Hammered Rims (part 3)

My last two posts on this topic have been epic, at least in terms of time consumed. Much like the floor replacement or the front end rebuild on the MG, the amount of time consumed really hasn't been captured. Still, today, I continue this Odyssey. When we left off, I had the front passenger-side (right) wheel removed. I had test-fit the new rim onto the hub and confirmed it fit properly.

Tires Mounted

Test fit

I'll start with some details around what I am installing. I picked up a set of 15" diameter XXR 533 rims. They are 6-1/2" wide with dual-mount options for 5x112 (fit older VW's like Hapy, Audi, Mercedes, some BMW's) and 5x115 (lots of GM's). For more complete lists, check wheel-size for 5x112 or for 5x115. Onto these rims, I had intended to install a set of highway all-season tires, like the Destination LE. I had looked at the BFGoodrich All Terrain KO and KO2 as well as the Yokohama Geolandar A/T G015 as on/off road alternatives. I had reservations about such aggressive tires, though. The bus is already loud. It was loud before I added the diesel engine to the point where it was like sitting in a shed during a windstorm with a lawnmower running in the far corner. Now, just trade out the lawnmower for a city bus. So, yeah, it's loud. Add road noise from the tires and its like something vibrating on the outside of the shed from the wind, adding a hum to the din.

After running various sizes through a spreadsheet, I determined that the Destination AT in 215/75R15 would fit the rims and fit the wheel wells. While they have deeper treads than a highway tire, they ride quieter, according to reviews and the Firestone guys. I like the extra tread for getting in and out of camping spots and festival grounds too.

hole saw'ing

So with the choice made, I had the Firestone guys mount the Destination A/T onto the XXR 533 rims. I had some chrome valve stems I picked up at a tire-shop closing sale a few years back, and asked the Firestone guys to use them, if they fit and held air. They did. So, once mounted, balanced and filled with air, I hauled them home in the wagon for another test fit.

Fitting
With only one free hub, I can only really test fit that one. Still, that is the rim which needs to be able to turn side-to-side, so it is arguably a more important test. I figured I could consider the straight-mount fit on the front as a rough-guess for the rear. The front was already on a jack stand, so slapping the new wheel/tire on was a simple process of raising the corner another few inches so I could get the wheel on. I fingered on a couple of the old nuts so the wheel was straight and wouldn't fall off. Then, I lowered the bus down until the wheel was holding the weight so I could verify the fit (and the spreadsheet). The tire tucks inside the front lip and rear (near the slider) very well. It appears closer to the front, but the overall arch of the wheel well is fairly consistent along the entire arc, and the tire fills the visual space without overwhelming it.... in my humble opinion.

what lies beneath

Next, I wanted to confirm steering movement. For this, I raised the front corner just a little bit, so some of the weight was on the jack. I didn't want to stress the crappy, barely-threaded lug nuts. I turned the steering wheel from lock to lock, checking how the tire set at each extreme multiple times. When turned such that the front of the tire was all the way inward (steering wheel turned left), the inner wheel wall does not touch anything, including the up-rated sway bar. The old 16" wheels rubbed a little bit there, evidenced by a highly polished strip on the outer edge of the upgraded front sway bar. The front-most edge of the tire, so the outer edge, was well clear of the front of the wheel well. The rear-most edge, so the inner edge, was very close to the rear wheel well, but it did not touch. I can't fit a finger between the tire and the rear well, though, so I will test again once all wheels are mounted, and I'll test with some weight in the front seat to see if compressing the springs matters.

More Rim Removal
With the one tire test fit success, I switched gears again. I put the new tires and wheels away, and put the rest of the bus back on jack stands. Once in the air, I removed the remaining lug nuts so I could start cutting with the 7/8" hole saw. In a marked contrast to the 2 days of cutting and sledge-hammering to get the first rim off, the other 3 rims were removed in about an hour in-total with the hole saw. Part of that is the bit, I think: a Hole-Dozer from Milwaukee Tools, and part of it was getting the smallest size I needed, allowing for the least amount of material to be removed. With each rim removal, I could see the broken-off stem from the lug nut and a little bit of aluminum rim left clinging to it. With a pair of channel-lock pliers, I was able to grab the leftovers and un-thread it from the stud. After a quick brush, the studs were ready for re-use.

Aw Nuts

So, this all started because I bought the doubly-wrong lug nuts 3 years ago. How doubly wrong? First, they had an extension on them that was supposed to help hold the rim firm, by running between the hole in the rim and the stud. I have since concluded that the shaft wasn't necessary, and helped create the jammed-on condition. That's wrong once. Wrong twice: they were made of cheap metal and the little extension broke off on every one of them. This time, I was very careful and confirmed after measuring multiple times with a digital caliper. The rim has a "conical seat". This is not the same as a stock rounded ball seat nor washered straight mag style. Because of the narrow hole, a thin "tuner" style nut was needed. There are many available, but I got a name brand set of nuts this time: KSP Performance. These have a 19mm wide shaft terminating at a nut diameter of 23mm. Unfortunately, these require a special tool for installing and removing the lug nuts, so I bought a set that delivered with 2 of them, planning to keep one in the tool box and one in the garage tool cabinet.

Rims On

destructo-tools

With the nuts sitting in a box to my side, I started installing wheels. First, the fronts. These were easy. Following the advice on the internet, I put a thin coating of copper anti-seize on the back of the rim. This should reduce the probability of the rim rusting / seizing to the hub. Most folks advise to coat the hub or rotor of drum, but since these rims are universal fit with a second set of holes, I didn't want the copper showing through the unused holes, so I painted on the rim. Once applied, the rim easily popped on, and the lug nuts threaded right on. Once hand tight, I moved to the rear. I inspected and adjusted the drums, but I'll post on that another time. To get the rear rims on, I needed to get the back end pretty fair into the air and then raise/lower the drum with a floor jack on the lower shock mount. The drum had to be low enough to tip the top of the wheel under the lip, then, I raised the drum so I could slide the bottom of the wheel under the drum, and align the studs with the holes. Like the fronts, the wheel fit the studs and the nuts tightened by hand easily.

Tight Fit
With the wheels on the hubs, and the lug nuts tightened by hand, I was ready to drop the bus and torque the nuts down. This represented the final fit test. I knew the fronts were good so I lowered that end first. Check. No binding, nothing touching, nor even close. Next, I lowered the rear, driver side first. To get it off the jack stand, I raised it up by the lower shock mount. This slowly compresses the shock so the wheel presses into the wheel well. By doing this, I could see how the wheel would behave through its entire motion. It never touches anything: suspension, nor lip... but it gets super close to the lip. I can barely get a finger between the rubber and the lip, but it never touches. Boo even jumped up and down on the rear bumper to prove it.

We concluded the effort with a test drive around the neighborhood. We took the same loop I always test the cars on, and Hapy was fantastic. These tires are quieter than the worn-down 16" ones he had, even though the tread is much more aggressive. With all of the steering work I did last fall, he handles very well, allowing me to drive over 100' without a hand on the wheel. That would have been impossible a year ago. When we returned, I checked the tires for wear spots. I couldn't find any. So, I conclude that this mash-up of parts is a winner:

15" XXR 533 rims (less than $100US each)
Destination A/T 215/75R15 tires (about $125US each including mounting, balancing and warranty)
KSP 14mm 1.5 thread-pitch (conical seat, 51mm long, tuner-style thin) lug nuts. Slightly shorter (40mm) would have fit.

Tires any larger would have rubbed and died prematurely. That's it for this saga. Thanks, as always for following along.

MGB now in service

Just in time for the snowy winter months, Oliver, the convertible MGB, is now ready to be pressed into service. Today's post highlights the final touches: tires, brake bleeding, preparing the windshield for rain and the dash lights. oh, Hapy New Year.

New Shoes

I had lamented the body roll during the last test drive when I did the alignment (See MGB Alignment). I knew the tires were old, and wanted to remove that variable first. So, on a day when I had to miss work for a routine dental cleaning, I bopped past the local Les Schwab Tire Center and got Oliver some all-season tires. I haven't forgiven the other Schwab for not tightening down the boots on the steering of Flash (Jetta TDI), but I thought a different Schwab might be okay. I hit the Schwab on Lower Boones Ferry, which was under construction. For a mid-week, mid-morning, the place was buzzing. They were able to serve the need though, and had a new set of 195/65R15 tires on within an hour. I asked them to give the brakes a bleed while they had it on the rack, but they didn't. They checked the brakes and indicated that they might need a bleed, but didn't do anything about it. Les Schwab, you are just not the same tire shop that you were 10 years ago. This may be the last of our business together.

The tires are nice, though a little louder than I expected. Perhaps that will shift as they age, though I've found tires usually get louder, not quieter. The drive from Beavo to the dentist, then the tire shop and then back home was a great test. Morning rush hour meant lots of rubber-band driving, so lots of clutch, brake, low gear driving. Oliver did that in stride. On the way home, the morning rush was over, so the highway was fairly clear. So, I could get Oliver up to a much higher speed. That was super fun, but the brakes still were a little softer than I'd like. I made a plan to bleed the brakes the following weekend.

Brake Bleed
I have tried to get the last air bubble out of the brake system a few times. I bled the master cylinder (see MGB Sponge Brakes) and thought I had the air out of the system then. I was wrong. And, after having that belief confirmed by the Les Schwab folks, I knew I needed to get it right this time. I started on the rear wheel furthest from the master brake cylinder. I put the rear end up in the air, removed the rim and got out the MityVac. The bleed screw is a 5/16", and I think my prior challenges before came from a combination of little errors that I corrected this time:

First, rather than use the box-end of the spanner, I used the open end this time. I found this did not encourage the vacuum line to lift off the bleed screw.
Second, never let the vacuum drop below a few pounds of vacuum in the line. In fact, I made sure I had no less than 5 pounds of vacuum in the line when I closed the bleed screw.
Third, I started with brake fluid in the vacuum bleeder canister, and made sure it always had some. I think this prevented air from working it's way back up the bleed line.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, I never let the master cylinder reservoir fall below half-full. By doing all these things, no air was introduced into the system.

So, I was able to follow all the other good practices: monitor the fluid coming out of the bleeder for bubbles, minding that tiny and/or large bubbles mean the seal of the vacuum bleeder is not perfect. You are looking for a small bubble. Also, bleed far more than you think you really need to. There is nothing wrong with completely replacing the fluid in the line from the reservoir to the bleed screw.

Windscreen and Wipers
While driving Oliver late last Summer, I found that seeing through the windshield was virtually impossible when I turned into the sunset. This is a fairly common problem in Oregon because so many of the roads run due east-west, and the low-hanging sun finds its way directly in your face in the weeks nearest to the equinox. I think this is why the US-26 west of Portland is called the Sunset Highway. To remedy, I used the Rain-X Xtreme Clean. I'm sure there are other and arguably better products out there, but I had it in the garage. Like the directions said, I cleaned the windshield with glass cleaner, then applied a small amount of the RainX stuff onto a damp clean cloth. I rubbed it a bunch in a circular motion and then wiped it clean. Except for a few deeper gouges from bad wiper scratches, the windshield looks considerably better. I failed to take a picture before I started. Honestly, I just jumped in and did it before thinking about taking pictures. To complete the rain-readiness, I replaced the 2 nasty stiff crumbly old wipers with a pair of new ones I got in one of my other orders from Victoria British.

Dash Lights

I had one last thing that I needed to solve before Oliver was road-ready: his dash lights didn't really work. I tested them in a dark garage and found that the tach and the cigar lighter were the only things that lit up when I turned on the headlights. That won't do. The rheostat that controls the brightness of the dash lights is a common failure part, and finding a replacement for the late-model (read: rubber-bumper) MGB is pretty difficult. Many of the usual part places don't carry it. Many owners simply wire around the switch so the dash lights are full-bright when the running or headlights are on. I did this on Oliver (leveraging a 10amp fuse from the feed line to a wire-splitter which I then wrapped with electrical tape), but I may still replace the switch.. Getting the old switch out was a real bear, since the nuts had frozen in place and the set-screw for the knob had as well. I effectively destroyed both, so I'll need new for both if I decide to install a dimmer. Still, with the hack in place, all of the lights come on so no bulbs needed to be replaced. Winner! I had been thinking about adding some fog lights, so if I don't replace the dimmer, that hole in the dash would be perfect for a fog light switch. Hmm..

So, now with the number of cars available meaningfully reduced (See Herd Thinning), Oliver will be seeing some road time. We really only have one regular-driver car: Flash. Flash will continue to see 95% of the drives through winter, but when we have those rare needs to be in two places at once, and mass-transit can't abide, we can safely drive Oliver. I intend to slowly work through the interior replacement work, but won't be officially taking Oliver off the road to do it. This will make for an interesting few months.

Thanks, as always, for following along.

The Other One

I watched the Netflix original documentary "The Other One" over the weekend, today's post is mostly about that. I'm sure there will be some bus / travel content mixed in somewhere. The documentary is a somewhat autobiographical look at the life and times of guitarist Bob Weir.

First, an Apology

the man, the legend

After watching the documentary, I think I understand now why Bob stopped touring. In my blast of the Fare Thee Well shows (see: Fare Thee Okay), I kicked up a rumor that maybe Bob is sick. Maybe he is, how the hell would I know? In the documentary, you can see small glimpses into his daily life with his family. I hadn't really thought much about what an endless life on the road must be like. Personally, I'd hit the road, catch a few shows and be back in my normal routine after being gone for maybe a week. Bob spent most of his life from 1970 through 2013 on the road. I feel the heel for actually getting upset that he was going to stop. I have teenage kids, so I can absolutely relate to his unspoken motivation: I've spent too many years away from them, and I only have a few more years before they leave me to start their own lives. It totally makes sense.

Jerry

Trixie

Maybe I'm in an apologetic mood. Watching Jerry's daughter Trixie describe the burden Jerry felt really got me. Similar to my guilt over wanting Bob to tour more, I feel awful knowing that my friends and I who simply wanted "more" were part of the dynamic that led to Jerry's demise. Of course, Jerry owned his decisions, and after the diabetic coma in 1986 he chose to re-introduce heroin, but how great must the pressure have been? 20+ years under the radar to have In the Dark and Touch of Gray to launch them into stadiums. I was just a teenage kid, not knowing any better when the change happened, so I'm not sure what to do with this feeling. I'll go with "I'm sorry Trixie. No other guitarist could make me smile the way your dad could. It was magical and better than any other stimulus available at a Dead show."

Phil

Where's Phil?

As present as Bob's relationship with Jerry was in the documentary, his relationship with Phil was absent. As a bass player, I was expecting a great deal about how he and Phil worked together. Consider too, how many years the 2 of them toured together as Furthur. I think Bob looked at these later years as more therapeutic than anything else, working through his mourning for Jerry, the man best described as an older brother figure. Bob and Phil spent so many of those late years together, I'm surprised and a little disappointed that Phil wasn't involved in the documentary project at all. As I think back, I don't think he was even mentioned by name, which is a little weird. Phil was effectively lumped in with Keith, Donna and John Constanten.

Bob

John Barlow

Some of the best parts of the documentary, to me, didn't last long enough: the parts that focused on Bob's approach to the instrument. Maybe the producers and director thought that the average audience wouldn't be as interested. Personally, that's what I really wanted to hear: how did he construct songs with Barlow, where did Barlow go (why did he and Bob stop working together), what are Bob's triggers for changing his voicings on songs, etc. Still, getting a long-overdue reminder of his humanity and personal limits was welcomed. It was a good watch, and I'll watch it again. Knowing Bob's current life situation, I think it's time we went to him rather than continue to wait for him to come to us.

Ok, some bus stuff
I spent some time working on scraping the chrome off those 15" rims. I used a Dremel to soften up the skin and then used a putty knife to get under the edge and peel away some chrome-skin. Overall, 2 rims are almost completely cleared of chrome. As time presents itself this week, I'll hopefully get after the other 2. I am not up for driving too far on those old tires. They are over 10 years old, and spent far too much of their life sitting in one place. After the tire fail in Wheeler (see:Santa Clara by way of Wheeler) I'd rather drive contemporary transportation until the rims are cleared, painted and new rubber slapped on. Net-net, the bus may not be operational again this dry season. Oh well.

As always, thanks for following along. I'll be keeping my eyes and ears out for a Bob Weir show announcement. Maybe he'll be ready to hit stage about when Hapy the wonderbus is ready to hit the road. It would be really great to have the two in the same location one more time.

Wheels, Studs, Chrome and Backspace

Today's post is about wheels, rims and going larger-than-stock. There are so many opinions on this topic, that finding the gems of key information in the sea of religious wars is really hard. Case-in-point, there are literally thousands of threads each dating back years, covering hundreds of pages on TheSamba. Seriously, try a search for "tire" in the Samba search engine. Ridiculous. Trying to find actionable intel is virtually impossible, but, frustratingly, it is in there. There are some great sites, though, and Google can help. I'm putting everything I figure out here so I can find it again later.

RAtwell
I've mentioned Richard Atwell before. He's like the new Bob Hoover for bay window buses. I've never met him, but we've emailed over the years. His site (www.ratwell.com) has a section on tires, and it, like the rest of his site, is much more geared towards those who wish to keep their bus as stock as possible. There is a short section about going larger than stock, and the show-your-work math helped me build a spreadsheet to figure out what rims would work. If I can figure out how, I'll upload that spreadsheet so you can leverage it too. If I don't, this is a neat calculator I stumbled upon after I'd already created the spreadsheet.

Chromed

Anyway, with the info from RAtwell in my head, I found a set of Mercedes 15" aluminum 5x112 rims with flaking chrome. Yucky looking but the $50 price was right for perfectly round, undamaged rims. I started my usual way: learn how to remove the chrome first, then see if it makes more sense to pay someone else to do it. Well, with muriatic acid, it is possible to remove the chrome at home. This is strongly discouraged. No matter how many sites say that it is easy and you can handle muriatic acid safely with the right gloves, etc, the resulting chemical (Cr-6) after the stripping is highly toxic. Think "your own personal super-fund site" or Erin Brockovich. There is a reason why chroming companies are disappearing across the US. The waste produced is some of the nastiest stuff around. In short: don't do this.

So, if I can't do it, I can pay someone else to do it, right? Yes. In Portland Oregon, August 2015 it will cost $100 per wheel for an environmentally responsible shop to do it and it will take up to 6 weeks to get them back. So, my $50 rims just became $450 rims. Hmm.. Maybe I can simply scuff them up a bunch with sandpaper and paint them?

That's what she said
With the reality of stripping the chrome still stinging, I thought I'd test fit these things while I thought about it. The memory of the failed jacks (see Santa Clara by way of Wheeler) still in my mind, I slid a 2-ton floor jack under the shock absorber mount and pulled the driver-side front wheel. The kinda grody 15" rim's holes aligned, but the rim couldn't slide home. This brought up my first new discovery: many MB rims, like the ones I got, have 12mm bolt holes, some have 14mm holes. VW buses need 14mm, so the stud is too thick for the hole. This can be resolved with a 9/16" or (better yet) 37/64" 19/32" drill bit, shaving that little bit of material out of the hole so the stud's fit.

Yes, Size Matters
I also noted that the thickness of the rim at the bolt-hole is much thicker than the old steelies. Yeah, that's obvious, but its about 20mm thick. The existing studs aren't long enough to stick out the other end with enough threading for the wheels to be safely held onto the hub by lug nuts. These studs aren't very expensive, and many people claim swapping out the studs isn't that hard.

used without an "ok"
from AirCooled.net

For posterity, I derived these numbers from GermanSupply.com. The bay-window bus studs are all press-in, after 1970:
Rear (drum brakes): 37mm long, 14mm thick
Front (disc brakes): 44mm long, 14mm thick

If I were to replace the studs with a set that would fit, I would need 57mm rears and 64mm fronts (stock plus 20mm) plus or minus. AirCooled.net has studs available which are close, and after conferring with John, the 2.2" (55.9mm) should work on the rear and 2.5" (63.5mm) should work on the front. I know my history enough to know that it could take me a day per wheel (I'm slow. I make mistakes and I don't like doing too much at once). Once I run that math, I expect mounting these $50 rims to cost me thousands in my usual charge-myself-$50/hour planning. Before I take that plunge, I switched my focus to thinking about simply buying rims from Cip1 or jbugs.

Rub Rub Rub

nicked from JBugs

There are all kinds of really nice looking, shiny rims on the market. They so pretty. Unfortunately, the new rims out there are not designed for the rear fenders of the bay window bus. Those rear "flares" don't flare out very far, and most of the rubber above the top of the rim is covered by it. This limits the ET the bus could support.(from RAtwell's tire section: ET is German for Einpress Tiefe. and it's the measurement in mm from the rim center line to the mount where the brake drum or hub contacts).

The websites don't publish the ET of these new rims. They talk in terms of inches of backspace. Backspace is the distance from the inner lip of the rim to the wheel mounting face. Since we know the backspace and the ET for the stock wheel, we can figure out the ET, though. Ha! The stock rim has a backspace of 4.75 inches and an ET of 39mm. Most of the new ones have a backspace of 3.75 or 3.5 inches. These lower numbers push the wheel further out from the hub, lowering the ET. If you've ever tried to put tire chains on the stock rear tires, you know there simply isn't that much room. Once we add in the section width, pretty much any tire that isn't one of those extreme low profile (requires special tire-mounting equipment) tires won't fit. Still, let's do the math: 1 inch equals 25.4mm, so shifting the ET of 39mm down by an inch puts it around 14 (39-25=14). I ran another math model where it was closer to 20, but the point is the same: the new rims are designed for a Vanagon at best, but more likely a beetle or squareback. Some metal work, either to the rims or your rear flares, will be required to make them fit.

Hope Glimmers?
There's one last glimmer of hope for a relatively quick swap rim: the newer Passat rim. The newer Passat, and some Audi's, were shipped with a 15" steel wheel on the 5x112 base. Unfortunately, the center hole for these rims are closer to 1.5" than the required 2.5" needed to clear the grease caps and castle nut on the old bus. I happen to have a set of these 15" rims. Of course I do. You knew I would. I've read about expanding the center hole, but tire shops won't do it out of fear of getting sued. Gotta love the American system sometimes. Anyway, it is entirely possible to figure out the right line to cut and then cut it with a special drill bit, or a Dremel. Frankly, that sounds like a bad home-mechanic idea. The probability of making the rim unusable is pretty high. And, while the tire shops fear lawsuits, they fear someone getting hurt or killed because of one of their rims failing even more. That fear is contagious; now I fear that too. I suppose, if I knew a tire guy who could assure me that it could be done right, maybe my fear could be eased. Until then, that set of rims will sit, and eventually fall onto craigslist for someone to use for snow tires.

So...
I'm back to the original grody-looking rims. I picked up a 9/16 drill bit last night, and tonight I'm going to have a go at one of the rims.

UPDATE (August 24th, 2015): 9/16 is too small. While it did shave some material away, 9/16" is 14.29 mm and the threads are bigger than .29 mm. I have since ordered a 37/64" (14.68 mm) and a 19/32" (15.08 mm) bits. I'll update once I've determined which one worked best, removing the least material.

test fit success

UPDATE (August 29th, 2015): 19/32" is right. 37/64" didn't make a large enough hole for the rim to fit. 19/32 made it fit without wrestling, and the rim isn't flopping about sitting on the studs. As you can see from the picture, the 15x6 MB rim should look pretty good, once that chrome is covered up. Next, I'll have to get after the studs, etc. I'll post about that separately, when I get to it.

Thanks for following along... if you did. There's many hours of research distilled down into about 1400 or so words.

Weather Whether Whatever

Yep, its been a month.  I really don't know where the time goes.  When I look at my calendar for that past month, its been all over the place, so I can't point to one thing as my time killer.  I think its simply working too much.  I have had some time playing with the bus.  Boo and I hit the mountain for the first time yesterday, so I'll hit both of those today.

Whether Weather
When I first pulled the electronics together for the bus, I positioned the throttle unit (resistor pack that sends desired speed to computer) under the floor.  This area is protected by a square-ish pan with a couple of silver-dollar-sized machined holes that is supposed to be held on with 6 6mm bolts.  My bus being 40 years old, and having had multiple owners clowning on it, those bolt holes are not dependable.  For example, when I drove to the Futhur show I could hear the pan rattling in the wind.  Yikes.  Now, add the incessant rain we experience in the Pacific NorthWest and the sensitive electronics contained within.  Clearly, the bus was not ready for Fall, Winter and Spring.
First, I closed the machined holes with noise-reduction material.  This reduced the ambient noise as well. On top of that, I glued-in thin closed cell insulation for more noise containment.  I then ran 3/8" window insulation along the lip of the pan.  These 2 efforts solved the water problem, but I still had to get the pan attached to the bus such that the insulation would compress.  Since the bolts were rattling around the holes, I went to Home Despot and bought a handful of every bolt size from 6M to 8M in both metric and US sizes.  None of them worked.  So, I switched it up to thick (size 16) sheet metal screws, and sent one through the front-center and one through the rear-center.  The pan sealed right down and compressed the insulation.  Nice.  I tested the edges with a thin screwdriver, and I was unable to press past the insulation.  Problem seemingly solved.

I apologize for my lack of pictures.  The belly pan work was performed without the benefit of adequate light, so there were limited opportunities for taking pictures then either.  It looks like the drizzle has finally ended, so I'm going to head outside and address the turbo outlet that seems to loosen almost every time I drive the bus.  Once that's done, I just need to solve for the rear cabinet and protecting the electronics hidden underneath it.  Then, the bus will be ready for taking the family to the mountain regardless of the weather.

from 2011-2012 season a-top Palmer

Sister Hood
If you've read this blog long enough to have read entries from last Winter, you're already pretty well aware of my love of snow.  Season lift tickets went on sale a few weeks ago, and I outfitted the family with passes.  Of course, the kids keep growing, so 5 out of 6 of us got new boots (even me; mine were shot), and we spent last weekend at Next Adventure getting extra snow pants, a jacket or 2, etc.  As I write this, I'm starting to figure out where my month went... anyway, Boo and I took a test-flight to Timberline yesterday in my Jetta (bus may go next time).  T-line always has the glacier to slide on.  They call it the Palmer Snow Field; I call it the Palmer Ice Sheet, but either there was snow on Thursday, and it hadn't warmed above freezing since.  As we drove through Government Camp, all the trees had a light snow-dusting on them.  SkiBowl has a couple of inches and even Summit has some.
The road to Timberline was snow covered, but sanded.  We realized our chains were still in storage, so the slight drifts we experienced had us a little on edge.  Still, we made it to the parking lot unscathed.  It was cold.  I mean cold cold.  Almost 0*F cold.  And a wind.  Take the cold and the wind, add that you're suspended in a chair 30' above the ground (and above the tree-line) and finally add that this was out test-run and we both inevitably forgot something.  We couldn't stay very long.  We got 2 runs in and called it a successful test.

That's it for today.  I hope to have the bus winter-ready by ThxGiving so we can take the bus to Timberline for White Friday.  It would really make my season if I could bring my 2 favorite things together.

the Wheels on the Bus

Lately, I've noticed that the once wide-array of tire choices for the bay-window bus are disappearing. When I combine this with the need to handle a lower RPM output engine than the stock one, I am starting to think about larger rims. It all started with that drive up to Mt. Hood Meadows through the snow flurries. I got to thinking about what it would be like to drive up for a day of snowboarding in the bus.

First, I got all romantic-like. Thoughts of taking a break in the bus with a propane heater running, making hot chocolate, etc. Plus, the room for 4 of us to roll up there and popping the top for head-room to stand up. Sounds great. Add in a working stove to make hot beverages or food, and it sounds frickin' great.

Then, I started thinking about how well my tires would grip. I have Saturn 720's from Les Schwab that I bought about 4 years ago. Since then, I haven't put many miles on them, but they are not M+S tires, much less snow tires. I hit the web to see what my tire options were, and that's when I had my discovery: they don't make many tires that fit my need anymore. After reading and re-reading one of my favorite bus-related websites I started looking in earnest for another wheel / tire alternative. My current thinking now, is to upgrade to 16" rims. I know the tire wells and the steering mechanism can only handle so much of an upgrade, though. I'd like to find Mercedes 16" x 6" steelies rather than the seemingly abundant 16" x 7.5" chrome rims. Rims this size would support the standard tire for a Ford Ranger, and these would fit within the tire wells.

I know this is a total non sequitur from all the other work that I need to complete. Still, just thinking about what could be helps to motivate. It also serves as a reminder of all the things left to complete. The stove doesn't work because the under-belly propane tank was never installed (though I have it). The pop-top replacement is still waiting to be installed. Of course, the bus isn't running. Lots to do, but if I can figure out a way to continue to work when the bus is parked outside and its 40* (and windy), I can get it done. Maybe I should rent someone's garage....

More next time, and I'll post pictures of the trip to Mt. Hood Meadows from work this week. UPDATE: added picture from parking lot at Meadows.