Life in the slow lane or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the trip

[Andy]

It seems that every vacation glosses over the whole travel aspect. Most people hop on a plane and boom they are at their destination, or if they decide to drive they go well over the speed limit to get to their destination. This project is going to be the polar opposite. The vacation is the trip. This car won't go over 70 ever and its cruising speed will be around 60mph. Why be in a hurry?

After 2 years of searching every day for my project car and after many many getting sold from under me or sold before I could even find one, I have finally scored my car: A 60s VW Bus. Tomorrow morning I am heading out to trailer the car home and to start getting to work.

Plans are to get the car drivable, safe, and comfortable enough to be able to go camping and cross country road trips. I thought my 1.6 miata was slow but this bus on a good day has less than half the horsepower that my miata does and it weighs a good 500 pounds more than the miata. Oh what fun.

Pictures will be coming tomorrow and I plan on documenting every aspect of the build. At the moment the brakes don't work, there is some rust that needs to be addressed, doors don't open, sliding door is rough, speedometer doesn't work, needs a full interior, seats are beyond recognizable, I don't think it has seatbelt, pop top needs a new curtain, hideous wheels and hideous cb antennas on the front.... But let me say what is awesome. The engine and trans are great (and by great I mean it shows every ounce of 50 whp that it might have), rust isn't really that bad and only surface in some spots. It has new floor panels in both the front and back seat area.


http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/27/53fb415e118a0bce6e0dd2a3c041efd1.jpg

[Andy]

We loaded the bus up yesterday to the trailer and then had to drive out to the owner to process the information to do the deal. The story is that the owner is not in good health and none of his kids wanted the old family camper van. He had a few people offer him money before but in both his and the mechanics opinions they seemed to want to flip the car on thesamba.com for more money, so they never made a deal with those people. Both he and the mechanic really liked me and were glad that it was going to me to be restored and used for its intended purpose. The owner gave me a few extra period correct license plates that I can get registered for the car. The mechanic gave me a 46mm matco impact socket to remove the rear axles if I ever need to. 46mm is a huge socket. Biggest one I now own by a large margin.

The bus had the original owners manual with quite a bit of service history from a dealer in Central Florida. The bus has never left the state for good but I did hear of stories going to the Smokies to go camping and Tennessee. The owner made it very clear to me that this bus on the title mentions MH for motor home. It is considered a motor home and qualifies as such. This doesn't really mean anything except that the owner was telling me if there is an open container of alcohol in the vehicle it isn't a problem since it has different restriction than a passenger vehicle i.e. you wont be arrested but you will be hassled. This would be cool to just about anyone else but me. I really dont drink at all, its not my thing so I guess that perk will go un used.


The trip home was interesting. Our vehicle that we were using to tow is rated to be able to pull both the trailer and the bus on it. That sounds fine in theory except that in June/July summer heat trying to go on the highway with the ac on made the car start to over heat. The bus we were towing was just so un aerodynamic and it was so hot (car indicated 97 outside) that we didnt want to risk it. The needle was already higher up than normal. Thankfully we found a Uhaul about 2-3 miles away and we rented a uhaul truck to trailer it the rest of the way home.

This is where the story gets more fun for lack of a better word. At the Uhaul we had to unload the bus from the trailer to swap the trailer over to the uhaul truck. The bus drove fine getting up the trailer but going to start it at the uhaul place we realized it now had a dead battery. We had to push it off of the trailer just barely and then ran around the parking lot with the bus trying to push start it. It was like a scene out of Little Miss Sunshine. Meanwhile this bus has no brakes at all. We finally got the bus started and had a few issues but no serious ones getting it back on the trailer. It is extremely weird putting it on a trailer and the front wheels are behind the driver.

We made it home no issue other than unloading it from the trailer and putting it in our driveway. I mention again. It has no brakes at all so getting it to stop on our rather steep inclined driveway was interesting. I had to match the clutch with the gas to hold it just right while my dad was scrambling to chalk the wheels.

This was all day one.

https://scontent-mia1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10438179_10204348780791573_5758102317218891874_n.j pg?oh=3bab32a7abf548b0762135fcb4e2024a&oe=56198441

[Andy]

Somebody was asking me why I towed the bus with the rear wheels down if it is rear wheel drive.

The rear wheels are fine to be towed on the ground as long as the car is in neutral. I thought about turning it the other way but that would make the front wheels which would then be on the ground in my opinion too light, if for whatever reason my door opened they would be ripped off, if the pop top for some reason came loose it would fly off... It made more sense to tow it with the rear wheels on the ground and bungee cord the shifter to make sure if it popped into gear that it would pop out. It never popped into gear. We made it just fine and it drove fine once we made our 250 mile journey.

[Andy]

Stickers from its previous life. I'll keep some and lose some. http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/29/4a88384d9d321ca0a42ad08fd1b89b50.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/f2c241c81b605ca4b15acd67d95ffe43.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/ca8ca1dae33e8225ffed90075a8c1c0d.jpg


Engine was in an engine fire at some point. http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/0e80400cfd9e1a707bd0280c897b1205.jpg

[Andy]

These were hiding inside the bus.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/2ff991286e1ca08de155d0fee32b866a.jpghttp://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/d0df67255aa50e2a28605209c0450c3e.jpg

I found the original child's cot. It mounts on the front a pillars and stretches to the rear b pillars. Petty neat feature.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/c882c6adf8484e79496e07c3a777d83c.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/14357d1c63e9cbc8f589444ac0702cd9.jpg

Mans got to eat. Table for eating.

I know it all looks like a bucket of crap but this is just so neat.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/753e31e093c3ad835b288125d7ffafe4.jpg

[Andy]

Original 1969 owners manual for my car complete with service records detailing work done by Volkswagen. http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/321f04d7fbb2833e8c14022b0a635b21.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/a84e88be1229ea0d08dc57374d3696bd.jpg

Ohh. The car is numbers matching with the engine. Now how cool is that. I don't think I have ever seen a Volkswagen with a numbers matching engine. So many were needing rebuilds at 50k miles that they just swapped them out and swapped in a new one.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/e2d1455de5defe0d58c4ae14cb47faeb.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/3797bf447581b5dcdb84b5db1f50fae3.jpg

[Andy]

Progress today was cleaning out the interior to some degree and removing the big 46mm nut that holds the rear drum on. Progress came to a halt because I can not get the rear drum off and the mosquitos came out. So did my good friends dad with his 73 Super Beetle to see how everything is going.

[OBD1 kenobi]

Cool story. I love VW as much as I love miatas. Old VW even better.

[kung fu jesus]

I like where this is going.

My roommate in college did this. He rebuilt a bus to travel the US to sort some stuff out. He had some pretty bad PTSD from the GW, and this helped him work through it.

He said traveling in one of these means all your plans and timelines are penciled in suggestions. You get there when you get there. :)

[Andy]

Thankfully I have a good high-school friend that I have been hanging out with a lot for the past few years. For the last few years we have been going to just about every VW show there was in Florida.

Thankfully both he and his dad know quite a bit about old aircooled engines. When I get stumped, and that might happen sooner than I think, I have a life line to ask. The mechanic that worked on the car for the last few years told me that it has the original air intake (which it appears to have) and a 32 or 30 pict carb.

[Andy]

7/1/15
Today's goal was to remove the passenger rear drum. It was on there tight, I mean real tight. My dad and I decided that what we needed to do was get some chain and bolt the chain to the drum via the lug bolts and bolt the other side of the chain to the 3 jaw puller instead of the jaws. I put the impact to the 3 jaw puller and bam. It popped off the drum like it was nothing. I also found out that the brake fluid reservoir is cracked and leaked out quite a bit of fluid. A new one needs to be ordered. I also found out that the passenger side e brake cable is broken.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/07/01/463387b54e7a7596cbdca7a1aef264b9.jpg

[Andy]

http://i.imgur.com/u81UxpK.jpg

This is the original craigslist ad for my bus. I sent various messages to people for their buses. I couldn't find the ad again but by this time I had the contact number so it was a null point. I guess this goes to show don't discount any ad because you never know what you will end up with. This is literally the worst craigslist ad I have stumbled upon so far.

[Andy]

7/6/15

I bit the bullet and bought a drum puller for the rear. That drivers side rear drum was seized. The drum puller should be here tomorrow so I can get on with the rest of the bus.
I am also picking up a new master brake cylinder and wheel cylinders along with new shoes. The "mechanic" told me that the brakes were done in the last few years but I didn't want to chance much. The rubber lines did look new so I am not replacing those yet.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0066PU1PM/ref=s9_simh_gw_p263_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=1M75KTM5EQVFSM661683&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2128432422&pf_rd_i=desktop

[kung fu jesus]

Ah yes, German cars and the 'specialty' tools needed to repair them. There will be more. :)

[Rogue]

Traveling the old way is quite the experience, it changed a lot for us.
We traveled Route 66 in a 1959 Ford Ranch Wagon with our friends in their 1960 Ranch Wagon.
We are now building a 1941 Chevrolet to travel for our retirement.
1446814469

[Andy]

7/7/15

I went to Andres import part in Miami. They had more of the parts I needed so I snagged another parking brake cable, front wheel cylinders, shoes, master cylinder, and master cylinder switches as well as cork valve cover gaskets.

Hopefully tomorrow my hub puller tool gets here so I can finish up on the brake job and my other package containing both upper and lower master cylinder reservoirs will be here. With any luck I will have the bus able to make it to cars and coffee this Saturday morning.

[Andy]

7/8/15

Good news guys, I received my Calvan hub / pressed drum puller. It made quick work of the drum removal. It was so easy that I could not believe that it worked.

I finished working on the rear driver side brake. Now the bus has fully functioning parking brakes and both rear shoes are properly adjusted. Now to finish the front brakes and the master replacement.

I also replaced the bit of gas line that was going to a fuel filter between my fuel pump and the carburetor in the engine bay. Now it is just a single piece of hose. I need to poke around under the car and find where I can safely put that filter so it is at least useful.

[Andy]

7/9/15
My battery was deader than what my neighbor's dog leaves in my lawn. I
picked up a new battery. I figured if at one point the battery leaked and caused the car to need a new battery tray then maybe I should get an optima red top. That isn't a cheap battery, but the bus starts right up.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/07/09/2b916dad2fb64448cc2d864af2e540f4.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUO8kgbYmKs

[John J]

Being a sixties person I have had several VW's from stock to modified dual port 1600's. The camper van always intrigued me. I was considering converting one by using a front wheel drive car, Honda, to incorporate it as a rear drive engine in the early 1980's. However, I ended up with a great deal on a cabover camper from a friend and the idea went away. It will be great to watch you progress.

[Andy]

7/10/15

Well bad news has already stuck. Each corner went amazing when working on brake stuff. I started working on the master last night and one of my metal brake lines snapped. Ugh. Now I need to work on that and it looks like the other 2 lines are seized so I will have to cut them all off and replace the metal brake lines. Not something I was expecting to be doing.

Honestly, it isn't that bad. I was able to go down to a local Aircooled VW parts store here in Miami and get the brake line that goes from the master to the rear T connector to split to the rear drums. It is pre flared so I just need to bend it to fit. I also sourced a replacement driver side brake line as well. Sadly he didn't have the passenger side so I will try to remove that one without breaking it but I am also contacting napa to see if they can make me custom ones.

[kung fu jesus]

I bought a flare and mandrel set for this sort of job years ago. I think I bought it at HF or Northern Tool. I originally bought it to make custom oil and coolant lines for my turbo. It works well and have used it on other projects since. I will use it again for cleaning up my fire suppression system lines.

[Andy]

I went out and bought a brake line bender tool from harbor freight. We will see how it goes but I was able to buy pre flared brake lines that are ready bubble flared from a Vw shop.

[kung fu jesus]

BMW uses the bubble flares, too. I was surprised Advanced sells a good amount of various lengths on bubble flare lines, too.

[Jhabitat]

In for Xbox mod.

Good luck on the brake lines, they take a lot of patience. Patience only Andy has.

[Andy]

7/13/15

Ugh. I am exhausted. I finally replaced all the brake related components and bent my own custom tubing for the rear brake lines since I snapped one of them. I put it all together and bled them a few times. My brakes still feel very spongy and they hardly brake at all. I need some work still and I just don't have the energy today. I also have a cluster of wiring to deal with so I might buy a brand new harness.

[Andy]

Today was rather eventful. I found out that one of my bleeder nipples on the driver side front was leaking when I bled the brakes so I went to napa and replaced it. Surprisingly they had something that would work. I finished bleeding the brakes and it still didn't feel right, I popped off the front drums and noticed that there was a lot of free play and that the star wheels needed to be re tightened again. I did that and the bus stops now. I took it around the block and got some gas for it. Yay.

Next weekend or maybe the one after that I will re take off the rear drums and re adjust the rear drum shoes as well as the e brake cable. I have to pull it too far now to engage.


http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/07/19/aa629ee65334883b50b66266b906a02d.jpg

[kung fu jesus]

Drums often have self-adjusting mechanisms. If you have to adjust them often something is wrong

[Andy]

I think what happened is when I swapped in new shoes, I initially adjusted the start wheels to give them sufficient drag but I guess the shoes weren't perfectly seated with the wheel cylinders and the star wheels and there needed to be a micro adjustment either up or down for them. The first time pressing the brakes properly seated them up or down but then there was excessive play and the wheels needed to be further adjusted.

[Dave737]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snTaSJk0n_Y

[Andy]

8/4/15
I haven't done very much lately with the bus. I went on a long road trip in my miata with my dad for my annual miatas at the gap in North Carolina, then we drove to Iowa to visit family and friends.

I placed a large order at bus depot for a bunch of small things here and there but hopefully the bus will be road legal for lack of a better word. Things like working headlights tail lights and turn signals are en-route to me.

Before I left when I was fiddling with the gauge cluster I miraculously got the horn button to work again. I am still having an issue with my gauge cluster. It shows at 50 mph when I am going 38 as indicated by my phone gps. Also the high beam light indicator and the bulb to the left of it refuse to light up even when I replaced the bulbs.

Also the turn signal refuses to automatically turn off when I make my turn, but things are getting better all the time.

What was not fun was when I got back home magically my front tires were 100% flat, no punctures or anything so I don't know if there was foul play or not. Seems very odd that in 7 days my tires go 100% flat when they were fine for over a month.

[Andy]

8/9/15

On Friday I took the wire wheels with good tires to my preferred tire place and had them swapped over to my 15 inch bug wheels. That is not my ideal solution, but I could not take the wire wheels any more. They were a pain to take on and off because of the adapter that the previous owner had on to make them fit. Now I have wheels that fit the car better. I now need to source 4 original hub caps. After I mounted the relatively new and good tires to the bug wheels I drove the bus to a local car show. There were quite a few other buses in attendance as well and I chatted with a few people. We exchanged some contact info and recommendations on places locally to get parts.

Today, I cleaned and oiled my air filter oil bath, adjusted my valves replaced my valve cover gaskets, changed my oil, and cleaned out the oil mesh screen. The bus started up much faster after I did all of these things than it previously has. I also found out that the previous owner had installed a pertronix ignitor inside my distributor. Now I don't have to spend the money to buy one.

I am still waiting for my package from bus depot. With my new parts I will feel much more comfortable driving the bus around. Hopefully it is here before Saturday. There is a local VW club that is having a drive to the everglades that I wanted to go to.

[Andy]

8/14/15

I wanted to change my transmission fluid but I ran into the snag of finding a 17mm hex bit socket. Thankfully harborfreight had a full set from 4mm to 17mm in stock so I snagged that and got to work. There was so much grim on my transmission that I had to take a brass brush with some engine de-greaser and brake parts cleaner to clean off the section with the bolts for the tranny fluid. I initially ran into a problem with the bolts being seized so I did the best I could. I was able to free them with my Milwaukee small impact wrench. It doesn't do more than 200 ftlbs or so but it was able to get the job done of removing those stuck bolts. I pumped in some nice fresh 85w90 GL4 from NAPA (I think it was Stalube) and the transmission now shifts a bit better. The fluid in there wasn't that bad to begin wit but it gave me peace of mind.

8/15/15
The next morning I gathered my things to meet our local VW group to go for a nice drive to Everglades City. Nothing says testing out a new vehicle than going on its real maiden voyage to the Everglades. We had no issues going there except for the rain. I found out the hard way that my bus does not have working wipers. Thankfully rainx really helped in seeing with rainy weather. We met up with some cool people.



http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1392494.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1392493.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1392492.jpg

[Andy]

8/19/15

So I had some fun last night. It was about 6:30 I just finished working on fine tuning my drum brake adjustments when I went for a small ride. My mom called me asking if I wanted to meet her and my dad for dinner. Sure sounds like a good idea to me. I made it about 4 miles from home and my generator belt slipped off. I did not know instantly but what I did hear was my engine decided that idle was no full floored. I think when the generator belt slipped off it bent the linkage for the throttle. I did not know that the generator belt even popped off because I pulled over instantly. I slid the belt back on and attempted to make my way back home. The bus was stuck floored and I didn't have my tools because they were now in the garage from the brake adjustment I just did.

Stopping at stoplights was interesting to say the least. I had to turn the bus off and coast to the lights. It made it pretty ok most of the way home but at about a mile away when I passed the last stop light I needed to pass the damn belt completely destroyed itself.

Thankfully I had an extra belt with me but that did me no use since I did not have any of my tools on hand. After fiddling for about a half hour trying to get the new belt on by hand I gave up and walked home. Mind you I was wearing Jeans and flip flops. When I got home and gathered my tools my dad happened to show up back at the house from dinner. He gave me a lift to the bus and I swapped the belt on the spot with my cordless impact. The belt is currently too loose right now but it made it home that last mile and a half.

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1393576.jpg

Here is the video of me diagnosing if my throttle cable is what snapped initially. Sorry for the vertical video. All I could do was prop the phone up by itself and hop in the car and check. I was by myself at the time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i-rNk4dOz4

[Andy]

Updates

Sometime maybe 8/30/15

I received my new carburetor from Volkzbitz. I decided that for simplicity sake I would go with a 30 pict 1 with the power circuit. I removed my old carb and it was nasty nasty. The bottom butterfly valve looked incredibly chewed up.

This is the beauty I received.
http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1400275.jpg

I then went to town on cleaning my engine bay. I admitted that it was a lost cause. However, when I finally get around to pulling my engine I will clean the area with a brush and cleaners with a big pan to collect all the nastyness. This photo is after I spent 3 hours cleaning my engine bay and fixing a few wires that were burnt from an engine fire right before I took ownership of the bus.

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1400274.jpg

I also ordered a replacement shore hookup panel so that I could cover the big gaping hole I had on the side of my bus.

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1400276.jpg

Now I need to order some new horsehair material for my seats and some new seat covers. My dad and I are favoring a vinyl beige/tan color for the back of the seats and a tan cloth material for the insert part. We also found a guy that is a few hours away that has a side cabinet, original sink/refrigerator from a 71 camper and a much better condition pop top. We plan on buying his stuff and making my bus more water tight.

9/4/15

I received my new drag link and tie-rods that I ordered online. I adjusted them and they went on fine. With the drag link off I was able to better examine my steering box and it looks like my output shaft has too much play in and out and also up and down. I think that my box is toast and that I need to get it rebuilt. Here is a video of the play it has. All of that play translates to nasty clunking when I turn the steering wheel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0-ML4Zuaq0

[Andy]

9/16/15

Out with the old and in with the new, seat belts that is. Next up on my list are replacement seats covers. I scored these seatbelt a from cip1 for about $125 shipped. I am very happy that I was able to find a pair of tan seatbelts.

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1404470.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1404469.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1404468.jpg

[Andy]

9/17/15

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1405418.jpg

Today was fun. I purchased some new spark plugs and wires for the bus. After gapping all the plugs I removed the old spark plugs. What I found worried me some. The old spark plugs had a fitting on the top that appeared to be a screw as opposed to a nipple like fitting that I am use to seeing on cars. Upon looking at the new Bosch plugs I bought I realized that the new wires seemed to only accommodate plugs with a similar threaded fitting. I was worried some and did some frantic googling assuming the worst and thinking I bought the wrong plugs. It turned out that I needed to get a pair of pliers and just twist off the connector that I am familiar with and underneath is the screwed connector. Phew crisis #1 averted.

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1405416.jpg

Then comes the fun of actually removing all the plugs. They looked ok ish but appeared to have been running rich. They looked about what I expected them to look like except spark plugs #3. Boy did it look nasty.

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1405415.jpg

After swapping out all the plugs and wires I cranked the bus up. It started and ran for maybe 3 seconds and then died. Weird, I tried again and it ran for about 3 more seconds and died. I re checked all of my wires and sure enough they were all on the correct plugs and correct on the distributor. I asked my dad for assistance and he came outside to see what he could do. His first question was, "Is there any gas?" Of course there is gas, I thought. Just to entertain my old man's idea I popped off the gas cap and peeked in with my flash light. I didn't see any fuel, but it should have had enough. Just earlier that week I was driving around a bit and parked the bus in the driveway. Well to entertain his idea we went and bought about a gallon of gas in our small container. Poured it in the bus and after a few attempts to start it started right up. I guess my old man was right and I think i need to put my faulty gas gauge situation higher up on my list.

I am assuming that there was very little left in my tank and parking on the incline of my driveway made all the gas tilt toward the front of the tank away form the fuel pumps pickup and over the course of a week the fuel went back to the tank from the carb causing my lack of fuel issue.

No issue now, my bus runs great.

[Andy]

I have been inactive in the last few months with keeping you guys up to date on my bus adventures. School got hectic, bus stuff got hectic. I had one week where I had to rip out my entire interior, re skin the front seats, do general maintenance on the bus, put it back together, take an exam that Saturday morning at 9 am and then hit the road to make the 200 mile or so drive to Pasco County in my bus. What a crazy week that was. Anyway here is what happened.

Sometime late September:
I met up with a nice guy from the samba.com that happened to have an original wood cabinet similar to my existing one but it significantly better condition. He also had a pop top that was in better condition where the wood frame wasn't destroyed and he also had a very rare and original westy sink/refrigerator.


Sometime in October.
There is a wonder guy in our VW club that makes reproduction westy interior panels out of a similar wood. I was able to get an entire set for my bus and I bought a nice stain from Homedepot to match it as close to the original color as I could.

Sometime late October.

I went to home depot and bought some snap click flooring and a saw and went to town. I think the interior floors came out nice.

The week of Early November:

I completely gutted the interior of the bus to go to town and cutting all the wood flooring and put them together. that was a mission and a half. Then when I was satisfied with that I stained the wood panel that goes between the bus and the rear bench so that the interior didn't look so bad. That was installed as well.

The front seats were completely stripped down to the bare metal. This is where my new angle grinder with a wire brush attachment came in handy. I went to town and removed all sorts of surface corrosion from the seat frames and painted them black again with a nice rust encapsulating paint so they shouldn't rust again. Then I re assembled with seats. I initially only assembled the seats 90%. I just ran out of time to finish the remainder of making them look better and correctly fastened. That will have to be a different weekend. I did replace my steering box with a replacement unit and steering is significantly improved. Yay I have steering.

http://i.imgur.com/V8gPpXZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/QfgcFU6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9SUAeLG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bLjtuC8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6cITfqV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gQhDele.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/k9ophp8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/paZO8dA.jpg

November 7th

I woke up bright and early and took my accounting exam. I was rather pleased with my score and off I went with my dad on our journey to the Pasco Bug Jam 2015. The trip was long, the interior rattled, the rpms were high and the speed was low. I think we maxed out at about 68 mph on the trip. We were getting right up to the skyway that goes into Tampa Bay and I wanted to be able to carry my speed and not cause a slow down. Boy was I wrong. For a mile before the bridge the pedal was to the metal. Max speed was 68 mph. By the time we reached the top of the bridge we were now at 52 mph.

The drive was interesting. It started to rain and we didn't have working wipers (but what old vw really does). Thankfully rainx really does work so we were able to drive safely. We made it to our destination and we were at the show the next morning bright and early.

The show was great and we setup our folding picnic table and had a good time.
http://i.imgur.com/S05coBP.jpg

As we were starting our engines to leave the show my buddy's bus wouldn't start. We spent a good hour diagnosing the issue and it ended up being bad points. He is now using a pertronix electronic points system. On the way back home my speedometer cable decided that it wanted to die and not work anymore (I think it fell out of the wheel hub) so the whole way home we didn't know how fast or how far we were going. Normally that doesn't sound like an issue but I also dont have a working gas gauge. I was using my odometer to figure out when I needed to fill up and now I had neither a working gas gauge nor an odometer. Fun times were had.

We made it home safe not much else has happened since. School and work started to get crazy and my grandma's health decided to take a not so great turn so that has been taking up a lot of time as well.

All in all the trip was great and we were able to put the bus mostly together in time for it.

For my birthday my friend decided to make a painting for me. She knows I like turtles and that I have an old bus. It was spectacular.
http://i.imgur.com/rkpWKZu.jpg?1

Next up on the list of things to do is get the front nose and air scoop areas fixed from the rust and holes that are there from the previous owner, fix the horn, get the speedometer fixed and hopefully the gas gauge too (but that requires removing the engine), get BFG All terrain for my original 14 inch wheels I have on the side of my house, and last but not least to replace the shocks on the bus. Then it should be road trip worthy.

[Andy]

2/20/16

I was at a friends house and we are working on the front nose where the spot light and CB antennas were.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160220/a7923c32665432bf5e3dc67bc00aa028.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160221/8c433893597bf5a154c885347ace8f9a.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160221/3441c78f9e8f8026b507bbba4b125884.jpg

Late at night photos. It looks worse during the day but now I don't have holes on the front of my bus. Yay.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160223/1d3d509f8e6423e65d73f3924206da20.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160223/046b62a800df28070bdf31b7f5056e0f.jpg

[Andy]

3/15/16
Spring break started for me. With that I wanted to make some headway.

day #1. Pulled the motor to fix my oil leak.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160315/c4e80c7c41190f95a77ab342180ba27a.jpg

I ended up replacing my oil cooler seals as well as pulling the gas tank and replacing the fuel sender.

WOOHOO!!! I now have a working fuel gauge. That worked tremendously well on my trip to Lakeland.

[Andy]

4/4/16 I removed the pop top and started to clean it up. My replacement top showed that it was previously painted a beige color once before and it was flaking. I tried to use the pressure cleaner to get the top mostly clean but it didn't work very well. I used my dual action polisher with an interface pad and some sand paper (mostly 120 grit) and I was able to remove the the flaky paint and some problems with the top. Both the pop top and the rear pop top sanded down very well. The rear pop top had some issues with some cracks in the fiberglass. I ran down to Westmarine and bought their marine rx that applies similarly to bondo but it is to reinforce fiberglass cracks and stuff. I figured if it was good enough for boats then it was mostly good enough for the rear pop top. It worked well and I sanded down what protruded. I also filled in all the holes on the rear pop top that the previous owner thought were a good idea to put in to screw in a weird piece of edging. That did more damage than good for the roof and pop top but now the holes are filled in. I also bought some aluminum bar stock and drilled holes in it and placed it underneath all the holes where the cross bars attach. That should help reinforce the pop top and spread the load a little bit better. The rear pop top was sagging a little bit from years of pressure on one spot in particular. I also sanded and cleaned up the metal footman loops as well as the luggage rack bars.

Here are a few pictures of the process of sanding, fixing, and painting the pop tops. I rushed the painting a little bit and I was not able to get a second coat on before I had to head out for a vw meet / camping trip in daytona. I will be removing both tops again to sand the paint down and apply a second coat as well as sanding it down again to make it nice and uniform.

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1491179.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1491178.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1491180.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1491177.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1491176.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1491175.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1491182.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1491183.jpg

http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1491174.jpg

[Andy]

4/8/16

We left for the camping trip and headed to daytona. I pushed the bus a little bit too hard and at the first gas station we stopped at we had a pretty massive oil leak. Just a month ago I had the engine out and I replaced the oil cooler seals. I thought they seated well and I drove with the new seals for about 14 hours total mostly highway and had no issue bit I think me driving 69 mph as opposed to the typical 64 made them leak with increased oil pressure.

http://i.imgur.com/dQRaFAY.jpg

I topped off the oil and limped the rest of the way to the camp site and we leaked a negligible amount of oil. The rest of the way there we drove around 60mph.

At the campsite we had a blast and I was able to setup my new hammock.
http://i.imgur.com/4cqOj44.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/lXtd2Ef.jpg

Overall we had a great time and the bus made it back safe and sound. Now that summer is coming closer we will be going to town on the bus and getting it ready for North Carolina this summer.

[Phatmiata]

Always liked these buses. Many good times had in high school with my buddy's bus that we got into trouble with. Also I have like 100 different 1/64 scale versions lol. Such a cool vehicle, digging all the progress.

[MiataQuest]

Here is what I would recommend for the oil cooler.

Try to find a someone that has parts for a dual port Super Beetle engine.
These engines had the oil cooler moved back behind the fan shroud to allow better cooling to cylinders #3 & #4.
(The oil cooler you have now restricts the flow of air to #3 & #4 cylinders and also heats the air)
After the air passed through the Super Beetle oil cooler it is directed out the rear of the engine shrouding.
At the same time the Super Beetle oil cooler has better construction and has a larger cooling surface. These rarely leaked.

If you see the dual port Super Beetle engine all together you will understand. Look behind the fan housing to see the extra ducting.

So you will need the following parts to do the conversion:
* Super Beetle fan shroud and generator fan assembly
* Oil cooler and adapter off the dual port Super Beetle
* Rear sheet metal shroud off the dual port Super Beetle
* Oil cooler adapter seals to install at the engine case. (To go from small oil holes to large oil holes) This is usually aftermarket but I also believe there is a VW part number available for this seal.

I would run Mobil-1 15W-50 in the summer.

In the 70's I had a VW repair shop. We did this modification for type II customers on a regular basis when we did an engine rebuild. It really helped the engines live during freeway driving.

Side note: That oil puddle looks like it is aligned with the center of the engine. You may want to run the engine and see if it is coming from the rear main seal.

[Andy]

I currently do have a small leak coming from the rear main seal that I was aware of and will be addressing when I pull the motor again. It was never as bad as that picture looks. I have contemplated going with the dog house style fan shroud and oil cooler but at the moment I already have all the parts for the non dog house. While at the daytona car show I was able to find an original non dog house oil cooler for $60. I am mainly interested in getting the bus running reliably and leak free for the moment but I will certainly be looking out for all the required tin and fan shrouding with oil cooler to get better cooling. I am dabbling with the idea of running dual kadron carbs in the future and going dual port. I will be collecting parts are the project progresses but right now I just want to have it working well.

I am running Rotella 15w40 because of the extra zinc that it has. We were thinking in the next few years getting a crate engine (not from Gex) dual port 1776 with dual kadrons.

The next big upgrade (rather than fixing things) is looking to be disc brakes for the front wheels.

[Andy]

I spent the last 2 weeks grinding, sanding, priming, painting, and clear coating my bus wheels so that I could mount my fresh new tires. It is very difficult to find proper C rated tires in all terrain so I had to go with the general grabbers that were a bit bigger than I wanted in 27*8.5r14.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160523/54df4271f19321ffffdfd4862dbd5d1c.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160523/468d47edb7a5018cda96a4f943530317.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160523/f641230a93605e01e48922e3356e9f02.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160523/8b4f27fce68740c504cd91cb515c4d9e.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160523/641bf585a5eb6b2176ed52a021a9c8fe.jpg

Old wheel and tire combo on the front. New on the rear.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160523/6baabe7b1e6aa9d2fe1c2cc586e0f450.jpg

The new tires drive very nicely now. They are much easier to turn at a dead stop and they handle a bit better. I am pretty happy with them except that they rub a little when I am at full lock. That will be addressed.

I was able to take the bus camping down in the Florida keys with some friends. Good times were had.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160523/24f55a71eb5c065a378a06568364ff0b.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160523/3d8fdb24c9e0615350b0f180b6f99634.jpg

[BRGNA8]

just went through this whole thread! From one VW owner to another, this is pretty awesome! Keep it up!