The Belle Plaine Pain
Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 9:48 am
Belle Plaine is a picture perfect Minnesota town.
This forum's Belle Plaine is a good man. The coffee was on as I arrived.
The expected rain was just beginning to sprinkle, but we had a garage reserved for us across town so your Itinerator would not melt away in the damp.
A friendly farmer introduced us to our work quarters and we looked around to gently ask, "are there some lights?" The air introduced itself to us as well, a truly chest-tightening mixture of cow crap and dead fish. Hey, we all like to eat, right? It's called fertilizer. Some overhead cold flourescents sort of warmed up and we got to work - yes, Window Scrapers!
I thought we would be "more efficient" if we each did our own door disassembly. Detours cropped up, like yanking the door latch assemblies so they could have some sorely needed lubrication. As we worked, I darkly intimated that we were due for a real crap fest of flimsy parts. I was not disappointed, no wait, yes I was. I was not disappointed that we would be disappointed is what I meant to say. I am disappointed that my description of disappointment is disappointingly disjointed, but so were the parts. See the new scraper assembly pictured above the original here? They gave us only four of the eight required tent clips to hold the outer scraper onto the window sill. Why, you ask . . . ?
As RandyInMaine and I had discovered with his oem VW Audi scrapers, the replacement parts are pathetically flimsy, here the riveter mashed the flimsy metal reinforcement with flimsily splitted rivets so that the trapped rubber is all buckled and wobbly. This, of course, helps us enjoy "wind whistles":
The new scrapers have holes drilled right through the edge so they can twist the end in a curve, the old ones were stamped with the curve:
The day's conversation had been enlivened by the appearance of JohnInTheHonda who had recently acquired his own bus and who was eager to pick up on the details of Volkswagen bus ownership. Ever the gentleman, he commiserated with our anguish over crap parts, sharing that he too has suffered such things with his Boss Ford Mustang restoration. I inartfully complained, "but Volkswagens were such better quality back in the day." I couldn't even hyperventilate, the air would not allow it.
Our slow day was bisected by the need to leave when the big trucks came back home with new cow crap dead fish fertilizer. We took off and I snapped this shot of the Cal-Look Belle Plaine Bus missing its window guts:
At Chad's house, the conversation continued, the fresh air now smelled "weird", and the new parts kept giving us caniptions. John was pressed into service:
I kept a close eye on this Ford guy, was he going to give us Volkswagen Quality Craftsmanship?
Belle Plaine pondered the new vent window seal installation, we all did.
The vent windows would not close with the new seals. They were just too thick and stupid. "Comply!" I screamed. "No," they thickly refused. Just like Chloe's vent windows, I noted. Chloe has the same new thick rubber strip on the trailing edge of the glass. I cannot tell you how many wasted hours I have blown trying to get the vent windows to close. The originals are thinner cross-section with easily deformable contact areas. We put them back in, and the windows opened and closed correctly. Belle Plaine I reckon, was wondering by this point what the ratio of steps forward to steps backward our day was going to have. After some severe anxiety by yours truly regarding the bending of the rear window felt to match the radius of the glass, the day just up and disappeared on us. The doors actually looked pretty good. We had escaped the usual danger spots of mashed trim and scratched paint. Thank you for your equinamity, Chris, and the catered box dinner was *good*, so was the beer.
Colin
(why are the metal parts too thin and the rubber parts too thick, why? Why? Why?)
This forum's Belle Plaine is a good man. The coffee was on as I arrived.
The expected rain was just beginning to sprinkle, but we had a garage reserved for us across town so your Itinerator would not melt away in the damp.
A friendly farmer introduced us to our work quarters and we looked around to gently ask, "are there some lights?" The air introduced itself to us as well, a truly chest-tightening mixture of cow crap and dead fish. Hey, we all like to eat, right? It's called fertilizer. Some overhead cold flourescents sort of warmed up and we got to work - yes, Window Scrapers!
I thought we would be "more efficient" if we each did our own door disassembly. Detours cropped up, like yanking the door latch assemblies so they could have some sorely needed lubrication. As we worked, I darkly intimated that we were due for a real crap fest of flimsy parts. I was not disappointed, no wait, yes I was. I was not disappointed that we would be disappointed is what I meant to say. I am disappointed that my description of disappointment is disappointingly disjointed, but so were the parts. See the new scraper assembly pictured above the original here? They gave us only four of the eight required tent clips to hold the outer scraper onto the window sill. Why, you ask . . . ?
As RandyInMaine and I had discovered with his oem VW Audi scrapers, the replacement parts are pathetically flimsy, here the riveter mashed the flimsy metal reinforcement with flimsily splitted rivets so that the trapped rubber is all buckled and wobbly. This, of course, helps us enjoy "wind whistles":
The new scrapers have holes drilled right through the edge so they can twist the end in a curve, the old ones were stamped with the curve:
The day's conversation had been enlivened by the appearance of JohnInTheHonda who had recently acquired his own bus and who was eager to pick up on the details of Volkswagen bus ownership. Ever the gentleman, he commiserated with our anguish over crap parts, sharing that he too has suffered such things with his Boss Ford Mustang restoration. I inartfully complained, "but Volkswagens were such better quality back in the day." I couldn't even hyperventilate, the air would not allow it.
Our slow day was bisected by the need to leave when the big trucks came back home with new cow crap dead fish fertilizer. We took off and I snapped this shot of the Cal-Look Belle Plaine Bus missing its window guts:
At Chad's house, the conversation continued, the fresh air now smelled "weird", and the new parts kept giving us caniptions. John was pressed into service:
I kept a close eye on this Ford guy, was he going to give us Volkswagen Quality Craftsmanship?
Belle Plaine pondered the new vent window seal installation, we all did.
The vent windows would not close with the new seals. They were just too thick and stupid. "Comply!" I screamed. "No," they thickly refused. Just like Chloe's vent windows, I noted. Chloe has the same new thick rubber strip on the trailing edge of the glass. I cannot tell you how many wasted hours I have blown trying to get the vent windows to close. The originals are thinner cross-section with easily deformable contact areas. We put them back in, and the windows opened and closed correctly. Belle Plaine I reckon, was wondering by this point what the ratio of steps forward to steps backward our day was going to have. After some severe anxiety by yours truly regarding the bending of the rear window felt to match the radius of the glass, the day just up and disappeared on us. The doors actually looked pretty good. We had escaped the usual danger spots of mashed trim and scratched paint. Thank you for your equinamity, Chris, and the catered box dinner was *good*, so was the beer.
Colin
(why are the metal parts too thin and the rubber parts too thick, why? Why? Why?)