Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II (upd)

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Amskeptic
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Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II (upd)

Post by Amskeptic » Tue May 20, 2014 9:59 am

After putting in the new plastic window chrome surround experiment (if the guy comes up with the longer lengths, I will do the left side of the car where the chrome is getting that brown burnt look), I decided to what the heck paint the entire exhaust system again. Straightening and painting the tailpipe had like totally like *imbalanced the visual* under there, fer sure.

As Pensacola was enjoying its annual "Art In The Park" weekend just a half block from the Law Firm, I had the most wonderful music wafting over, New Orleans River Jazz with a horn section at the top of its game. The weather was a perfect 85*, low humidity, abundant sunshine.

I had painted the exhaust system at 52,000 miles in a buggy field back in September of 2010,

( viewtopic.php?f=58&t=8735#p156991 )

and was very happy to discover that the now 93,850 mile system had not deteriorated in any appreciable way in the past four years. It came apart like I was shooting a Bentley Manual video.
The bad news is, the underside of the car now has lost the appearance of all those nice original gold cadmium-plated screws, they are now sporting a lousy silver hi-temp paint:

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upd 05/21 . . . forgot to mention that I "ported" all the exhaust flanges. I had noted that the welds seemed to promote a nasty rust inside the pipes. It appeared to be caused by extreme heat in localized areas where the weld metal was a) in the airstream, b) where protrusions could not conduct heat away. I used a dremel grinding stone to smooth all radii and grind down welds just enough for smoothness. I recommend this operation for all late model triangular flange exhaust system bus people:

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The good news is, that because I was not on a dirt road dead-end this time, I was able to brush/sand/soapy water brush/hot water rinse all of the parts . . . .

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. . . . before painting them again with the VHT 2000* flat aluminum, this time also with a high temp primer:

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Whilst executing this operation in the sunshine during the Pensacola Art In The Park weekend, I was being treated to a parade of the curious, a few well-wishers, and three teenage girls whose conversation I got to overhear while under the bus trying to finagle a nut onto a bolt in a tight spot:
"Wow, look at that cute van!"
"I wish I had me one."
"That is soo cute, I love the green."
"Its like a Scooby van."
"Hey, you have a cute van!"
"Gaw-hawd, he's ignoring me."

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I had parts draped on the electric meter, dangling off the tailgate, and people commenting as they walked past to the Art In The Park festival.
"Dude, I want that bus."
"It looks like he is fixing it."
"Yeah, you have to work on them all the time."
"Still be fun to drive."

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While putting on the right side manifold, I was startled by an enthusiastic elderly couple somehow materializing at the back of the bus:
"THAT IS THE EXACT COLOR OF OUR OLD BUS! HONEY, DON'T YOU REMEMBER?"
"Of course I remember."
"WHAT DID YOU PAY FOR IT IF I MAY ASK?"
"I don't remember."
"NO, THE MAN, MISTER, IF I MAY ASK, WHAT DID YOU PAY FOR IT?"

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Used my unusable sheet of buna-nitrile diaphragm material to re-fashion the gaskets that maintain an air-tight seal between the exchanger air inlet and the fan housing. I used weatherstrip adhesive that came exploding out of the tube in the heat, making myself look like a neuron with yellow dendrites attaching themselves to everything I inadvertently touched:
"You look busy!"
"I am."
"What are you doing?
"Gluing myself to my car."
"Ha ha, that's funny, you sure are."

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The BobD's engine lost its originality in another important way this last weekend, its original dipstick boot had begun to split down the seam. Grabbed my Wolfsburg West replacement out of the glovebox and wrestled it around and around and around until it finally realized where it was supposed to go. Cleaned the nether regions of the engine while the manifolds were out, and noted that even a factory air-cooled engine build will start to leak after endless expansion and contraction cycles. There was oil beginning to ooze out from the cylinder barrels/crankcase mating area, pushrod tubes were getting damp at the crankcase bores, and the oil filter mount gasket is soon going to be the first driveway spotter. "Y'all hang on, we're tearing you down come winter."

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A young couple came up. She was, to put it charitably, ditzy. He was stoic and patient. After many minutes of cascading words and stops and starts, it was determined that she liked her Cabriolet Convertible that she unfortunately sold for a Honda Odyssey that is currently in the shop. The cat watched it all:

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At 7:00PM or so, the exchanger-to-heat control valve pipe refused to slip over the exchanger. You all (all remaining six of you) have heard me rant and rave about people bending up and bashing their engine tin and smashing their heat pipes. Well, there I was, wrestling the fresh and still delicate painted exchanger which refused to slip inside the pipe. On my back with a toweled knee holding up the exchanger, I loosened six nuts and bolts on the flanges, removed the clamp bolt on the pipe, removed the control valve itself, removed the u-pipe, and finally had to remove the engine tin screws that held together the front tin/upper cylinder cover/heat pipe bracket/intermediate front tin to allow me to twist the stupid pipe down onto the wobbling exchanger. Temper flaring, tools draped all over my stomach, I find that I cannot for the life of me get those *@%! screws to go down through the four competing tins whilst on my back holding up the wobbling exchanger to keep the pipe properly down yet aligned with the tins. I was so ready to go chimpanzee to heck with it strip-drive those screws down. Only because they felt like it, did they finally get started. NOW look what time it is . . .

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Always Wax Your Konis . . . you never know when someone might shoot a picture of them:

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Night Of The BobD
Image
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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glasseye
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II

Post by glasseye » Tue May 20, 2014 1:18 pm

Awesome diligence.
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

Boxcar
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II

Post by Boxcar » Tue May 20, 2014 1:21 pm

awesome yet frightening display of diligence. Six words hardly seems fair, so I will also add, ewww afterburner exhaust. Am I correct? did I spot the Exhaust Flow reversing J-Tubes?

"night of the Bob D" pic ready for the B movie marquee.

Keep on raising the diligence bar swami.
1975 003 Auto Westy L90D

repair!!!!aug2015
Jan/16 Bumped mixture a few notches richer. finally developing HP.


1.8L/LJet/Pertron DVDA+PertronixCompufire 42/36Ham Heads/AA 93mm pistons/barrels.Porsc.Swiv.Adjusters/CromoSteel pushrds/ Web 9550Cam/55cc chmbr.,035 squish,8.6:1CR/German Supply VWCanadaReman Rods/Schadek 26mmPump/vdo dualOP8/10#low sender/Quart Deep Sump
Backdate Htr bxs,reflanged 914 4into1. Two and three eighths inch collector,magniflow*muffler

Boxcar
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II

Post by Boxcar » Tue May 20, 2014 1:25 pm

glasseye wrote:Awesome diligence.
Webster should be alerted? It seems while I was thumb typing away. another dumbstruck soul conjured the verysame adjective which I was to repeatedly lean on.
Wikipedia at least?
1975 003 Auto Westy L90D

repair!!!!aug2015
Jan/16 Bumped mixture a few notches richer. finally developing HP.


1.8L/LJet/Pertron DVDA+PertronixCompufire 42/36Ham Heads/AA 93mm pistons/barrels.Porsc.Swiv.Adjusters/CromoSteel pushrds/ Web 9550Cam/55cc chmbr.,035 squish,8.6:1CR/German Supply VWCanadaReman Rods/Schadek 26mmPump/vdo dualOP8/10#low sender/Quart Deep Sump
Backdate Htr bxs,reflanged 914 4into1. Two and three eighths inch collector,magniflow*muffler

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hambone
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II

Post by hambone » Tue May 20, 2014 2:25 pm

awesome yet frightening
I like it, it sums it all up. :geek:
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

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Mr Blotto
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II

Post by Mr Blotto » Tue May 20, 2014 5:05 pm

[quote="Amskeptic"]
The bad news is, the underside of the car now has lost the appearance of all those nice original gold cadmium-plated screws, they are now sporting a lousy silver hi-temp paint:

Image


Yep - that underside really looks like CRAP now :joker:
Only you.... :flower:
1978 Sage Green Westy - 2.0 FI - SOLD WITH 109887 miles :-(

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glasseye
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II

Post by glasseye » Tue May 20, 2014 5:17 pm

Boxcar wrote:
glasseye wrote:Awesome diligence.
Webster should be alerted? It seems while I was thumb typing away. another dumbstruck soul conjured the verysame adjective which I was to repeatedly lean on.
Wikipedia at least?
Convergent awesomeness. :salute:
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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BellePlaine
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II

Post by BellePlaine » Wed May 21, 2014 5:32 am

Two exhaust related questions. What kind of anti-seize goop did you use to have made, "It came apart like I was shooting a Bentley Manual video"? And, am I just a sucker or are the new copper self-locking nuts that I'm having shipped from Toronto the right choice of hardware? Doesn't sound like the BobD's original hardware was copper.

Just thought of a third question, do the eight nuts that mount the header pipes require washers? The Bentley doesn't say.
1975 Riviera we call "Spider-Man"

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II

Post by Amskeptic » Wed May 21, 2014 7:00 am

Boxcar wrote:ewww afterburner exhaust. Am I correct? did I spot the Exhaust Flow reversing J-Tubes?
It is a very simple exhaust flow, no reversing nothing burning after.

The manifolds exit towards the front of the car, the exhaust flow u-turns, then travels back through the exchangers to the cross over pipe/wye and is all collected for a trip through a catalyst if required then the muffler. This system looks profoundly complicatedly dumb, but it was exactly what was needed to use a catalyst.
The earlier systems didn't have to collect to a single point, they could just send exhaust in to both sides of the muffler.

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The '73 and '74 systems *did* have after-burners whose plumbing was all topside! in the engine compartment! snaking across the upper tins to little scorchingly hot pipes that were drilled through the heads to the exhaust ports. They carried only atmospheric air under pressure to the backs of the exhaust valves. This air completed the combustion burn exiting past the exhaust valves.
Image
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II

Post by Amskeptic » Wed May 21, 2014 7:46 am

Mr Blotto wrote:
Amskeptic wrote: The bad news is, the underside of the car now has lost the appearance of all those nice original gold cadmium-plated screws, they are now sporting a lousy silver hi-temp paint:
Image
Yep - that underside really looks like CRAP now :joker:
Only you.... :flower:
The car could have been worth $30-35,000.00 by now had I not driven it. It had all of the original screws in their original gold-cad plating. Now you know that the muscle car restorers and the big restoration shops go through the bother of re-plating every single bit to its original finish . . . I ham-handedly just painted it all willy-nilly with paint, hack. Car is worth barely $20,000.00 now.

That said, I sense that this car really enjoys getting out on the road. It must have been a lonely first couple of decades of sitting around waiting to take the Lady Who Couldn't Drive StickShift to her favorite painting spot at the lake with her savagely bored cat.

Now that I have elected to sacrifice the truly amazing originality, I guess the next thing is to try to get these original parts to go longer than any other VW in existence. That would be fun. We only got to 588,238 miles on the original parts remaining in the Road Warrior (flywheel, pressure plate, carburetors, distributor, left rear wheel bearing, etc). I would enjoy making a challenge with the BobD to re-use every original part as far as physics will allow.

Waxed it yesterday:

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Used a treatment on the vinyl for the first time. I hate it, no more semi-dull sheen, now it is typical over-detailed shiny hateful yuck. But . . . I was suckered by the promise that this magic potion has a sunscreen of 40SPF or whatever. It is called 303 Aerospace Protectant:

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Image
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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hambone
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II (upd)

Post by hambone » Wed May 21, 2014 10:16 am

I'm so glad you're going this route. Garage queens are worthless, and life is priceless.
Still trying to figure what to do with a duplicate '69!
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

nedsavoie
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II (upd)

Post by nedsavoie » Wed May 21, 2014 2:05 pm

You should have asked that cat to help you with the washing....


Image

Boxcar
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II (upd)

Post by Boxcar » Thu May 22, 2014 6:26 am

ahh I didn't realize THE Bob D was a pristine garage Queen before workout and enlisted into the crosscountry wrench spinning legion.

In that context A labor ticket such as un-install perfectly well sealed non afterburner exhaust /prep/paint/and re un-install is more easily grasped,sans hysteria.

I get it now Sir Colin.
1975 003 Auto Westy L90D

repair!!!!aug2015
Jan/16 Bumped mixture a few notches richer. finally developing HP.


1.8L/LJet/Pertron DVDA+PertronixCompufire 42/36Ham Heads/AA 93mm pistons/barrels.Porsc.Swiv.Adjusters/CromoSteel pushrds/ Web 9550Cam/55cc chmbr.,035 squish,8.6:1CR/German Supply VWCanadaReman Rods/Schadek 26mmPump/vdo dualOP8/10#low sender/Quart Deep Sump
Backdate Htr bxs,reflanged 914 4into1. Two and three eighths inch collector,magniflow*muffler

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II (upd)

Post by Amskeptic » Thu May 22, 2014 7:55 am

Boxcar wrote:ahh I didn't realize THE Bob D was a pristine Garage Queen before workout and enlisted into the crosscountry wrench spinning legion.

In that context, a labor ticket such as un-install perfectly well sealed non afterburner exhaust /prep/paint/and re-install is more easily grasped, sans hysteria.

I get it now Sir Colin.
Oh there is OCD hysteria all right. It can only be grasped in its full horror after you have read the following labor ticket back when this car was a strapping lad of just over 50,000 miles. You know? It is almost time to re-wax the air intake plenum and polish the dash wiring:

viewtopic.php?f=58&t=8776#p157787
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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asiab3
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Prep II (upd)

Post by asiab3 » Thu May 22, 2014 8:52 am

So The BobD will be making the entire lap this year? I hope it still smells new; I'd love to, uhh, smell it?
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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