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.

Around the Rim (Part 5)

I really can't believe it took 5 posts to cover cleaning up and painting a set of rims. It took fewer posts to cover replacing the floors. I guess there were more steps on the rims. I can't believe it took longer, calendar-wise either, but getting things done in the cold winter is much harder than getting them done in the warm summer. I should probably remember that when I plan things. It could be at least in part because most of the rim work has been done outside since the garage is full of project cars and assorted parts and painting in cold weather forces some creative thinking. Hmm... anyway.. on to the paint!

Prime and Sand

Once everywhere you don't want paint is covered, you're ready to prime. By "everywhere", this includes the rubber tires, and the inside of the rim. If I had a paint gun, I would have gone that route, but I don't. So, I did the best I could with what I had: rattle-can primer, paint and clear. After all the time I'd put in the prep, I really wish I could have used a real paint set-up, but that's just how it goes. Follow the directions on the paint. Use many light passes with the primer. Make sure all of the deep spots (like the holes where the lug nuts go) get hit before going after the easy spots.

Once dry, let it set for an extra stretch of time. I let them sit for a weekend in a warm dry room, but I'm just like that. Using 320-grit sandpaper, I smoothed out the primer on all 4 wheels. I expect some would prefer to sand with even higher grit paper, and if this were going to be a 6-digit car, I'd defer. I expect to drive this car, not show it. The road will wear the rims no better nor worse if I sanded more. Anyway, similar to the treatment before taping, I wiped the wheels down with glass cleaner after the sanding was completed.

Color Up

First, I wanted a body-color matching edge. I've been looking specifically at rims on cars almost as long as I have been looking at cars. Where having one-color rims was the only way for years, a blending of shiny alloy and color is becoming much more common. I waned to go one more step and do 2 colors plus alloy. So, I started with the body-color match. This brings the rims to the car, helping bridge a gap created by not going with a common rim for the MGB (Rostyle or wire).

To do the color, I first tried to mask off the rest of the rim using thin-wall cardboard, but I could not get tape to stick to the old primer-covered tape. So, I dug back into my old house-painting bag of tricks and cut a make-shift paint shield out of a pizza box. By holding the shield up along the side, but not touching any to-be-painted area (against tape), I was able to deflect any over-spray without getting the cardboard into the fresh paint.

The weather here has been cold and wet. Neither of those conditions are good for painting. To offset some of the bad, I kept the rims inside my living room up to the moment I was going to apply paint. When there was a break in the rain, I quickly moved a room-temperature rim out into the yard, popped it onto an upside-down 5-gallon tub and shot color. Two times around for solid coverage and then I set the rim flat under the front porch eave and ran inside for another rim. I did this until all 4 rims had a vermilion ring.

Black Out
About this time, we were hit with successive snow storms that delayed my progress a bit. That's why the 4 different parts of this post didn't come out one right after the other. Anyway, once the vermilion dried and set for a few days in my semi-warm garage, I planned for the black paint. Before I could shoot the black, I had to cover up the vermilion, remembering that tape wouldn't stick well to primer. By contrast, the painter tape stuck very well to the orangey finish-color. As gently as I could, I covered the orange ring. I discovered while striping the tape that some spots were soft and the paint pulled away with the tape. I chalk that up to the cold conditions and did some isolated touch up.

Anyway, once the orange was protected, I shot the exposed rim with a reasonable coat of black primer, sanded (600-grit) and then shot hi-gloss black. I intended to do two light coats with the high gloss, but between the weather conditions and the paint, I couldn't get a light coat to lay down. So, I did a heavier-than-I-intended coat and then quickly followed with a light coat on top of that. The end result was pretty good, leaving only a couple of sags. I caught them early enough that I was able to scrape them away and re-shoot. A few marks were left behind, but they disappeared during color-sanding.

Color Sand
After I shot the black and let it set a couple of days, I pulled the tape off the orange. It looked pretty good, with a couple spots I knew I'd need to address. I opted to get the wet-sanding done first, and grabbed a bucket of warm water and 1000 grit paper. I cut the paper into 2" squares and wet-sanded each rim with a fresh square, rinsing the paper in the bucket every minute or less. This took down the gloss, but also removed little paint anomalies. I also wet-sanded the vermilion. I had virtually no burn through, with a few little spots near the lug holes. I simply covered around them and fogged-in some black and let that set for another couple of days before color-sanding those areas.

Strip and Final Prep

Once color sanded, I could remove all of the tape and get a good sense of how the final product would look. I knew there would be some clean up needed. Some tape had pulled away from the aluminum, so some paint made it past. Elsewhere, the tape wasn't at the exact edge, so some clean-up was needed. This took a few hours, but the result is better than I'd expected. To remove the over-spray, I used 220-grit paper on the raw aluminum. To set the fine edge, I used a putty knife along the contour to mark the line from black to raw aluminum and then sanded the rest of the paint on the aluminum side with the 22-grit. Once it was all sanded, I hosed it off, cleaned them with glass cleaner and then hosed them off again.

In the Clear
The funny thing about paint is that you find every little minor defect after you've applied it. I spent a few hours just nick picking on the paint edges and still they weren't perfect. I decided it didn't matter and I was pushing it too far. These rims were $100 with barely-serviceable rubber on them. They had deep gouges and the clear coat was flaked. I decided to just shoot the clear and be done with them knowing full well that the more time I put into them the more heartbroken I would be when the inevitable piece of gravel scratched one.

Once I had the rims cleaned, I moved them into my living room (thanks for your tolerance, Boo) so I could get them up to room temperature. Remember, it's in the 40F's during the day and getting below freezing at night, so getting the paint to adhere is a concern. So, I had an afternoon when it wasn't actively raining, so I followed the same process as before: one rim at a time, I bring a rim out, set it on an upside-down 5-gallon bucket and shoot. I was able to get a light coat of clear to lay down, so I followed the suggestions on the interweb (as well as on the can) and shot 2 light coats within 10 minutes of each other on all 4 rims. Then I moved them under cover and set them flat to dry.

The picture to the right, here, was taken the following morning, after it had completely dried. They aren't perfect, but I think they look really good. The concept of a 2-color plus chrome was executed, and once the tape came off the rubber, and they were mounted on a car, I think they look pretty amazing.

So, that's it for the Rim Job. I had a morning of swapping rims around the cars in the yard, but it was totally worth seeing the car transform. I think the next big effort will be addressing the radiator in the bus. I did promise Hapy that I'd replace his rad before the next festival season began. 4Peaks is less than 3 months away!

As always, thanks for following along-

2022-April-18 UPDATE:

It took me 4 years, but I finally found a set of center caps that fit these rims perfectly. Recall, these rims came from an early 90's Honda Accord, so you would think finding center caps would be relatively routine. It wasn't. I tried a "standard" set (69mm), but they did not fit (too loose). I had effectively given up, but I found a set of 70mm caps, and they fit perfectly. I had to tap them on with a rubber mallet, but they clicked in perfectly, and now look the business. I have not decided if I am going to adorn them with a sticker or something in the center. For now, I am leaving them as-is. Frankly, I do not intend to do one more thing on Oliver until he passes smog. Anyway, here's a picture with the new caps, but first, the sizing details:

• 6 Clips
• Outside diameter: 70 mm(approx 2 23/32 inch)
• Backside clip to clip: 64.2 mm(approx 2 17/32 inch)
• Sticker mounting diameter: 44.6 mm(approx 1 3/4 inch)
• Clip Length: 10.7 mm(approx 13/32 inch)

Around the Rim (Part 4)

Continuing the saga of the mid-90's rims, today's post covers damage repairs, and masking. If you haven't read the prior posts that got us this far, the links for the other 3 parts are here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Basically, I got a set of rims, they were kinda beat up, but I'm going to use them anyway because a few hours of my time is worth the $700 I would have to pay for a new set of 15" rims. This is just one more way to express that the journey is the destination, and why incur the environmental cost of new rims when you can keep another set out of the landfill? Everybody wins. If the set you're messing with doesn't need repair, and you don't plan to do any fancy paint, you could skip to the end and shoot a few coats of clear and be done with it.

Filling the Gouges

The mid-90's Honda rims had been on a daily driver for most of their lives. There appeared to be some bad-parking days when the rim ate into the curb. There were snow and ice days when the owner put on tire chains which scratched up the face near the lug nuts. Because of how bad the damage was on a couple of the rims, I decided that I would fill and paint the bad areas, and have a consistent color plan across all 4 wheels.

I could have used "bog" or Bondo, but I had a small tin of Lab Metal from when I swapped out the Westy poptop for a Riviera/ASI top a few years ago. It had dried up a bunch, but a after letting a few ounces of lacquer thinner sit in the tin overnight, it softened it right up. Similar to bog, or spackle the Lab Metal applies like a paste. Work the stuff all the way into the damage. If the Lab Metal won't hold, you may need to dig some material out of the damage so the Lab Metal has something to bite into. It's sort of like how the dentist sometimes has to drill out some good tooth material in order for the filling to set without an air bubble, and then hold.

Either way and whatever material you use, over-fill the damage so there is extra filler all around and on top of the repair. Consider that you will be sanding this down, so don't go crazy with it, but if you try to make it all nice and flush when it is wet, the material will shrink as it dries so you'll have a concave patch relative to the size of what you filled. Once it is dry, lightly sand with a high-grit paper (like 220 or something) until it is flush with the surrounding undamaged wheel. I followed this step with a general light sand with 320-grit paper on the entire rim and then cleaned it with glass cleaner so there was no dust remaining.

Masking and Cutting

Masking sounds so simple. Just tape over where you don't want paint. When you're painting a door frame for your closet, it is that simple. The dry-wall is flat, the edges are square and tape sticks really easily. When you're talking about a rim, none of those things are true. It's round. The various lips are not hard-edged; they are usually beveled or rounded off and tape doesn't stick as easily partly because of those 2 factors and partly because tape just doesn't want to stick to raw aluminum.

But, it can be done. First, use tape like a tack-cloth, pulling the surface dust off the raw aluminum. Doing this immediately before you tape will definitely help the tape stick. I also found that over-taping, or applying tape beyond the edge of where I wanted the paint to be allowed me to direct the tape better. Once on, I would set the edge with a razor-blade held mostly parallel to the rim but at a fixed angle, sliding along the rounded edge. This defined a very clear and consistent edge that I couldn't do with just the tape-edge. Each transition from taped to not-taped where I could get a razor-blade I defined this way. Yes, this takes considerable time. For those areas where cutting the line with a blade wasn't possible, I followed the old axiom from when I painted houses: use tape to prevent paint from getting where you don't want it. More simply, if you can't get the tape right on the edge, err on the side of getting a little paint where you don't want it versus covering up where you really wanted it in the first place. This sounds obvious, but in practice we all are such perfectionists that we try to get the tape right on the line. Sometimes, this means you cover up a thin line where you wanted paint and you don't see it until you pull the tape. That moment really sucks. So, get that paint a little too far onto the raw aluminum and then work the line afterwards with a razor. This is much easier and looks way better than trying to do touchup or retaping/shooting. Between the sanding and the taping, this is where you spend 95% of your time and makes the difference between a not-that-great paint job and a looks-pretty-good one. It's all in the prep.

I can't believe how long this has gotten or how long it has taken to finish these rims. Anyway, I should be finishing this thread of posts with one more: next time with priming, color, wet-sanding and clear-coat. Thanks, as always, for following along.

Around the Rim (Part 3)

Today's post continues the saga of upgrading the rims on the '78 MGB from the crummy chromeys to some mid-90's Honda alloys.

Clean, Clean Again

original Honda rims

After 30 years of use, and very little in terms of care, these new-to-me rims needed some love. First, they needed to be cleaned. I started with some basic car wash, a scrub brush and a hose. This worked some, but there was some stubborn brake dust and other grime on the insides. This took brake cleaner and some 150-grit sandpaper, but I was able to get down to some silver. I washed them a third time, this time with dish soap and a scrubby sponge in my kitchen sink (Boo puts up with so much). Once cleaned up, we could really get a look at what I'd bought.

Assess the Damage
Two of the rims were in fairly good condition. There wasn't much in terns of curb rash around the outer edges, and there were only a few scrapes from what looked like applying snow chains. The other two rims, however, had been in a few fights. There were some small chunks chipped out nearest the rubber, and many many gouges in that outer edge as well. Sadly, there were some deeper wedge-shaped scrapes in the face where, again, it looked like the rubber strap for tire chains had been put on possibly wrong such that the loops dug into the rim.

Plan the Work
The damage, though, was purely cosmetic. I was able to add air, and the air held in all 4 tires. Since the damage was surface, I knew I could repair it, but I felt I would need to paint rather than restore to plain aluminum. I'm sure there are others out there who can repair aluminum such that it looks like the damage was never there. That's not me.

paint concept (upper right)

To fix the chips and gouges, I thought about brazing alumi-weld into the gouges, and then polishing. Alternatively, I could use Lab Metal. I've used that stuff before, and it really does finish nicely, but I'm not convinced that it will leave the exactly right color. I suppose I could mix aluminum dust from sanding the rim into the mix for coloring if I really wanted to retain the all-aluminum look. After looking at the rim on the car, I think adding some color would look better, especially since there is a very limited amount of chrome on the car.

So, I planned to repair the chips and gouges with Lab Metal, and paint the outer lip and the mag-face, leaving an inner rim and the insides of the mags the original aluminum. This would bring out some of the chrome while not having an overwhelming amount of it. I mocked up a few options in paint so I could get a sense of how it would look and then I got started. First, you need to get down to the bare aluminum.

Take off that Clear Coat

on-car paint concept

The Interweb is a great resource, but some advice just isn't that good. While some is wrong, other advice can just be ill-suited to either your skills or project. For example, there appear to be many folks advocating removing the factory clear coat by sanding until what you're removing shifts from white to grey. Then you know you're down to the aluminum. While this does work, it takes an incredible amount of time. If you try to short-cut the time by using a lower grit (like 60 instead of the recommended 100), the car part will get deeper gouges that need to be sanded off with higher grit. In the end, I'm not sure if much time gets saved. I tried this method with one wheel. Since clear coat is not applied uniformly, you will hit grey while also still removing coating. In the end, I think this method was a bust, and don't suggest it.

For the other 3 rims (and I came back and did the sanded rim too), I used airplane stripper. C had some from when he was stripping the paint off the 280ZX, so I knew it worked and worked well. At least on paint. I knew that it didn't damage rubber when little drips got on it. I laid out the three rims, and brushed stripper on one wheel at a time. Once I got done brushing the third rim, the first was about dry, so I applied a second coat. Doing all four wheels would have timed out just about perfectly. Once the second coat was dry, I attacked the rims with steel wool. The clear coating scrubbed right off, leaving the bare rim with little flecks of clear coat left behind. To get completely cleared, I used a razorblade scraper. The airplane stripper was significantly faster and left behind a better surface. I hosed the rims off, and they were ready for the next step: fixing the damage. I'll get into that next time.

Thanks, as always, for following along. More next time-

Around the Rim (Part 2)

Today's post continues the saga of rotating the rims around the various cars in the yard so we can get rid of the donor ZX we picked up a few weeks ago. This time, I focused on the spacer to get the replacement rims for the MGB (from a mid 90's Honda Accord) to fit.

Space Case

1" spacer added

ET and backspace are kind of confusing topics. To really get it, you first need to imagine the rim and consider that the spot where the rim bolts to the hub is almost never at the centerpoint between the outer and inner edges of the rim. The ET (Einpress Tiefe) is the distance in mm between that centerpoint and the spot where it actually bolts to the hub. This measurement is interesting and important when calculating how well different rims will fit. It gets more complicated as you change the wheel width. I have spent lots of time trying to figure this out (see Wheels, Studs, Chrome and Backspace), deciphering the RAtwell page on tires, and finally building a spreadsheet to help me compare rims and tires. If you have the measurements for your wheel arches, and suspension, you can jump straight into the 1010Tires offset calculator. I've played with that thing quite a bit while trying to figure out what rims I could fit on the old bus. Of course, I didn't discover it until after I'd spent hours building and refining a spreadsheet calculator. Ha! And after all that, I just bought a set of 16" rims from a guy who had them on a Vanagon (See New Shoes), so I didn't have to test my spreadsheet or other measurements in the end.

rear view w/spacer

Anyway, I believe that the ET for the crummy chromes is lower (moving the rim further out) than the stock MGB rim and much lower than the Honda Accord rim. Or the other way: the Honda ET is higher than the MGB rim which is higher than the ZX. Even if we factor in that the Honda rim is an inch wider, the offset/ET is actually a bigger factor in the math, based on the pictures.

I didn't take pictures showing how close to the wheel arch the crummy chrome rims are, but the rubber on the wheel just barely extends out past the outer edge of the arch. In the photo in my last post, you can just make out the front tire and see how it is pretty far out towards the wheel arch. Technically, this isn't legal, but with the way big trucks are allowed to drive around with tires multiple inches out past the wheel arch, I guess the traffic cops have bigger issues to handle. I can support that.

The Honda Accord rims, on the other hand, are pretty recessed into the well when compared to the old crummys. I have at least an inch of space before I'm getting near the wheel arch, and as you could see from the picture on my last post, I couldn't even get my index finger between the rubber and the spring.

Math? Why Math?

spacer on, better fills wheel well

So, after all that figuring, thinking and prior planning I'd done before, you'd think I would use the same cautious approach to solving this need. Nope. Instead, I hit the eBarf and found a set of 1-inch thick aluminum integrated-lug wheel spacers for $85US delivered. My logic:
1) I need a good inch between the rubber and the spring.
2) I have at least an inch between the rubber and the wheel arch.
3) There is nothing in the front suspension, hub nor wheel arch that is more restrictive than the rear spring to rear wheel arch.
So, if I can get a rim into the rear wheel well with one of these spacers and it doesn't rub (and it shouldn't), then we can get all 4 mounted without issue. As you can see from the top picture, there's much more room for the tire on the inside and from the middle picture, it doesn't protrude out past the wheel arch on the outside. Barely. They look right on the car now.

Now that I have proven that they can fit, and look nice in their native state, I'll be spending the next wheel-related post walking through my steps and experiments to clean them up. That's it for today. Its a little short since it's my birthday. Have a great week and as always, thanks for following along-

Around the Rim (Part 1)

Today's post looks at rotating tires, one set at a time and some planning / thinking around how to rotate tires from car to car, ending up in a better place than where we started when the music stops. This got really long, so I'm splitting it up into sections (again). Today, we'll focus on how this rim job got started.

The Catalyst

rusty rim

A couple months back, I pulled out the studded snow tires and my floor jack, to get Flash the Jetta ready to be our snow tank when winter turned nasty. While I swapped my 3-season tires for my studded snows, I got thinking about how we were going to finish the stripping work on the donor, and then getting the remaining shell removed. "If we pull the wheels, how will they get it out of here," I asked myself. By the time I'd gotten the winter tires on the Jetta, and the 3-season tires stored, I thought I had a plan.

My Logic
When we got the part-donor 280ZX, it was originally because C wanted the rims. I did a little research and found that most of the time when you have a yard pick up a scrap car, they give you less money if the car doesn't have wheels. I guess this is because they can't use their usual tricks to get the car, and someone has to pay for the nuisance. That someone is you. The interweb says that there are some yards that simply won't accept a junk car without wheels. I'm not fully sure that's true because sometimes the Interweb is wrong, but with that thought, I started thinking about how we could resolve a potential rim shortage.

The 280ZX and the MGB run the same size rim: 4 holes by 4.5 inches (or 114.3mm) apart. The backspace / ET is different, but they are close enough that they mostly fit each other. In fact, I'm fairly sure the rims currently on the MGB are 280Z aftermarket rims. But they're crummy fake wire-spoke rims that has the chrome flaking off, leaving large rust swathes around the lugs (see picure above). They're awful, and within a few days of getting the MGB I decided I wanted to replace them. To avoid possible junk-yard-wont-take-it issues, we're going to put them on the donor ZX. With that settled, the MGB will need rims before the donor shell gets removed. Well, the rims on the keeper 280ZX would fit, but as I described in the post about how we got the donor car (See 280ZX*2=Y), they just aren't our style. We are going to keep the smaller front rim/tires as a spare for each of our cars (one each 280ZX, MGB). This leaves us short one set after we move the donor ZX rims onto the keeper 280ZX and the crummy chromies from the MGB to the donor.

The Rims

Honda rim

I hadn't intended to keep those crummy chromy rims in the MGB anyway. I'd been looking, but original-looking aftermarket rims are, like $175US each. I'd been leaning towards getting a set from Acme Speed Shop, but I needed to corral $800US to make that happen. Knowing that simply wasn't going to happen soon, and having rims would enable us to ship the donor to the wrecker.... I went a different way. I had been trolling craigslist like I do when I stumbled upon a set of alloys that used to ride on the mid-90's Honda Accord. They looked okay in the posting, and the seller assured me they held air, so I took off to nab them. $100 later, I have a set of rims (with trash rubber) I can put on the MGB. I didn't go into this blindly. There is a great resource on the MG Experience identifying rims that fit. I figured with a savings of nearly $700US, I could clean up the Honda set, maybe apply some paint and still be ahead cost-wise. Or, I could just clean them up and sell them to fund one of those Acme sets.

Test Fit First
This sounds obvious, but so often we'll get all excited about something and tear right into the doing without first checking to see if what we're about to do makes any sense. Case-in-point, I could have started repairing on the curb-rash before even checking that the rims even fit. Again, the Interweb sometimes is just wrong. Okay, maybe I did get excited a little. But, it was no more than a few minutes of cleaning before I realized that I hadn't verified the linked resource. So, I pulled off the rear passenger (right) side wheel and slapped on one of the new-to-me Honda rims. The bolt-pattern was a perfect fit, so with very little wrestling the rim was on, nutted down and on the ground. So far so good in terms of the linked resource.

crummy chrome backspace

I took one of the other new-to-me Honda rims and set it next to and then on top of the crummy chromy rim I'd removed. The rubber (tire width) is about an inch thicker with the new rim, which aligns with what I was expecting. The new rim is 15" diameter and 6" thick. The one I removed was 14" diameter and 5" thick. The thicker rim supports a wider tire, so checking clearance both at the leaf spring and at the wheel arch is important.

Offset
As you can see from the pictures, the crummy chrome rims sat much further out towards the wheel arch than these Honda rims. There is almost 3" between the leaf spring and the tire sidewall. In contrast, the Honda rims sit quite close to the leaf springs, so close I can't even fit my index finger in-between the spring and the tire (see the lower picture). This leads me to believe that I am going to need spacers to center the rim between the leaf spring and the wheel arch. Spacers aren't nearly as expensive as I'd feared, running $10US per corner for off-the-shelf spacers. I just need to determine how much space I need and then figure out what lug nuts I need to make sure there's enough thread to hold the rims on well. To clarify... consider that the lug bolt (stud) is a fixed length and the more space you put between the hub and the backside of your rim, you are potentially taking away threads. The holes in the spacers for the lug studs are usually loose enough for you to get extension nuts that will thread between the spacer and the stud so you can still use most of the stud threading to hold on your rim. This takes care. If the extension on the nut is too long, you will bottom-out before the nut can be torqued on. If you use a nut that has too little (or no) extension, there may not be enough thread to safely hold your rim on.

Honda backspace

Or, there are slightly more expensive spacers which have lug studs integrated into them. T got a set of these when he was going to fit old (80's) Mercedes rims onto his not-quite-as-old (90's) Subaru. In fact, I used one of them to make the camping table attach to my spare on the bus (See Camping Table) after he got rid of that old Subbie. This style also lets you change the bolt pattern, if you want. You could run 5-lug rims on a 4-lug car without a whole lot of work. The upside for my application is that the spacer is nutted down onto the hub and the rim is then nutted down onto the spacer. This leaves plenty of meat on the respective lug studs to make sure your wheels are on safely. I have found 4-wheel sets delivered for under $100US, so while it's more than double the slide-on style I described first, if you add in the expense of getting the right lug nuts to be safe, the prices could nearly wash-out. Plus the added headache of time lost getting one set only to need something different, etc. Of course, the sense of security that comes from knowing that your wheel isn't going to fall off makes the decision much easier. I just need to figure out the right amount of backspace. I'll address that next.

That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Oh Crud, I Broke a Stud

It's been a busy month of moving and trying to wrestle a clutch into T's Subaru, so I haven't had many adventures worth documenting. Since T's Subbie is on ramps with a transmission sitting in front of it, he is driving my car, so I've been daily-driving the bus. It's really been great, with a few little hassles. Today is about those hassles.

Shake Much? Funky Clutch
Have you ever been pulling away from a stoplight and a semi-truck next to you starts shaking like there's no tomorrow as it pulls away from dead stop? That happens when something has been introduced onto the clutch or flywheel or pressure plate causing the clutch to not completely grab correctly. When I last pulled out the transmission (Transaxle Re-Assembled) in the Fall of 2014 I must not have completely cleaned either the flywheel or the pressure plate. MAybe I got a greasy finger on the clutch disk. The bus shudders as I pull away from dead stop now.. especially when it's cold. I'll probably have premature wear-out on my stage-one clutch as a result. Grr. The shaking, though, brings about it's own troubles.

No Power Rush Hour
I was on my way home from work a couple of weeks ago when suddenly and unexpectedly the engine stopped running. Turning the key had no effect. Since I was coasting to a stop at a pretty major intersection, I let the bus roll into the bike/breakdown lane and slipped out the slider door. I popped open the rear gate and looked at the wiring that ties my ignition key to the TDI harness. Knowing that there was probably an issue there, I pulled the pins out of the TDI ignition plug and popped in the original plastic plug. The engine fired up with the turn of a screwdriver, demonstrating that my remote starter was working. Back in business, I climbed back into the driver seat and motored around the corner, only to have the ECU drop into "limp mode". I fixed the "no power" by re-wiring the relays and wiring around the TDI harness ignition switch while taking a break from the moving fun. The root cause was one of the wires had freed itself from what it was plugged into. I blame the shaking mentioned above.

Limper
The computer needs to get a clean signal from the drive-by-wire accelerator potentiometer (usually called a "pot"). In the bus, this pot is attached to the underside of the cab and controlled by the stock accelerator pedal. The wire bundle running back to the computer is probably 15 feet long. In the original donor car, the wire bundle was about 4 inches long. If you add all that extra wire, there is additional resistance which can get in the way of that clean signal. When this happens, the computer drops into "limp mode", bringing the engine with it. Limp mode pins the engine speed at 1200RPM. While frustrating, the limp mode can be cleared simply by shutting off and restarting the engine. When this happened in the Rush Hour example above, I had to get off the road to shut down and restart because the "ignition" was 10 feet behind the driver seat.

4 out of 5 Recommended
Last March, I posted about getting some new wheels for the bus. They look great, but they are thicker than the stock wheels. Since the tires I had on the bus were 12 years old, I couldn't safely go back to the old tires, but the studs don't stick out far enough for the lug nut to get all the way on with stud sticking out the other end of the nut. I pulled a classic prior-owner-worthy fail in not double-checking the 94 foot-pound torque on the nuts, and then threw 2 nuts off the rear right wheel before noticing a "wub wub wub" noise. I pulled a lug nut from the other rear wheel to get 4-a-side, but one of the studs broke off and won't thread a nut anymore. The internet is not consistent about driving on 4 nuts when the vehicle delivered with 5. I've been doing it for a little while now, and I check my torque while looking for fluid drips.

Some of these hassles represent work I need to perform. Okay, most of them do. I have replacement wheel hubs on the way from Ken at TheBusCo and I already have the over-length studs I mentioned in my post about wheels (see Wheels, Studs, Chrome and Backspace) so I'm going to start preparing for that work. It could mushroom into more things since the rear suspension and brakes haven't gotten the deserved love in a while.

That's it for now. I'm in the process of getting T's car back together and him through high school graduation before I tear into solving some of the bus' issues. Thanks, as always, for following along..

New Shoes!

All bus content today. Hapy gets new shoes!

Background

on the way home from
Black Sheep Family Reunion

If you've been reading this blog for a while, there are a couple of things that have probably popped out. First, I've been wanting to get bigger tires since I did the engine/tranny swap. Second, our cars appear to break down in bunches so we rely on the bus as a "life raft" when one of the regular use cars fails. Until last Summer, this had been a fine pattern: when emergency struck, I'd abandon whatever project I was working on and drove the bus while fixing whatever was wrong with whichever car was broken. Last Summer on our trip to Wheeler (see Santa Clara by way of Wheeler), we lost a tire. This forced a tire replacement decision. I chose not to decide, and to instead take my chances and drive the bus as little as possible.

Rubber Ages

Wheeler

The current set on the bus is over 10 years old, and they spent most of their life sitting still. The tread is awesome, but the rubber is starting to break down. This is normal. To the consumer, hearing a tire salesperson explain that "while the tread looks good, your tires are dangerous" rings hollow. Most folks have the same immediate reaction: you're just trying to sell me tires I don't need. I know I think it. In truth, the oxidation of the rubber does cause it to become less capable of holding air. Eventually they develop slow leaks. In some cases the sidewall can become unstable and rather than frustratingly running flat, it could blow out. Yikes.

Research Leads to Solutions

mid- paint job, winter 2014

Since I'd been wrestling with this problem for a while, I had lots of research to depend upon when I had to make decisions (see: Wheels, Studs, Chrome and Backspace). Decision time was now. With 2dot0 gone (see Oh SNAP), Boo and I had to re-possess her old Saturn named Dude from the person we had long-term-loaned the car to. I haven't blogged much about Dude, but that car has been the cause of a fair share of life-boat emergencies. With our stable reduced by one, I needed Hapy back road ready right away. So, I hit craigslist, hoping to find some old 15" Vanagon rims. Instead, I found a set of 16" x 7" wheels with some 50/50 rubber on them.

I ran the current size rim/tire combination (215/60R16) through my spreadsheet. According to my calculations, I had less than 8mm between the edge of the rear tire and the rear fender, but otherwise it easily fit: 14mm away from suspension, over 40mm between the edge of the tire and the front/rear fender edge of the front wheel. Comfortable that these would fit, I bought them.

Acquisitions

new shoes, p-side

It turned out that the seller (name withheld to protect the innocent) knows my old friend Justin. The seller has a stable of Vanagons, including a mid-80' Subaru-powered Westy, a TDI-powered single-cab and a regular '87 7 passenger. I totally drooled over the Westy and the single-cab. The Westy is his wife's daily-driver (very impressive). I could have talked VW's and crawled over his Vanagons all evening, but the weather was for rot and he and his wife had dinner on the stove, so we traded cash for wheels and I hit the trailing edge of rush-hour traffic home.

Install
Changing a tire isn't exactly hard. Block opposite side wheels. Crack lugs. Raise vehicle until rubber no longer touches the ground. If possible, put a jack stand under frame for extra safety. Remove lugs. Remove wheel. Install is reverse, with final torque performed when the tire is back on the ground, "jumping the center" as you go. Doing this 4 times can take some time and energy. I think it took me 2-1/2 hours to do all four. Along the way, I convinced myself that the rear end has too much float to it. I had to raise the rear end too high into the air, I almost ran out of threads on the BusDepot jack, and the tire still wasn't off the ground. I resorted to putting a small rolly jack under the lower shock mount to get the wheel up. I have to address this rear suspension.

new front rim

The wheels fit over the rear castle nuts and front grease caps. In fact, there is a hair of room to put little covers over them to clean up the look. The rims, though, only had one cover included, so I'll have to find some. The original lugs fit, though it was tight. I was able to get them on with the tips of my fingers, and had to use a 3/8" driver with a socket to set them. The old spare that was put on in Wheeler went back onto the nose, for now. I'll need to replace that soon too.

I haven't had a chance to take a test drive yet. I am mid-way through a few projects, but I may clear the bus of half completed work so I can take a spin tonight. The wheels look great, IMHO. K, my oldest, says it has a throw-back beach bum look. I'll take it. I'll be replacing these tires when the need arises, and then I expect to put on 215/70R16 for a slightly lower revs-per-mile than the current set.

Thanks, as always, for following along.

Flash gets new shoes

It's been a busy month and I haven't taken the time to post about it. I've said before, if I'm not posting, I'm probably having adventures. This last stretch has been no different. I've been improving my daily-driving Jetta lately, so today's post is about that.

Humble Beginnings

sample image. can't find an old pic

When I bought the Jetta, it was 3 years old and had about 50k miles on it. I got a fair deal on it, and concluded after the fact that the dealer still got the better end. It was a no-options TDI available at the time: steel wheels, cloth interior, no power anything, no sunroof, the base AM/FM/cassette stereo, etc. That was what I wanted, thinking that the fewer fancy bits, the fewer things that will break. That's mostly held true. Unfortunately, when I got the car, the interior had already been destroyed. I think someone let their little yappy dog loose in there after spending an afternoon swimming in a swamp. It stank. I mean it really stank. It stank like when someone takes their sweaty, dirty feet out of an old pair of sneakers. And everything was carved up. The gear shift. The door pulls. If it was plastic, it had scoring all over it. Or it was broken. The cup holders (front and back), the center console, the rear ashtray, the front ashtray... That wasn't all. The exterior had a small scratch or little dimple or dent on nearly every body panel. Both fenders, all doors, rear quarters, both bumpers, hood, trunk and top. Yep, every single body panel. Maybe the prior owner liked to follow gravel trucks on the freeway. The driver door lock barely worked, and there wasn't a remote key. The front struts were sagging, the brakes made noise, the sound deaden-er under the engine was held on with zip-ties.... Simpy put, I could get over 50mpg out of it, but it wasn't going to be pretty.

New Car Grip

new VR6 rims

I'd been suffering along with Flash being not so flashy for years, and I was even considering getting a new-to-me car. Fuel prices last Fall got me to go another way. Why give money to the bank for a car that costs me more to drive every mile? I decided to put the money into the car I already had. I started with the front suspension (see Daily Driving). Once the alignment was done, Flash held the road much better. Last weekend, with the help of C, I swapped out the old steel wheels for a set of 16" VR6 rims. Now, Flash holds the road almost as if he was running lowered coil-overs, but he's at normal ride height. He grips the road very well, and I can steer with one finger. Very nice improvement. I definitely recommend refreshing the front end, upgrading to the TT bushings and replacing the struts and rear shocks. I did not go with the Bilsteins on the advice from MetalMan. The ride could have been too stiff for comfort. YMMV. I installed COFAP instead.

That's it for today. More next time on my other improvements.

Planning Winter Break

My employer shuts the offices down for the week between Christmas and NewYears. Half of my team will be taking the week of Christmas off as well, so I figured I would too. Today, I'm going to try to string together a plan for how to get some bus stuff done over the 2 weeks without spending all (or none) of my time wrenching. I have 16 days from this Saturday through the final Sunday. I added actual time spent edits in orange for my own benefit for when I want to make estimates next year. Goes to show that high level planning is wise, but getting too deep into detail is a waste.

Holidays
It is the holidays, after all, so I should expect at least one family event. Bowl games, the Winter Classic NHL game, etc. Assume another day there. Instead of 16 days, now its 14 days. One family event plus shopping for gifts. NHL Winter Classic plus a bowl game and some NFL. All in, there were probably 4 days "lost" to actually taking a break. Actual burndown at 12.

Snow
I've been pretty transparent about my love of playing in the snow. Snow has a peculiar sound when you're on the mountain away from the crowds and the bustle. I fully intend to visit the mountain a few times, so there's got to be room for at least 2 day-trips to snow. I'd love to make one of them in the bus, but I've posted enough on that score. Playing it safe, I'll assume 3 day trips so reduce to 11 days. EDIT: went twice. Burndown to 10.

Regular chore stuff
Any break brings with it hopes and dreams of some non-vehicular job getting done. Clean this, fix that, etc. Reduce to 10 days. This was an ongoing affair, but all in, there were probably 2 days worth of time spent doing this kind of stuff. Now 8.

Kid's Car
The A4 has a few problems, including a bad thermostat. Since everything takes longer cuz I"m slow. I'll set aside a day, even though it shouldn't take more than a couple hours. Now 9 days. EDIT: didn't fix the thermostat, but fixed a few other things and changed the oil. Thermostat on an A4 is a huge deal, like change the timing belt huge. Maybe in the Summer. Regardless, days now at 7.

Mrs.
Inevitably, I'll want to do stuff with my wife. I love spending time with her, and she works a lot, so there will be time spent dilly-dallying in front of the fire while she works. Maybe this is where I fit in the regular chore stuff. Assume a day lost, so now we're down to 8 days. We fit time around the edges. She worked every day except Christmas Day, and we spent that on the mountain (See Christmas at SkiBowl). She works too hard. Still 7.

The Painted House
I think I posted pictures last year or the year before of my usual Christmas tradition of painting a ceramic house for one of my family members every year. With the intensity around work, I haven't started yet. It usually takes me many many hours. While the one I have selected isn't crazy complex, it will still take me a while. Figure 3 days lost there, so now I'm down to 5 days. EDIT: this actually took over 4 days. Looks great though. Down to less than 3 days.

What Fits?
Like anyone who owns a project car, there is a long list of stuff to do and a short list of hours available to do it. Estimating can be a challenge because you never really get a big block of time to do things. Looking back on things, it's hard to tell how long it took, so you can't use past experience to help estimate new things. Awesome. Here's my list of things I want to do in approximately the order in which I'd like to do them, and my rough guess of how long it will take.

 - Fuel Gauge. I haven't found any how-to's on the internet. All links lead to replacing the float in the tank, which isn't the problem. Since I'll have to figure it out (and then post about it), figure 1/2 a day. I fiddled with this a few times (see Fuel Gauge Replacement), but in the end it's an issue with the float, not the gauge. Awesome. Down to about 1 day.

- Heat / Leak. Like the fuel gauge, there's no roadmap to follow. In order to really test it out, I need to get the bus engine up to normal operating temperature (NOT) and look for leaks. 1/2 day. I was able to identify and solve the leak (see Vanagon Rear Heater Leak Fix), but it took me most of a day to do it. This left no time for anything else.

 - saggy butt. There are lots of how-to's on fixing the saggy butt problem on a bus. Since the rear end hasn't ever been apart, I expect this to take a while. Knowing my ability to take much longer than everyone else, I'm saying a day per side, so 2 days. Early during the break, I went to Discount Import Parts (VWFLAPS), but with the holidays causing such disruption to deliveries, they couldn't have my bushings until almost NewYears. cancel this job until the Jetta's are solid runners. I have the bushings in-hand now, though

 - Rear brakes. I haven't really addressed the rear brakes in years. I'm sure they're over due for at least new shoes. I have complete brakes innards, so I'd like to just completely replace everything. The first side will take most of a day while I figure it out, the other side will take 2 hours. So, 1 day. Never touched them, but I did find all the hardware I had and remembered that I did the shoes a few years ago. Since the bus doesn't see much travel, they could be okay. I need to pull the drums and see, though.

 - wheels / rims. Remember those? Yeah, me too. What happened? Life, and now they're sitting patiently for me to get back to them. They need sanding down and another coat of primer, maybe some filler. Then I need to finish sand them, color and clear coat. Figure a 1/2 day per rim, so that's 2 days. Didn't touch them other than to move them around the garage.

Hmm... math says I'm down to -1 days. Something has to give, but knowing I have more to do than I have time ahead of time is better than regret at the other end. Maybe I collapse the chores into one of the "holiday" days of watching football and hockey. Maybe I leave the brakes or the saggy butt (or both) for a weekend. We'll see.

That's it for now. I expect to spend close to a week working on cars and some time playing in the snow, so there will be plenty of raw material for future posts. Thanks, as always, for following along. I hope you have a happy, rest (or project) filled holiday season-

Post holiday, I did things around the edges that I hadn't planned on: changed the air filters on 2dot0 and Flash, replaced the glow plugs on Flash, fixed the slider door (the cable became detached) and started working on a new shelf idea or the bus. I took a stab at constructing my own kick panels but decided it wasn't worth the work compared to just buying a pair, clowned around with the stereo in the bus and got the unlock codes for the junkyard stereo I got for Flash. I also went out to a movie with my wife (that Hunger Games one) and a movie (Star Wars 7) with one of my boys. Overall, it was a great break. One thing to remember for next year: the week I have the boys I really can't plan for much of anything. They need my time.

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.