Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

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Amskeptic
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Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

Post by Amskeptic » Sun Sep 25, 2016 7:25 am

Man, give me a couple of days and there is no telling where I will end up. Seems so long ago, but it was the day before yesterday that I was in Texas.

The drive from Los Alamos to Austin included enjoying a starry Texas Big Sky Star Show and waking up in a ranch driveway:

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This is US 190 on the way to Austin. It was already in the 80*s and humid, but it was beautiful, too:

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A quintessential Texas silhouette:

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A pool of fog enveloped this valley coming up, but it merely looks like a lake in the early light:

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Pulled off the road and scampered under the bridge to find shade and replace the luggage rack seal. Whittled two branches to serve as spacers to lift the rack up high enough to draw out the old seal without having to loosen the four 10mm nuts that hold the back of the rack onto the roof. That would have been hideously itchy and I did not want to pull down the ceiling:

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Painted the top with some black to tidy up the seal gaps:

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Then I carefully pried open the ends of the jalousie window upper drip moulding grooves and very carefully removed the old thin crumbling seals. Didn't want to break off a section and have it stuck in there:

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Plenty of Goop hand cleaner later, I had the new seals in place with a little Permatex ultra-black serving as both caulk and as seal retainers. I will paint the ultra-black with some silver exhaust paint to match the original caulk after another couple days drying time:

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After that lovely rural Texas hill country, pow! Austin scrum, fast, slightly out-of-control traffic, like Dallas on a Friday night:

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Elsewhere noted (Texas Y'All post), I visited phoenix64bug, Progressive Insurance, and Austin Vee Dub, then rocketed out of town back into the countryside. Off of Texas 71, I found a charming county road that led to a closed gate. After a 6 point turn, I was facing back up from whence I came. Dayam it was hot and humid, too. Succumbed to Best Mechanic Air-Cooling Practices and set to work jacking up the car for a brake adjustment to the consternation and perhaps disapprobation of the local citizenry:

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Heard a BIG diesel engine approach under the hood of a BIG Ford 350 dually pick-up and quickly re-attired "thanks a lot, cows, which one of you called it in?"
"Whatch'all doin down heah?"
"Adjusting my brakes."
"Dayam hot, ain't it?"
"Yes it is."
"Say, we have a camera down heah keepin an eye onner neighbor's gate, thoughtyoughtta know."

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"Might be too late, but thanks."
"Aw that's OK, we'll edit out anythin like taking a leak HAWHAWHAWHAWcoughcoughcough. YEAH take yer time, do whatever, y'all need hayelp?"
"Naw thanks."
"That is a mighty FINE little rig you got thar, zit got air-conditionin'?"
"No, that would leave me with less than ten horsepower to move down the road."
"Whelp, y'all take care now," and Mr Big Texan backed up his Ford 350 dually pick-up back up the road a good 1/4 mile in a dead straight line. I got back to adjusting the brakes in the infernal heat. I think he'll have some editing to do, hawhawhaw.

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Back in the cooling breeze of traveling TX 71, the rains found me:

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I think it was around . . . hold on a sec . . . around 7:12:51 or so when I hit US 287 southbound to Houston:

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This road has a 75 mph speed limit with lazy intersections, poor drainage, and an undulating surface that would call for a 55 mph speed limit anywhere else in the country:

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I could see a number of accident scars along the road that showed the effects of momentum. Rather than a little skid mark sliding into a ditch, you'd see a long arc of rubber off the shoulder, ploughed grass, a smashed in fence, bashed bark off of several trees, and pieces of plastic and light lenses and fender liners and even an entire hood with the plastic ripped off of it (from a Saturn?).

Rained like hail a few times, but the Maxxis tires drain roadway water pretty well. I camped in a buggy hell at the border of Louisina around midnight. Actually installed the window screens and enjoyed the luxury of ventilation and no mosquitoes harassing me . . . until the 3:00AM call of nature. The mosquitoes had ample time to arrange a flash mob and they attacked with gusto within seconds of my staggering out the sliding door.
"Bladder, can you hurry it up? I'm getting eaten!"
"No."

Yesterday morning was the valve adjustment check (as promised on September 1st outside of Barstow when the Dakota Digital CHT gauge threw out a 444* "I shall check the valves by and by" ). All valves were FINE.
The last time I was here along Henderson Swamp under I-10 was six weeks after Hurricane Katrina:

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Interstate 10 rides above the bayou for a couple of looooooong stretches:

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I don't know that I would like to be a highway worker in Louisiana.
"Hey Jimmy, I need you to check the deck joint bolts along this stretch . . . well, use a row boat then . . . aw come on, Jimmy, it's barely ten thousand bolts, I could have done it already standing here listening to you . . . "

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Stopped here to clean and check the fuel filter. 98% humidity 98* and you look for shade where you can find it. Checked the dwell too. 44* after some 20,000 miles. Timing was spot on at 26* BTDC @ 3,400 rpm. Advance timing was 40*. Everything was fine . . . except that the car was bucking intermittently. Finally decided to "stomp on it" and cruise at a dizzying 70 mph right through downtown Baton Rouge. That seemed to cure it.
Go LSU . . . I am off to Pensacola.

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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

luftvagon
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

Post by luftvagon » Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:33 am

You are all over the place!
1981 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia - air-cooled Type4 1970cc CV (hydraulic lifters, 42x36 valves, stock cam, microSquirt FI with wasted spark ignition)
1993 Ford F-250 XL LWB Extended Cab 7.3L IDI

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dingo
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

Post by dingo » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:47 pm

hahhaha...thats some funny shit !

i used to enjoy the lazy charm of east-Texas backroads.....but the last recent trip, it seemed to be all steroidal with diesel pickups, windows up, air-conditing...blah
'71 Kombi, 1600 dp

';78 Tranzporter 2L

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

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

Post by VW Treasure » Mon Sep 26, 2016 4:10 pm

Whaaaat?!!!!! :silent:
You're back in Florida Mr. Colin? So soon??? Last time I read the itinerant, you were in California. Man oh man...That Naranja sure is nimble! Anyways, I better start getting my list ready real fast for when you once again pass by our neck of the woods. Let's see...I need some electrical for the rear side lights, and help installing a new front sway bar, and all things new on both front windows, and...it will be a pleasure to have you around South Florida once again my good friend! I even have a beehive established at home waiting for you...as well your favorite (Mercy) hospital within a five minute drive should you care to once again swallow one of the little ladies :drunken:

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

Post by cegammel » Mon Sep 26, 2016 5:24 pm

A coworker says that she saw a yellow- orange bus "just like yours" on I-10 yesterday or today in Tallahassee...no matter that I drive a Vanagon. A blue Vanagon. VWs are all the same, after all...

Must have been you!

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

Post by Jivermo » Mon Sep 26, 2016 5:26 pm

Hah! That Ray is a card, right? Sophie can probably put that sway bar in by herself, the way she catches on.

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Sep 27, 2016 8:30 am

cegammel wrote:A coworker says that she saw a yellow- orange bus "just like yours" on I-10 yesterday or today in Tallahassee...no matter that I drive a Vanagon. A blue Vanagon. VWs are all the same, after all...

Must have been you!
. . . except that I was already peeled off I-10 and in the northern reaches of Florida's panhandle sampling the preserves once more. Re-torqued the exhaust studs right in the middle of the road, right in the middle of the road. Then I rotated my tires front-to-back, and drove for several miles with the rears at 38 psi and the fronts at 48 psi. Squirrelly.

VW Treasure? I sorely hope that it is not some aftermarket "heavy-duty" stabilizer car with garish red urethane bushings . . . I will draw a picture for Sophie showing her the exact physics of why we do not want that and she can heckle you pointedly, frequently, and mercilessly. It'll be a good picture. THEN I will go show mercy on Mercy and drop off my new installment payment in person.
"What is this? A coin?"
"That is my quarterly payment."
"Quarterly payment?"
"Yes. I pay you a quarter per quarter."
"A quarter per quarter?"
"Hell yeah, you saved my life, coughcough."
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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sgkent
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

Post by sgkent » Tue Sep 27, 2016 9:42 am

So - you are back in the land of flying palmetto bugs, palmettos, oaks covered with moss filled with red bugs waiting for a human to come nearby and pygmy rattlers. Ah yes - land of red touch yellow kill a fellow. Northern FL where golf is a pastime because the palmetto bugs make for good practice swings, and carrying a golf club kills the snakes with one whack on the head. Only place worse is the hills and quarries of Kentucky. My family has the fortune of having chosen both places to live. But I think the skies around the panhandle are the bluest in the nation and there is nothing like the Emerald Coast.

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TBone208 wrote: "You ppl are such windbags. Go use your crystal ball to get rich & predict something meaningful. Nobody knows what's going to happen. How are we supposed to take ppl who don't know the definition of a recession & "woman" seriously?"

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Is Back In Florida

Post by VW Treasure » Tue Sep 27, 2016 6:29 pm

Gotta tell you Ian...you brought a smile to my face with your comment about my precious Sofie's ability to catch on so smartly and quickly to manual projects around the bus and what-not! No doubt she'll have her nose in the game on the day Colin shows up to continue making improvements to "Dory". Looking forward to seeing / getting together with both of you...my great friends!

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