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

  1. #16
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power Andy's Avatar
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    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.

  2. #17
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power Andy's Avatar
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    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.

  3. #18
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power Andy's Avatar
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    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.



  4. #19
    Supporting Member John J's Avatar
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    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.

  5. #20
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power Andy's Avatar
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    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.

  6. #21
    Ninja Messiah kung fu jesus's Avatar
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    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.

  7. #22
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power Andy's Avatar
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    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.

  8. #23
    Ninja Messiah kung fu jesus's Avatar
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    BMW uses the bubble flares, too. I was surprised Advanced sells a good amount of various lengths on bubble flare lines, too.

  9. #24
    Idling - Listen to it purr... Jhabitat's Avatar
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    In for Xbox mod.

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

  10. #25
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power Andy's Avatar
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    Life in the slow lane or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the trip

    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.

  11. #26
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power Andy's Avatar
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    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.



  12. The Following User Says Thank You to Andy For This Useful Post:

    WASABI (08-18-2015)

  13. #27
    Ninja Messiah kung fu jesus's Avatar
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    Drums often have self-adjusting mechanisms. If you have to adjust them often something is wrong

  14. #28
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power Andy's Avatar
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    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.

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    kung fu jesus (07-20-2015)

  16. #29
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! Dave737's Avatar
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  17. #30
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power Andy's Avatar
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    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.

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