IAC back in Colorado
Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 9:32 am
As you can tell from Colin’s “Anniversary” post he is back in Colorado a year later. I had a newbie visit last weekend where we inspected my two busses and Colin evaluated their driving characteristics. Colin persuaded me to modify my priority list and he set to work teaching me to work on these things. We put the two busses back to back and adjusted the valves on both simultaneously. The ’76 (blue bus) has solids and the ’78 (brown bus) has hydros so it was interesting going back and forth between them.
You see, originally I had planned to swap the transaxles between the two busses. I plan to keep the blue bus because it is much better overall condition, relegating the brown bus to a parts bus. However the 3rd gear syncros are on the way out on the blue bus, thus the planned swap. Colin wouldn’t hear of it once he saw the parts bus. You see, they both run and drive very nicely. He mumbled something about our obligation to history or posterity or something like that saying that we needed to keep these things around and not part them out. He reminded me of vdubtech’s brown bus which runs so well and is full of rust, like my brown one. So, we are going to try and improve the shifting and clutching on the blue one and see if I can nurse the tranny along for awhile. And save the brown one for someone else if I decide not to keep it.
I must admit that I haven’t worked on any cars since I traded in my ’75 bus back in ’89.
We did the usual double clutching class and like many of you I was too nervous to really pull it off. I’ve got to train the body so this will take some work. He was actually able to downshift from 4th to 3rd without the usual grinding.
Colin is returning next weekend and training will continue them. We needed to jump into the engine pull on the blue bus so that we can do the clutch replacement. We barely got the engine pulled in time for Colin to make it to a dinner date in Denver. He claims he made it in time but, I’m pretty sure you can’t get into town from my house in Roxborough in less than 45 minutes.
Colin left me with a list of chores to do to be ready for next weekend. I cleaned out the stock of BMW fuel line at the local BMW dealer and realized that I didn’t have the 10mm line for between the pump and filter. I have some on order and hope it meets Colin’s strict standard. The local Mercedes dealer is so new they have virtually no parts so I wasn’t able to get the 11mm stuff recommended on Ratwell’s site. I bought two rear shift couplers from the local VW repair shop. One was a Chinese Empi and the other was from Brazil. Hopefully we can make some combination of parts work. The clutch kit and flywheel reseal kit arrived from German Supply on Monday; it took a week from Canada even though Scott sent it by US priority mail. It was in NY on the 11th yet wasn’t delivered to my house until the 16th, the scumbags.
I picked up a six pack of gumout and must get to work preparing for Colin’s return visit. I hope it all goes back together as we didn’t label a thing on the disassemble. If this is a farce and Colin really doesn't know what he is doing, I am screwed...
It was kinda fun and I learned a few things - It wasn’t as bad as I thought, I might be able to work on this thing. I should have cleaned up the bus. Colin doesn’t like dirt falling in his eyes. Robogrips don’t work as well a visegrips. The firing order is really 4321. He showed me a pry trick that works really well loosening stuck screws and nuts.
Jim
You see, originally I had planned to swap the transaxles between the two busses. I plan to keep the blue bus because it is much better overall condition, relegating the brown bus to a parts bus. However the 3rd gear syncros are on the way out on the blue bus, thus the planned swap. Colin wouldn’t hear of it once he saw the parts bus. You see, they both run and drive very nicely. He mumbled something about our obligation to history or posterity or something like that saying that we needed to keep these things around and not part them out. He reminded me of vdubtech’s brown bus which runs so well and is full of rust, like my brown one. So, we are going to try and improve the shifting and clutching on the blue one and see if I can nurse the tranny along for awhile. And save the brown one for someone else if I decide not to keep it.
I must admit that I haven’t worked on any cars since I traded in my ’75 bus back in ’89.
We did the usual double clutching class and like many of you I was too nervous to really pull it off. I’ve got to train the body so this will take some work. He was actually able to downshift from 4th to 3rd without the usual grinding.
Colin is returning next weekend and training will continue them. We needed to jump into the engine pull on the blue bus so that we can do the clutch replacement. We barely got the engine pulled in time for Colin to make it to a dinner date in Denver. He claims he made it in time but, I’m pretty sure you can’t get into town from my house in Roxborough in less than 45 minutes.
Colin left me with a list of chores to do to be ready for next weekend. I cleaned out the stock of BMW fuel line at the local BMW dealer and realized that I didn’t have the 10mm line for between the pump and filter. I have some on order and hope it meets Colin’s strict standard. The local Mercedes dealer is so new they have virtually no parts so I wasn’t able to get the 11mm stuff recommended on Ratwell’s site. I bought two rear shift couplers from the local VW repair shop. One was a Chinese Empi and the other was from Brazil. Hopefully we can make some combination of parts work. The clutch kit and flywheel reseal kit arrived from German Supply on Monday; it took a week from Canada even though Scott sent it by US priority mail. It was in NY on the 11th yet wasn’t delivered to my house until the 16th, the scumbags.
I picked up a six pack of gumout and must get to work preparing for Colin’s return visit. I hope it all goes back together as we didn’t label a thing on the disassemble. If this is a farce and Colin really doesn't know what he is doing, I am screwed...
It was kinda fun and I learned a few things - It wasn’t as bad as I thought, I might be able to work on this thing. I should have cleaned up the bus. Colin doesn’t like dirt falling in his eyes. Robogrips don’t work as well a visegrips. The firing order is really 4321. He showed me a pry trick that works really well loosening stuck screws and nuts.
Jim