Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From San Francisco

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Amskeptic
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Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From San Francisco

Post by Amskeptic » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:57 am

. . . a week ago . . . :geek:

San Francisco is a gorgeously located city if you like dramatic skies and hills and bridges and boats and traffic. I had a two-day appointment with Westy78 who wanted to prepare his bus for an epic jaunt down the entire west coast with his son. He had a pretty big list. I was game, but in retrospect, it was fraught with perils that I perhaps did not state forcefully enough, and I have to better clarify our capabilities.

I came down from Eureka gingerly giving these new Maxxis tires a little time to sort of bed-in their belts by only tearing up the curves on the 101 down to Route 137 over to Vallejo. Asked a local citizen,
"How's the commute to San Francisco from here?"
"Oh, you don't want to know."
No kidding. I left at 6:30AM sharp and dumped onto I-80 into the first traffic jam, but it sure was pretty under those clouds with little sun beams hitting the hills like some Mediterranian postcard:

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I actually turned on the radio. I actually caught the news station with "traffic on the eights" like a real person with a real job to get to. Intolerable advertising blather with plenty of ratcheted-up hyper-energy from our morning hosts, "and it looks like we have a mess out there with three lanes blocked from a rollover, emergency responders on the scene . . ." "IF YOU WANT INSURANCE, YOU CAN'T AFFORD NOT TO BLAH!" "there is a fire on the shoulder of the 101, we might have a sig-alert,""MILK ONLY $3.89! A DOZEN HOTDOG ROLLS ONLY . . . " "traffic copter it is a slow go down to the Bay Bridge and the 880 is unusually slow . . . " " LES SHWAB TIRES, WHEN YOU WANT IT DONE RIGHT . . . " " 101 South of the city backed up to the 280 . . . " and I am a sight-seeing tourist with my camera catching China's marine invasion . . . :

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Just when I was wearing of this daily commute grind, I find a message.
What? What? What is the better way to work??:

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I called my customer minutes before I was to arrive, "San Francisco is giving me the traffic jam from hell."
"Where are you?"
"I am almost at the toll plaza on the Bay Bridge."
"You'll be about an hour."
(I had NO idea I was that far from Redwood City)

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I looked for Alcatraz Island, but wouldn't know it if I did see it:

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This being urban California, some of the billboards are a little out there:

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Arrived at 10 AM and we waded in to the essential maintenance concepts over coffee. We whittled down the list pretty quick, "I can do that," "I can do this later," "I'll just deal with it later" and we decided to focus on the engine, diagnose some oil leaks, check the exhaust, and got down to an actual valve adjustment on this bus that was to perform the aforementioned epic west coast trip.

The minute I saw the valve covers, I knew this engine had issues. Thick black crusty goopy-but-dry rockers, this engine is not getting adequate lubrication. 78Westy gamely waded in to rocker assembly removal, push rod tube removal and replacing the seals. We found galled rocker shafts. Cross-hatched the shafts and cleaned the rocker arm drillings, but the drillings were clean. That meant that the insufficient oil supply was coming from deeper within the engine. More of a concern was the damaged #4 exhaust valve stem, chewed up by a dirty prior adjustment (hydraulic lifters give no clearance to allow oil to rinse away dirt between the screws and valves, hello!)

After our two day appointment, I did not feel satisfied that we had driven this project forward enough. I got totally hung up on the engine and its potential issues, and we did not do the CV repacks and the gauge installation and too many other little projects. That is what you get with me. I go crazed for these parts that have to work in difficult circumstances. Once the homeostasis is disrupted, I cannot give assurances. I even wrote him later suggesting to keep #4 exhaust at a slightly loose "0" to allow oil in the craters of the valve stem, but that would also allow hammering. Fact of the matter is, these heads need new valves, and the engine is in need a proper overhaul. But the epic trip . . . . the hopeful son.

Had to blow out of there to blast up to Sacramento for lunch with SGKent and an appointment with VWnBlood before heading right back down to vwsunny72 .

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I looked forward to an inland heat blast, and I got it as I traversed Sacramento. Was on the edge of late to lunch when Chloe threw on the generator light. "Too bad dumb cow," and I drove on. Why did I drive on? Because I knew the cooling fan was still spinning, and daytime was easy on the battery. Had a good pizza with SGKent and spouse, did not get to all the technical issues I wanted to go over, but hey, good enough to meet up with a fellow VW enthusiast. Removed the generator brushes, cleaned the commutator, re-installed the brushes after a light 800 grit sanding, and the generator is behaving, so I went to my afternoon appontment with VWnBlood, who I hope chimes in here. This is his family's camper from since he was a little kid. The guy is talented. They guy is also at the mercy of shops who do not comprehend the subtleties of these engines:

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Timing was a serious 12* too advanced before the vacuum advance added an additional bunch for a total of deadly 50* BTDC . Mixture was startlingly lean. Profile of vehicle means it has to work on the highway. The thing here, is I think VWnBlood said that the power was down and it had to pass emissions. Did they advance the timing for "better power" and lean the mixture to pass emissions? They showed no mercy for this poor engine. Vacuum hoses were hooked up wrong, we got it sorted and took a test drive. Drove well at the correct specifications, but I will wait for VWnBlood to report.

Sacramento!

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The Winters Fire! Shot at 57 mph!

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No pictures at my last call, vwsunny72, who was parked at the bottom of a pretty steep driveway. I need more input from you all as my adventures keep piling on my overtaxed memory banks.

Yesterday's traverse of the Sequoia National Park was hairy. My fault too. More later.
Colin

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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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sped372
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From San Francisco

Post by sped372 » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:44 pm

Amskeptic wrote:...I knew the cooling fan was still spinning...
How (did you know)!?
1971 Karmann Ghia - 1600 DP
1984 Westfalia - 1.9 WBX

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sped372
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From San Francisco

Post by sped372 » Wed Jul 29, 2015 1:09 pm

Wait a second... did you turn the heat on to check?
1971 Karmann Ghia - 1600 DP
1984 Westfalia - 1.9 WBX

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wcfvw69
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From San Francisco

Post by wcfvw69 » Wed Jul 29, 2015 1:40 pm

Nice post Colin. I love San Francisco though I was run over by a car there as kid and incurred a broken leg. At least it healed 100% and didn't effect my growth..

I'm curious if you know how many miles are on Chloe's bottom end? She sure seems to run nicely for you with the exception of the ancillary parts burping on occasion. How's the fuel pump doing as well?
1970 Westfalia bus. Stock 1776 dual port type 1 engine. Restored German Solex 34-3. Restored 205Q distributor, restored to factory appearance engine.

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dingo
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From San Francisco

Post by dingo » Wed Jul 29, 2015 7:00 pm

Sequoia ! cool..lets see some pix
'71 Kombi, 1600 dp

';78 Tranzporter 2L

" Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches."

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asiab3
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From San Francisco

Post by asiab3 » Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:45 pm

sped372 wrote:Wait a second... did you turn the heat on to check?
Ever driven without a belt? If you know your engine well, you can "just tell" something is off back there.

Or you can listen for the generator whine, turn the heaters on, watch the CHT gauge, or feel the horsepower increase the moment the belt breaks. My engine sounds like a beautiful T4 bus with the belt off… :pirate:

I imagine Colin knows the sound back there pretty darn well; I don't know if I'd risk my engine on it though! :geek:

Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From San Francisco

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:43 am

asiab3 wrote:
sped372 wrote:Wait a second... did you turn the heat on to check?
Ever driven without a belt? If you know your engine well, you can "just tell" something is off back there.

Or you can listen for the generator whine, turn the heaters on, watch the CHT gauge, or feel the horsepower increase the moment the belt breaks. My engine sounds like a beautiful T4 bus with the belt off… :pirate:

I imagine Colin knows the sound back there pretty darn well; I don't know if I'd risk my engine on it though! :geek:

Robbie
The light initially flickered and went out with little rev ups, so I knew things were spinning.
If it were to break a belt,
a) you would hear all hell break loose around the pulley guard
b) the light would go on without any on/off/flickering
c) you would loose that lovely shrieking of the commutator which I certainly can hear from the driver's seat
d) the CHT gauge would go up like a California gas pump price window
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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