Working On My List

[poptop tom]

I can see them signed in, or not. And there are many times I cant view folks' pics.

Glad you had a good workable area for that vent wing! Nice work, Chris!

[Mike Boell]

I'm logged in, but all I get is a box with a ? mark.
Mike

[BellePlaine]

As of last Sunday, Spiderman is tucked away in his garage for the winter. He got a full tank of stabilized gas, tires pressurized to 50 psi, and was rodent-proofed to the best of my ability. He traveled only 2,142 miles in 2011 just tooling around the Twin Cities and on only a few weekend camping trips.

Next summer, however, we are planning on taking him from Mpls to Chicago, up along the east coast of Lake Michigan, into Canada along north shore of Lake Superior, and back home.

I have created a new list of winter projects:

* make new Riviera pop-top hold-down flaps of brown canvas.
* do something about the rust forming on the insides of my hubcaps.
* And either make or buy proper door panels for a 1975 bus so I can use the door-pull. (anyone want to trade for some nice 1976 door panels?)

And next summer, I swear, that I'll build a two-tank, stock looking, chilled water/homebrew beer dispense system.

Here he is, ready for the winter.

[yondermtn]

Lookin good! You beat me in the mileage department for 2011. I think we only got about 500 miles in this year.

Your trip will be awesome next summer. Check my writeup in the camping thread from our trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes/Traverse City area.

[BellePlaine]

I’m dusting off this old thread because I feel the Spring VW vibe. It’s an excitement that I think comes after being away from the bus for a while. So I’m using this energy to write up a 2013 To-Do list and Shopping list.

Planned projects this year:

• Rust Repair – I’ve got some issues with the driver’s side rocker. It needs to be cut out. Also, I noticed the beginning of a rust bubble forming near the driver’s side rear wheel skirt. Time to clean all of that up.

• My dash cluster is a dirty mess. So I’m going to do something that I’ve never done before and take it out and give it a good cleaning. The glass is dusty from 30+ years of solitary barn life. Also, why not finally install a tach in the clock-blank spot? I seriously don’t understand why VW gave our vehicles an option for a stupid clock instead of a tach. They could give us fuel injection in ’75 but not a decent instrument cluster?! It should have been standard. I think that I’m going to take my chances on the VDO Cockpit Tach; anybody ever open one up to make that tach look stockish?

• Finally replace the front door window scrapers. Keriann is telling me that this is what she wants done during Colin’s visit this year, so ok. It’s time I guess.
Here’s the full list. Any thoughts/advice?

[drober23]

How can you be thinking of spring when it is still SOOOO COLD in Minnesota? I live near balmy Detroit, and every time my thoughts have wandered to spring, the next day is 10 degrees!

Looks like a good list. I hear you on the rust repair. My poor '75 needs a lot of work. Not digging into rust repair until after our vacation trip though.

Good luck on the list!

[Amskeptic]

This is my custom silk-screened tach in the Road Warrior:



You can do better by far than I was able to in 1985, by using photoshop and printing on adhesive paper.
Colin

[vistacruzer]

whats the diode for?

[BellePlaine]

whats the diode for?

The diode is just insurance at this point. I guess some of these VDO tachs had bouncy signals and the diode was the solution to settle down the needle. Still learning at this point.

[RSorak 71Westy]

Save your $$ on the BD inside slider door handle, they suck and are very flimsy, weaker than the stock one.

[BellePlaine]

Colin's visit is less than a month away and this year we are going to replace the window scrapers. I like to try and do as much prep as possible before hand so we can get down to business once Colin arrives.

I know that I need to have the insides of the doors immaculately clean and I know that I need to make new vapor barriers. I snapped a few pix of my progress so far. Any idea what to use to remove the glue residue from the old vapor barrier? Oxyclean?

[Amskeptic]

I like to try and do as much prep as possible before hand so we can get down to business once Colin arrives.

Any idea what to use to remove the glue residue from the old vapor barrier?

Did I mention . . . in the vapor barrier write-up . . . I think, that I used WD-40 and a terrycloth rag? And elbow grease. Paint liked it. Gentle but effective. I don't remember if it was slow going, it was a beautiful day.

Nasty looking window lift. We need some washers suitable for 10mm bolts in picture. Thin wavy washers are OK. Thick ones might not allow the bolts to seat fully.
Colin

[BellePlaine]

Before I nailed the garage door shut where I store my bus for the winter, I had the entire exhaust system removed from tailpipe to headers. The muffler that I was using was some sort of single quiet pack style deal that I never loved. I inherited it with a bunch of parts from a friend. Before that, I was running an even worse set up that came with the car.

A while back I purchased a NLA cross-over pipe from chachi which was the key component I needed to convert this aftermarket rig to stock. Well, it turned out that the compression fitting from the catalytic converter to the muffler was also really hard to come by, go figure. I was now ready to this job, especially if I wanted to actually drive the bus this summer. I drove 75 minutes each way to an exhaust ceramic coating place to have the headers and all of the pipes besides the heat exchangers and u-pipes painted. I then spent some of Friday and all of Saturday filing and grinding the flanges true so there would be no leaks. After annealing the copper header gaskets, I spent all day on Sunday wrestling with the old pieces to make friends with the new pieces until, tada!

[Amskeptic]

spent some of Friday and all of Saturday filing and grinding the flanges true so there would be no leaks. After annealing the copper header gaskets, I spent all day on Sunday wrestling with the old pieces to make friends with the new pieces until, tada!

Well? How does it SOUND?
Colin

[BellePlaine]

Well? How does it SOUND?
Colin

It's a taste quieter I guess, especially at speed. I had hopes that it would be a significant difference. Let me adjust the valves and get back to you. They sound loose.