Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

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Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Sep 10, 2013 7:32 pm

I have never thought to race a house. It would be unseemly. Yet, that is what happened on I-83 north of Baltimore. I just wanted to get by the damn highway hogging house. Chloe is very genteel, very demure in the presence of modern cars, but I asked her to kick some butt against this house, so we could see the road again. I even waited until a downhill, because you sort of have to with a 44 net horsepower 1600 up against a 600 square foot house. We couldn't do it. I backed off at 67 mph, and the stupid house just barreled down the hill against the tropical storm force wind. For over 40 miles, I could not get around this hideous view blocker, this prefabbed vinyl clapboarded highway pig. Since when is a house allowed to cruise at 65 anyway? I won only by default when the house had to perform a rest stop. As I nowhere-near-triumphantly drew abreast of the house, I saw that it was being hauled by a battle-axe Kenworth with a "Maryland Mobile Home Movers" sign on the door.

It was August 2001 when I re-dotted the headliner in the Road Warrior. Nine days and a mathematically-extrapolated 68,000 dots later, it looked somewhat more like it did when it came from the factory. Well, ol' Chloe has the same bleached-out headliner panels along the side windows and at the sun visors and the right rear quarter panel. So while I was driving down some wickedly curvy "Chapel Hill Road" in the hills of Pennsylvania, I thought to pull into an abandoned parking lot behind an old barn that was for sale to address this issue..

Man, twelve years after the Road Warrior's Sistine Chapel Lite, I am clearly not the focused autistic artist I once was. The headliner dotter machine at Volkswagen circa 1969 was far gentler on the vinyl than it was in 1972 when the Road Warrior was built. Without those subtle little dents that helped guide me twelve (!) years ago, I got lost again and again. My Sharpie marker was not in the mood to give me a decent dot, preferring instead to slap little skid marks at release. My joints and muscles and ligaments are no longer half so amused by my contortions in the service of such silliness as they were twelve (!!) years ago:

Rear Quarter At Noon:

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Rear Quarter At 2:15:

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Got totally overheated in the muggy afternoon, so I hit Route 222 for a breeze all the way to Interstate 78 into New Jersey. I am sooo feral now, I cannot tolerate the density of human habitat found here in the northeast. Finally found a path off a power line access road here in New Jersey, just 68 miles from New York City. I am sitting on a paved turnaround in a field, trees, fields, stars, crescent moon, very happy in the evening peace.
So, I decided to dot the front header under the visors. My neck quickly said, no way.
So I dotted the b pillar behind the driver's door until my back said, no way at this very point:

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Then my Sharpie said, no way. An unexpected infusion of urethane reducer sauce in the Sharpie brought it back to life.
Then I went back to the header until my neck said, really no way. Halfway done at least:

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Then I went back to the b pillar and finished it just as my back said, you're finished:

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Retro1302 in the morning, good night . . .
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: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by Lanval » Tue Sep 10, 2013 8:15 pm

Equal parts brilliance and insanity mixed for our viewing pleasure. This is now one of the only things that I can read on the internet for any amount of time; I'm so stressed, that only here can I unwind vicariously, and experience the possibility that my life might be other than it is. Like therapy, but cheaper and more holistic.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by asiab3 » Tue Sep 10, 2013 8:31 pm

Colin, in your "vapor barrier replacement how to" on TheSamba, you mentioned something about "joining the ranks of the clinically insane" in which we had to make some square fit into a round hole of 4mil plastic.

But this………… This………… :salute:
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by Cindy » Wed Sep 11, 2013 4:40 am

We had some really loooooong conversations when you did that 12 years ago.

Ruth was 2!

Cindy
“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.
Or you don't.” ― Stephen King, The Stand

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by glasseye » Wed Sep 11, 2013 7:55 am

Cindy, do you think it's OK if we allow him out in public? :study:
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by retro1302 » Thu Sep 12, 2013 6:54 am

I spent a day with him yesterday. He appeared perfectly normal. A stiff neck, but normal.
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1971 Super Beetle Convert
1980 Triumph Spitfire

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Sep 12, 2013 6:59 am

Cindy wrote:We had some really loooooong conversations when you did that 12 years ago.

Ruth was 2!

Cindy
Stunning.
Imagine the each and every dot as a day on Earth. I expect only 29,200 dots for me.
If those dots were hours, the entire headliner represents 7 years.

Now then, about that insanity thing . . . after I was done dottily dotting, I drove down Interstate 78 and stopped at a gas station. Music was blaring from the pump island canopy. Some over-amped voice unattached to a human is sing-song cajoling me to buy some huge plastic container of fructose-laden chemicals. There is an Acura next to me. Thundering boom boom boom along with words that I sort of discerned to be bragging about how he bedoonitindabutt.

Eleven years of glorying under the sun on this gorgeous planet has unmoored me from the above insanity and welcomed me into a new insanity, one of crickets and circlips, breezes and brake shoes, skies and dots, desert panoramas and paintbrushes, without hesitation I answer the motel clerk who looks at my driver's license, "you the cereal Kellogg's?" with a quick and easy, "oh yes, I am a billionaire, but I like to dress casual."
ColinCrazyDoesASoulGood
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: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Sep 12, 2013 7:05 am

retro1302 wrote:I spent a day with him yesterday. He appeared perfectly normal. A stiff neck, but normal.
"Normal" is like "theoretically optimum" timing . . . :cyclopsani:

That was a great little Beetle convertible in the dappled afternoon sunlight on the country road, I got pictures, will post later.
We done did good.
Colin
(speaking of normal, what is going on in your avatar? looks like another celebrant celebrating what I celebrate)
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: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by retro1302 » Thu Sep 12, 2013 7:55 am

We love our Bus!
You don't want the picture of what I was doing at the filler neck :rabbit:
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1971 Super Beetle Convert
1980 Triumph Spitfire

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by Cindy » Thu Sep 12, 2013 2:36 pm

"Normal's just a setting on the dryer."

Cindy
“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.
Or you don't.” ― Stephen King, The Stand

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by Randy in Maine » Thu Sep 12, 2013 4:57 pm

Cindy wrote:"Normal's just a setting on the dryer."

Cindy

I may have to steal that phrase. It is a good one.
79 VW Bus

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Sep 14, 2013 6:24 am

retro1302 wrote:We love our Bus!
You don't want the picture of what I was doing at the filler neck :rabbit:
s End $1,000,000.00 BY ToDay, OR the boss gEtS it.
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: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Sep 14, 2013 7:10 am

New Jersey has some very pretty countryside and some pretty tight little hills with some pretty seriously deficient highway engineering with pretty much sadistic off-camber grading in the curves. When the road sign said, "trucks use lower gear - 15 mph ahead", I pretty certainly concluded that it pretty damn well was applying to me. You (whoever) don't throw a narrow road down the side of a hill with a sharp left hand corner punctuated by a stoplight at the end of the blind curve . . . unless you are New Jersey.

I arrived at the retro1302 homestead with brake-dusted wheels just in time to hear an imbalanced-jet-engine-eats-rocks coffee maker cough up a very good cup of coffee. Such a pretty little bug convertible, I circled it warily, remembering the savage fight it gave us last year when we deigned to remove the shock absorber cartridges. Today, we just wanted to make the flaps work more easily. Removed a few hoses and whatnot to warm up:

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. . . . and some bigger pieces, too, to get to the little thermostat pull rod, visible here in the foreground:

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. . . . leaving the engine compartment feeling a little . . . discombobulated:

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The thermostat pull rod on the upright VW engines is a simple little thing, but with complex compound curves to negotiate the cylinder head fins. That pull rod can get bent easily when trying to remove or install the unwieldy generator and fan housing ( like picking up your light kid wearing a heavy backpack). We did a guesswork rebend, tested it, bent it some more, and reassembled the engine with a nicely free set of flaps:

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Such a nice little car on the country road with that engine purring along behind the bustle. Next year, I must drive the bus!

Went to Montclair. Now we're in the scrum, the ceaseless pressure of hurrying traffic. That little punk in the BMW X-5 behind me, for example, too young to remember or be aware of the simple fact that a VW bus has to shift into 2nd at 10 mph, he almost hit me when my "acceleration curve" flatlined for a full second as I let Chloe's transmission find 2nd. So what does he do? He blasts his BMW horn at me. Well, that fixed everything.

Visited appetite, a founding member of the Itinerant Air-Cooled experiment. We took out the tailgate window and I think the left rear quarter window, maybe the right rear window?

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Appetite said, "I want to take out the center windows, too."
"Sure. We'll have to remove the sink and fridge and closet, you know."
"I really don't want to do that," said appetite.
"Oh, but you do."
And we did:

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Warming up to the task, we took out the windows and vent wings in both doors, and we took out the windshield.

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He took off the front bumper while I took off the rear bumper. He took out the left headlamp while I took out the right headlamp.
He made a phone call and I ripped the front emblem off the car. Put it in a ziplock bag and labelled it "FRONT EMBLEM" just in case, you know, there was any confusion . . .

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We removed the luggage rack that was attached to the roof with some diabolically weird screws that looked like those you find in public restrooms, the ones that only tighten. I left appetite without a dash panel and with a lot of ziplock bags and a grand list:

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Why did we do all that?
Why, so he can get the car repainted after a new windshield channel is installed . . .
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: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by appetite » Sat Sep 14, 2013 7:45 am

Good pictures Colin.

Thanks for the brisk and efficient day of dismantling the bus for body work. As always, we accomplished far more than I thought we would. Now, if we can just get this beast back together again...

James (appetite)

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Dotty In NJ

Post by retro1302 » Sat Sep 14, 2013 8:36 am

A little "theoretical optimum timing"and we'll get that coffee maker humming along just fine. I admit that it is a bit reminiscent of a Saturn V launch.
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1971 Super Beetle Convert
1980 Triumph Spitfire

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