Itinerant Air-Cooled

This was my second visit with Colin and although we only did a half day, we got plenty accomplished.

Arrival of the Bob D. at exactly 9am:


First order of business was brakes. We checked out all of the flexible lines and determined that at this point only replacement of the fronts was necessary. Replaced those and proceeded to adjust the parking brake and rear brakes along with a good bleeding.

Having a fresh rebuild as of this past spring, the question of how the valves were adjusted came up. So, after the glued on valve covers were pried off we determined they were only pre-loaded by about 1/4 turn all the way around. I set them to a 1.5 turn pre-load while Colin did some artwork in the form of TDC marks on the fan. Other questions were raised about the set-up from my builder for which I'm ashamed to say I did not have a good answer. We found some weirdness with air flow to the dual carbs. The idle significantly improved when we pinched off the booster hoses. There was also no change in idle when removing the number one and three plug wires. I fired off an email and will hopefully have some answers as to how this engine was tuned during dyno testing.
When I purchased this bus it had already been robbed of it's fuel injection system to which I plan to restore hopefully for next years visit. I was convinced of this after having the pleasure of both riding in and driving the Bob D. What a sweet and gentle machine, just floats down the road.


At this point in the morning it was time for a short prelude:


Another PO hack that I'd been wanting to take care of for a while was having the fuel pump wired directly to the coil. I had purchased the safety relay kit from German Supply a while back and Colin made short order of figuring it out and getting it installed....after we found a hot 12v wire just laying in the engine compartment compliments of the PO fuel injection carnage. The relay circuit worked as advertised.

Our half day ended with a test drive to check the freshly adjusted brakes and they preformed well. Although I still have a pesky squeal coming from the rear. Colin applied the hand brake at speed to heat those suckers up and the squeal subsided, but has since returned. Colin, what would the remedy be to eliminate that rear squeal permanently?

The test drive also revealed that I still have a bit of clutch slippage/chatter. Not entirely surprising as the only leak I currently have is from the seam joining the engine and bell housing. I plan to pull the motor once again at the end of the camping season to figure out what's happening in there.

And at that point we bid farewell until next year. Thank you Colin, safe travels!

THall wrote:This was my second visit with Colin and although we only did a half day, we got plenty accomplished.

We found some weirdness with air flow to the dual carbs.
Colin applied the hand brake at speed to heat those suckers up and the squeal subsided, but has since returned. Colin, what would the remedy be to eliminate that rear squeal permanently?

The test drive also revealed that I still have a bit of clutch slippage/chatter.

It was good to *drive* your bus this time, and the piano was in a good state of tune, too!

Airflow issue, I think the brake booster hoses are so big that they are stealing **the other side's intake air** to this side, and vice versa. The engine is just breathing in a paper bag so to speak.

Remove brake drums (too bad, you have to back off our admittedly beautiful brake adjustment) and look at the wheel cylinders for any sign of leakage. Wetness or dampness can glaze the brake shoes and give rise to squealing. Peel back the rubber boots on the wheel cylinders and look for wetness inside the boots. Replace wheel cylinder if wet.

Clutch chatter is a shame, and may require a new clutch disk and serious sanding of flywheel and pressure plate if heat marks are embedded in the metallurgy of the friction surfaces. The pressure plate needs to be carefully examined for equal positions of the fingers both unbolted and bolted to the flywheel.

The BobD's engine went wonky AGAIN, like it did in Renton Washington, after I left your house.
I do not know yet what it is . . .
ColinInIllinois

Ahhh, now I need to get our piano tuned before our next appointment...

Beautiful bus.

jcbrock wrote:Ahhh, now I need to get our piano tuned before our next appointment...

Beautiful bus.

Yes, you DO.

So, the other Wisconsin visit was just before THall. It was down a country road. There were silos and barns and cows. I drove up to a brick farmhouse nestled under maples maybe. Shut off the engine only to hear the Hugh Hefner of the Chicken World just cockily cockledoodledooing the flustered hens whose scolding approbation at his most-unwelcome ardor was heard all morning behind our tasks.



Our tasks? Well, one of them was to lift a death sentence off his Award Winning original 1970 Squareback languishing in the lower garage. Word has it that Tom used to sit here and stare vacantly for hours at his poor Squareback with the possibly fatally wounded engine:




Through PMs, we had surmised there to be a badly recessed #2 intake valve. Man, that screw was all the way backed-out and there was no clearance whatsoever! After rotating the engine to a correct #2 TDC, TOM we adjusted the valves, gapped the points, and started the engine. Ran fine. Slapped the wheels back on and drove it for the first time in a year. Great car.




Up at the Main Garage, we were cleaning up the Westy's windshield channel of some excess JB Weld and softening some harsh edges (a good thing in all walks of life) . This is where we unleashed the creative dremel artistry of jcbrock who had driven all the way from Minnesota to jump into yet another day of Itinerant madness. He then primered the repair and top-coated too, while Tom and I addressed various and sundry other issues like interior lamp wiring and engine tune-up, oh, and tearing out heater cables. We took the bus out for a test drive and locked up the brakes a bit to see who was participating and who was not at the same place we had locked up the brakes in the Squareback to see who was participating ore not. Tom's reputation should be a bit damaged after all of our tomfoolery at the local whateveritwas company's parking lot.

I scored a container of cherrystone tomatoes fresh out of the garden, said goodbye to the Playboy Rooster and his bitchy bevy of hens, told Tom to dispense with that that thatoverthetop exhaust system really, Tom:


and hit the road in this quiet-but-increasingly tempermental BobD.
Colin

BusBoyTom's was like "Field of VW Dreams". You emerge from between the corn and there is BobD, the award-winning squareback (AWSB?) and the Westie to play with. Prettiest little piece of Wisconsin you could imagine, Tom's a lucky guy. All it needs is "a little more cowbell".

Colin, you really could camp a hundred yards down the road at the corner next time. Better bucks than boxcars keeping you awake at night. But Don Rooster tells me, you mess with his ladies, you sleep with the chickens...



Wonder where Tom is? Probably out driving the AWSB.

Amskeptic wrote:told Tom to dispense with that that thatoverthetop exhaust system really, Tom:


and hit the road in this quiet-but-increasingly tempermental BobD.
Colin

Hey, tripod used to resemble that exhaust, until you admonished me for it, and slapped a rusty aftermarket (OEM?) one that came with the headsFilledWithSawDust special engine. That was oooh, seven!? years ago. Still have that same rusty exhaust. I kinda miss that cheap Empi exhaust...provided a nice comical juxtaposition.

Hey Colin - do ya need another alternator? Think I may have another of the silty variety. If so, please text me before 5a tomorrow (can't guarantee I will check the computer before I leave for work tomorrow). I will throw it on the back of the Hog.

TrollFromDownBelow wrote:
Hey Colin - do ya need another alternator?

I do.
ColinADayLateDollarShort

Sorry about that ... I will take a look in the garage this evening and confirm that I do in fact still have it. If I do, I'll send you a PM. I will be home all weekend working on the basement. After your appt tomorrow, if you want to swing by on your way to PA, it's yours.

Anyways, think it may have been kinda tight to fit my laptop bag, the 6 pack, AND the alternator in my motorcycle luggage... gotta have priorities; you know, good beer! :)

Since my visit I have begun the process of switching over to fuel injection and have sourced all of the main parts needed to make it happen. Fortunately, I have the original ECU to my bus and purchased the rest of the parts from another '78 that were tested and functioning properly. Based on the sellers history and feedback, I feel I can trust him. The wiring harness however I am getting from KYLE Automotive Specialties.

My question now is what to do about a distributor? With the carb set-up the PO had an 050 installed. Since I'm returning to the stock fuel delivery system I would think I also want to get back to the stock svda distributor which would be the Bosch 0231 170 093 (VW 022 905 205S).

Since Adrian did the rebuild, I asked him what he would recommend and he said he has always liked running the 009. Obviously I don't know what would work best for me, hence asking the question, but from everything I've read the 009 is not embraced by the majority.

I did find someone with a Bosch 0231 170 093 for sale, but he said it has been on the shelf for a number of years, so I'm guessing it will need to be checked out. For $100, I'm wondering if I should take a chance on it? If yes, can someone recommend a reputable service that could give it the once over?

Any advice on the direction I should take would be greatly appreciated.

THall wrote:Since my visit I have begun the process of switching over to fuel injection
I did find someone with a Bosch 0231 170 093 for sale, but he said it has been on the shelf for a number of years, so I'm guessing it will need to be checked out. For $100, I'm wondering if I should take a chance on it? If yes, can someone recommend a reputable service that could give it the once over?

Any advice on the direction I should take would be greatly appreciated.

Try to get the price down a bit. People think too highly of their "parts that have been on the shelf for a number of years". I sold a nice one for $40.00 to rallybug. A garden variety Type 4 distributor with an advance unit is good enough. The million and one different part numbers are for the million and one different timing tweaks to pass emissions, If you look at the specs, we just need 28* by 3,200 rpm, idle timing around 7.5-ish, vacuum advance that gets to 36-40* and we can make it work.
Colin

Amskeptic wrote:Try to get the price down a bit. People think too highly of their "parts that have been on the shelf for a number of years". I sold a nice one for $40.00 to rallybug. A garden variety Type 4 distributor with an advance unit is good enough. The million and one different part numbers are for the million and one different timing tweaks to pass emissions, If you look at the specs, we just need 28* by 3,200 rpm, idle timing around 7.5-ish, vacuum advance that gets to 36-40* and we can make it work.
Colin

Yeah, he's not moving on price. $100 looks to be average price over in the Samba classifieds for the current selection of distys. Are classifieds the best option, or is there anything new that would be worthy?

THall wrote:

Amskeptic wrote:Try to get the price down a bit. People think too highly of their "parts that have been on the shelf for a number of years". I sold a nice one for $40.00 to rallybug. A garden variety Type 4 distributor with an advance unit is good enough. The million and one different part numbers are for the million and one different timing tweaks to pass emissions, If you look at the specs, we just need 28* by 3,200 rpm, idle timing around 7.5-ish, vacuum advance that gets to 36-40* and we can make it work.
Colin

Yeah, he's not moving on price. $100 looks to be average price over in the Samba classifieds for the current selection of distys. Are classifieds the best option, or is there anything new that would be worthy?

SGKent found a NOS Type1 DVDA (emissions) distributor for me a while back, so I'm sure they come around form time to time. I have had more efficient luck scouring swap meets and junk yards for cores. Buying three 10$ (unknown condition) samples usually gives me enough parts to make one decent distributor. I guess it depends how much your time is worth. The NOS units ran something like $400 USD, so I did the math and found my time to be cheaper.

This SVDA is listed by OVH as a 75'76 auto trans bus distributor. It's mechanical map looks good, but it should have a dual vacuum can according to the chart.... I have worked on a few T4-equipped buses that ran well enough with some scary chrome SVDA, so I think you'll enjoy a real distributor.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... id=1698557

http://www.oldvolkshome.com/ignition.htm

I got A NOS SVDA from VW Germany for about $100 including shipping. It might be worth a try.

Here are two NOS distributors. Looks like they are getting them direct from VW. They are more than what I paid, but the price is less than the same parts listed in the VW site. Less than $400 quoted above. I don't know the difference between the C and N designation.

https://www.vwheritage.com/vw.cfm?act=v ... ang=ENOUGH

Excellent time for us to step up on our spare parts and treat them with respect. I ran into a box of old engine while working at the barn to move my junk last month. Greasy old crusty original parts sitting under garbage can now be considered treasure, especially the old parts that actually have pretty low mileage because they were yanked off so long ago. We now have nice looking parts that have been massaged past their expected lifespans by two or three times. Meanwhile, that almost unidentifiable glop of mechanical muck behind the garage could have a pretty fresh oil pump, rocker assemblies, aforementioned distributor, and maybe even a carburetor that has not gotten water damaged, and those will be the parts we need to look for when ours expire. Yeah so I dropped and terminally dented the old oil cooler when the bottom of the box collapsed.

Save your old parts even if you decide to get new ones. I'd be happy to go over them with you and maybe even do an old distributor overhaul in an hour or so, and you will have a potentially superior spare waiting in the wings.
Colin

Amskeptic wrote:Save your old parts even if you decide to get new ones. I'd be happy to go over them with you and maybe even do an old distributor overhaul in an hour or so, and you will have a potentially superior spare waiting in the wings.
Colin

I have my old (original?) distributor that I would be interested in overhauling. I will put it on next year's itinerary barring any other major time consuming projects that may crop up.