. Thanks, as always, for following along- 

Returning to Oliver

The last week or so has been busy with lots of not-car stuff. We have had our young niece over a bunch while her mom had surgery on her wrist, and a bunch of social events. Of course, with the return of spring comes the return of recurring yardwork as well. So, I have not had the dedicated time for wrenching that I always seem to think will be available. I was able to get out to the shop for a few hours on Sunday, though. I focused on Oliver, the 1978 MGB, letting Hapy ('72 VW microbus) sit until Justin has his time with the injection pump in April. The rate at which the price of diesel fuel is climbing (passed $6US/gal around the corner), I may find that it costs more to fill his tank than to pay Justin for his time. That's totally upside-down. Anyway, back to wrenchin.

 

Voltage Gauge

remember Oliver?

I installed a Smith voltage gauge into Oliver where the original analog clock used to sit. The clock didn't really work very well, and it ate voltage from the battery when I let him sit for too long. This made the clock less accurate, leading me to pull the positive cable off the battery while not in use. This led to the clock being completely worthless. So, I pulled it out and swapped in the voltage gauge. It seemed like a valuable bit of info to have, but I had wired it into the "purple" or always-hot circuit. Like the clock, the voltage gauge slowly drained the battery down, albeit not as quickly. So, again, I pulled the positive cable while not driving. I changed that on Sunday.

 

Bearing in mind that any entry back into working on cars may not seem like a big deal to regular wrenchers, but I have really not done much car stuff in over a year. So, any steps taken are a big deal. Removing the gauge was simply unwinding the knurled nut holding the rear support and the gauge flopped forward out of the dash. I removed and taped-off the "purple" wire and started seeking a viable switched "green"source to tap into. Switched is available at a few spots, but I decided to run a dedicated line from the fuse box instead. I could say I did that to remove variables or variability in the voltage signal. The truth is that Oliver is parked so close to the side wall of the shop that getting in and under the dash was virtually impossible. I was not going to just start grabbing an unplugging things.

 

Smith voltage gauge

Running another wire is simple enough. I started at the gauge and worked my way behind the dash, center console, and glove box to the firewall pass-thru. From the pass through within the engine compartment, the bundle of wires run along the left fender to the fuse box. I tied the new wire into the existing green bundle and tested continuity with the multi-meter. Success! I installed the gauge, hooked up the battery and tested by turning the ignition to "run". The voltmeter slowly crept up and I could hear the fuel pump banging away. I recall that it used to get quieter with fuel in the pump. Satisfied, I turned off the key and looked for any other parasitic drain on the battery. The wires in the engine compartment need some containment. I am not liking the scattered multi-colored angel-hair look in the picture below right.

 

Battery Drain?

technicolor angel hair pasta wiring

Testing for a parasitic drain on your battery ought to be relatively straight-forward. Disconnect one cable. Set your multi-meter to test for Amps and then place one probe on the battery post and the other on the cable end. All 0's? Switch to milli-amps and try again. According to the internets, if the drain is less than 50mA, it is not enough to drain your battery. I got 0mA, which, honestly, I do not believe. I tested it multiple times, and even after cleaning the cable and the battery post, I still got 0mA. So, I checked voltage across the 2 posts (12.08V) and left the cables attached. I figured if the voltage drops overnight then my battery-drain test will be proven faulty. I have since tested the voltage the last 2 days. The battery loses 0.02V overnight, which I think I can attribute to the stereo. Regardless, I will need to add a float charger.

 

Red Rollie

new lock, locked

I have this old red Kennedy tool cabinet we call "Red Rollie". It houses a bunch of tools, and for most the nearly 20 years that I've owned it, the lock didn't work. Well, I didn't have a key for it. We got the cabinet at an estate sale without the key. Anyway, some tools were stolen from my next door neighbor's yard a few months ago, so that changed our vector regarding the shop. We were perfectly fine using it without doors, but I can't leave entire tool cabinets unlocked if thieves have found our quiet little neighborhood. While I think the theft next door was an inside job (they run a construction business out of their home), one can never be too sure. So, I found a lock that fits this old Kennedy cabinet (Kennedy 80403 High Security Tubular Lock), and replaced it.

 

Replacing one of these locks is actually easier than on newer cabinets. The lock is held on with a U-shaped tang that slides off to the side. The hard part is you can't see anything. With my fingers I was able to determine which direction the tang needed to slide to be removed (facing the cabinet, slide right), and then set a stubby slotted screw-driver against the lip of the tang. It only took one well-leveraged push to get the tang removed and the lock to pop out. To install, orient the lock so the little inner divot on the outside facing part of the lock where the key goes in is facing down (unlocked). Set the lock into the hole with one hand while guiding the locking rod into the rectangular hole on the back of the lock. Then, push the U-shaped tang in place to hold it.

 

Red Rollie

This worked great, and effectively locked the top 2 drawers. The 3rd drawer down, however, had been bent where the little hook pokes out the back. To remedy, I got a framing hammer and a 1/2" ratchet extension and beat on it until it was more-or-less flush with the rest of the rear of the drawer. For years I wondered why that drawer always set deeper into the cabinet than the others. Now I knew. Once the drawer had been persuaded, the drawer fronts lined up and that 3rd drawer locked as well.

 

Wrap

That's how I spent my Sunday afternoon. The shop still needs the 2 largest doors, but my tools are secure, and I am really starting to get comfortable in there. For example, there was a period of time while working on Oliver that the skies opened up and it started pouring rain. I never felt it. In fact, I could only hear it hitting the trees. The insulation on this shop stops the sound of rain on the steel roof. I absolutely did not expect that.

 

That's it for today. Next week is Easter, so I may not get out to the shop for much. I hope to put a little gas into Oliver and at least back him out to where I can give him a deep cleaning. 

The Ghost of GoRo

I have been coming off of an illness, having been sick for almost a month. Yeah, whatever that thing is going around got me good. In the meantime, we have gotten some headway on the shop doors and I got to start thinking about what's next on Oliver to get him on the road for the Summer. Today, though, is a cautionary tale about selling a car, no matter who you sell it to.

 

What's GoRo

GoRo

I'll back up a little bit first. Back in June of 2023, in my "Small Fence, Big Difference" post (link here) I mentioned in passing that we had sold GoRo, our 2009 Audi A4 to a guy down the street. We told him multiple times prior to closing the sale that he really did not want the car, that there were weird issues with the transmission, interior plastic bits were breaking off and that it was a generally crappy car. He would not heed our concerns, saying it was for his daughter, he could get the mechanicals fixed up fine, etc. There was still a couple of months left on the existing registration, and he was going to have to drive it to his mechanic, and then over to Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to get registered. So, Boo with her ever generous heart, let him take the car with the tags on it. We went inside and recorded the sale with the state of Oregon immediately.

 

Sales Daisy Chain

Of course, we were right. He took the car and within a couple of weeks he had sold it. But, he didn't tell us, nor did he remove the tags that we had left on there for him. In Oregon, you have a month after buying a car to change the registration. Since he hadn't had the car for a full month, he was officially in the clear, but whoever he sold it to also sold it within a few days, and we lost the handle on the ownership after that. 

 

Ticket Parade 

Why is all of this important? Within a few days after our

barn door

neighbor sold the car, we got our first of many speeding or other moving violation caught-on-camera ticket, followed by parking tickets and toll-lane charges. We got tickets from Montana, Texas, California and Colorado. In each case, we sent copies of proof that we no longer owned the car. For the tickets which came from legitimate state, county or city governments, the tickets were waived. In the case where the ticket was for not paying a toll on a "private road", the charging entity did not care that were were not the owners and could prove that we were not even in the state at the time of the violation. Instead, they sent the ticket to collections, dinging our credit. To prevent further damage to our credit, we paid that one. Most of these tickets arrived within the first 6 months after the car was sold.

 

Final Straw

This week, we got what we believe to be the final ticket. GoRo had been impounded in the City of Merced and would remain in their custody until we came down to their office and paid the bail on parking tickets. We don't care and after a while they will put the car up for auction, and it will be someone else's problem. I just hope the auction house or the City of Merced removes the license plates before handing it off to another sucker.

 

Buh Bye GoRo

barn door, inside

By the time we sold off GoRo, Boo and I pretty much hated the car. The seats were stiff like bleachers, increasing internal switches were failing, plastic bits were falling off, the transmission shifted funny, etc. It outside looked great, but wow, what a lemon of a car. The lesson here for us and for you: even if you're selling the car to your friend, remove the tags. If you are all down for the sale and want to be generous, drive over to DMV and remove the tags while your friend is getting temporary plates. Once that car leaves your possession, there is no telling what will happen to that car. You could find yourself with a big pile of tickets from uninterested parties who only want money, and are willing to hammer your credit to get it.

 

Car and Shop Stuff

I mentioned at the top that we have made headway on the doors on the shop. Recall, I have 4 openings which need closings. Over the past month, our friend Ray has built barn doors for the large opening facing west using extra siding I had added to the order for the shop so those doors could get made. It is a 10 foot wide opening, so the doors are each just over 5 feet wide. They totally look the part and glide open/shut easily. We also installed a "people door" on the north elevation or facing the farm house. This leaves a 8 foot wide doorway on the backside and the main large garage door next to the people door. I have been saving for the big door. While that doorway is a standard 16' wide, it is 10' high (just in case someone comes along with something really big, I guess). So, it is a semi-standard door.

 

On cars, I have Hapy about as ready to visit Justin as I can make him. Since he hasn't really driven since I put him back together, I really would have liked to have driven him a little more. With Diesel hitting $6/gallon around here, I all the more do not want to be driving with a fuel leak. So, his next drive will be to Justin's place.

 

voltage gauge upper right

To keep my hands busy, I have been looking at Oliver, the 1978 MGB. I couldn't get him to start when I went to move him into the shop and I didn't really look into why at the time, I just hauled him. I slid under the rear end and discovered why: I had drained all of his fuel out the last time I parked him. If I remember right, I put that fuel into the lawn tractor and the rest into Astra. Antyway, I test-fired the fuel pump with 12V directly from the battery and the fuel pump works. So, if it does not come on with the ignition key-turn, it's a wiring issue. After messing with that, I removed the voltage gauge from the dash and will be sourcing switched power for that. I had simply used the always-hot 12V for the clock I had replaced, but that runs the battery down eventually. I hope to have some time this weekend to finish the voltage gauge, put some gas in and see if I can get him to run, and idle. Then maybe I'll back him out and give him a long overdue bath and a drive-around.

 

Well, that's it for today. Keep your license plates when you sell your cars, and thanks, as always, for following along- 

MGB carb circle-back

So yeah.. it has been a long time since I've posted much. Life has been full. Today, I will just close the loop on the carb deep cleaning and re-gasketing. I will try to get back here relatively soon with some other goings on. I thought I posted this update last Fall when it happened, but I clearly didn't.

Just a reminder, Oliver (1978 MGB) has a SK Racing or OER Racing side-draft carburetor. These look very much like the DCOE Weber and even can use some of the jets from a Weber. The accelerator pump and float level can be adjusted from the outside and the main jets can be accessed through a cover on the top. So, very few of the changes one usually makes to a carb requires the carb to be removed from the engine. The inlet pattern matches the Weber DCOE, so you can use a more readily available intake from Weber. Even the 4 bolts on the bottom are the same so you can use a Weber-intended heat shield like I did. Curious about getting one? Here is a source in Japan (these are a go-to carb among Nissan/Datsun enthusiasts I am told). Those who have them rave about them. Except me, so far. I hope to be among the celebrating majority soon.

Almost a Test Start

Setting the stage, I had a crisp fall day to take a look at Oliver, the 1978 MGB. I wanted to see if the carb work was the winner for his bogging down when I hit the accelerator pedal. I pulled his cover off, hooked up the battery and added some fresh fuel. I had pumped the tank dry when I removed the carb; not sure if I mentioned that last time. Anyway, I turned the key to run. I got the satisfying sound of the fuel pump running and then that not-so-satisfying gasoline smell. I went around to the right fender and could see fuel shooting out towards the radiator. Eeek. I turned off the key and then spotted a failing fuel hose. After a brief rummage through some boxes in the "tool shed" I found some suitable hose and had the system buttoned back up relatively quickly. This is as good a time as any to remind all my fellow old-car owners to replace your fuel hoses.

Actual Test Start

With the new hose in place, I returned to the driver seat, turned the key to run and waited for the fuel pump sound to change, letting me know that it had established pressure. With the earlier fuel line failure, the smell of gas was still present, so I walked around to the front to inspect for leaks. Nope. So, I turned the key to run and he started pretty fast. It was rough, but I could keep him idling at the carb by pulling on the accelerator cable.

Fiddling with it

I focused first on getting the idle jets set. I followed the basic set-up rule of turn all the way in, then back out 2 turns when I did the reassemble. In theory, you should be close at that point. I did not notice much difference when I moved the screws in and out more than 1/2 a turn. I think I eventually settled on them being out just past 2 turns. I expect when fully warmed up and in an expert tuner's hands a different setting will be found.

Then I shifted to the idle speed screw. Doing this on your own without a hand-held tach is kind of comical. You walk to the driver door and look at the tach. Note the speed and if it needs to be faster, go to the carb and adjust. Then walk back and see if you hit your target. If not, wash-rinse-repeat. I am sure there are much more experienced mechs out there who can hear the right speed or have a hand-held tool so you aren't getting your day's steps in 2 steps at a time like that.

Last, I wanted to see if I had solved the bog-on-accelerate. So, I yanked on the accelerator cable at the carb and.. bog. Sadness. In my time during the rebuild, I spent more time looking at the exploded diagram than I had before. I remembered there was an accelerator circuit, and located the screw on the top of the carb. In the image on the left, here, the screw is the big one on the furthest left, near the intake-side of the carb.

When I dismantled the carb, that screw was nutted all the way down snug. So, either the prior owner had torqued it down or I did at a time I don't remember. Regardless, I started loosening that screw (lefty-loosey) while I rev'd the engine. And the bog started to fall away. I was able to rev it fairly quickly without the engine starting to die on me. I stopped loosening it before I was able to yank on the cable as if I was going from foot-off-pedal to pedal-on-floor. I believe what had been happening was that the accelerator circuit had been flooding the engine with too much fuel when I pushed on it. Now, it was getting the right amount of fuel to account for the big burst of air from the opening of the butterfly without overcompensating. Looking back, this has probably been the issue all along and the cleaning/resealing may not have been necessary. In the end, I don't care, and cleaning the carb will only pay more dividends anyway.

Wrap Up

So, did I go for a test drive? No. Why? The brake bleed attempts that I have done since I replaced the master cylinder have not gotten the brake pedal predictable. Rather than have a spirited drive to celebrate, I waited for the tailpipe to cool down and put Oliver's cover back on (queue the sad trombone). One of the first things I will be doing this spring is another brake-bleed attempt. I may just hobble over to the local Firestone and have them do it. I just want to drive this guy now and his spongey brakes have been a blocker for too long.

Also on the list are changing the 12V source for the voltage gauge from the purple circuit which used to power the clock to the switched and fused green circuit. I have a few other odds and ends I need to complete before Oliver is "finished", the largest of which is replacing the body-to-windshield seal so he can be driven in rainy weather. There is always something with these old cars and I really wouldn't want it any other way.... so long as the something doesn't leave me stranded on the side of the road outside cell range.

Well, that's it for this time. Sorry it has been so long. Life gets busy and I have not been able to play with my cars much. I am working through the permitting process to get a garage built so there will be posts about that, and then playing on cars (and blogging about it) can return to a year-round sport. Thanks for tuning back in, and I hope to be more frequent in 2025-

Fixing Hapy Furnace (part 2)

Picking up where I left off the last post, Hapy has an operational furnace again.

Fuel Pump Swap

As I mentioned in my last post, the fuel pump which originally delivered with the heater/furnace would not work when I tried to bring things back to life. I splurged and bought a more expensive "quiet" model for $50US rather than another standard pump for $20US. I figured quieter or not, the more expensive pump may have better parts in it, and it may last longer whether it is quieter or not. Or it was just a marketing gimmick and I got took. Let's chalk it up to the cost of an experiment.

The old fuel line path was relatively simple. The "hard" (clear but firm plastic) lines that delivered with the furnace had short (50mm / 2-inch) stretches of fuel hose between them and the pump. The pump was suspended from a cross beam by the included rubber mount held in place by a single sheet metal screw. After a few turns with a screwdriver, the pump was on the ground. A few more and the fuel lines were removed from it. The supply fuel line started dripping fuel after a few seconds, so I caught it with a pan. The line on the pressurized side was completely empty, so no drips. I simply reversed the removal: added the rubber mount from the supply end of the pump, added the supply fuel line, suspended the pump from the cross beam and then added the pressurized-side line.

Prime and Fire Up

The Afterburner has a control page where you can direct only the fuel pump to fire up. This allows you to get fuel all the way to the furnace without the glow plug turning on (drawing the battery and maybe burning out the glow plug). I had not connected the pressure line to the furnace, but I wanted to clear the lines of any bad fuel, so I moved the pan under the dangling hardline and triggered the Afterburner to prime. Within a minute of the prime starting, fuel started spurting out the end of the line. It took longer than I expected it to, but perhaps that is an indication of how little fuel these units actually consume. Once the fuel leaving the pressure line looked like the fuel supplied at a filling station, I stopped the prime function and connected the hardline to the fuel hose dangling from the furnace.

While the pump was slightly larger than the original, it did not seem much quieter during the prime. Of course, I hadn't heard it pump in a couple of years, and memory is a funny thing. I do recall that when the furnace was running, I could hear the tick-tick-tick of the fuel pump over the whoosh of the furnace. With this in mind, I set the furnace to start. I did not want to consider the experiment with the new thicker, dedicated wiring yet, so I left the battery tender hooked up. At no point did the battery fall below 13.5V so either the tender was working hard, or the new wiring is a hit.

Regardless, the glow plug got lit, the fan started spinning and after 2 or 3 minutes the furnace ignited. This felt like a considerably longer period of time than before. Perhaps the priming was incomplete and I needed to prime again after connecting the hose to the furnace. Perhaps it took time to ignite simply because it had been so long. Once it ignited, a huge plume of smoke poured out of the little muffler. There was virtually no wind, so the cloud grew and sat slowly obscuring first the rear end of the bus and slowly 2/3 of the bus before a light breeze broke it up. After a few minutes, the cloud dissipated and the exhaust emission was reduced to nothing. All that remained was a light smokey haze inside the bus. I regret not taking a picture of that.

Noise Observations

While the temperature inside the bus slowly crept up from 55*F (13*C), I noted the noises. I could only hear the fuel pump ticking inside the cabinet where the furnace is located and even then, only when I stuck my head into the cabinet. I think the pressurized line is transmitting it. I stuck my head into the rock-n-roll cabinet above the spot where pump is actually installed and could not hear it. Maybe this new pump is quieter. Then, I moved outside where in the past I could clearly hear the pump from several feet away, even from the passenger-door side. I could not hear it, but I could hear the furnace whoosh. Of course, my muffler-ing of the furnace is different this time, having removed the second small rectangular muffler and the motorbike muffler. Perhaps the pump is no quieter, but the furnace is that much louder. To determine if the muffler configuration is a variable, I decided I will conduct another test at a different time, after re-attaching the other muffler bits. I had thought about bringing them along for while-parked use, and maybe I will need to, out of respect for our festival-going neighbors. In the past, I took decibel readings, but they were for while the furnace held a temperature, not during temp catch-up (full blast).

I will continue to experiment with noise readings and post if I find any readings are different than they were 4 years ago. I expect that once I put the extra rectangular and motorbike mufflers on, the readings will be what they were before. The only real mystery to me is whether the fuel pump can be heard over it. At this point, though, the pump seems significantly quieter.

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Fixing Hapy Furnace (part 1)

Having finally arrived at a place where we have some heat while we're moving, I felt motivated to fix the heat for when we are standing still. Today's post covers most of the saga of getting a Chinese diesel heater operational again. Spoiler alert: the heater isn't running by the end of this post.

Brief History

Back in the early days of CoViD, I installed one of those Chinese diesel parking heaters into Hapy (See Parking Heater 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and Final for deep detail). While I was able to run it a few times, I found that the heater pulled the voltage way down on whichever battery was connected to it. I tried to solve by providing multiple batteries to source from: one to start, one to run, but switching from battery to battery seemed like a bad practice. I had other priorities, so I just let the furnace sit unused. When I did the sound deadening effort and the luxury electrical re-wire, I dismantled the cabinet which housed the furnace so I could get sound deadener underneath it and electrical cables through it. This meant dismantling part of the furnace too. Later, when the band wanted to use Hapy for the album cover, I removed the furnace exhaust so it would not appear in pictures. So, I had a furnace without an exhaust, and would draw way too much juice.

Electrical

Over time, and with more learning about electrical stuff, I have concluded that the wire used to convey electricity but perhaps more importantly the wire for a ground were far too thin. It was due to these thin wires that the voltage would drop so badly as the furnace attempted to compensate. Wires which would have been barely up to the job had the battery been sitting right on top of the heater will definitely NOT be up to the task once you move the battery a few feet away. This is exacerbated by running the ground to the body of the bus instead of back to the battery. The ground location should not matter as much, but I'm citing it as a participant cause anyway. So, addressing the electrical came first after removing the furnace from the bus.

A small harness of wires leaves the furnace body and enters a black plug (see picture on the right). The harness that ships with the furnace includes a pigtail that clicks into the furnace black plug. To my eye, the red and black wires in the pigtail are not nearly as thick as the wires leaving the furnace. This probably saved the manufacturer a few pennies, but the amp draw issue starts right there (and in my case got worse). So, I cut the main power and main ground wires from the furnace black plug and put male/female wire ends on them (12V/ground respectively). I made them different so I couldn't accidentally plug it in backwards. I then prepped a thick 2-wire black/red cable with matching wire ends, and routed it over to the luxury battery. At the battery end, I added a ring terminal for the ground and added a 20Amp fuse into the positive side before adding a ring terminal on that end. I left things detached as I switched to preparing for the exhaust.

Exhaust

From under the bus, it was clear that I had not made the hole(s) large enough for the exhaust, intake and fuel to be easily maintained. Quite the contrary, I had installed it such that once it was all together, it would have to all come apart to fix anything. Frowny-face. So, I started by cutting a 4-inch square hole into the lower belly pan. Many buses do not have these, but I got lucky. Anyway, with the hole cut I could see where the furnace sat, and noticed that the exhaust was getting pinched by the too-small hole in the floor as the exhaust left the furnace. So, I went topside and expanded the upper hole both in the floor of the cabinet and the steel floor of the bus. With the larger hole, the exhaust easily fits and things could be maintained from below. Still, I did what I could on the furnace itself before lowering it in: Connect a 6" long stretch of fuel line, attach a small circle of window screen to the intake (so bugs and pebbles don't get in) and then attach maybe a foot of heat-wrapped exhaust. I set the furnace in place and attached a small subset of the muffler arrangement I had used before: just one rectangular muffler. I may bring the expanded muffler set up for use when we are in tighter camping spots (like festivals), so we can bolt-on some extra quiet. I mounted the muffler to the underside of the frame rail, with the outlet pointing rearward and slightly away from center (picture on the right).

A keen eye can see some fresh Rustoleum primer + paint above the muffler where I discovered some rust had eaten all the way through the body. When I was working on the other stuff I ground the metal down, removing the rust, but exposing the holes. Sadness. That rust traces back to when this bus had a small vent window directly above this spot. That vent window was badly leaking and the rust had already been forming to the point of marring the paint when I bought this bus over 20 years ago. I eliminated the vent window in 2015 (See Calling "glass") with a window I purchased from BusBoys in Redding, CA in 2009. Some things move slower than others.

Fuel

I shifted over to fueling at this point. The fuel line that had been between the included "hard" line and the furnace had breeched, probably when I did the sound deadening. The fuel in the line looked dark, so I dropped the line into an empty pail, and figured I would prime the fuel system, and purge the bad fuel at the same time. Unfortunately, the fuel pump is no longer functional, so I am waiting on a replacement to finish this job.

Afterburner

Back when I first did this job, I bought an Afterburner from the guy who hand builds them in Australia. Apparently, there are people building knock-offs, eating into his business, since they basically have cloned his work. So, if you are looking at getting the much nicer controller for your parking heater, please connect with Mr. Jones in Australia and get the real deal. Anyway, with the Afterburner, I tried to prime the fuel system, but the fuel pump wouldn't respond. When I unplugged the pump, I got a code; I concluded the wiring to the pump was good but pump was bad. So I ordered a new, supposedly quieter, one. We'll see. While I was clowning around with the Afterburner, I got it onto my home network, downloaded the newest firmware and wandered around the new-to-me website that the Afterburner hosts. It's really cool. I am looking forward to triggering the furnace to warm the bus from inside. For reference, here is a link to the user manual.

This is as far as I've gotten. I am waiting for a new fuel pump to arrive. I need to purge the old lines of nasty fuel, and install that new pump. I expect there will be other discoveries, and I need to rebuild the cabinet innards. There's always opportunities to improve things. Anyway, thanks, as always, for following along-

Diesel Dumping Discontinued

In my last post, I discovered that the injection pump was leaking fairly badly. Today's brief post covers my replacing the 2 top seals.

Symptoms

If you don't open your hood very often, especially while the engine is running, any leak may not be obvious. With the engine under the rear deck, and the rear deck often having stuff on it, I hadn't seen the leaks evolve. On my last few drives, I had smelled diesel fuel, and I had made a mental note of it. Honestly, I thought it was related to the now-not-operational furnace which still had a diesel line filled with diesel running to it. I suspect I fueled with something which was not B20 and that caused the seals to shrink. Recall, I wanted to run the air out of the new heater so I popped open the rear-deck engine lid (I cut in years ago) and fired up the engine. I walked to the back of the bus and could see fuel dumping down the sides of the injection pump. I dashed to the driver seat and turned off the engine. Returning to the engine bay, I added coolant, but tried to figure out where the fuel was coming from. It looked like it was coming from the black plug on the side, and maybe out of the edge along the top on the opposite side. The top seals had finally shrunk to the point of being compromised.

DieselGeek

There are lots of sources for seals and seal kits, but IMHO, the best is from DieselGeek (like here). The operator is a TDI owner and only sells things he actually uses. His opinions are highly regarded on Fred's TDICLub forum too. The kit is complete; and you will want to include an anti-tamper socket (here) to get that one fastener removed. His product page contains a link to a complete how-to (also linked here) that will take you through the process. Since it is so well documented, I will not repeat it here. I will only highlight things that I discovered that either differ or underscore that documentation.

Clean and Mark Pump Location

After ordering the kit, I went out to Hapy and cleaned outer case of the Injecion Pump with degreaser. I paid special attention to the seams where the seals would be replaced. Once clean and dry, I applied the JB Weld (as instructed) on 2 corners of the pump covering the lower seals both above and below. This will allow for a more precise re-location of the pump after the lower seal has been replaced. I also took a chisel and made a clear mark that crossed the seam. For good measure, I added lines with a Sharpie. Although diesel fuel can remove Sharpie lines, I did not suffer that fate.

Top Seal

Following the instructions, I replaced the top seal first. Before I started, I wrapped the Injection Pump below the lower seal with a ratty old towel to capture spilling diesel fuel. This turned out to be an unnecessary precaution, but when I need to replace these seals again, I will do the towel wrap again anyway. Better to be safe. I left the return fuel line attached and tilted the cover far enough so I could reach the old seal. With a watch-repair slotted screwdriver, I picked out the seal. It looked fine, but I did notice that it was practically flat with the edge of the cap, so I could imagine how it could be leaking. Once removed, the groove was perfectly clean. I gave it a cursory pass with a paper towel anyway and the new seal slid in perfectly. Before returning the cap to the pump, I noticed some gunk buildup on the black-plug side so I carefully scraped it off with a razor blade and then wiped it clean with a paper towel. It is little things like that which can prevent a complete seal.

Bottom Seal

The lower seal is a little tricky, but, again, the instructions were spot-on with only one exception: The Torx bolt holding the corner directly below the fuel return may not be easily addressed, depending on your tools. The picture below-right illustrates the issue. My Torx socket fits a 1/2" ratchet so it's rather thick. It is also kind of stubby, so the socket itself needs to occupy the space where the fuel return is. So, either have longer throw Torx sockets or do what I did: Remove the cap to remove and install that once fastener. Yes, that's a pain in the butt, but I found no alternative other than loosening the banjo bolt, and after the power steering debacle with Flash all those years ago, I want nothing to do with a banjo bolt if I can avoid it. I just went looking for the post and I can't find one. I can't believe I didn't post on the saga of replacing Flash's steering rack, like, 10 years ago. The banjo bolt was nearly the death of me; my thumb swelled up from applying pressure to get things bolted together... it was a nightmare.

Similar to the upper seal, once the unit was unbolted, the TDIClub documented process was spot-on. Even the "smack it with a bit of wood to crack the JB Weld worked as written. I did not remove the hose from the fuel return line, however. I just tipped the unit back far enough to remove the seal without fear of something dropping into the top of the pump. I also found some gunk build up along one side on this piece, like I did on the cover. So, I did the same thing: slowly scraping it clear and then cleaning the metal with a paper towel. With the seal in place, I again followed the instruction to make sure the little drive stick entered the hole on the piston (you can feel it locate) and set the unit in place, using the fracture lines in the JB Weld to position. Because of how thick the new seal is compared to the old one, there was some wiggle space in the fractures, so the extra marks, bot the chisel and the Sharpie, were necessary to get the unit in the right spot.

Because of the Torx socket challenge, I got 2 of the fasteners on, then removed the cover, put the other Torx fastener in place. At this point, I re-set the location of the top unit comparing the lines again. Then, I tightened down the 3 Torx bolts hand-tight. Since these are brass bolts going into aluminum, the threads can strip, so mind your torque settings (less than 8 ft-pounds). Content, I put the cover back on, added the anti-tamper bolt and the cover Torx bolts.

Testing

At this point, it is recommended to prime the system with a MityVac. I read some comments by users who did not need to do so. I thought I would try starting before getting into the hand-vac, and Hapy fired right up. I walked around to the back and there were no leaks, and he idled nicely around 903 rpm like always. The test for whether the little drive-stick is in place is simply to try the accelerator. If the engine RPM's change, it's in there. Success. So, we took a quick drive around the usual test loop. Hapy was responsive and slowly warmed up. As part of my test drive, I tried the heater.. that worked too! I could feel warm air blowing up through the defroster.

When I got home, I noticed that Hapy was having a harder time maintaining a consistent idle. He would drop down around 875 and go up around 950. I vaguely remember this being a thing for him and a quick tap on the accelerator settled him down. I don't know why this is a dynamic for him, but with the seals replaced he is acting exactly how he used to... without dumping fuel.

That's it for today. I hope to get after the furnace next. We'll see what the future holds. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Hapy Heat Repeat (Part 2)

Continuing the efforts on creating some cabin heat in the old microbus, today's post covers sourcing the air for the heater from inside the bus.

Grounding

air sourcing from inside

In the last post on this topic, I mentioned that the prior attempts, and the original heat, for that matter, all pulled in air from the outside. The original heat pulled from the engine bay, sent it through heater-boxes (insulated boxes around the exhaust manifolds) and then up to the front of the bus. There was even a booster fan to push air when the engine speed was too low to push air. Years ago, I added a bilge-blower fan mid-stream to help get the air forward, and replaced large sections of pipe with insulated hose. In the end, the original system at-best, delivered warm moist air when it was raining (again, it's Oregon so that's 8 months of the year). When not-best, we got cold moist air that smelled like oil or exhaust.

When I did the ALH-TDI engine swap, I removed the original system rear of the front frame, setting a Vanagon rear-seat heater against that frame crossmember. While it didn't leak for a while, it started leaking again this past year. The unit was really never up to the task, and since it was only designed to heat the rear of a Vanagon cabin, I was probably asking too much of it. Still, it was a significant improvement over the original and bilge-blower-enhanced systems. The air was warmer more often, and exhaust-smelled less often. Overall, though, it was not "warm" in Hapy from the use of the heater, and the issue with moist air remained.

Fast forward to the Maradyne heater I just installed. Unlike the Vanagon rear-seat heater, the Maradyne is a 3-row heater core and it is almost twice the width. The core alone could provide considerably more heat. The fan is way more powerful too, so moving that heat into the cabin will be that much more  effective. What remained, however, is the air is still sourced from below the bus, so the wet roads will provide an endless supply of moist air to fling onto the inside of the windscreen. I hope I resolved that with the changes below.

Maradyne Heater Prep

purists love this

In the last post on this topic, I described how the heater was installed on an angle to minimize the ground clearance impact and so the outlets point more directly at the original air pipe. This orientation, however, meant that the brackets were hanging into the space where air intake hoses would go. So, first order of business was cutting those brackets down with the death-wheel (angle grinder). Once cleared, I could easily see that the coolant outlet jutted too far into the same air-hose space so I cut it down as well. Last, I changed the hose from the outlet from a straight hose to a 45* angled hose, routing the coolant above and away from the air inlet. While the inlet is not completely exposed now, it is considerably better. The inlets are 3" diameter and have a lip that's maybe 3/8" for a hose to fit onto. I had intended to add something more substantial for the hose to attach to, but once I got into it, I concluded that the original fan housing could hold a hose and clamp. Time will tell, and I am retaining the extensions I bought for this purpose in case I need to add them in later.

Holy Bus

Well, more like holey bus. In order to send air from inside the bus to the air intake on a fan system that is outside the bus, I need to add a hole or 2 for the air to pass through. I did not want to put air intakes in places where I would accidentally spill water (or other beverages), or get dirt and the like into it. I also did not want the air intakes to be so close to the front that the fan was effectively pulling the warm air right out of the outlet vents. I applied some cold-air-return thinking and chose to put one intake inside the rock-n-roll bed base cabinet. This cabinet is probably the coldest space in the bus (second only to my feet) and the vacuum created by the fan will draw air from the front to the back, creating room for the warmer air to enter the bus more freely. Of course, it's not like a 50+ year old microbus is sealed, but my 70+ year old house isn't either and once I tied the cold air intake into the house system, the house grew measurably warmer.

From underneath, I considered where there was a space without structure nor pipes to interfere with the air intake plumbing. With the radiator, wiring, original stuff and everything else, it is quite busy under there, but there is a space just behind the rear cross-frame (think: rear jack-point) but in front of the rear wheel well that is inside the cabinet, nearest the front outer edge. I tested a few spots with a drill to make sure that I could fit a 3-1/2" circle without hitting something neither underneath nor inside the cabinet and found a good spot. I cored a 3-1/2" hole with a hole saw. Why 3-1/2"? The inner diameter of these hoses is 3", and I felt that leaving a little extra room for wiggling was better than having it tight as would have been with a 3-1/4" hole. This turned out to be a wise decision. Once the hole was cut, I shot it and the support brackets with paint to delay (can it really be stopped when it rains 9 months of the year?) rust.

Fitting

cabin air intake

Once the hole was cut, I was on the home stretch. I found what look like air outlets with metal grills that fit a 3" hose to act as an air intake screen. I a-fixed one end of the hose to the grill, cable-tied it to be double-sure and passed the hose through the hole from above. The hose barely fit. It was so tight, I had to cut off the cable-tie because the cable tie end prevented the grill from sitting flat on the floor. Anyway, I chose an orientation that pointed the grill away from the center of the cabinet so things don't accidentally fall in or over it and then screwed it down to the wood floor of the cabinet. From underneath, I stretched out the compressed hose, stretching it along the side of the radiator, and turning it towards the fan.

I had initially planned to have 2 air intakes, one per fan intake, but after cutting the passenger-side hole, decided that I had 3" of outlet, so having only 3" of inlet was actually a fair balance. So, rather than run 2, I added a 3" wye along the passenger-side frame rail. I sent the stretched and then cut hose into the base of the wye and shifted to the fan inlet on the driver side, knowing it would be the harder of the two. I can always choose to add a driver-side inlet, but with the furnace on that side, there will be additional complexities.

The driver-side was definitely harder, but simply because the coolant outlet hose still ran across the air flow path. I twisted and bent the air hose and jammed it onto the inlet lip. I added a hose clamp while pressing the hose onto the lip, threading the clamp until it was quite secure. Content, I stretched out the hose, threading it behind the fan housing, but in front of the radiator intake to the passenger side. I added a cable-tie on the driver-side to hold the air hose in place. I cut and then sent the other end of the hose into the wye. It got another cable-tie up to the underside of the bus before it entered the wye.

The section from the passenger side air intake to the wye was a little over a foot, and was the easiest part of the install. I attached to the fan intake first, adding a hose clamp, of course. Once stretched and cut into the wye, I cable-tied the wye up near the floor of the bus, mostly out of sight. I cable-tied the passenger-side hose as well so there would be minimal pressure on the hose clamp. At this point, the air intake for the cabin "climate control" sourced from the inside of the bus.

Testing

ground clearance mostly unchanged

All that remained was testing the system, both for air flow as well as coolant. I started with the air flow, accepting that I could confirm that without running the engine. As expected, the fan blows hard, and draws through the inlet. Because the inlet is inside cabinet, it make less noise than it might have had it been placed elsewhere. Still, I will need to be aware of it when we pack things so it is not even remotely blocked.

Satisfied, I exposed the top of the engine and started it up. I had expected to simply add coolant/water while air bubbles appeared but 2 things interrupted that plan. First and worst, the injector pump started leaking all over the place. Now, to be fair, I had smelled diesel on my last couple of drives, so this was not 100% a surprise, but it still was a little bit. Second, air bubbles did not really appear. I will need to bleed the heater core segment, once I replace a seal or two in the injector pump. A seal set has been ordered, so until the kit arrives and is installed, Hapy will sit.

That's where we are at this point. I may try to bleed the heater while I wait for the seal kit, but it will depend on the weather and my workweek. Thanks, as always, for following along. More next time-