Back from having fallen off the edge

So, yeah, its been 4 months of silence.  Now, I'm back in a somewhat stable space again, and I can take on the bus and the blog.  I didn't exactly fall off the edge of the Earth, but it probably seemed that way.  4 months ago, I wrote about a theory about the leak, but I wasn't able to really test that theory until today.  I'll touch on that and provide a whirlwind tour of my last 4 months.  First, the leak....

Dude, You Crushed It

ALH TDI cooling diagram

As you may remember, I've been suffering some coolant leak problems since I swapped Justin's engine harness out for mine.  We thought it was the coolant temperature sensor.  At this point, I think that actually was the original leak source.  I actually got it fixed last Labor Day when I last pulled the engine to trade out the old tranny for the new high-geared one.  Unfortunately, I believe that was when I damaged the coolant hard line that runs over the top of the bell-housing (part #11 in drawing).  In a stock install, this line is not in harm's way at all.  In fact, I'm not sure why they did that rather than just use rubber lines with junctions, but there was probably a penny saved in there somewhere.  Anyway,  In the bus, this hard line runs very close to the frame to which the trans-axle is mounted.  Adding insult to injury, the hard line has a bracket as part of it which needs to be attached to the front of the block,sharing a bolt through the outlet flange.  Its not obvious in the picture, but its the bolt that is referenced just above the #12 in the picture.  Anyway, it wasn't connected, so I thought the leak was being caused by that not being connected, and the lines allowed to flop around.  It's possible the hard line damage was caused by this.  Its also possible that I crushed the line, popping a little hole in it, when I did that Labor Day install.  Groovy.
Boo has to work tomorrow morning, so I'll start attacking the problem.  I plan to drain the coolant down below that level (assuming the leak hasn't done it for me), cut the hard line above the junctions and route rubber in its place.  I'll need to prevent the rubber from rubbing against things, but after examining the coolant schematic, there just isn't another explanation for why its leaking now.  The #20 and related bits are gone, replaced instead with just a simple heater circuit.  Hmm..

Move ah move ah
Shortly after that last post, Boo and I had finally had it with the condo, the idiots on the HOA board and the self-serving nature that same board spent the budget.  The last straw was after we attended a board meeting about nonsense, but the published minutes described decisions which were never discussed.  Crazy.  Representative government my ass.  So, we hit the rental papers, found and landed a house within a couple weeks.  The current occupants weren't ready to leave for a few weeks, but that gave us the time to rapid-pack 2 families worth of stuff while trying to helicopter boys to lacrosse practices and such.  It was a good time Spring.  We moved in early May.  Immediately following the move-in, we set our eyes on getting the condo ready for someone else.  We followed the Navy axiom of "if it moves, oil it; if it doesn't, paint it".  Needless to say, we pushed 1080 square feet of paint, replaced a ton of broken or worn down stuff, etc.  To be totally fair, 95% of the work was done by Boo.  W(Sh)e finished on Wednesday.  It looks amazing.  Now, we can really address the sea of boxes stacked up in our living room.
On move day, the garage (like any move) became the default staging area for stuff when we started running out of time.  After a Saturday of digging, I had room for the bus.  I am still digging out, but I was able to crack into the bus today.  I don't know where most of my parts or tools are, exactly, but that won't stop me from getting in there with a saw anyway.

That's it for today.  Now that we've moved, school's ended, the condo is done, etc, I expect I'll be back to updating more often.  Its nice to be back for sure.  Tomorrow, I'll get that hard line cut out of the deal and see if I can get a test drive in this next week...

Musings over an Open Engine

This week is Spring Break in Oregon.  I was fortunate enough to get the week off and my boys, so its been a week of play.  I'll post on our fun later on.  I do have a theory on the leaking bus, so I'm focusing on that today.  You see, I went out there to look at the engine with the access hatch open while sipping my morning coffee today....

Coolant Flange... What?
I installed a TDI engine from a manual-transmission'd NewBeetle into my '72 bus.  The manual transmission-mated engine has a weird flange coming off the head that includes some coolant warm-up plugs.  When this engine is mated to a bus transmission, and put into a bus frame, that weird flange really sticks into the fuel tank.  I solved that issue by swapping that flange with one from an auto-tranny engine.  I don't know why they're so different, but the 3 main connectors are there: one to route to the oil cooler, one to route to the heater and one to route to the radiator.  Also, there's the coolant temp sensor.  I have droned on and on about the temperature sensor.  I still think there's something wrong there, but I'll leave that for now.

Not It
I modified the auto-tranny coolant flange.  Even with the shorter imposition into the fuel tank, the outlet for the oil cooler banged into the bus frame.  So, I cut that one off, leaving a little material on the end.  I screwed a bolt into the hole and sealed it with RTV.  One might think that's where the leak is... but its not.  That spot has been bone-dry since day one.  In a recent post, I talked about tightening the flange to the head.  That is still rock-solid, so that isn't a leak source.  There's an outlet to the radiator.  That one is pretty big, and the route of the line takes a 90* turn towards the ground, and would usually route straight to the radiator.  In my set up, it hits a "T" where a small off-shoot goes to the oil cooler.  Leak site?  Nope.  The last outlet, though, may be our culprit.

Dumb Engineer Meet Unobservant Shade-Tree Mechanic
The outlet that routes to the heater is really nothing special.  It points straight out to the left (driver-side) and a hose runs to the heater core in the auxiliary battery area. What does make this outlet interesting is that there's no clamp holding it to the flange.  *face palm*  There is a clamp there, but its one of those awful new VW style ones that require a funky tool to open and close them.  I'm sure VW engineers had their reasons for creating these clamps, but I'll take a simple screw-based clamp over one of those things any day.  Anyways, I don't have that funky cable-driven hose clamp tool, and I apparently never got around to solving this clamp issue.  Tomorrow, I'll hit NAPA or similar and buy a clamp that fits.

If that clamp was the problem, this will serve as one more example of why you should do the job right the first time.  If you do "enough for now", "for now" will be just as short-lived as it sounds.  Thanks for listening-

Couldn't Stand the Weather

Car stuff today.  Brief?  Is it ever?.  Complains about no garage?  No, actually.  I have to remind myself that owning cars that are over 10 years old with more than 150k miles on them requires owner responsibility.  In that spirit, no complaints; just doing.

Silence Canyon at the pull-out.
Note the snow line in the trees

Cold Shot

While I was getting Flash back from Johnny, he pointed out that the he (Flash) still didn't want to start first thing in the morning.  I thought it had something to do with the vacuum lines.  So, I spent the beautiful Saturday afternoon re-running the vacuum lines.  Some folks may not see that as a perfect Saturday, but it was in the low 60's (F), sunny and the birds were out.  I have evidence of that last part on the side of Flash, but I digress.  Some of the vacuum lines were original.  Yikes.  Most seemed okay, but I replaced them anyway.  I needed about 8 feet of 3mm and 7 feet of 5mm line to do the job.  I have a few extra feet of the 3mm after over-buying.  Anyway, the cold-start trouble persists, so I'll be hitting the interweb (read:TDIClub) for clues.  No codes, no smoke (except on that cold start) and Flash runs fantastically otherwise.

Couldn't Stand the Weather

Sunday (today) was a day for the bus, and a change in the weather.  I mean that both ways.  The clouds rolled back in, dropping spittle-rain this morning.  After running T over to a youth group meeting in Flash, I decided I'd give the bus a go for the pick-up trip.  Remember, that I hadn't taken a test drive to verify whether I'd actually fixed the leak, but I felt pretty confident that I'd nailed it.  He started on the first try.  No real hesitations, but he was chilly.  The drive over was an exercise in getting the gears all slippery.  Shifting was stiff and he wanted to pop out of second.  I sat with the engine running in the parking lot while waiting for T to appear.  He was out of sight, but apparently heard the rumbly rumbly and tore around the corner, beaming.  e knew exactly what I was driving.  As we pulled out of the parking lot, he asked, "how's he driving?".  I responded with driving the bus like I stole him (well, as much as you can with a microbus).  "Zippy," T said.  At this point, the engine temp finally got high enough to trigger the thermostat and allow coolant to really move through the flange and into the radiator.  The temp climbed to 196* and crawled back down.  It see-sawed from 188* to 194* from then on during the drive home.  We stopped to look at the house we had tried to short-sale purchase last Summer.  We saw a puddle forming under the bus and knew then that the "fix" wasn't.  Back to the condo we went, a little dejected after such a promising start.

germane to nothing, it's a Nutria 

When the House is a-Rockin' Don't Bother Knockin'

As we pulled into the parking lot of the condo complex, I noticed the neighbor walking towards our parking spot.  Now, this neighbor isn't one of the condo folks.  He lives in a house that shares the property line.  In front of his house are parked many cars (some volksies).  They split and sell firewood.  They build and sell picnic tables.  There are always one or two folks out front, and a radio is always playing alternative radio.  Modern hippies?  Maybe.  Anyway, one of the guys who live there walked over and asked if we (T & I) could solve a debate.  Apparently, they heard me drive off, and that sparked a whole debate about whether it had a diesel in it or if it was just tuned crazy.  Big smile.  I pushed back the matress and the engine hatch I cut and watched is eyes bug-out.  LOL.  Made my day. Apparently, he and a bunch of folks he knows are mechanics and they specialize on VW's.... mostly the older ones, but they work at a shop I know if (omitted to protect everybody).  I encouraged any one of them to stop on by if they wanna see the crazy TDI-powered microbus.  I added, "if they wanna elp figure out the coolant leak, I live right there (pointing)".  :-D  I'm no dummy, and I'm tired of trying to isolate the leak.

That's it for today.  I'll revisit the leak next weekend.  Hopefully, I'll have a few extra pairs of hands around, even if they're just there to talk and point and drink beers.  To avoid the questions, I spotted that Nutria in the picture on my way into work as I passed a water hazard / green space.  If you've never seen one before, it was big, like a 16" long body plus a nearly 10" tail, nibbling on the grass.  Sometimes Mother Nature is just plain weird.