Itinerant Air-Cooled East To Arkansas

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Itinerant Air-Cooled East To Arkansas

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Aug 30, 2019 5:58 pm

Left off here:

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Drove back towards Albuquerque. I did not want to go. Did my own little re-center camp:

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Got so hot, I broke out the Lexus window shades:

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Because we drove so LONG on dirt roads at relatively high speeds, I learned of places that NaranjaWesty leaks ... like that dust film under the rear mattress via a leaking tailgate surround seal due to a poorly welded right rear quarter panel skin. Here, I have caulked the gaps and misses and hit the caulk hard with talcum powder (it may look like the caulk was slathered on with a trowel, but the seal fit fine after it):

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Eastbound once more, I spied an obnoxious series of billboards advertising some stop. I could not get the camera awakened in time, so I waited for the opposing traffic's series of billboards. The kid is actually saying, "please don't hit me again."

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This one is saying, "I have crossed my eyes too long for this stupid cheesy shot, I am going to throw up."

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Interstate 40 was a constant train of trucks all day:

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My last NM vista of note:

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I saw this:

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(to be cont.)
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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ScottLasVegas
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled East To Arkansas

Post by ScottLasVegas » Sat Aug 31, 2019 10:14 am

This looks and sounds like an amazing adventure. Glad the pieces fell into place for you to embark on it. I selfishly was hoping Walkabout 2.0 would lead you back in Vegas for another day, but this seems to be exactly what the doctor ordered. Hope to meet the Idle Theory folks in person one day (let me know if you're ever near Vegas), Colin spoke so highly of you both.

Safe travels to everyone,
Scott
79 Riviera CA FI

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airkooledchris
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled East To Arkansas

Post by airkooledchris » Mon Sep 02, 2019 10:42 am

Amskeptic wrote:
Fri Aug 30, 2019 5:58 pm
Because we drove so LONG on dirt roads at relatively high speeds, I learned of places that NaranjaWesty leaks ... like that dust film under the rear mattress via a leaking tailgate surround seal due to a poorly welded right rear quarter panel skin. Here, I have caulked the gaps and misses and hit the caulk hard with talcum powder (it may look like the caulk was slathered on with a trowel, but the seal fit fine after it):

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Mine leaks on the opposide side, always getting the carpet wet just on the left edge where the carpet meets the rear hatch.
The caulk just needs to build up the surface so it's even, then dried fully so the powder doesn't turn it into mud?

Other than the windshield seal, this is my last spot of water intrusion.
1979 California Transporter

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled East To Arkansas

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Sep 02, 2019 9:10 pm

airkooledchris wrote:
Mon Sep 02, 2019 10:42 am

Mine leaks on the opposide side, always getting the carpet wet just on the left edge where the carpet meets the rear hatch.

The caulk just needs to build up the surface so it's even, then dried fully so the powder doesn't turn it into mud?

I had no water leak here, just a bunch of dust under the mattress. There is a vacuum at the back of the car that is more demanding of sealing technology than keeping out water. Seems to be working. That right rear quarter panel was hacked on with an axe and a blowtorch.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled East To Arkansas

Post by Jivermo » Tue Sep 03, 2019 6:35 am

Wonderful portrait of you, JR and Kit. That camp seems to have provided great doses of soul renewal and rejuvenation, as well as some much needed attention to Sunshine’s mechanical health. Spending time with Kit and JR is always time well spent. That stretch of I-40 is so doggone strange for my emotions. Heading west, I am thrilled to pass under the arch welcoming travelers to New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment. I was so tired of the truck traffic, that I took the opportunity, when I saw a sign announcing the town of “Palomas”, to get off the interstate. Paloma is the name of my oldest granddaughter, so it called to me. I decided to travel, as much as I could, along the old Route 66, which runs parallel to I-40. I was in no rush, so, what the heck? That old road is, quite literally, a parallel universe. The heavy traffic of the Interstate, which I could see from most vantage points, might have been a thousand miles away. It was quiet along the road, which even ducked under the interstate at places, in strange, graffiti covered single lane little tunnels. The rough, pebbly road surface made my tires sing. I never found the town of Palomas; if it yet exists, it must be tucked back behind some of the rolling desert hills, or on beyond the metal ribbons of the Santa Fe rail tracks. I made it into the tiny burg of Montoya, stopping at a long abandoned, falling down, hotel of sorts, on the outskirts of town. I like to go into places like this, as they harbor the ghosts of the past, when Route 66 was THE highway west, and there were many independently owned little inns, motor courts, cabins, restaurants and service stations dotting the sides of the road. The mood of America was optimistic, and men returning from the long war were ready to build, create, make families with willing women, and forget the death and destruction they had given part of their youth to.
The twin door glasses of the ancient adobe building, set in beautiful wooden dovetailed framing, had not been smashed out, probably because even the most hard hearted vandal sensed some powerful beauty in their construction. The joinery had a voice, and the dusty glass had that wrinkled quality of old glass. I caught my reflection in it, bent and warped like one in a funhouse arcade. The ceiling had collapsed inside, but I made my way past signs of the occupation, which must have ended 40 years, or more, back. A living space had old books and magazines, and a closet with clothes still hanging. Mostly drab men’s clothes, there was a woman’s cotton summer dress there, and a red wool sweater next to it, that was so vibrant that it screamed for attention. I wondered how any woman could have walked away from that place, and not taken it with her. It troubled me, it smacked so much of a forlorn abandonment. When I left, I closed the beautiful doors behind me, and made my way into Tucumcari, a place with a name that may be the most exquisite thing to roll off a human tongue. I, too, have fallen under the spell of New Mexico. What a place.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled East To Arkansas

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Sep 03, 2019 5:32 pm

Jivermo wrote:
Tue Sep 03, 2019 6:35 am
Wonderful portrait of you, JR and Kit.

I, too, have fallen under the spell of New Mexico. What a place.

More pictures keep trickling in from our time up the hill:

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I am spell-bound by New Mexico, and even though it is ravaged by the illnesses of modern America, it speaks a calm relaxed language to me in its vistas. Perhaps and likely, I will end up there in a stucco hovel under the trees ...
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled East To Arkansas

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Sep 05, 2019 12:22 pm

Hey Kit! Oh my god! It's a sign!

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The traverse of Arkansas, I will tell you, was quite beautiful. Yes, I was cranky at the temperature/humidity index somewhere north of 100*, but I loved the landscape and the series of hills was fine by NaranjaWesty (16.5 mpg and max CHTs of 410*):

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By and by and by and by and by and by, I found myself in Mountain Home AR in the middle nowhere save for US-62. It was so humid and so hot, that my projects list collapsed into a sodden puddle of sweaty refusal. I trimmed me an entrance to my new mountain home, and drove across broken toilet porcelain, charcoaled wall stud remnants, glass, insulation fragments, and building fire detritus. Flung up the poptop, opened the jalousies and flaps, did a cooling Motel6 bucket bath, and just panted there waiting for a mild hint of a breeze .... which came at 2:00AM:

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Found Rick Steiner at home where we discussed the Long View of his Volkswagen Story. Rick has several project possibilities, but a nicely running Vanagon may have blunted the urgency of the others. We retired to the air-conditioned workshop beneath the house and removed the newly installed heads to "look at them". We also looked at the lifters. And the cam lobes. And we found that several lifters were flat-to-concave and we found that the #3/#1 exhaust lobe was not happy at all, and the deal-breaker ... the pistons and cylinders were gravely contaminated with honing stone filth from a cylinder honing operation.
Rectification Report:
clean and reassemble ....

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Went back to my hideous campsite and it was even hotter than the night before, plus I was mildly mechanically greased up. (Rick did ask why on Earth would I not take an offer for comfortable air-conditioned lodging? You tell him ... :blackeye: ) Did a Tide/Chlorox scrubdown, followed by a fresh water rinse scrub down, repeat, then a Shake n Bake cornstarch powder storm. Jalousies and tent windows all open. Too hot too hot, laid on a terrycloth towel and counted 4,299 Harleys, 1,272 bellowing pick-ups, 6 blown-exhaust Pontiac Grand Ams and Chevy Cavaliers, 144 sickly Ford Rangers, a Dodge Hellcat, and a few sheep.

Next morning, I had a List to tackle. The new Wolfsburg West rear window leaks worse than the original ever did, spongy cheap thin non-molded waste of time that it is. The rubber is supple. So I need to run a single strand wire around the perimeter of the glass like I did in Spokane to expand this cheap supple squishy seal into the corners where by God it best stop leaking. Photo Essay To Wolfsburg West:

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Alas, I did not get to it. It was so hot and humid. Then I thought to wax the car in my new baby-blue wideband Tommy Hilfigers with a Gilden tanktop as a do-rag. It does not cut an attractive sight. No, it really doesn't. But who cares, right? I am in the footprint of an out-of-the-way burnt out shell of an unknown building under spotty shade with over grown weeds surrounding me well off the highway. Mr. Dodge Ram with air-conditioning pulls up to my driveway entrance and just parks there lost in a phone call for two hours. Well, I hope you enjoyed the visuals, Mr. Dodge Ram, you could have moved even only ten feet. The bugs, the bugs, the invisible biting gnats, the waspy-looking little flying bugs that did not bite, the flies, the humidity, the crickets, the cicadas, it was a classic broiling Arkansas summer day, and I enjoyed mostly a long-ranging phone call or two all lazy day. Oh, and an oil change and a transaxle oil change. Discovered tha the NAPA Gold 1521 oil filter leaked right out of the box, right at the seam. Went to NAPA and got a new one, no push-back.

Next day was CLHudson, the teeshirt guy, with his remarkable Calico Cat factory Westy. It is a 1975 with a two-tone white and orange body just like a 7-passenger bus, but with a full Westy interior and pop-up.

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It had the fabulous orange plaid, and I was just gaga, beautiful bus, I love the white interior paint with the wood and orange. Look at the amazing condition of this car:

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I just love the white paint poking out from under the russet orange and along the window sills:

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Yes, I got pulled off my Itinerant Air-Cooled game when I spotted the '74 Mercedes 450SL:

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We did manage to get to a tune-up on what looks like a factory build 1975 1800 L-Jet engine:

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We drove it around the neighborhood with double-clutching lessons and a few braking tests thrown in. That's why we adjusted the brakes when we got back. Because that is all it needed ...

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Enjoyed our day, CLHudson, and yes, let's do Mercedes next spring.
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled East To Arkansas

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Sep 20, 2019 5:33 am

Kit Whistler wrote:
Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:46 pm
Amskeptic wrote:Because we drove so LONG on dirt roads at relatively high speeds, I learned ...
Colin, those were completely reasonable dirt-road speeds.

Yes, they were completely reasonable dirt road speeds for all normal people.
I wrote "relatively" in "relation" to my well-known-here dirt road speed limit of 12-14 mph.
As a matter of fact, I warned you and JR that I would not be keeping up with you. And that is when NaranjaWesty decided to "toy" with us and drop dead.
Colin

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BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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