CaliVW78.com

Charlie Fords search for the beginning of the wind

Troy Wical — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 12:09:46 +0000

Stumbling through the internet can reward you with descent reading, sometimes. Case in point, while beating my head against Google’s search engine to try and dig up history on some of the older vw bus content, I ran across the writing of Charlie Ford.

I’ve heard the name many times over the years, but never read much of his writings. Now that I have read some of them, I suggest you do to. The link below is an old page consisting of posts written by Charlie has he traveled North America in a vw bus. This wasn’t some two week trip around the mid-west. No, it was a year long journey in the making, that took him over 20k miles of road.

I don’t know what he’s doing these days, but his writings were a great enjoyment to me. They’ve helped me to remember what important to me. Hopefully it will do the same for you.

http://www.type2.com/~keen/charlie/charlie.html

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Replacement bushings for Koni shocks

Troy Wical — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:02:37 +0000

Before our first trip with Vandejo to go camping some time ago, I decided that it would be nice to have the Koni shocks and Nokian tires on her. The Nankang tires I had installed on Vandejo for the drive home after purchasing her, while proper in size, build, and load range, were not the best in regards to handling and tread design. The shocks on Vandejo were pretty worn as well and didn’t help much in the ride or braking department. With Buster stepping aside to let Vandejo take care of the camping and long hauls, I figured I would swap them.

Well, I got the tires swapped. But the Koni shocks just weren’t coming off, yet. I started to remove the front passenger side shock off Buster, and succeded in getting the top bolt undone. But after removing the nut on the lower shock mount, the rubber appeared to have seized to the stud. So, I could twist the shock forward and back, but the rubber would not break loose to let me slide it off the stud. Also, there is a metal sleeve that slips inside the rubber bushing, and slides over the stud. Perhaps I left that off by accident? I couldn’t tell right off, but will investigate more.

A quick post to the type2.com mailing list provided various answers. In the thread I asked if PB Blaster would do any good, or if it would just eat up the rubber and destroy it. Some said they had to torch, chisel, and gouge the old rubber bushing to get it loose. Well, my next question was where to buy replacement bushings, in case I have to go caveman on the bushings. I’ve found no direct place to buy them yet, but have sent Koni NA an email to see if they can help out. I’ll keep you posted.

***UPDATE 2009.01.22 @ 0731***

While I’ve not heard back from Koni NA yet, a friend of a friend gave me the line on another site that seems to specialize in bushings of various types. The site is Prothane.com, and I’ve sent them a message as well to see if they have anything that will work. If all of this falls through, I’ll have to suck it up and send the shocks to Koni and have them do the warranty work on them.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Vandejo’s in the shop!

Troy Wical — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:13:17 +0000

Quite simply, I ran out of time. Getting out in the garage to work on her has been getting harder and harder to do, and there is this vibration around 1500 rpm’s that I believe has something to do with either the torque converter, or the drive (flex) plate. Those are the only things that I have worked on recently. Perhaps the torque converter was damaged when everything hit the fan on the last camping trip? Dunno.
Now, she hanging out with a group of old gear heads that I think will treat her right. I’m very anxious to see what they find. Camping season is near!

Problems with the torque converter in Vandejo As stated
Vandejo get’s some attention | Repairing the flex plate cont’d Well, I fi

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Thoughts

Troy Wical — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:33:20 +0000

This used to be in it’s own page, but I am moving this chatter to a post.

Current Thoughts

Portable toilet—Having a portable toilet with us in our VW bus while camping is just something we have become used to. With Vandejo, we are contemplating installing something a little more permanent when we install the jump seat behind the driver.
***Thetford Porta Potti 465 — The size of this toilet is ideal. I wonder if I could install a pipe on the bottom that would allow me to drain the unit at an rv dump station without removing the unit from the bus.

12v/110 Fridge—The fridge that came with our camper is pretty worn out. Even if brought back to life, it most likely would not be as efficient as some of the newer units. We are thinking of building a custom cabinet to go behind the passenger seat that would house some drawers for storage of our basic items.
***Engel seems to have a solid reputation. GoWesty.com sells their items currently and I think one of the upright models could make for a good base to the cabinet going behind the passenger seat. Another nice feature to their units is that they do not have to be perfectly level to operate, like the original units that came in the Westy models.

Dismissed Thoughts

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Problems with the torque converter in Vandejo

Troy Wical — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:30:38 +0000

As stated earlier, I finally managed to get the engine back in Vandejo. But, there seems to be an issue. The torque converter has play in it, from front to back, even after tightening it up to flex plate. The new bolts I got from the local vw shop said M8.8 on them and while they did fit and tighten up, Bentley calls for an M8 ….not M8.8. Even though I was able to torque the bolts down properly, I was still able to turn them more, without ever seeming to end or get harder to turn. Is suspect this is related to the problem I am having. To get a better idea of the ‘play’ I am talking about with the torque converter, check out the movie below

I’m heading up to a friends house tonight to pick up an ATV jack so I can take the engine back out and take a look. I’m frustrated with my self for not having checked the new bolts in the torque converter before having put the engine in. For clarity, this is in regards to the three bolts that hold the torque converter to the flex plate.

Video: VW Bus torque converter with front-to-rear play/slop

Vandejo get’s some attention | Repairing the flex plate cont’d Well, I fi
Pic’s update | VW bus flex plate (aka drive plate) Uploaded s
Vandejo’s in the shop! Quite simp

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Vandejo gets her engine back

Troy Wical — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:35:46 +0000

Spent a little more time today with Vandejo. She’s not running yet, but the engine is at least back in the engine bay now and off the ground. My atv jack is up at a friends place right now so I’ve been using a regular floor jack. Balancing the engine brought back ugly memories of when the Busters engine slipped off the jack and nearly severed by ring finger off. Ugh! But, all went well.
Everything was fairly easy to bolt up except the bolt that goes through the starter and through the upper passenger side hole in the case. I remember taking this one off when I initially dropped the engine after the fuel leak fiasco. One of the previous owners had used some all thread with a nut on either end. The nut on the starter side had to be ground down on one side because the shaft of the bolt sits flush with the starter. Normally, there is a d-bolt here. So on that first engine drop, I replaced it with an allen bolt that took a 16mm nut on the engine bay side. Well, going to tighten that one up, of course I could not remember the the allen wrench size that was needed. A little fussing and having my daughter hand me different size wrenches, determined that a 5/16 sae allen wrench did the trick. I didn’t have my metric wrenches with me.
With all the engine mounting bolts tightened up, I connected the fuel lines on either side, lowered the bus off the jack stands, and called it a day. Should have it running this week!

Problems with the torque converter in Vandejo As stated
Vandejo get’s some attention | Repairing the flex plate cont’d Well, I fi

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Vandejo get’s some attention | Repairing the flex plate cont’d

Troy Wical — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:51:47 +0000

Well, I finally managed to get a little bit of work done on Vandejo today. I installed the replacement flex plate and torqued it down. Crank it up a notch on the torque wrench for this one. Bentley calls for 65 foot pounds of torque on the 5 triple square bolts holding it to the crank shaft. This is for a ‘74 automatic transmission with a ‘78 2.0 FI engine.
After doing that, I thought about the loc tite. Now, I already knew from the start that I was going to put some loc tite on the bolts going from the flex plate to the torque converter. These were the ones that backed out on us on our trip to the Sand Dunes, even though I triple checked that they were torqued to spec. But there more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I should put loc tite on those 5 bolts holding the flex plate to the crank shaft. I could see where putting too much on could be negative in the long wrong, but what about just a dab? So I posted to the type2.com mailing list to get some opinions, and tucked the engine back in under the bus for the night until I get some responses.

Pic’s update | VW bus flex plate (aka drive plate) Uploaded s
Problems with the torque converter in Vandejo As stated
Vandejo’s in the shop! Quite simp

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Pic’s update | VW bus flex plate (aka drive plate)

Troy Wical — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:32:25 +0000

Uploaded some pics of the damaged flex plate that came off Vandejo’s engine, and the new (but used) replacement that I’ll be installing this weekend hopefully. For those not in the loop, the flex plate was damaged when the three bolts hold it to the torque converter backed out while camping at the Great Sand Dunes National Park down in Alamosa, CO. Click the image below to check out the album.

If you enjoyed this post, consider sharing it…

Vandejo get’s some attention | Repairing the flex plate cont’d Well, I fi
Vandejo’s in the shop! Quite simp
No love for the vw buses It’s

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

No love for the vw buses

Troy Wical — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:57:22 +0000

It’s been probably 3 or 4 weeks now since I’ve paid any attention to Buster or Vandejo. Guess that’s what happens when you have four kids :) I have been driving Buster recently though. With the kids going back to school, the wife needed the daily driver for dropping the kids off and since I get home after she takes them to school in the morning, I needed to find some other way to get to work. Buster was the only option since Vandejo’s engine is still on the ground due to repairs that are in progress. This was brought on after our trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park ended on a sour note.

Buster started right up after sitting for awhile, but still showed signs of what I think is a failed cold start valve. He runs well for the first 10 seconds and then needs a little help for the next minute or so. He got me to work for the next couple days though. There is also a battery charge issue that I need to deal with. I originally thought that the battery was draining down due to some auxilary power supplies I had feeding directly from the battery, but those have been removed, and it’s still draining quickly. I need to pull it out and check the water levels etc.

As for Vandejo, I hope to have her running this next weekend. I have the replacement flex plate (aka drive plate) in hand and with alot of the house work out of the way, I should be able to make some progress.

Vandejo get’s some attention | Repairing the flex plate cont’d Well, I fi

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So long, Eurovan GLS

Troy Wical — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:37:46 +0000

It was a good run, I guess? It seems like we only picked it up a few months ago. Wait, we did only pick it up a few months ago. Well, thats how it goes. I think the turning point was when Vandejo broke down on our recent trip to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. When we had the Dodge Durango, we would have just had our neighbor take it and pick up a trailer to come and get us. Well the Eurovan can’t really tow much of anything.

On top of that, it was starting to act up a bit. It was starting to hesitate when applying gas and in some cases you could floor it without it even moving. With it rolling up on 100k miles and questioning what repairs may be coming and how expensive they would be, we traded it in.

What did we get? A Chevy Suburban. Give me just a second here to put my flame suit on before the hate mail comes :) Really though, it seems to have been a pretty good move. It can hold our family of 6 and then some. It can tow when we need it to (thats nice with two vw buses in the garage.) And with an engine that disables half the cylinders at cruising speed and can take take E85 gas, the mileage is nearly the same as the Eurovan was. That, combined with the fact that dealers are taking a big hit on the trucks and suv’s, has made this a very smooth move on our end.

It was cool having the Eurovan, if nothing more than to experience the latest version of the VW tranporter, but reality strikes at times.

Even though we never considered you cool enough to be named, we’ll miss you Eurovan GLS!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.