Fear, Loathing and Driving in Circles

2 items today.  Broken alarm on my Jetta, and test driving the bus.  Its a beautiful day and I want to get out into it, so this post may not be as tidy as some of my others.  Apologies in advance.

Fear and Loathing

I have the boys this week, and that brings a different rhythm and a very different schedule around the house.  They enjoyed a camp at the local Park&Rec except for Thursday.  Which is where our tale begins.  I've had on-and-off problems with the door lock on my Jetta over the years.  3 years ago, I took it to my good friend Justin to fix the door switch.  The computer couldn't register when the door was open or shut, and thought it was open all the time.  This caused the puddle light to stay on all the time and run down the battery.  It eventually caused that annoying door-ding to go off while I was driving, etc.  Well, he tore the door don, pulled out the switch cleaned the snot out of it, and re-installed.  Problem solved.  Until recently.  Thursday, to be exact.  I couldn't disarm the alarm with the key.  Triple-A came out with a locksmith and he couldn't do it.  He said "take it to a dealer.  My guys tried to fix one of these once and it took 4 of us 4 hours".

Fear.

Loathing.

I called work, took the day off, and set to fixing it myself, with the help of VWVortex and my Bentley.  In just over 2 hours, I had the door in pieces, the switch cleaned and tested and re-assembled.  I do want to cover the testing process a little bit since this isn't documented anywhere that I could see.  The door lock mechanism has an 8-pin plug receiver on it (male pins sticking out of mechanism surrounded with a plastic ring for the plug to snap into).  After checking the electrical diagram in the Bentley, the #7 pin is ground.  Frankly, it wasn't clear which was the signal from the Bentley.  So, I figured when the switch was engaged, it either was set to ground when the door was open or set to 12V when the door was open.  I just needed to determine which was the signal pin.  How?  I tested connectivity between pin #7 and all 7 of the remaining pins each time I passed through a cleaning.  In the end, the #8 pin is the signal pin, and it goes to ground when the switch is open (IIRC).

Knowing this, I can think through a means of testing that circuit, and cleaning the switch without tearing the door apart every time.  I say that because I know this will happen again.  The switch is located under the locking mechanism, so dirt and grease get into the switch eventually.  This causes the switch to no longer make contact, fouling the signal.  Perhaps this could be solved simply by boring a hole near the switch so cleaner can be shot into the switch from the outside.  Sealing the hole with a rubber bit would keep dirt and water from getting in, but this would make the whole thing much more maintainable.

the Rounder We Go, the Faster We Get

I test drove the bus yesterday.  After struggling to get him going, and spending an hour trolling web sites for clutch engagement hints, I think it was again just a case of lack of movement.  Figure he hasn't moved since April, and even then it was just from a trailer into the garage.  Yesterday, though, he got a little workout, test-track style.  I drove him around and around the same loop of streets (right turns, so anti-NASCAR style) until his temperature got up into where the thermostat should open.  Worked.  I got him up to 185* and he sat there for a full loop.  The temp fluctuated up and down after that, but steadily climbed.  I don't think the fans kicked on, but I wasn't sure.  Rather than risk troubles, I parked him and noticed the coolant was leaking from the same hose-connection.  Drat!  I tightened the connection until I couldn't tighten no more and the leak stopped.  I topped off the coolant (and some distilled water), and I'm ready to test again.  He drove very well.  Peppy, and not nearly as loud as I expected.  Remember, he has no roof, so there's air-noise there, and the windows were all down.  Still, I could hear the "tink-tink" of the turn signal.  I think we have a winner.

Ed and Toby are headed over today to help me any my boys (T&C) put on the new pop-top.  Its gonna be a hot day, so I need to prep as much as I can to reduce the time we need to be hefting that top in the heat.  That means getting off this PC and digging into the bag of parts Toby gave me when I bought the top.  If they're all laid out, and I have some idea where they're supposed to go ahead of time, this could go a little faster.  Still, its gonna be quite an undertaking.  I'll take pictures and post on it soon.

Thanks for following along-

pictures:
top - driver door in pieces just before I removed the lock mechanism.
middle - test driving, "view from the bus" :)
bottom - the UltaGauge showing 186.8*, near the end of the drive

Road-Ready when Rain Relents

I didn't have the boys last week, so in theory I could have gotten some things done on the bus.  Instead, I went out for drinks, messed around with my media-center-acting PC and worked late a couple of times.  So, that left me entering this weekend with the bus in the same shape it was in when I left it on July 4th, pretty much.  With Fall-like weather pressing in around us in the Pacific Northwest (read: pouring rain almost all day), I appreciated the garage all the more, and I want to be ready when the Summer days (read: sunny and dry) return.  I'm about an hour away from being truly ready, but I'll cover what I got done to get that close.  In the background, I'm watching the Overhaulin' episode when they did a 21 window bus.  Never seen this one...

Harness Swap #7
I mentioned in my last post that I'm giving up on the original harness.  I've lost too much time to it now, though a replacement is spendy at $150 on eBarf.  I've put so many hours into the original, I hate giving up.  I could charge $5 per hour on my time with the original and be able to pay that $150.  I used to decide whether to hire someone to do something based on how many hours it would take me to do it.  We should all highly value our time, and I need to think that way again.  If I'd thought that way, I would have given up on that old harness after a few hours and bought one by now.

I had a "shower epiphany" yesterday for how to use Justin's harness without damaging it while still getting an oil pressure signal.  I don't want to cut a single wire on his harness, but the plug end on his "newer" harness doesn't fit my blade-style sensor.  I could buy a newer sensor, but instead, I took a short 18gauge wire with a female-blade end on it.  I stripped the other end and simply jammed it into the plug.  Taking care not to mess anything up, I verified the connectivity, and a-fixed it with some simple electrical tape.  Will this stand the test of time? Heck, no, but it's not supposed to.  It just needs to last until I have $150, which should be the middle of next month.  So, out came the original for the last time, and in went Justin's... again, hopefully for the last time.  That was this morning.

Cool and Clean
With the engine harness resolved for test-driving, next I needed to be sure the fans would fire.  I hit the Bentley to the test procedure.  I should have done this before, but I was installing this outdoors in the rain, so I'll forgive my self.  On the test, though, it failed.  I dug into the Bentley wiring diagrams, and that big fan control module isn't even useful in my installation.  From what I could tell, it is necessary for A/C, and if you have the auxiliary coolant pump to continue to circulate the coolant if it's hot on shutdown.  I don't have that, nor do I have A/C.  Honestly, if I need that kind of thing, I'll buy an electric coolant pump from a yard and tie it in with a simply relay.

Anyway, by not needing all that, I had a bunch of extra wiring I needed to get rid of. The view from the rear is now much cleaner too.  The small wire bundle that used to run down along the engine harness is now gone.  Now, there's a single fan power wire running from the fuse block a-top the battery running up to the rad.  It passes through the temp-switch there.  It is a "2-speed" fan switch, so I have the front fan running to the "slow" and the rear running to "fast".  I will eventually tie both fans into the "fast", but I need an isolator of some kind.  Regardless, I re-performed the tests, and we have power to the fan.  Just to prove it, I cross-wired the source to the fan, and "whirrr", the fan spun to life.  Sweet... we're ready to test fly.


So that's what I did today.  I messed around yesterday too, but I'll get to that in another post.  With the pouring rain today, and rain forecast into the week, I don't know when I'll be able to try giving the bus a drive.  Remember, he doesn't have a top, he looks like a sunroof model, except... there's no slider!  So, once the rain stops, I'll start test driving to work, the boys to camp, etc.  I guess I should start with starting him and driving out of the garage, eh?  Stay tuned....  This last picture here stands as a reminder to take a seat in the driver's seat from time to time to remind yourself why you're going through all this trouble.  There is no view like the one out the front of a flat-nosed vehicle.  Thanks for following along...

pictures:
top - retrofitting a plug for a spade connector
middle - cleaned up view of wiring through rear-access
bottom - view through the windscreen in current spot. that thing suctioned to the windshield in the middle there is the holder for the UltraGauge

Going Topless

This should be the last posting about my July 4th weekend activities.  I'll get to the subject line in a second here, but first, a funny story from the weekend:  Remember, it was a hot weekend for NW Oregon, so the doors were wide open, the blues from the festival were playing, and I was toiling away.  My apartment is right on one of the 2 exits from the complex, so half the folks that live there drive past my door.. and my garage.  So, mid-afternoon on Monday, a guy with a european accent driving a black Audi stops in the middle of the driveway and shouts "is that a Looney?" out the window.  After 2-1/2 days of work on the beast, I must have shot him an ugly look cuz he immediately retreated his tone and explained that when he was a kid that was what the folks called them because the hippie kids drove around in them.  Huh, I thought.  I'd never heard that one.  In fact, I can't find that reference via Google either, but I'll take his anecdote over the "series of tubes" :) And I decided then that I needed to start cutting down on the caffeine.  Wish me luck.

Single Cot Removal
In order to remove the old Westy pop-top, the cot needs to come out.  The cot is held to the top of the bus with 4 bolts and 2 screws.  All of these are Phillips-head, and the nut on the bolts fit a very small cresent (6mm or smaller).  With the bolts and screws removed, the cot can be slid out of its spot.  Rotate the rear end towards the driver side, and the rear mount can drop through the hole.  Then, slide the cot out to the rear.

Luggage Rack Removal
The Luggage rack has been off my bus a couple of times already, so this was just a re-run for me.  The rear of the rack is held on with 3 long Phillips-head screws: 2 through the corners and one in the center. Under the top, there are rubber snubbers to allow water to pass under the edge of the rack.  The front has 2 screws and a few bolts.  I say a few, because I think at least one of mine was missing.  Regardless, the screws are on the far right and left edges and the bolts are through the more centered holes.  Once removed, the rack, comes off pretty easily.

Pop-top Removal
First, my removal was driven by my top suffering significant dry-rot.  It was so bad, that the whole thing started falling apart, tearing along the sew-lines and right through the middle of the material.  So, my removal was much more destructive than yours may need to be.  I started with the removal of the lower billow hold-downs.  These are flat silver metal bars that are screwed into the top of the bus, pinning the bottom edge of the billow to the top of the bus.  There are many many screws, probably one every 4-1/2 inches.  There are 4 bars, one each across the front and back ad one each along the sides - each one wrapping the front and rear curves.  I was unable to free all of the billows because of clearance at the front (hinge-end).  Next, I removed the 3 bolts which hold the hinges to the bus-top.  This created some instability for the rest of the removal, as you can imagine.  I then moved back to the rear and removed the bendy-arms.  These are held to the bus with 2 small Phillips-head screws and to the top with a single bolt per side.  The nut on the bolt is the same size as tiny nut from the cot I mentioned above.  The bolt, again, it s Phillips head.  Seeing a pattern?  At this point, the only thing holding the top to the bus it the front bit of lower billow hold-down, so I cut the billows with a pair of scissors, freeing the top.  I then slid the top off the top of the bus off the driver side, easing it to where I had been storing the Riviera top.

Dirt Removal

I was amazed by how dirty it was under that top.  First, I shop-vac'd.  Then I hand-scrubbed it with soapy water (and a scrubby-sided sponge).  Now its clean, but if you have one of these buses, think about how you are cleaning the inside of your camper when you open it up for the summer.  I admit I hadn't been cleaning there, but it never really looked that dirty.  With the Riviera top, the bus-roof will be more covered, so I'm not sure how I'll keep that clean.

That's it for now.  I still need to resolve my bad engine harness, and that's bugging me.  I'm still cash-strapped, so I can't buy a new one, and I'm afraid the summer will be over before I get running reliably.  I still haven't proven the cooling system ,and if I've learned anything on this project, its to assume that whatever you did will need to be redone.  So, I suspect the cooling system will need some attention before its road-ready.

pictures:
top - removing the cot
middle - bus without top
bottom - dirt scum-line just from the shop-vac