Hapy Re-Assembly Continues

First, thanks for following along. I know blogs have fallen far out of favor, with videos and such being the preferred means for getting information. I can't watch videos at work, but I can read, so for me, this is still viable. There's an old saying about not having a face for video, or a voice for radio, you can still print. That's me. Besides, I barely have time to do my thing and write about it, much less shoot and produce video. I don't know how those content producers get any sleep, especially the ones who aren't making any money at it, which, lets be honest, that's most of them. More power to them, and I greatly appreciate their efforts. When I finally wind down at night, I love me some car-fixin videos.

 

So, where were we? Oh yeah, Hapy was almost assembled. Well, his engine and transaxle were mated and they were mounted to the bus. That's the fun, exciting, sexy part. What's left is everything else. I stayed under the bus and finished everything there first before getting after the from-above stuff. I didn't take any pictures, mostly because with all the extra layers simply moving around under the bus is a challenge.

 

Transaxle Finish

I started at the front and worked by way backwards. This started with the nose-mount. At some point when the transaxle was removed, one of the mounting bolts broke off inside the threaded body mount. I know I need to resolve this, and practically every time I get under the bus, I shoot that broken-off bolt with some penetrating oil. I believe the front mount carries very little actual weight, but it does make sure the transaxle remains aligned. I gotta get that bolt out and replaced, but not today. With the one bolt in, I connected the grounding strap. I slid to the left side and connected the Bowden tube and clutch cable. I make a point of leaving bolts partly threaded into where they go so (a) I don't lose them and (b) so I know where they go when I return to a project 6 months later. This made installing the Bowden tube just the usual challenge and not accentuated with a bolt search first. To make the threading of the butterfly nut on the end of the cable easier, I prop up the clutch pedal and then put vice-grips where the cable meets the threaded end. Lots of tightening later, I then test the play of the pedal and slide back under a few times to make sure the pedal has an inch or so of travel before the pedal meets resistance.

 

The last thing on the transaxle is the reverse light plug. In my efforts to install, I smashed the reverse light plug quite a bit. Perhaps this happened when the transaxle fell of the jack this past summer. Hard to know. Anyway, with needle-nose pliers I straightened them out. The leads, have been in the same position for so many years that they were already pre-oriented for the right spots to plug in. 

 

Rear (Anti-)Sway Bar 

Sliding further rearward, I got after the rear sway bar. I will again mention how helpful this bar has been for handling, especially in a strong cross-wind. I will also stress how important it is to have it out of the way for a transaxle R&R. I raised the center of the bar with the TravisJack so I could use both hands on the various mounts. I made sure to put a small smear of clear, hi-temp grease (not black axle grease) on the hard bushings, finger-threaded everything and then nutted every thing down. The grease extends the life of the hard bushings, by reducing the direct-wear of hard bar twisting against them. I had not greased these previously, but we really have not run more than a few hundred miles since I put this bar on.

 

Starter

Now we're getting near the end of the below-the-bus stuff, with the starter going in. With the newer starter adapter, with the studs to hang the starter on, the install is much easier. It really is as easy as popping on there and nutting down with a 17mm socket. The top nut can be a challenge to reach, but the rest of it is easy. Pop on the 12V send from the battery and the 12V send-to-front onto the main post, nut down with a 14mm. Last, pop on the starter trigger. Done. Next!

from warmer summer days

Before sliding out, I hooked up the ground from the right side of the engine to the frame.

 

Fueling

For the most part, I left the fuel system in-tact. Right now, I start to feel the advantages of not pulling the motor all the way out of the engine bay. All I did to enable this job was remove the big Caterpillar fuel filter from the frame, and drape it on the engine. So, a couple of bolts later, the fuel system is back together, hopefully holding prime.

 

Cooling

Similar to the fueling system, I minimally disconnected the cooling system. So, I thought it would be just as easy. I lifted the overflow bottle and noticed the bottle was low, and could hear splashing noise coming from the driver side. I lowered the bottle and the steady stream stopped, so clearly there was a breach up higher in the system, and not a breech in the radiator cooling lines or something that would have potentially cost me all of the coolant. Sure enough, the coolant temperature sensor that plugs into the coolant outlet flange was loose and the c-clip was no where to be seen. It is highly likely that the clip was lost last Summer. At this point, I ordered a replacement, and moved on, but not without laughing at how, again, the coolant outlet flange bit me again. 

 

Charged Air

All I removed from the charged air system were the 2 silicone elbows that connect the inter-cooler to the system. Then, the inter-cooler can be moved out of the way for the work. The silicone elbows are held in-place with large clamps that require a special tool (or lots of patience with channel-lock pliers). I used both. Once complete, I noticed that the little blower fan I have on the inter-cooler was barely clinging to the inter-cooler so I fixed that with some new zip-ties. I intend to one day replace the air-to-air inter-cooler with an air-to-water system, reducing overall inbound air temperatures and freeing up some engine compartment space.

 

This was as far as I could really go without that little clip. So, this is where I stopped while waiting for them to arrive from ECS Tuning. While waiting for the coolant temperature sensor c-clip to arrive, I put the battery on the charger. Next time, we'll get after that little clip and whatever other adventures we uncover.

 

Thanks, as always, for following along- 

 

Hapy Re-Assembly

I have been waiting to do this post until after Hapy was completely back in one piece, but after many hours and days out there, he is still not quite together. Still, seems like as good a time as any to update, and, like seems to happen so often, this got long, so this is going to get split out. Perhaps he will be in one piece by the time I get the next post done. Anyway, I left off last time after having moved Hapy from the sloped and badly cracked driveway into the shop. That was in early October. With extreme work expectations, I had very little free time, so there he sat until winter break (mid-to-late December).

 

Time to Lean, Time to Clean

engine in, oriented

First, I moved the ATV jack with my wooden cradle under the engine and supported the engine. I started by removing the ratchet-straps I had used to hold the front of the engine to the frame and the axles from dragging on the ground. Then, I removed the rear mount, support tower and cross-bar. Last, I removed the rear tow-hitch / rear bumper assembly.

 

I was on a cleaning adventure, so I cleaned the engine bay and the parts I had just removed with de-greaser. Then, I painted those parts and the underside of the bus's rear end and lower engine bay with Eastwood's rust converter. I felt this set the stage for a less filthy job. Since I failed to clean the engine, however, I was only half right. But, the parts which were painted look really good now and I hope the rust growth is at least slowed, if not stopped, by the application of the rust converter. As they say "rust never sleeps" so it will remain on the inspect-every-time list regardless.

 

Transaxle Together

output flange going on

We start our assembly adventure by just returning the transaxle back to its state before I removed it. Recall that during my efforts to get the transaxle and engine to mate on the cracky driveway, the transaxle awkwardly fell off a small jack and onto the concrete, causing the left (driver in US) side output flange to pop off. This was what put the re-assembly effort into dead stop last Summer. After getting some advice, a new plastic cover and a few packets of grease from a shop around the way, I again did nothing about it for weeks. Work has been all-consuming this year, did I mention that? Anyway, continuing my cleaning frenzy, I cleaned everything (except the engine, it seems): the transaxle, the various parts, the area I was going to work in, my tools... you get the point. The little c-clip that was responsible for holding the flange to the transaxle was a little bent from it's rapid extraction by the driveway. The shop owner suggested that the original clip was higher quality than the EMPI stuff on the market now and encouraged me to flatten/fix that clip. So I did, with a vice and a hammer. With the mating points all clean, and the old little plastic cover gone, re-attaching the output flange, setting the c-clip and then setting the new plastic cover actually took as long to do as it just took to type. I was stunned it was that easy and felt rather stupid for avoiding this for, like, 6 months.

 

While I was there, I also took the shop owners other advice about removing the throw-out bearing, greasing the slide and re-installing the throw-out bearing. While the parts were apart, I hit the teeth on the output shaft with a wire brush, getting all the gunk out of the teeth. With the transaxle now back in one piece, I set it on a big sheet of cardboard and slid it under the bus, from the rear around the left side of the engine and over the rear sway-bar lying on the ground. 

 

I will make an aside about the rear sway-bar here. While it is great for handling, it is awful for getting the engine/transaxle in and out. It really is great for handing, though, especially in windy conditions. Simply disconnecting the frame mounts and letting it hang on the ground, leaving the shock mount ends connected, makes for a tall, virtually uncross-able, speed-bump for your floor jack. In the future, when I (and I suggest any reader who has the rear sway-bar) remove my transaxle again, I will completely remove the rear sway-bar from under the bus, leaving the space completely clear.

 

Tranny Meet Diesel

strapped to rotate

With the transaxle on the ground under the bus, I set to mating it to the engine. Right here is when I wish I'd remembered a few things:

1- while you can still interact with your transaxle, put the little cage on the shifter rod that comes out the front. I didn't and while it still isn't done yet I have already spent an hour trying to get the grub screw to thread in after the transaxle is already installed. Word to the wise: do this beforehand.

2- that shifter rod goes OVER the rear main frame tube. I don't know what it's real name is, but you need to put that rod over the tube before you try to put the transaxle into place. I forgot, mated the engine:transaxle and then had to do it again because I could not get the engine far enough back to get the shift rod over the tube. Total facepalm. Lost hours facepalm.

 

I am going to draft on this moment and drop a placeholder for consideration: Cutting in a removable rear valence like the earlier bus's had. I know the engineers made the fixed, permanent valence for structural integrity. Any other 1972 and later bus might still require it. For that matter, this bus may still require it. My bus, my risk ; I encourage others to not follow this advice without giving it some serious thought and even then, ask friends. My bus has 2 additional side-to-side heavy bars bolted into the side frames: one for the rear engine mount and one for the rear tow hitch. Both of these are heavy steel bars bolted in separately from each other. I submit that if I cut the rear to have a removable valence, I would suffer no structural loss. So, I think the next time I need to remove the engine, I will give this serious thought. How I do it so it doesn't look trash will be the fun part.

 

Anyway, once I got the shift rod over the tube, I set the transaxle on the "race" jack I got from our dearly departed brother-in-law, Travis (and named it accordingly). With the transaxle easily balancing on the Travis I was able to get the output shaft of the transaxle to align with the clutch. It is noteworthy that I did not use the "small" jack the transaxle fell off of this time; the big pad on the Travis is way more stable. I got the 2 to mate and threaded in 4 bolts to snug them together: 2 on the very bottom, one just above the clutch throw-out arm and one which threads through the starter mount.

 

Central Mounting

With the engine and transaxle as one large and heavy assembly, I needed to get it aligned with the 2 central mount holes: the 2 which pass through the ears on the top rear of the transaxle. I believe this mount handles the lion's share of the weight. The left side aligned fairly easily (20 minutes of wrestling) but it took a couple of hours of fighting the right side. I could not remember having such a hard time reaching and seeing. With a shrug, I went to put things away and noticed that I could not lower the overhead engine lid I'd cut in all those years ago. It was bopping on the intake. I realized that the engine and transaxle were clocked for an upright install, not a "stock" orientation (same tilt as native install in a Jetta or NewBeetle) as I had before. I had mated the engine and transaxle wrong. I called it a day, and took a long shower.

 

For Clock's Sake

nearly buttoned below

I have some of my best (and sometimes worst) ideas in the shower. I figured that I could put a ratchet strap around the front of the engine, hooking the ends on the frame like I had it when I moved the bus, and use the webbing as a cradle for rotating the engine, re-clocking it against the transaxle. Suspending the weight of the engine on some webbing was not going to be enough so I put in the rear engine mount cross bar and tower. Then, I connected the engine mount to the engine, letting the body-side of the mount float free. As an extra precaution, I moved the ATV jack and cradle under the engine and raised it so it was just below the engine. Then, I put the ratchet strap in place and cranked it down as snug as I could. Feeling a little anxious, I removed the 4 bolts and nothing moved nor settled at all. So, feeling bold, I grabbed the engine by the alternator mount with my right hand and the turbo with my left and slowly rotated the engine anti-clockwise. I was able to key off of the bottom bolt on the left side, switching from on my back with the bolt in hand to on my feet and shifting the engine and back again. Ultimately, I found that using a small screwdriver to help fine-tune the bolt location was most effective, but once I had that one bolt, the upper left and starter-bolts went in easily. I was unable to seat the lower right bolt and I will have to go through my notes to see how many bolts I've used before to see if I'm chasing something a false memory of 4 bolts.

 

Once the bolts were through, I removed the ratchet strap, wrenched down the engine mount on the engine side and then connected it to the tower. I am going to stop here, mostly because this is as far as I've gotten. By next time, I will have solved the grub-screw in the shift linkage and have the rest of Hapy put together. I hope I will even be able to tell a tale of a test run.

 

Thanks, as always, for following along. I know my posts have become few and far between. We had some staffing changes at my employer late in 2024 and that meant lots more work for me ever since. I do not anticipate that significantly changing, so my attitude about it needs to. Working on it.

Hapy Home

This is almost a car post. Today, I get Hapy put enough together to move and then get him into the shop with his 2 brothers (Zed and Oliver) and sister (Nina).

 

Where Were We

Early in the Summer, like every Summer, I had big plans. Big plans. I was going to have my shop built and get Hapy fixed and then take all kinds of trips and such in him. Well, like so many prior seasons, my plans ran up against time and energy limits. It seems like every Spring I say "yes" to many things, forgetting that Summer is at-best 10 nice weekends here in the Pacific Northwest. We usually celebrate Independence Day wearing knit hats (still cold when it finally gets dark enough for fireworks) and some years Labor Day sees rain. That is the most extreme. Those with kids see summer's end around Labor day, but weather-wise, it is usually nice in September. So, to me, a "normal" Summer for nice weather planning runs from mid-July until mid- or late-September. 10 weekends. Maybe 12 in a good year. I committed 3 weekends to musical performances, had weekend family events in Eugene, Montana, Idaho and then in Seattle over Labor Day (7 weekends total). Just like that I'm down to 3 or 4 weekends for projects, cars and fun. In full transparency, we cancelled the Montana and Idaho obligations. I filled those weekends with digging trenches and laying french drain pipe, executing a storm water management plan I didn't have when the summer started. Still, when I look at the calendar through that lens, I now understand why Hapy sat in pieces. I am also kind of amazed that we got as much done, and not that surprised that we did not really do many "fun things" as we do other years.

 

sloped and cracked driveway

So, recall over Independence Day, I dropped Hapy's engine and tran-saxle so I could replace the chewed up flywheel (See Hapy Engine-Transaxle Dropped). When the new flywheel arrived, I popped it, on torqued it, set the clutch and bolted on the pressure plate. Once torqued, I struggled to get the trans-axle to mate with the engine. This was because of the few reasons, I think. First, the driveway is not flat, it is pitched away from the garage door, so getting everything level was more of a challenge. Then, the driveway is crumbling and heaved with large 1"+ drop-cracks in it. These cracks were larger than the wheels on the ATV jack I use to move and position the engine. So, once the engine was down and a wheel dropped into one of the cracks, I was no longer able to maneuver it front-back nor left-right. I could tilt it and raise-lower it. Even with those conditions, I got close, but the trans-axle fell off the smaller jack I had it perched on while attempting to mate. It landed on the driver-side output flange, popping it off the trans-axle entirely.

 

At this point, I was too frustrated to approach Hapy for a while, so I focused on getting the shop done. I decided that moving broken cars in the mud and rain was more objectionable than fixing Hapy in the rain one more time. If it came to that. I tried to find a mechanic to look at the trans-axle and re-assemble it. Instead, the D and M Automotive Service agreed to look at it and tell me how to fix it because he was convinced it wasn't beyond my skills and he had a 4-6 week backlog already. He was trying to close his shop for the weekend and subsequent vacation, but he took the time to show me exactly what I needed to do and fronted me the small bits needed to do the job. I still owe him $10 for those (facepalm). So, with instructions in mind and the required bits in hand, I headed home... and left the job undone ever since.

 

Prep to Move

Staying on the get-the-cars-outta-the-rain course, Boo and I agreed that getting Hapy into the shop was a necessary step before I try to re-assemble him again. The probability of failing again simply because of the driveway was too great. Before I begin, consider that the rear engine mount, the tower and the cross bar were out and on the ground. The engine was sitting on the ATV jack, but effectively on the ground. The boosted air circuit, fuel system and cooling systems were loosely hanging in the engine bay. Underneath, the axles were hanging from the wheel-end CV joints and the rear sway bar was detached. Hapy was nowhere ready to move a few inches much less 30+ meters (100'?) back into the shop.

 

in the lane way

I started with the rear engine supports by raising the engine up and connecting the rear cross bar. To this, I attached the tower (after de-greasing it) and then added the mount to the engine. The bolt holes in the engine bracket for the mounts were stubborn and I had to shoot the passenger-side hole with a tap before the bolt would travel the full distance. Last, I wrestled the mount holes over the tower holes and bolted the engine home. With the rear of the engine set, I considered how to suspend the flywheel end. I believe that when the full drive train is in, the upper trans-axle mounts are responsible for most of the support. These are on the trans-axle, of course, so I was concerned for how to hold the engine still during a move. I used ratcheting load straps, suspended from the body-side of the trans-axle mount and under the flywheel, slipping the strap between the flywheel and the engine so it would not slip off.

 

I used another ratching strap to suspend the axles. I finger-tightened the 4 front bolts of the rear sway bar, rather than nut them all the way down. Neither of these shade-tree hacks ended up being a problem for the move. Last, I suspended from the engine any partly-connected bits and removed all the loose fasteners and charged air hoses. Hapy was enough one-piece to move to the shop. We will see if any fasteners fell off when I get to re-assembly (LOLs). Visually, it looked good and walking the route afterwards I found no bolts, nuts or washers.

 

Homed

Hapy had been parked with his rear-end pointing south in front of the house. We needed his nose to be pointing south in the shop in order for his rear end to be pointing towards the big door (north). I wanted this orientation so I had the largest work area behind the engine as I could arrange. This meant we needed to turn him around before we sent him down the lane way. Boo and I went full old-skool. With her behind the steering wheel, I pulled the tire chocks and pushed the rear of the bus like the dickens down to the street. With a dog-walker stopping the one passing car for us, we kept Hapy rolling out the driveway and slightly up the street before I ran out of ability to push against gravity. Boo let Hapy roll backwards downhill just past the end of the lane way and over to the shoulder. I hooked up the trucker chain to Hapy's front frame and the other end to the ToyoTruck tow hitch. Then, we hauled Hapy all the way to the edge of the gravel before I had to peel away from the driveway in the truck. Because Hapy is heavier than both Oliver and Nina, I was concerned about the strain on the come-along. I moved Hapy about 6 inches and then decided to hold off and give it a think. I am not 100% sure of the load capacity of the come-along and I was uncomfortable with the amount of strain I put on it just for the 6 inches I got. That was Sunday afternoon. 

 

On Tuesday, Bill, our tree guy, arrived with a couple of employees to remove the failing cherry tree just south of the shop. Since Hapy was sitting in the lane-way, it was blocking the best path to the tree and the best path through which he and his guys could haul the pieces of the cherry tree to the chipper. So, in about 2 minutes the 4 of us pushed Hapy up into the shop. Shazam, Hapy is home. While I reeled from the gravity of what had just happened, Bill's guys backed the chipper to where Hapy had been sitting and got to work on the cherry tree. I still need to wiggle the rear end of Hapy west a little bit, probably remove the tow bar from the front of Nina, shove her further south and then shove Hapy further south as well to create more space near his rear end... but.. he's home.

 

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Well, this ends the shop construction odyssey, at least until Boo and I find the cabbage to purchase doors. When we have solved for that and the final inspection has completed, I will accumulate all of the various costs and post the actual rounded numbers. If I had to guess, the structure was ~$25k, the concrete was around $15k, the permits around $2k, gravel, stone and french drain stuff was probably another $3k. So, my approximate running cost is around $45k, lacking doors. I will need to integrate a winch of some kind for moving broken cars and I still want to add a $5k lift. I don't know where that money will be coming from and I feel like I have already spent more than I intended to on the shop already.

 

Thanks, as always, for following along. Saving this mid-century farmhouse will always present me with projects, but once the weather shifts, I think my attention will as well... back to wrenching on cars.