upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Moderators: Sluggo, Amskeptic

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by Amskeptic » Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:12 pm

Seventy3Bus wrote:
Sun Jul 01, 2018 4:07 pm
I’ve made a lot of progress since our visit. I finished putting the front doors back together (I’m pretty happy with how everything fits... not perfect but acceptable), got the bumpers on, got all of the lights in, painted most of the interior, and started re-installing doors and windows. I think I am tracking on my goal of having the bus ready for the 2018 Treffen in about three weeks time.
See? A Get It Done kind of guy. Thanks for the update! I look forward to pictures.
Colin
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

71whitewesty
Addicted!
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by 71whitewesty » Fri Jul 13, 2018 12:30 pm

Just arrived back home after 3323 miles of the windiest and most mountainous passes we’ve been on during our three week family road trip. Took Bus 2 and drove it hard through the heat of the day, every day and other than a set of points that finally went bad we had no other issues at all. The points had about 29k on them and I replaced them with a used set I had with me on the first day and has been running great since. I also had the idle cut off solenoid come loose which it does maybe once every other year or so. I can usually tell when that happens and can fix it right away. Funny thing was on our first day when the points were frying and the solenoid was coming loose, I replaced the points but then thought I heard my valves rattling on the uphills. So I thought well maybe I need to retard it a bit since I just put the new used points in. So I did and then the bus was just slow as shit. I though man I’m loaded to the gills and the ole bus is suffering. Well on the second day I started to bring the timing back to where it was (I had it marked, no timing light on board) and it started running much better and all was good from there on out. I realized the valve noise I was listening to was my pots and pans stored under the seat! Lol!
So now that I’m back I’ll finish up my day with Colin report.
Yellow bus had a flawless trip too and the new owners are real happy. They will be looking to get on your schedule for next year.
More to come soon.

Jivermo
IAC Addict!
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by Jivermo » Fri Jul 13, 2018 5:18 pm

Love the pots and pans bit!

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Jul 13, 2018 6:40 pm

71whitewesty wrote:
Fri Jul 13, 2018 12:30 pm
Just arrived back home after 3323 miles of the windiest and most mountainous passes we’ve been on during our three week family road trip. Took Bus 2 and drove it hard through the heat of the day, every day and other than a set of points that finally went bad we had no other issues at all. The points had about 29k on them and I replaced them with a used set I had with me on the first day and has been running great since. I also had the idle cut off solenoid come loose which it does maybe once every other year or so. I can usually tell when that happens and can fix it right away. Funny thing was on our first day when the points were frying and the solenoid was coming loose, I replaced the points but then thought I heard my valves rattling on the uphills. So I thought well maybe I need to retard it a bit since I just put the new used points in. So I did and then the bus was just slow as shit. I though man I’m loaded to the gills and the ole bus is suffering. Well on the second day I started to bring the timing back to where it was (I had it marked, no timing light on board) and it started running much better and all was good from there on out. I realized the valve noise I was listening to was my pots and pans stored under the seat! Lol!
So now that I’m back I’ll finish up my day with Colin report.
Yellow bus had a flawless trip too and the new owners are real happy. They will be looking to get on your schedule for next year.
More to come soon.
This!
I like reading of your just powering through the little niggles and keeping on. I am very happy Yellow had a good trip. I bonded instantly with that bus when it kept us from the rain at Maupin.
The wind has been a plague this year for me . . .
ColinInIllinois
(pictures?)
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

71whitewesty
Addicted!
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by 71whitewesty » Sat Jul 14, 2018 2:17 pm

I have pictures, lots of them. Is photobucket the best way to post them? Any way to post them off my phone?

User avatar
Happyfolk
Getting Hooked!
Location: Verona, WI
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by Happyfolk » Sat Jul 14, 2018 4:00 pm

71whitewesty wrote:
Sat Jul 14, 2018 2:17 pm
I have pictures, lots of them. Is photobucket the best way to post them? Any way to post them off my phone?
I upload my vw photos on thesamba.com and link them here. It's free and they promise not to delete them.
79 CA FI Westy
Mexico Beige
"Sandy"

User avatar
tommu
Old School!
Location: Sunny Burbank
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by tommu » Sat Jul 14, 2018 4:22 pm

I use imgur.com But the Samba is nice as you can reuse them when posting there.

User avatar
asiab3
IAC Addict!
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by asiab3 » Fri Jul 27, 2018 1:22 am

71whitewesty wrote:
Sat Jul 14, 2018 2:17 pm
I have pictures, lots of them. Is photobucket the best way to post them? Any way to post them off my phone?

Pictures? Nope, just picture.
IAC UPLOAD.jpg
Colin and 71whitewesty
(Edit note: click on that picture, and in the new window zoom in all the way. The gallery here isn't always easy to use, but it's great quality!)

I crashed 71whitewesty's appointment for the second time in three years, and Colin spent a few minutes in my bus, and helped me solve a problem for the second time in three years. Colin felt my left rear tire with his hand, and combined with visual tire wear, correctly diagnosed it as excessive toe-out! Unlike 2016, I didn't tear my suspension apart during their visit. I DID however rectify my excessive toe-out at the very next campground I camped at. The car now tracks more 'predictably' (read: boring) around high speed mountain curves, and the 'hands off the wheel' freeway test earned a few hundred feet more than I ever have.

And Colin, I just read "brake adjustment needed" from May 5th, 2018 in my log book… So, uhh, yeah I'm glad you enjoyed your drive on June 19th, 9,000 miles later… :pirate:

Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Jul 27, 2018 5:18 am

asiab3 wrote:
Fri Jul 27, 2018 1:22 am

And Colin, I just read "brake adjustment needed" from May 5th, 2018 in my log book… So, uhh, yeah I'm glad you enjoyed your drive on June 19th, 9,000 miles later… :pirate:

Robbie
I bet you still need a brake adjustment, too, Mr. Heel N Toe Doubleclutch Downshifter.

You should have been there when I tried that with Paducah Frank's Triumph, my God, I would have been ion the trees at Le Mans.
ColinWhoKnowsHowManyMilesSinceMay
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

71whitewesty
Addicted!
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by 71whitewesty » Fri Jul 27, 2018 10:16 am

Alright guys and gals, now that I know you can link photos from the samba I'll get this updated.
So we'll start at the beginning. I acquired a new bus that is for my wife cousins. It's a bright yellow (corvette yellow) 1972 westy with a 77 fuel injection system on it. It been restored and then sat most of the last 10 years in the po's garage. I had just picked it up about two weeks before our annual road trip. Plan was that cousin would fly up and we would carabus down to Yosemite for a 4 day family reunion and then we would continue on with our road trip for two weeks after the reunion. The yellow bus needed to make it to Yosemite and then to it's new home in San Rafael, CA. So I asked Colin if he had an extra half day I could get to go over it and make sure all is good. The Yellow bus looks like this....

Image

I'm going to post these up in pieces so I don't loose it....

71whitewesty
Addicted!
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by 71whitewesty » Fri Jul 27, 2018 10:28 am

I have to admit that Yellow bus was making me a little envious. All new seals and really not a scratch on it. It was quiet, ran fantastic and much faster than my 71's. I have first dibs if cousin ever decides to sell it...
So Yellow bus needed new rear brakes and wheel cylinders. On our first half day we disassembled it and then I ordered parts that didn't come in time so I had to reassemble it myself which went just fine. I have done rear brakes a few times and it does get easier with practice. By the way, the rear drums came off so easy, nearly fell off once I took the 11mm bolts out. Colin gave me the rundown on the fuel injection set up since that is all new to me. We rerouted some wires and vacuum hoses and cleaned a few things up in the engine compartment. Basically it all looked pretty good and ready to go. We marked the timing scale with matching yellow paint and checked the timing etc. Cousin knows nothing about buses (yet) but this one is a really good start for them. They just need to add tools and camping gear and they are ready to hit the road.
We also replaced the clutch clevis pin and noticed the kidney shaped lever arm also needed replacing. I ordered the arm and had cousin put it on with my guidance. Clutch linkage should be good to go for a long time now.
One thing that has happened I think twice on him is a no start scenario. Might need a hot start relay or some ground cleaning. It's something simple for sure and I'm am urging him to figure it out and clean up the grounds and see if that helps. Also trying to tach him how to jump the solenoid in case of emergency. They really don't know what a great bus they have yet but I hope eventually they'll realize how sweet it is.

Image

Image

Image

71whitewesty
Addicted!
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by 71whitewesty » Fri Jul 27, 2018 10:47 am

It was a real treat to have Robbie drop in too. Twice he's made it by on the itinerary day. I feel like I'm in the center of the vw bus universe when that happens. It's both inspiring and motivating to have them at the house and get all bus crazy with me.

Seems like I'm forgetting something we did on the yellow bus but we'll move on to my white 71's now.

So for the 5th year in a row Colin is here to work on my quiver of 3 white 71 buses. Two are westy's that I drive all the time and the third is a tin top that mostly sits in the field. I don't really name them but for the sake of confusion I call them Bus 1, Bus 2 and Bus 3. Bus 1 is the first 71 Westy I bought about 10 years ago, Bus 2 is the second westy I bought about 5 years ago (it had sat in a field for 15 years when I found it) and Bus 3 is the tin top that just sits around in the field.
I wanted to take Bus 1 on our family trip this year since I've taken Bus 2 the last 3 years. Bus 1 has a new engine in it with 400 miles on it. I have been having trouble getting it to run right. So we go into that one first. We fiddled with the carb adjustment and timing but we still couldn't get it to idle right with the dvda hooked up. It seemed to suck the idle way down when hooked up. It's odd to me that we are having this issue because I've never had it before with any other new engine I've installed. But in short Colin thinks the engine might need more breaking in to loosen things up a bit so it'll run with the retard side hooked up. So for now we just plugged it and running it with only mechanical advance. Once it warms up, it runs well now. We were also having issues with my newly rebuilt carb and a real sticky choke. So it's runs a bit cold blooded until it warms up. I'll need to figure the choke out before winter for sure.
We also fixed the horn by taking the horn of Bus 3 since we decided Bus 1 horn was shot. First time the horn has worked for me in 10 years.
We also went after the rough sliding door and greased all the rollers, replaced the rear roller and nylon slider and cleaned and greased the track. Boy what a difference that made!
We were leaving on our bus trip two days after Colins visit. I drove Bus 1 about 60 miles the day we were going to leave and at freeway speed it was making this "bumping" feeling. Like electrical or something. So with that and the fact we were leaving later that day, I decided to take Bus 2 for the 4th summer in a row.
(skipping forward, when I returned from our trip I put a new set of points in and that fixed the bumping feeling.) It's good to go anywhere now.

71whitewesty
Addicted!
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by 71whitewesty » Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:01 am

Bus 3 has been sitting too long. In fact last time Robbie was here we had just got it running roughly again. I parked it out in the field and then it wouldn't start and it's been sitting there since. So my goal was to just get it running again.
I figured it was spark. But after checking things it had spark. But we didn't have compression in #3 so that poor old engine is done and will come out and I have a new long block to put in there. But we did get it started and the issue was very complex but Colin suggested I try putting some gas in it... and well, after two years of sitting, he was right. Put some gas in and it fired right up. Colin just amazes me sometimes...

71whitewesty
Addicted!
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by 71whitewesty » Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:34 am

Now on to Bus 2. Bus 2 has been insanely reliable and smooth running since I got it back on the road. I've put 29k on it at the time of Colins visit. That's 29k on the engine, tires, brakes, belt, points, plugs etc. I've been sort of experimenting with how long things will go before needing to be replaced. We didn't need to really do anything to it but just wanted to go over the timing and anything else that looked suspect. So we timed it and pretty much called it good to go.

So after I realized I was taking Bus 2 on the trip again I had to get it all packed up and ready to leave in the afternoon. We did carabus down with the yellow bus and after a couple hours of driving Bus 2 started to do the "bump" feeling like Bus 1 had. So I pulled over and adjusted the points. Took off again and it didn't seem to help much but then I heard what I thought were my valves pinging... So I pulled over and retarded my timing a bit (marked it first before I moved it though). Took off and it seemed to run ok but real slow and gutless. Still didn't seem right so I switched out the points for a used set I had with me and it ran great again, except it was still slow and gutless. So I started to bring the timing back up to where it was set with Colin. Once I had it back to where it was set at, it ran like a champ again. Still on the used set of points too. I have decided that valve pinging I had was just my pots and pans clanking under the seat!! Yeah, but it sure sounded like valves to me... lol! So once again Bus 2 did the dead of carting my family of 4 all around the Sierra mountains, Tahoe, Yosemite, Mammoth, Lake Isabella, Sequoia Nat Forrest and Kings Canyon, Santa Cruz, Bay Area, and back to Hood River for a total of 3323 miles in 19 days. Hot weather and lots of winding mountain passes were no problem for Bus 2 at all. It was a fantastic trip and I'll let the photos do the talking....

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

71whitewesty
Addicted!
Status: Offline

Re: upd Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Oregon

Post by 71whitewesty » Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:36 am

I might add that we had an extremely productive day and a half here with 4 buses to work on. We really powered out the list. Thank you Colin again and I'll be looking for next years schedule when it comes out. This service is invaluable to me.


Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Post Reply