Colin Visits Belle Plaine, Minnesota
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 10:18 am
This being my third visit from the Itinerant Air-Cooled mechanic, and my bus having been running relatively well, we focused on preventative bus maintenance stuff instead of the usual major projects requiring engine drops and late nights. I recall during our discussions from last year’s visit that Colin had tapped grease Zerk fittings to the BobD’s original ball joints. My ball joints are VW original and still in good shape and I’ve read the challenges others have had replacing the originals with new ones; the new ones are too tight, right? So, what I really, really, really wanted to do now was to Zerk ball joints. Other, less important to me but nice to do if we had time, items on my list were to replace pushrod tube seals, some rust mitigation, selecting second gear was a bitch (just swapped transmissions on my own two weeks ago), and other misc. tasks.
Colin and Chloe arrived in the morning. It was good to meet Chloe as she made me pause to remember Bookwus, cheers Mike. Colin points to Chloe and asks me if “that looks like a mail or UPS truck” and then hands me a bottle of IPA from the Bitter Root Brewing Co in Montana, a gift from a friend, whc03grady, which I will enjoy today to relax my aching body after yesterday work. Thanks whc03grady!
Colin and I huddled over the kitchen table with coffee as he made little doodles of transmission gears, rocker panels, and ball joint boots. We then got to work. Since the pushrod tube job requires a cold engine we started there. I learned how to remove the valve train (never done that before) and carefully remove the T4 push rod tubes without crushing them too terribly. During the job, local bus pilots and friends, the miz and Stefan arrived to help and meet Colin.
Stefan's is the green bus.
the miz's is the white vanagon westy.
After we got the new push rod tube seals replace, everyone drove to the local parts shop to purchase Zerk fittings; they come in a rainbow of sizes and shapes. You should have seen the look on Colin’s face when I innocently asked the auto shop clerk, who happened to be female, to show us her Zerk nipples. For the rest of the day we giggled like 6th graders.
Here’s Colin showing us how to get the angle of the drill bit perfectly perpendicular to the top of the ball joint.
The first ball joint went slowly but then we got more comfortable after learning the depth of the material we had to drill out so the final three went really quick. I’ll tell you, for my money, it is learning to do this kind of job that makes the price of Colin’s visit very much worth it.
As we were finishing up the day, denjohn from Tracy, MN arrives to say hi in his brown/white T1 bus which he’s had for 30 years! It was great seeing you again denjohn.
Right now, it’s about noon the day after my IAC Day and the family and I are heading out to the miz’s house for more Amskeptic Action. Of course we are taking the bus.
Here's some more random pix:
Colin and Chloe arrived in the morning. It was good to meet Chloe as she made me pause to remember Bookwus, cheers Mike. Colin points to Chloe and asks me if “that looks like a mail or UPS truck” and then hands me a bottle of IPA from the Bitter Root Brewing Co in Montana, a gift from a friend, whc03grady, which I will enjoy today to relax my aching body after yesterday work. Thanks whc03grady!
Colin and I huddled over the kitchen table with coffee as he made little doodles of transmission gears, rocker panels, and ball joint boots. We then got to work. Since the pushrod tube job requires a cold engine we started there. I learned how to remove the valve train (never done that before) and carefully remove the T4 push rod tubes without crushing them too terribly. During the job, local bus pilots and friends, the miz and Stefan arrived to help and meet Colin.
Stefan's is the green bus.
the miz's is the white vanagon westy.
After we got the new push rod tube seals replace, everyone drove to the local parts shop to purchase Zerk fittings; they come in a rainbow of sizes and shapes. You should have seen the look on Colin’s face when I innocently asked the auto shop clerk, who happened to be female, to show us her Zerk nipples. For the rest of the day we giggled like 6th graders.
Here’s Colin showing us how to get the angle of the drill bit perfectly perpendicular to the top of the ball joint.
The first ball joint went slowly but then we got more comfortable after learning the depth of the material we had to drill out so the final three went really quick. I’ll tell you, for my money, it is learning to do this kind of job that makes the price of Colin’s visit very much worth it.
As we were finishing up the day, denjohn from Tracy, MN arrives to say hi in his brown/white T1 bus which he’s had for 30 years! It was great seeing you again denjohn.
Right now, it’s about noon the day after my IAC Day and the family and I are heading out to the miz’s house for more Amskeptic Action. Of course we are taking the bus.
Here's some more random pix:
Never has a vehicle's front end looked so clean.
We may yet cross paths this year. An early fall run to NY to shoot leaves and do a tranny mod on Frito is in the early planning stages.