The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

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Amskeptic
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The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Jun 13, 2013 10:55 am

Rain, it rained and rained.The relentless cloud cover and drizzle and chill had eaten into my bones by the end of the Minnesota Contigent appointments. The brief morning tease of sunshine at the grifftenstein reassembly visit had long since departed as I hit Minnesota 169 south on the way to Anaconda.
This, for the next two and a half days . . .
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. . . and this:
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and this! A cranky shot of wearing those motorized leaf-blower lawncare earmuffs to better hear the harmonic vibration range in Chloe's generator/fan that I wanted to avoid. The silly indignities of car care . . . :
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I loved it, I did. Chloe was running perfectly even with that worrisome vibration, the water was managing to stay out of the interior, and the tires cut surely through the drenched pavement with a water sprayed howl:
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Green green landscapes with reflections and grey and spray and generator shriek and road warning signs:
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Mile after mile, this was the annual traverse of the country where itinerant east gives way to itinerant west, and a little VW 1600 engine was doing it one engine revolution at a time, here it is 7 PM:
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At 4 minutes past 7PM, the fields are filling with water:
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But look! After days of clouds and clouds . . . :
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That seized me with a little jolt of extra energy to keep pressing on, like a moth towards the light:
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A soggy little joy welled up:
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Then God, in a schmaltzy Hallmark mood I guess, gave me a rainbow:
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I will not forget the power and magnificence of that sunset. And I said to myself . . . . . . :
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. . . . we still have hundreds of miles yet to traverse. I drove and drove, under the stars, exultant at the promise of a sunny morning. Chloe was truly the most sullied soiled excuse of a transportation conveyance I had ever driven by that last gas stop in Mitchell, South Dakota was it? The rain had smeared billions of bugs all over the front, the moon hubcaps have an aerodynamic vacuum that had deposited rings of oily looking dirt on the rims, the compliments "hey that is a nice van!" had stopped all together. I camped at a closed "lounge" (bar) and gave Chloe a Tide/Motel6 ice bucket bath at 6 AM under a full sun.

Gloriously happy just 12 hours after coming out from under the Big Clouds:
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Called drober23 to arrange a synchronization of schedules near Mount Rushmore. I was about fours ahead and decided to check this weird scraping in the left rear wheel:
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Reminded once more of the new age we live in. Photographed here is a genuine VW rear wheel bearing seal someone installed with a drift punch on the end of a pile driver:
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The left side "new" brake spring from the "new brake hardware kit" had snapped.
(you may remember last year's "new" brake spring failure . . . viewtopic.php?f=66&t=11005#p193875)
But this spring was worse. It snapped every time I tried to bend the broken end into an approximation of a "hook".
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Three broken spring loops later, I managed to make a gentle enough multi-curved approximation of a brake spring end. Of course the spring was now way too short, so I had to stretch all the loops out. Thankfully, you cannot see the grotesquery, and as we all know, if you can't see it, it is perfectly OK:
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For the love of all that matters, can't we live in a world where I try my best and you try your best, and we buy parts where they try their best?

In the midst of this mess, I missed drober23 (sorry!) and had to keep moving along to Wyoming, to Montana, to Idaho, to Maupin.
You know what? There's more . . .
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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MuedeStefan
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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by MuedeStefan » Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:06 pm

Colin, great pics... makes me want to head west....
In 2001 I took my bus to Glacier park and got several rock stars in the glass too. Lotsa gravel out there!
will you show us a roadside windshield install next?
For the record, today is first full day of sun over 70 deg in Mpls since before your visit, you were wise to leave town!
Best
Stefan
Morgen Morgen, nicht immer Heute

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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by hambone » Thu Jun 13, 2013 5:25 pm

What a drag to have to deal with shoddy shit, roadside. You are braver than I, usually I nurse it back to civilization first. I think you like it though.
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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by glasseye » Thu Jun 13, 2013 7:18 pm

Inspiring as usual. My 10,000 km romp through the deserts this spring has depleted my travel budget, otherwise I'd be Maupin-bound to get the inside dope. Oh well.

I did do my front brakes in prep, though...
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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by airkooledchris » Thu Jun 13, 2013 10:32 pm

Image


definitely worth pushing on when this is on the horizon!

that spring is a downright travesty. im with hambone, that's something I would have probably ignored thinking "i better check that out when I get home" - and then realized the damage was already done. nice save.
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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by Lanval » Fri Jun 14, 2013 8:05 am

Don't worry, a splendid, sun-drenched day awaits you in the warmer climes. Carry on, my friend, over-priced, over-developed, over-compensated sunny Orange County awaits...

M

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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by dingo » Fri Jun 14, 2013 3:54 pm

glasseye wrote:Inspiring as usual. My 10,000 km romp through the deserts this spring has depleted my travel budget, otherwise I'd be Maupin-bound to get the inside dope. Oh well.

I did do my front brakes in prep, though...

where do you post your photos from this desert trip ?
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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by glasseye » Fri Jun 14, 2013 9:02 pm

dingo wrote: where do you post your photos from this desert trip ?
Ain't done it yet. :geek: I did use inDesign to create a PDF for my own amusement, but it's 80MB. :shaking:

It was a productive trip in most respects, though. I even learned a new scotch from satchmo. :salute:
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by sped372 » Sat Jun 15, 2013 5:23 am

Amskeptic wrote:Image
Great, now I'll be wondering how long the new ones I just put on will last. Seemed like a good kit, though, so hopefully they weren't junk.
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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by Mr Blotto » Sat Jun 15, 2013 6:07 am

I love these posts - part taking it all in, part fix-it. So tell us the story about that Timex desk clock that travels with you everywhere you go. Obviously, it is not just to see what time it is, seeing that you already have that sweet clock in your dash. And where is that burgundy-colored sash that also goes with you????
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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by glasseye » Sat Jun 15, 2013 5:19 pm

I love that clock, too. I've tried to replicate its function, but haven't found the right instrument yet.

Rate, time and distance, man. Rate, time and distance.
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Jun 17, 2013 9:37 am

Mr Blotto wrote:I love these posts - part taking it all in, part fix-it. So tell us the story about that Timex desk clock that travels with you everywhere you go. Obviously, it is not just to see what time it is, seeing that you already have that sweet clock in your dash. And where is that burgundy-colored sash that also goes with you????
The burgundy sash . . . . Cindy's six year-old daughter was riding proudly up front in the Road Warrior in her car seat on our way to West Virginia. We were playing some game where we had to find letters in various road signs that advanced through the alphabet. She was kicking my butt. I knew I was going to catch up when she would have to find a "Z" ha HAA. But no, the eagle-eyed little twerp was blessed with our coming up on Zelionople, PA. Shortly after her triumph, she deftly knocked out a what looked like a double-windsor tie knot with that sash on the grab handle. It has travelled with me since in The BobD and Chloe. The red flower over the mirror was given to me when I had the Road Warrior's engine in the dining room. "It is furniture, it must be decorated" she said. It has travelled with me since as well.

The clock was purchased in 1999 at WalMart for 12.99 to wake me up when I was a carpenter's assistant in West Shokan New York after I closed my service business in Rochester. It was the Official Road Warrior clock. It survived a head-on crash and kept on ticking. It is not needed in Chloe or the BobD or the Squareback. But it goes with me in my motel stop layovers. It has been rebuilt several times and is on its last legs. It gives me a second hand so I can calibrate speedometer readings to the mile markers. Chloe does not have a second hand. VW decided that 1600 acceleration readings would occur only in minute-by-minute increments, I guess.
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: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by glasseye » Tue Jun 18, 2013 8:39 am

Aw crap. Now I've heard it all. He rebuilds clocks, too.
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by SlowLane » Tue Jun 18, 2013 7:26 pm

glasseye wrote:Aw crap. Now I've heard it all. He rebuilds clocks, too.
Better than that: he fixes Time Machines!
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Re: The Itinerant Air-Cooled Traverse I

Post by Runamuck Bus » Tue Jun 18, 2013 9:47 pm

Zelionople, PA - locals just call it Zelie.
Endeavor to Persevere.
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