Eureka! We've Done It . . .
Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 11:37 am
It was on my way into Eureka to the airkooledchris, pdlrofdrm, and mojogoat appointments . . .
Ten miles later, I was saying goodbye to my old well-respected Michelin LTX tires that had put in a good 20,000 miles of my kind of driving on the Road Warrior and another 40,000 miles on the BobD and put on a set of offroad worthy Maxxis 751 tires, like those on Chloe. Had a little fun at Les Shwab Tires in Eureka.
"Make and model?"
It's a Volkswagen bus, 1978."
"Oh cool . . . how many miles on your van?"
"Twelve."
"Twelve what, thousand? Only twelve thousand?"
"Twelve miles."
"Only twelve miles?"
"What, are you saying that it doesn't look it?"
"Well, no, yeah, but it is damn it is good looking, twelve MILES? How, why, what do you need tires, then?"
"Dry rot."
"Oh man, I have got to see this . . . heey, these tires have more than twelve miles on them."
"Aww, you got me. The odometer just turned over in Arcata."
I have no photographs of our appointments. When the temperatures drop below SIXTY under misty clouds, I just huddle in long pants and a long sleeved shirt. SUCH a wimp.
Airkooledchris and I discussed some rust issues and did a relaxed day of transmission bearing retainer plate and removal of the spring-loaded shifter gate in his 091. Come 6:00PM, he says, "well, I guess we won't get to the windshield channel rust, that's OK, just need to put it on my list."
. . . We got to the windshield all right. Yanked that sucker out and plowed into the rust, the fiberglass, the mesh screen the bondo, the RTV, and we hit the channel with sand paper, rust-catalyzing paint, bondo, and made a fine mess of things very much like Elwood endured. Airkooledchris' eyebrows are getting a little arched by the time the light failed.
"I'll come back tomorrow, after pdlrofdrm's appointment, and we can do some primer, then I will come back after mojogoat's appointment and we can re-install the windshield, is your life able to absorb all that?"
Did a fine day of driving around with pdlrofdrms getting her engine to run nicely. Tuned it up and tried to get the CHT numbers to calm down by playing with the AFM while she drove. Discovered anew that temperatures relate very closely to how much work the engine is doing. I would lean it out on the hills, she would note a loss of power, the CHTs would stabilize, then I would richen it, the power would go up, so would the CHTs. Oy. Did an asiab3 check of the Dakota Digital ring terminal under the spark plug. Mauled. We straightened it out with a cone shaped tool that she tells me stretches out people's earlobes (?) and gingerly reinstalled it to see if the temp readings might go down like they did for asia3b. As of evening, the temps apperared to be lower. Went back to airkooledchris, primed and color-sanded the windshield channel, left to camp in a parking lot in Fortuna CA for the next day's appointment.
Mojogoat has a '78 Champagne Westy and a beautifully stocked garage. More beautiful was his engine, over-built to a level of detail that about paralyzed me. Every wire, every clamp, totally dressed with wire ties and protectors, all painted and detailed to a magnificent level. Yet, the engine would only run if we energized the cold start valve. Jumped right in to diagnose. I am all cocky. The most difficult fuel injection diagnosis and repair was Soulful66's engine many years ago, where it took me four hours to track down a no-start to a little connector in the ECU plug that had been pushed out and prevented the injectors from grounding.
Do you think I checked injector grounding? Sure did. Damn things had voltage, were grounding too. We did everything. We had spark, well-timed, we had air, we had no vacuum leaks, we had continuity throughout his personally taped fuel injection wiring harness, we had lovely fuel pressure. I was running out of diagnostic options pretty quick, Mr. Cocky here was getting decidedly less cocky. Swapped the AFM with another one, swapped the ECU with two other ones, and we all know that parts swapping is just an indication of a mechanic losing his way. Finally, I am focused on the following fact:
It runs on the cold start valve.
It does not run on the injectors. It has to be the injectors.
"I shipped them to Cruzin Performance, they reconditioned them."
We have voltage to the injectors, we have pulsed grounding at the ECU.
I powered one of the injectors with the ignition on/ engine off to look for a fuel pressure drop on the gauge (that is how you can check for injector operation without tearing apart an engine that has been bolted and tied and glued together). No pressure drop!
We decided to swap in some old injectors on the left side. Well. Now the engine runs on two cylinders.
We swap in two more old injectors.
Engine runs. It is 5:00PM.
Moral Of The Story: "new" or "re-conditioned" does NOT mean you can skip them while diagnosing. None of his Cruzin injectors worked. His old injectors all had a nice spray pattern.
Left Fortuna with a re-committed owner and his running bus to go stick in a windshield in Eureka, airkooledchris' windshield, now installed in a trial-by-fire crash-course repaired/primed/top-coated windshield channel. Looks good even if the seal has too many memories of its old days. Airkooledchris can just install a new seal and windshield any old time he wants.
Off to Eugene and Portland and Washington on my Maxxis 751s at 72 miles on the odometer, I hope it will be too sunny and too hot.
Colin
Ten miles later, I was saying goodbye to my old well-respected Michelin LTX tires that had put in a good 20,000 miles of my kind of driving on the Road Warrior and another 40,000 miles on the BobD and put on a set of offroad worthy Maxxis 751 tires, like those on Chloe. Had a little fun at Les Shwab Tires in Eureka.
"Make and model?"
It's a Volkswagen bus, 1978."
"Oh cool . . . how many miles on your van?"
"Twelve."
"Twelve what, thousand? Only twelve thousand?"
"Twelve miles."
"Only twelve miles?"
"What, are you saying that it doesn't look it?"
"Well, no, yeah, but it is damn it is good looking, twelve MILES? How, why, what do you need tires, then?"
"Dry rot."
"Oh man, I have got to see this . . . heey, these tires have more than twelve miles on them."
"Aww, you got me. The odometer just turned over in Arcata."
I have no photographs of our appointments. When the temperatures drop below SIXTY under misty clouds, I just huddle in long pants and a long sleeved shirt. SUCH a wimp.
Airkooledchris and I discussed some rust issues and did a relaxed day of transmission bearing retainer plate and removal of the spring-loaded shifter gate in his 091. Come 6:00PM, he says, "well, I guess we won't get to the windshield channel rust, that's OK, just need to put it on my list."
. . . We got to the windshield all right. Yanked that sucker out and plowed into the rust, the fiberglass, the mesh screen the bondo, the RTV, and we hit the channel with sand paper, rust-catalyzing paint, bondo, and made a fine mess of things very much like Elwood endured. Airkooledchris' eyebrows are getting a little arched by the time the light failed.
"I'll come back tomorrow, after pdlrofdrm's appointment, and we can do some primer, then I will come back after mojogoat's appointment and we can re-install the windshield, is your life able to absorb all that?"
Did a fine day of driving around with pdlrofdrms getting her engine to run nicely. Tuned it up and tried to get the CHT numbers to calm down by playing with the AFM while she drove. Discovered anew that temperatures relate very closely to how much work the engine is doing. I would lean it out on the hills, she would note a loss of power, the CHTs would stabilize, then I would richen it, the power would go up, so would the CHTs. Oy. Did an asiab3 check of the Dakota Digital ring terminal under the spark plug. Mauled. We straightened it out with a cone shaped tool that she tells me stretches out people's earlobes (?) and gingerly reinstalled it to see if the temp readings might go down like they did for asia3b. As of evening, the temps apperared to be lower. Went back to airkooledchris, primed and color-sanded the windshield channel, left to camp in a parking lot in Fortuna CA for the next day's appointment.
Mojogoat has a '78 Champagne Westy and a beautifully stocked garage. More beautiful was his engine, over-built to a level of detail that about paralyzed me. Every wire, every clamp, totally dressed with wire ties and protectors, all painted and detailed to a magnificent level. Yet, the engine would only run if we energized the cold start valve. Jumped right in to diagnose. I am all cocky. The most difficult fuel injection diagnosis and repair was Soulful66's engine many years ago, where it took me four hours to track down a no-start to a little connector in the ECU plug that had been pushed out and prevented the injectors from grounding.
Do you think I checked injector grounding? Sure did. Damn things had voltage, were grounding too. We did everything. We had spark, well-timed, we had air, we had no vacuum leaks, we had continuity throughout his personally taped fuel injection wiring harness, we had lovely fuel pressure. I was running out of diagnostic options pretty quick, Mr. Cocky here was getting decidedly less cocky. Swapped the AFM with another one, swapped the ECU with two other ones, and we all know that parts swapping is just an indication of a mechanic losing his way. Finally, I am focused on the following fact:
It runs on the cold start valve.
It does not run on the injectors. It has to be the injectors.
"I shipped them to Cruzin Performance, they reconditioned them."
We have voltage to the injectors, we have pulsed grounding at the ECU.
I powered one of the injectors with the ignition on/ engine off to look for a fuel pressure drop on the gauge (that is how you can check for injector operation without tearing apart an engine that has been bolted and tied and glued together). No pressure drop!
We decided to swap in some old injectors on the left side. Well. Now the engine runs on two cylinders.
We swap in two more old injectors.
Engine runs. It is 5:00PM.
Moral Of The Story: "new" or "re-conditioned" does NOT mean you can skip them while diagnosing. None of his Cruzin injectors worked. His old injectors all had a nice spray pattern.
Left Fortuna with a re-committed owner and his running bus to go stick in a windshield in Eureka, airkooledchris' windshield, now installed in a trial-by-fire crash-course repaired/primed/top-coated windshield channel. Looks good even if the seal has too many memories of its old days. Airkooledchris can just install a new seal and windshield any old time he wants.
Off to Eugene and Portland and Washington on my Maxxis 751s at 72 miles on the odometer, I hope it will be too sunny and too hot.
Colin