Itinerant Air-Cooled

I was done on October 29th. Done.

Enjoyed my visit with cegammel. Enjoyed our current world events discussion in the kitchen (and I look back with hindsight and realize that I was lost in the overconfidence of those who do not yet grasp the depths of humanity).

We checked out the brakes on the Super Beetle and discovered that the shoes were not too healthy and the wheel bearings were on their way out, and we drove donuts in the Vanagon as we assessed its performance and shifting.

I took nary a picture, same as Naples FL call, same as Buford GA call, same as Snow Hill NC call.

I burned out way back in May, May 4th actually. Visiting the hill-billy kids in West Virginia was an epic gut-punch that tole me, boy, it done tole me good once you makes a choice, boy, you done made a choice and my heart bled out slowly all summer. I come from a long line of troupers, well-mannered tough people who believe in doing a good job through all obstacles, and I swore that I would do my best to do my best, but the impending burnout was not far below the surface.

When NaranjaWesty started acting up in earnest outside of South Dakota, it actually rallied me briefly, it became its own motivation and inspiration as the fuel tank saga wrote its own story for me, but it piled on to the fatigue that is only now starting to lift.

Fourteen years of this. I see patterns turning into ruts. I have seen amazing achingly beautiful vistas and open roads and blue skies and the parade of air-cooled Volkswagens and their hopeful and sometimes discouraged owners and I love it all ( I love it deeper than ever, actually), but I have to fight through more fatigue now.
But, it does not matter what gloriously satisfying path I may be on, what great fortune may shine down upon me, what lucky alignment of the stars may grace me, everything changes. It always has and it always will. And if the outside world should give me a remarkable suite of gifts and opportunities, I still have the power to sabotage it all with the restlessness of my own spirit. Who turns away from a university education three weeks from graduation cum laude? Who would scramble out from under two opportunities to be the heir-apparent to two established businesses? Who blows up a good job ( landed way down the list at Plan C ) and a nice house and a 401k and profit-sharing and a big promotion? Who just walks away from those they love and what they love? Why would I? Why did I?

I asked this old denizen of planet Earth:




He stared in Buddhist silence:




Cleaned and waxed the entire rear of NaranjaWesty and mixed up paint and touched up every single little scratch:




I am telling you, it was a riot of sun-drenched orange back there:







Touched up the wood paneling, waxed it, as well:




Endured the incredulous stares, too:




Re-foam sealed the sink drain cover, cleaned the hardware:




Re-caulked all salient caulk seams under the car with the black butyl tape:




Undercoated a Volkswagen I own for the fifteenth time, and experienced the fifteenth undercoating vapor chemical assault against my organism (but it sure looks protected under there now):







Touched up the under sides of the doors ( I'll color sand/polish/wax in the spring) :







Spent miles upon miles of north-to-Atlanta trying to glean the black magic of the AFM with RandyInMaine's loaner LM-1. Barely have an acceptable adjustment range, and the LM-1 died for good sixty miles south of the storage unit when my sliding tool box caught the power cord. Power supply socket ripped right off the printed circuit board which delaminated and tore copper strips within . . . thanks Dodge Ram cutmeoff jerk.

NaranjaWesty ended the season at 67,700 miles looking so damn handsome and broken-in and road-ready and what a loyal beautiful driver it was, but Chloe and I just calmly started up where we left off:



Here I am at the moment of remembering my name:




The Results Just In! post will be coming up. As will the next step.

Thank you all for letting me indulge in this remarkable oddyssey . . .
(misspelling intentional, duh libtard )
Colin

were you using Turtle Wax ??

dingo wrote:were you using Turtle Wax ??

There's a conversation killer right there.

"To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to . . ."

"Shocks? Oh hey, you can't beat Monroe, no, really."

take a rest, draw some, have a beer. its been a long season and a longer week.

It appears you enjoyed another successful season of the famous Itinerant tour. You seemed to be as booked as ever. Other than that minor, miniscule, overtly nasty fuel tank, and a poor driver, you had a trouble free ride as well.

Here's what you should do.. Enjoy the rest of this year. STAY OFF the political internet sites and breathe. Refocus your time, attention and energy to all things Volkswagen for our viewing, critiquing pleasure. :)

Congrats on finishing the lap strong, in good health, with more stories than ever to tell around a camp fire next year. Hopefully someone will tell us to go to bed at a decent hour.

How was the drive in Chloe? I relished my second gear mountain grades after riding in RichParker's 2.1L dual carb monster engine '68…

From California, (made it!)
Robbie

asiab3 wrote:Congrats on finishing the lap strong, in good health, with more stories than ever to tell around a camp fire next year. Hopefully someone will tell us to go to bed at a decent hour.

How was the drive in Chloe? I relished my second gear mountain grades after riding in RichParker's 2.1L dual carb monster engine '68…

From California, (made it!)
Robbie

When I first got to the storage unit and bailed from Naranja's cozy heated interior, I gazed upon my stored steeds as one might gaze at Hillary's polls on November 8th. You know, chilled anticipation, affection that that ol' girl is still standing, hope for a sunny drive into the new day . . .
Only with a dumb dawning sense of duh did I realize that I am zero for three.
Chloe . . . refused to start.
The BobD . . . refused to start.
Alexus! . . . refused to start.

Alexus just plumb refused to do anything but dementedly ding her door dong out of key.

The BobD cranked reasonably OK. Sure, after seven months, I may have to do two cranking events.
Ahh no. No start.
Even used gravity in reverse gear with the starter cranking, for a high cranking rpm low battery load jump start down to the drain grate in the parking lot.
Ahhh NOoo.
"B*tch," I said, "this is the @*%$! Trump era, don't make me grope your battery box, b*tch."

Left the dead BobD at the drainage grate and went over to Chloe. I loved settling in to that suddenly (to me, after a summer of orange riot) milky beige soft brown and bright white headliner with the red rose at the mirror. I could smell classic old Volkswagen vinyl and horsehair. Two pumps of the gas, crank . . . . spirited cranking, but no firing at all? Two more pumps of the accelerator and more cranking, no. no. no.
What happened here at the storage unit over the summer?

Used the starter to back the bus out of the storage unit (carefully! the mirrors clear only by an inch on each side), and tried the same gravity reverse gear starter no dice. Now I have two dead buses at the drainage grate at the lowest part of the property. My mother's haughty humiliation came up and I hissed at both buses,
"you are emBARrassing me." Did they care? They just sat there.

And again, I realized that all Volkswagens wait patiently for you to figure out why they won't or can't do what you ask of them.
I did:
a) not clean and gap the points
b) not pull a damn sparkplug
c) not so much as take off a distributor cap

I refused to believe for an instant that any of my engines had changed their excellent state of tune over the summer, and I will be damned if I am going to start fluttering all over them sprinkling new variables into the equation. I called Battery Issues.

"NaranjaWesty, please infuse each of your beretheren* (and Alexus) with the spirit of your amazing summer adventures, amen."
And lo . . . each Volkswagen plus a Lexus all burst into immediate song, it sounded like the Port Authority bus terminal, all of those different frequencies colliding with each other.




So, Chloe drives light and loosely. You can tell there are a few miles on this car. But the doors shut firmly, the brakes require firmly, the switchgear is solid under the fingertips, the engine is smooth through the floorboards (though I can hear/feel #1 main bearing under load) and it shrieks as a Type 1 should, the Rancho transaxle at almost 30,000 miles is acceptably tight, and the experience of driving this 47 year-old rear engined vehicle is so second to none.
Colin

*urban slang spelling

Glad to hear you're home safe and well. Rest and relax and enjoy the seasons.

"we found ourselves looking upon a familiar site. We were home."

He can't relax now. He has to prep for 2017.

Good trip....now work on the book, you know, maybe include some of your best pics from years gone by along with your witty observations. I think that would put your work up there with Muir for true technical info/ insight with cool drawings. Then premium patrons could opt for autographed copies on the Itinerant tour, just say'n.

Sign me up for next year.

Skip

luftvagon wrote:He can't relax now. He has to prep for 2017.

True! His ad on TheSamba says the 2017 itinerary is open!

I enjoyed this year's trip reports from NaranjaWesty, almost as much as the first year out with the BobD and Chloe.

Getting to know the real deal from these workhorses being used to their fullest, while building trust in their performance as the odometer clicks away - is some of my favorite bits to digest when keeping up on the road reports.

The individual day reports are, as always, wonderful, but the added bonus of getting to read about how a new warrior of the road is being broken in is just icing on the itinerant-cake.

I pray NaranjaWesty stays in forever rotation on the itinerant tour's, there's just something extra special about that one. =D>

If it is not too personal, just what undercoating are you using? Looks like pretty good coverage to me.

Glad you made it through the tour! Now time to settle down and join the rest of the country in political turmoil.

... sign me up for 2017 as well.

Colin - congrats on another successful year of itinerant bus repairs and tutelage. Very sorry it had to include that rear end collision though, and sure hope you'll find a quality shop to do the body work. Thanks very much for sharing all the beautiful photos from across the USA, and a little of the experience of troubleshooting and repair.