Itinerant Cow Goes Rogue . . . to LA

[Amskeptic]

SG Kent wanted an update. Here is the update.

The Good:
Fuel economy 20 mpg @ 65 mph @ 102* @ 347 CHT @ 3,750 rpm no tinnerman nut shim on fan, mild oil dampness under case.

The Bad:
Engine is a little thrashier at mid rpms, a deep pressure plate imbalance sort of thrash.
Fan shriek is definitely less now that the fan is a half a mile away from the mounting plate (all right all right, it is now about a millimeter further away from the plate, geeze.


Chloe the Shambling Cow . . . :




. . . has now graduated to the middle lane:




Chloe even passed more vehicles yesterday than it has in the past six years. It kept speeding up on me, rogue cow wants to be a pony express. Had to actively dial back several times. Now, a tail wind was part of this friskiness, but so was the loss of my subconscious reaction to a certain vibration that this car has always had:




We have lost all higher order fan imbalance , and the engine is clearly happier at high rpms:




So, for the first time in many years, I went all Road Warrior Abandon yesterday, 240 miles from Sacramento to Bakersfield in 102* heat without a worry. The engine ran ridiculously cool, hit maybe 360* in the 4:00PM broil in the left lane at 65.

Did a celebratory Electrical Refresh Engine Compartment Wax Job in an almond orchard:






Noted that the di-electric grease maintenance of the battery terminals and voltage regulator connections did NOT stop a build up of hard black oxidation on the battery posts. I'll report back if the weird intermittent brightening of the headlamps has stopped.




Will report back from Robbie and NYCynthia calls. I plan to camp out in the Agua Dolce valley spot near the shot-up pick-up truck.
http://www.itinerant-air-cooled.com/vie ... 70&t=13147
Colin

[sgkent]

I'll report back if the weird intermittent brightening of the headlamps has stopped.

see my notes (norcal thread) on the fan belt hopping. if the brightening is momentary this may be the cause because when the belt hops it appeared to me the fan slows momentarily then is shocked as the belt grabs again and punches it back up to speed.

[hambone]

I've seen bad/dirty VRs do this.

[Amskeptic]

I've seen bad/dirty VRs do this.

This has been my assumption all along, but I am hoping to do my due diligence before diving in.

SG Kent:

The belt has been releasing from the pulley perfectly since July ‎26, ‎2017, ‏‎7:37:21 AM, when I sanded both pulley halves. There *was* some "crackling" sounds that would erase instantly under a little application of WD-40. I found little deposits of belt rubber that were making the belt stick a bit as it released. No such problem plagues me now.:




Stuck in a "better" 9.5 x 900mm Continental belt while I was there. Yeah, but the fan was just beginning to cause its little racket, so I was getting a tad confused by this seamless substitution of symptoms here:




Here you can see a little glaze still on the right side of the inner pulley half:




The light brightening deal is something else as evidenced by the several seconds per "phase" of bright vs return to usual. I will drive it tonight and see what happens, fingers crossed.

But hey Rogue Cow just ate the Grapevine with nary a complaint. Photos when I upload them . . .

8:15PM PDT
Approaching the Grapevine, far off you can see the Tejon Ranch hills and the water supply for LA, there's some engineering for you:










That is Interstate 5 coming over quickly to the merge point between CA-99 and I-5:




Base of the Grapevine, we have been on a slow uphill for some time, but now the real hill climb begins:







You seriously have to plot your lane and oncoming and overtaken vehicles.
I lock in at:




The climbing lane has some trucks barely doing 30, me doing 40, some trucks behind me are doing a solid 55, and there is always the little Mario Andretti idiot doing 80 weaving in and out of all lanes. I have my flashers OFF in the far right lane and save them for pulling out into the middle lane where I crawl past slow trucks at my own crawl. Only if I have judged overtaking traffic correctly do I manage to scoot back into the far right lane before the damn Dodge dually towing the hideous RV trailer comes up on me. I passed quite a few trucks today with Rogue Cow feeling good at 350* :




This is looking back at all of our good work:




No thanks:




. . . maybe this new-fangled thing needs it:




This was a 4,000 foot climb from the valley floor:




Three and a half hours later (I pulled off to do some repairs to my inverter/cigarette lighter socket, and trim my toe nails if you must know), I pulled back onto the frenetic major artery to LA:










Ten miles inbound with not a single car or truck beside me? I had to take photographs:




Pyramid Lake? asked the itinerant tour guide:




Man, we opened 'er up to 66 mph:




That is a hot view by the way. It was almost "cool" at the summit, but temps began to rise quickly as we came back down to 2000 ft:




Unprecedented in my experience:




Here, the ascent for northbound traffic is to my right. Many toy trucks crawled over there while I glided down my abandoned highway:




Yeah, 66 mph at 98* at 296* CHTs:




Magic Mountain and its sculptures of human torture. The last time I was there as a puking token-carrying rider on the Viper was May 1987.




This is why the freeway was empty, a truck crash and fire that occurred at 2:55PM exactly 2 and half hours after Chloe and I climbed past Gorman Road. 338 acres have burned since. One trucker has major injuries:



NY Cynthia and her 1968 bus tomorrow . . . drive Aware, folks!
Colin

[asiab3]

NY Cynthia and her 1968 bus tomorrow . . .

Aye! Indeed they are hard at work doing something. What? I don't know. My dad just sent me this picture, since their house has become the Sanctuary City for Ailing Volkswagens of North Los Angeles or Anywhere Really, or SCAVNLAAR for short…

I don't actually know if anyone in my family saw Colin pull up; I think they just went straight to work and have been missing since. :) I'll be there tomorrow to take more pictures and drink beer and maybe work a little!

Robbie

[tommu]

While we wait for updates from Robbie and NY Cynthia, here's mine.

I’ve been chasing an insistent oil leak for the last couple of months. It really bothered me that the family would comment on the smell in the car. I replaced the oil pressure sensor, distributor o-ring, oil filler tube and verified every other common source of leak as I could. I torqued the lower head bolts. With the rockers off of 3 and 4 I took out the lifters for a look. They were scored, with sharp edges, and the intakes were concave. So my hope for Colin’s visit was to seal those oil leaks, to diagnose general engine health and to help remediate what I thought was a sticking pilot bearing.

Colin rolled up at 9am on a Sunday, to the excitement of my son and curiosity of my Brother and his boys. My brother and I haven’t spent a night under the same roof since the 90s. We hadn’t really fallen out - just grown apart. I do remember us disagreeing on everything from music to friends and politics. Me once calling him an Essex boy for driving a Ford Cortina didn’t go down too well. So this last couple of weeks it’s been a little unnerving to realize how alike we really are. Mannerisms and appalling sense of humor included. It was great to introduce the family to Colin. With everything they've seen and done - they’re going home realizing that the country has a little more joy, variety and culture to it than you guys let on abroad. They're also concerned that all American mechanics wear short shorts.

Colin and I finished coffee and started work.

We inspected CV boots and transmission in preparation to drop it and the engine together. Everything looked ok so we moved on to the engine. As we were removing the rocker assemblies to check head torque on 3/4 - I reminded Colin about the worn lifters I’d discovered on 3/4. I thought I’d made him aware of them - but posting a random picture in a thread dedicated to moaning about photobucket apparently isn't helpful. Here they are again:



On our way to checking 1/2 lifters we removed and inspected the rocker assemblies. Colin pointed out that the stands were the wrong way round and thrust washers where missing. This, I think, resulted in some localized wear on the valve stems. We then pulled the lifters on 1/2 side and saw that the intake lifters were concave and scored similarly to the 3/4 intake lifters. We checked the torque of the lower head bolts, which wasn’t as low as I expected and reset valve clearance. I then showed Colin the silicone gaskets I picked up from 914rubber.com. They were too big for the rocker covers. A shame.



At this point we had more coffee and discussed things. With the rockers so worn - I have limited valve adjustment left. The oil leaks I am obsessed with are not good - but not so bad that it stops me driving Gary. So we started to inspect the shifter to see if it really was the pilot bearing. And Colin felt it wasn’t at the shifter. So we test drove. Engine noises were normal, bottom end felt ok. Oil pressure seemed ok. And I had totally lost synchro on 4th. That’s what was causing a crunch without double clutching. The front seal isn’t leaking too hard so we had little reason to drop the engine. I’m going to see if Bela in Burbank can replace 4th gear synchro for me. He rebuilt the transmission in the Ghia and it’s lovely now.

After test driving we went back under the engine to see for sure where the oil leaks were coming from. We concluded it was the head meeting the cylinders - the heads had relaxed. And that’s that.

Finally we tried chasing down a slight miss at idle. Neither ignition nor timing seemed to cause it. I’m going to need a set of bosch wr8cc plugs to test. Oh - and my EGR valve has stopped functioning, which is annoying. Revs don’t drop when it’s opened. They did. I don’t know what can be wrong there..

So I’m going to drive till the end of the summer, or until I run out of valve adjustments.- then it’s time for my first rebuild. I’m going to need to source a cam, pistons and cylinders at least. As well as some thrust washers for the rockers.

Thanks for helping with the diagnostics Colin. As always - I learned a lot and became a more competent custodian of this big green bus.

[Jivermo]

Neat write-up, thanks!

[Ronin10]

So I’m going to drive till the end of the summer, or until I run out of valve adjustments.- then it’s time for my first rebuild.

You know, Colin left my house with me requiring a rebuild too. There may be a conspiracy in the offing.

For what it's worth, I'm using a Webcam 140 in my rebuild. It's the stock replacement for the Type 4 motor, though it's the 914 variation of the Type 4 motor.

[tommu]

So I’m going to drive till the end of the summer, or until I run out of valve adjustments.- then it’s time for my first rebuild.

You know, Colin left my house with me requiring a rebuild too. There may be a conspiracy in the offing.

For what it's worth, I'm using a Webcam 140 in my rebuild. It's the stock replacement for the Type 4 motor, though it's the 914 variation of the Type 4 motor.

You think he's got something against green buses?

[wcfvw69]

I guess I feel lucky now. When Colin visited 2 years ago, my VW's survived his examinations without the "it needs a rebuild" from him!

[Amskeptic]

I guess I feel lucky now. When Colin visited 2 years ago, my VW's survived his examinations without the "it needs a rebuild" from him!

Things can change in a second . . . like when my lower generator spring went sproink this morning, well and truly stranding me.

[asiab3]

I guess I feel lucky now. When Colin visited 2 years ago, my VW's survived his examinations without the "it needs a rebuild" from him!

Things can change in a second . . . like when my lower generator spring went sproink this morning, well and truly stranding me.

Good thing that you have spares from the visits that we're looking forward to reading about…………………

RobbieWasThere, TookNoPictures

[sgkent]

oh gee, a generator brush and spring failed? Darn. I wonder if you would have caught the pending failure had you looked at them when I suggested it instead of giving me the brush off, and stern look instead?

[wcfvw69]

I guess I feel lucky now. When Colin visited 2 years ago, my VW's survived his examinations without the "it needs a rebuild" from him!

Things can change in a second . . . like when my lower generator spring went sproink this morning, well and truly stranding me.

I screwed up probably 8 years ago. My original German Bosch generator needed an overhaul and I was in a time crunch. I bought a brand new Bosch generator from a local FLAPS. I think it was made in Mexico. I installed it. I couldn't keep the generator light from coming on intermittently. Frustrated, I pulled the brushes and springs out of the new generator. I noticed the brushes didn't slide in their tracks very well. I also noticed the brush springs were very flimsy. I had a few original German generators in my pile so I pulled the brush springs and brushes off one that had 75% remaining. The original brushes slid nicely in the new generator. The original German springs were much higher quality springs than the Mexico ones. I installed the used springs and brushes in the "new" generator and the problem was resolved.

I was pretty surprised with how Bosch had let its quality diminish from what they delivered to VW decades before.

[Amskeptic]

oh gee, a generator brush and spring failed? Darn. I wonder if you would have caught the pending failure had you looked at them when I suggested it instead of giving me the brush off, and stern look instead?

Steve, I love you, who could possibly resist you in that do-rag?

But seriously, you need to step back from the scolding demeanor just a little. I tell the neophytes that you are one of the real experts, and that they will know a real expert because the real expert doesn't just pop off at the mouth with egotistical nonsense and self-referencing anecdotes about what happened to them the last time their VW did the same blahblahblah. No, I tell people, the real expert asks clarifying questions to have as much data as possible before they weigh in.

So yeah, there was no failure of my generator brushes or springs. I was replacing the lower brush, and the spring was clamping on my delicate little finger and I vigorously pushed the spring aside right off the damn post. NOW what do I do?

viewtopic.php?f=76&t=13420#p226595

Anyways, I will still tell people that you are an expert in most things Volkswagens.
Colin