Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

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Happyfolk
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Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Happyfolk » Sun Jun 19, 2016 8:50 pm

Colin's stop at our place on Saturday was the first of two stops in Verona for Colin this weekend. My wife Kelley's cousin's husband Adam and his Green '76 Westy were here to soak in some air-cooled knowledge. THall stopped by with a Dakota Digital CHT sender ring to replace the one I'd roached. So including Colin's Naranja and our Sandy we had four Westys in attendance. Four successive years of production were represented: Adam's green '76 (next to Colin's), Colin's orange '77, Thall's green '78 (foreground), and our beige '79 (in the garage). The last four years of the Bay.
Image

The agenda for the day was to let Colin assess the status of our bus in his order of priority, identifying areas needing to be addressed and tackling them as they came. After checking valve clearance and timing in the morning and after a test drive by Colin, the afternoon consisted of replacing the rear brake shoes (which I knew needed replacing and had already obtained replacements for), cleaning and lubricating the bottom of the shift lever assembly, Colin adjusting the AFM, and inserting the S boot Y fitting properly to keep the perpetual supply of sand from coming from who knows where in our engine compartment and getting into the S boot and into the interior of our engine (we named our bus Sandy since she came from Yuma, AZ and has a never ending wellspring of sand even after weekly vacuuming and cleaning for two years). The proper seating of the y fitting into the S boot was tagged by Colin as the most important accomplishment of the day, and I would never have spotted the issue.
Image
The other accomplishments have left us with a much more pleasingly driveable bus. The shifter lube and adjustment was one of those things where once you saw how easy it was and how much improvement there was you wonder why you'd put up with such a shitty situation for so long. But we don't drive a hundred buses a year like Colin does and didn't even know how comparatively bad our shifter was. We're still missing the grommet around the front of the shift linkage tube, which Colin says will add another equally huge improvement in operation, but it already feels like heaven compared to the way it was.

The brakes are also improved by a substantial degree, and the fact that they've been gone through and are now given a "pass" by Colin makes us feel much safer as we roll down the road.

Colin's AFM adjustment also resulted in an incredible increase in performance. I'd read through his tutorial on how to adjust the thing, but decided to let him do it himself, and after seeing how minute the adjustments he made were I'm glad I left it to him. He loosened the center screw that was glued into place at the factory (telling me that we'd just broken federal law by doing so as we cracked the seal) and moved the black-toothed plastic piece that it held in place by 1/4 of a tooth-to-tooth distance. He also disconnected our oxygen sensor since our Cali bus no longer has a catalytic converter for it to protect, giving our bus a much smoother idle.

A session with Colin starts out with a political, philosophical, and existential discussion, as is widely known. He seems like a genuinely good guy with the longevity of all VW air-cooled vehicles as his goal. His standards are high, bordering on obsessive. With good quality parts becoming less and less available, your ability to obsess anywhere near his level would be a good trait to develop.
79 CA FI Westy
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"Sandy"

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wcfvw69
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by wcfvw69 » Mon Jun 20, 2016 6:11 am

That was a very nice write up. I wish more folks would do one after Colin's visits. We can all learn from their experiences. Besides the sand issue, I bet you're very happy to have a dry bus from the SW USA. I can imagine there's not much (if any) rust on it.
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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Happyfolk
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Happyfolk » Mon Jun 20, 2016 8:57 am

wcfvw69 wrote:That was a very nice write up. I wish more folks would do one after Colin's visits. We can all learn from their experiences. Besides the sand issue, I bet you're very happy to have a dry bus from the SW USA. I can imagine there's not much (if any) rust on it.
Thanks. We had a real good time! Yep, there was almost no rust on it. The bad thing about it coming from Yuma, AZ is that the plastic and rubber parts were deteriorated from the extreme heat. The ideal situation would be to find a northern bus that was kept in some old guy's garage for 40 years. I met a guy at a show two years ago that had stumbled into that exact situation and scored an immaculate brown '78 Westy Champagne Edition. Everything was original and it was beautiful!
79 CA FI Westy
Mexico Beige
"Sandy"

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poptop tom
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by poptop tom » Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:03 am

Happyfolk wrote:Colin's stop at our place on Saturday was the first of two stops in Verona for Colin this weekend. My wife Kelley's cousin's husband Adam and his Green '76 Westy were here to soak in some air-cooled knowledge. THall stopped by with a Dakota Digital CHT sender ring to replace the one I'd roached. So including Colin's Naranja and our Sandy we had four Westys in attendance. Four successive years of production were represented: Adam's green '76 (next to Colin's), Colin's orange '77, Thall's green '78 (foreground), and our beige '79 (in the garage). The last four years of the Bay.
Image

The agenda for the day was to let Colin assess the status of our bus in his order of priority, identifying areas needing to be addressed and tackling them as they came. After checking valve clearance and timing in the morning and after a test drive by Colin, the afternoon consisted of replacing the rear brake shoes (which I knew needed replacing and had already obtained replacements for), cleaning and lubricating the bottom of the shift lever assembly, Colin adjusting the AFM, and inserting the S boot Y fitting properly to keep the perpetual supply of sand from coming from who knows where in our engine compartment and getting into the S boot and into the interior of our engine (we named our bus Sandy since she came from Yuma, AZ and has a never ending wellspring of sand even after weekly vacuuming and cleaning for two years). The proper seating of the y fitting into the S boot was tagged by Colin as the most important accomplishment of the day, and I would never have spotted the issue.
Image
The other accomplishments have left us with a much more pleasingly driveable bus. The shifter lube and adjustment was one of those things where once you saw how easy it was and how much improvement there was you wonder why you'd put up with such a shitty situation for so long. But we don't drive a hundred buses a year like Colin does and didn't even know how comparatively bad our shifter was. We're still missing the grommet around the front of the shift linkage tube, which Colin says will add another equally huge improvement in operation, but it already feels like heaven compared to the way it was.

The brakes are also improved by a substantial degree, and the fact that they've been gone through and are now given a "pass" by Colin makes us feel much safer as we roll down the road.

Colin's AFM adjustment also resulted in an incredible increase in performance. I'd read through his tutorial on how to adjust the thing, but decided to let him do it himself, and after seeing how minute the adjustments he made were I'm glad I left it to him. He loosened the center screw that was glued into place at the factory (telling me that we'd just broken federal law by doing so as we cracked the seal) and moved the black-toothed plastic piece that it held in place by 1/4 of a tooth-to-tooth distance. He also disconnected our oxygen sensor since our Cali bus no longer has a catalytic converter for it to protect, giving our bus a much smoother idle.

A session with Colin starts out with a political, philosophical, and existential discussion, as is widely known. At the end of the day he comes across as a genuinely good guy with the longevity of all VW air-cooled vehicles as his goal. His standards are as high as could be called reasonable, bordering on obsessive. With good quality parts being lesser and lesser available, your ability to obsess anywhere near his level would be a good trait to develop.
Nice write up! Productive day and cool pics! Where did you obtain the correct rear brake shoes?
Mr. Blotto wrote, "Boy - thanks for the offer, but a month in poptop tom's world means 5 years"

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Happyfolk
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Happyfolk » Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:13 am

Parts ordered last night per Colin's suggestions after inspecting my bus:

Drag Link (211415701G)- to get rid of the loosey goosey steering
Fuel Pump (043906091)- mine isn't stock and has an annoying whine; maybe about to go? I'll keep the old one as backup.
Front Shift Rod Bushing (211711182) - mentioned above in visit story
Sliding Door catch spring (211843381A) - so my sliding door will stay open until I turn the latch

I also need to get the thermostat and flaps installed which I already have the parts for. I'll probably drop the engine to do this since I also need to notch the head by the #3 spark plug for the CHT sender installation so it will seal properly.
79 CA FI Westy
Mexico Beige
"Sandy"

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Happyfolk
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Happyfolk » Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:21 am

poptop tom wrote:Nice write up! Productive day and cool pics! Where did you obtain the correct rear brake shoes?

I got the shoes from CIP1. They weren't necessarily correct but work fine. Much better straight line on a hard brake and nice and smooth.

They don't have shorter pads on the parking brake side (rear) like the originals. All 4 shoes in the box were the same. They did have the correct holes and profile and fit very nicely. The box touted the variance from the original design as a plus, "Increased Parking Brake Shoe Surfaces"! :rabbit:
79 CA FI Westy
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"Sandy"

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THall
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by THall » Mon Jun 20, 2016 11:03 am

Happyfolk wrote:
poptop tom wrote:Nice write up! Productive day and cool pics! Where did you obtain the correct rear brake shoes?

I got the shoes from CIP1. They weren't necessarily correct but work fine. Much better straight line on a hard brake and nice and smooth.

They don't have shorter pads on the parking brake side (rear) like the originals. All 4 shoes in the box were the same. They did have the correct holes and profile and fit very nicely. The box touted the variance from the original design as a plus, "Increased Parking Brake Shoe Surfaces"! :rabbit:
Speaking of brakes...I hear you were the recipient of the last brake drum spring in Colin's stash.

Guess what, when we pulled my right rear drum half of a broken spring fell to the ground...d'oh. So, I need to source some springs. And, I hear that you're a natural at getting those baby's installed if you'd care to enlighten me at some point :salute:
'78 Westy 2.0 FI

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Happyfolk
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Happyfolk » Mon Jun 20, 2016 11:22 am

THall wrote: Speaking of brakes...I hear you were the recipient of the last brake drum spring in Colin's stash.

Guess what, when we pulled my right rear drum half of a broken spring fell to the ground...d'oh. So, I need to source some springs. And, I hear that you're a natural at getting those baby's installed if you'd care to enlighten me at some point :salute:
Sure, no problem. If you can assist in my engine drop it would be the least I could do. :thumbright: I think we reused all of my original springs. I was installing the new shoes while Colin cross-hatched one of my drums, so I got to figure out how they went back together on my own. The biggest surprise was that the notch in the spacer bar by the top spring fit over the parking brake lever instead of into the notch in the shoe like it did in the front. The inboard side of the spacer bar fit into the rear shoe notch next to the brake lever, but it wasn't notch into notch like the front shoe. The springs had to be inserted into the shoes a certain way which required twisting the shoes as you put them in but not too tricky. I feel a lot better going down steep hills now than I did before!
79 CA FI Westy
Mexico Beige
"Sandy"

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Happyfolk
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Happyfolk » Sun Jun 26, 2016 3:10 pm

Happyfolk wrote:Parts ordered last night per Colin's suggestions after inspecting my bus:

Drag Link (211415701G)- to get rid of the loosey goosey steering
Fuel Pump (043906091)- mine isn't stock and has an annoying whine; maybe about to go? I'll keep the old one as backup.
Front Shift Rod Bushing (211711182) - mentioned above in visit story
Sliding Door catch spring (211843381A) - so my sliding door will stay open until I turn the latch

I also need to get the thermostat and flaps installed which I already have the parts for. I'll probably drop the engine to do this since I also need to notch the head by the #3 spark plug for the CHT sender installation so it will seal properly.

I got the front shift rod bushing installed yesterday and the drag link installed this morning. The shift rod bushing makes the shifter feel more precise than before. Less slop. The drag link was really easy to replace. I used this tool from Harbor Freight: http://www.harborfreight.com/3-4-quarte ... 99849.html
The front connection to the drop arm made a loud bang like a firecracker when it let loose. The rear connection to the relay lever came loose easier. The ball joint separator tool wasn't strained at all and made the job easy. I greased the screw on the tool per recommendation of a review I'd read.
Image
Before installing the new Febi drag link I adjusted the ball joints at each end to match the angles on the one I'd removed and made sure the center to center length from stud to stud at each end was the same as the one I'd taken off. Each end slipped right into place and I tightened both nuts to 22 ft. lbs. per Bentley. Much easier job than I though it would be. About a 1/2 hour job. The steering isn't overly tight but now has very little play in it compared to before, making driving in the wind much easier! :cheers:
79 CA FI Westy
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"Sandy"

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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by asiab3 » Sun Jun 26, 2016 11:12 pm

Congrats on getting it done! A lot of people over-think the drag link situation. Yes it's an extremely critical part of our steering systems, but anyone with a 19mm wrench and a puller can do the job properly anywhere on the planet! :)

Lubricating the puller threads is a huge part of using a puller that some people don't know. If you don't, your instinct is to stop tightening the puller since it feels SO tight already, but all you're feeling is thread friction. With lube on the threads, you'll actually feel the assembly compressing instead, which gives you great tactile feedback.

As an added bonus, I like to paint the silver ends of the drag link with a black spray paint; it doesn't affect function at all, but the silver/metal surfaces will rust in a few months and look like heck. A quick dab of spray paint on a cleaned ball end will make it look great practically forever.

Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Jun 27, 2016 6:45 am

Happyfolk wrote:front shift rod bushing installed
drag link easier job than I thought
driving in wind easier! :cheers:
Excellent. Man, you plan, order, execute, pretty efficiently.

No issues with steering wheel spoke position?

Shifter does a quick 3rd to 2nd with no accidental reverse or refusal?

Let me know if you see a difference in fuel economy.
ColinInBrooklyn . . . . . Minnesota
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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Happyfolk
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Happyfolk » Mon Jun 27, 2016 11:31 am

Amskeptic wrote:
Happyfolk wrote:front shift rod bushing installed
drag link easier job than I thought
driving in wind easier! :cheers:
Excellent. Man, you plan, order, execute, pretty efficiently.

No issues with steering wheel spoke position?

Shifter does a quick 3rd to 2nd with no accidental reverse or refusal?

Let me know if you see a difference in fuel economy.
ColinInBrooklyn . . . . . Minnesota
Colin,

My steering wheel is now about 10° counterclockwise from 0 when I'm driving straight, sometimes perfectly aligned when I have a stiff wind from the right. I'm planning to tweak it.

Yep, the shifter is working well. 3rd to 2nd no issues. I need to tweak the stop plate position a little. You had it perfect when you adjusted it but I had to pull the shift lever out to install the bushing.

The engine is running better than ever but it still gets an occasional slight hesitation, usually just after upshifting into 3rd up a hill. I'm going to replace the fuel filter and see if that helps.

Mike
79 CA FI Westy
Mexico Beige
"Sandy"

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Happyfolk
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Happyfolk » Tue Jul 05, 2016 7:15 pm

OK, after replacing my rear brake shoes during Colin's vist my brakes were vastly improved. BUT when I tried to adjust the ebrakes/parking brakes I couldn't get the right/passenger side to grab no matter how much I tightened the cable. At first I thought the cable must be bad after reading through the Bentley. So I ordered a new cable and replaced it, which made it no better.
So I took both rear wheels and drums off to compare.
The passenger side connecting link between the shoes at the top was obviously not right and was at an angle instead going of straight between the shoes. The thinner side of the link needs to be outside/outboard of the ebrake lever on the shoe and mine had the thicker side of the link outside of the lever. After inspection the connecting links are handed and had been swapped during a brake job by a previous owner. The driver's side connecting link was on upside down, which made the ebrake work on that side, but the clip connecting it to the spring wasn't on right. When we did the brakes the day Colin was here he let me figure out how to reassemble the brakes myself while he cross-hatch sanded one of my drums, so this wasn't on him at all. I made sure to keep the passenger's side parts on the passenger's side and the driver's side parts on the driver's side, and didn't know enough to question how everything went together.
Now that the correct connecting links are on the correct side the ebrakes on both sides are working properly and I didn't need the new cable at all.
So in the span of two weeks I've gone from a clueless dumbass doing his first brake job to an enlightened dumbass educated by his own dumbass mistakes, which now makes me an expert! :rabbit:
THALL, I now know how to make sure your brakes are right when you new springs arrive.
79 CA FI Westy
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"Sandy"

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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Jul 05, 2016 9:11 pm

Happyfolk wrote:OK,
So in the span of two weeks I've gone from a clueless dumbass doing his first brake job to an enlightened dumbass educated by his own dumbass mistakes, which now makes me an expert! :rabbit:
THALL, I now know how to make sure your brakes are right when you new springs arrive.
Excellent. It is true that dumbass mistakes are the very best teacher.
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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THall
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Re: Making Verona, WI Nervous With Gatherings of Buses

Post by THall » Wed Jul 06, 2016 5:55 am

Happyfolk wrote: THALL, I now know how to make sure your brakes are right when you new springs arrive.
Yeah, this German Supply order has not arrived as speedy as the last. I'll be in touch when the parts come in....so you can enlighten me on how to not be a dumbass :drunken:
'78 Westy 2.0 FI

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