IAC Ohio to Pennsylvania to New York
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:53 pm
This itinerary has a twist with its counter-clockwise path. Normally, I would be finishing the Walkabout Texas Project week right about now, and I would have pictures of some crazy little out-of-the-way project.
Not this time.
Now we are on dense and truckly populated roads and boxed in by property lines rigidly defined and the schedule continues unabatedly. The days that might have been devoted to projects have been all rained out just enough to not be fully rainy, but enough to give pause to anything but quick light little repairs.
After the shredding attack on drober23's poor bus, Dr. Death here went to Cleveland to visit Sean Gallagher and vwlover77 at the famous wet bar garage.
I did not get to test vwlover77's miraculously self-repaired brakes on his beautiful Westy, so at least his reputation has not been sullied this year by what the police might term "wantonly willful displays of deceleration." Here's vwlover77 himself, pensively pondering in the reflection of his bus:
VWlover77 drove Sean and me in the BobD to a mexican restaurant replete with screaming babies and toddlers where we engaged in a howlingly interrupted conversation. I would have loved to continue the conversation on modern jurisprudence in America back at the garage bar, but I had to go get lost in the hills of Pennsylvania:
At a countryside viewpoint here . . . :
. . . I slapped in a set of NGK plugs with a new thermocouple ring terminal for the Dakota Digital gauge.
The old one had what looked like a possible loose wire in the crimp. A BobD designer bug alighted upon the BobD to compare his/her green on the L63H Taigagrün:
Then the bug tried a little contrast with the L90D pastel white:
I was rewarded with 430* readings. I kept driving, confident that the engine was not melting, because intuition trumps toys:
Stopped by the laundromat in Phillipsburg or something for a delightful afternoon of cold damp dryers, banging washers, and leaks galore. I left magic marker messages for subsequent patrons and one for the maintenance staff:
There is something that creeps me out about college athletics, something that seems to harken back to the Roman Colosseum, perhaps it is the size of colossal college stadiums, the enormous sums of money they represent, the creeping corporatization of college sports . . . the huge hunkering concrete spaceship thumping down upon the pastoral prettiness of the Pennsylvania I love:
I enjoy the Psucamper family. They are generations of Volkswagen enthusiasts, and the patriarch is a serious engineer in the middle of resurrecting the family's Westy and a bug, too. They are currently in the "doorless phase":
Our simple enough goal > get the bus running! was stymied after a day's effort to install the engine, get the electrical sorted, build up pressure in the brakes, and just as we were about to conduct the first start, the fuel leak inspection yielded a fuel leak, right at the braze joint of the return nipple. I was so disappointed. They, being unbelievably good healthy people, were all about Plan B > drop the engine and repair the tank.
We did a test drive in the BobD to get Psucamper behind the wheel of a bus for the first time in three years. It was great to see him from the vantage point of the middle seat (my first middle seat ride in the BobD). Here's Psucamper checking out an alternator:
I'll fill you all in on how I repaired my shifter (very interesting) from a balky shift into 2nd, took care of the shifter's rattle, and got a smoother engine, but must turn in now . . .
Colin
Not this time.
Now we are on dense and truckly populated roads and boxed in by property lines rigidly defined and the schedule continues unabatedly. The days that might have been devoted to projects have been all rained out just enough to not be fully rainy, but enough to give pause to anything but quick light little repairs.
After the shredding attack on drober23's poor bus, Dr. Death here went to Cleveland to visit Sean Gallagher and vwlover77 at the famous wet bar garage.
I did not get to test vwlover77's miraculously self-repaired brakes on his beautiful Westy, so at least his reputation has not been sullied this year by what the police might term "wantonly willful displays of deceleration." Here's vwlover77 himself, pensively pondering in the reflection of his bus:
VWlover77 drove Sean and me in the BobD to a mexican restaurant replete with screaming babies and toddlers where we engaged in a howlingly interrupted conversation. I would have loved to continue the conversation on modern jurisprudence in America back at the garage bar, but I had to go get lost in the hills of Pennsylvania:
At a countryside viewpoint here . . . :
. . . I slapped in a set of NGK plugs with a new thermocouple ring terminal for the Dakota Digital gauge.
The old one had what looked like a possible loose wire in the crimp. A BobD designer bug alighted upon the BobD to compare his/her green on the L63H Taigagrün:
Then the bug tried a little contrast with the L90D pastel white:
I was rewarded with 430* readings. I kept driving, confident that the engine was not melting, because intuition trumps toys:
Stopped by the laundromat in Phillipsburg or something for a delightful afternoon of cold damp dryers, banging washers, and leaks galore. I left magic marker messages for subsequent patrons and one for the maintenance staff:
There is something that creeps me out about college athletics, something that seems to harken back to the Roman Colosseum, perhaps it is the size of colossal college stadiums, the enormous sums of money they represent, the creeping corporatization of college sports . . . the huge hunkering concrete spaceship thumping down upon the pastoral prettiness of the Pennsylvania I love:
I enjoy the Psucamper family. They are generations of Volkswagen enthusiasts, and the patriarch is a serious engineer in the middle of resurrecting the family's Westy and a bug, too. They are currently in the "doorless phase":
Our simple enough goal > get the bus running! was stymied after a day's effort to install the engine, get the electrical sorted, build up pressure in the brakes, and just as we were about to conduct the first start, the fuel leak inspection yielded a fuel leak, right at the braze joint of the return nipple. I was so disappointed. They, being unbelievably good healthy people, were all about Plan B > drop the engine and repair the tank.
We did a test drive in the BobD to get Psucamper behind the wheel of a bus for the first time in three years. It was great to see him from the vantage point of the middle seat (my first middle seat ride in the BobD). Here's Psucamper checking out an alternator:
I'll fill you all in on how I repaired my shifter (very interesting) from a balky shift into 2nd, took care of the shifter's rattle, and got a smoother engine, but must turn in now . . .
Colin