Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings SE 2

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Amskeptic
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Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings SE 2

Post by Amskeptic » Wed Oct 04, 2017 7:06 pm

A) No pictures from the markannenorton call in Snow Camp NC.

B) No pictures from the JP6210 call in Beaufort NC.

C) No pictures at the bclark357 call in Savannah GA, but a couple on the way in.

D) No pictures when the enraged Georgia cotton farmer took offense at my weak little joke.


a) The markannenorton call was a mostly all-day effort to find out why it could not wrest itself awake at higher rpms. The vacuum gauge would sink to "0". The exhaust was certified to be "not blocked". The compression and leakdown tests were judged "acceptable". The wiper tomfoolery was powerless to increase the vacuum either rich or lean. We removed the intake runners and LOOKED at the intake valves, only #1 was weird with a lot of black soot on the back of the valve. We did the best we could with filling the intake ports with gasoline to see if an obvious leak was evident, but none was. I weakly declared that I was sort of mostly sure that the intakes valves were "not behaving". I await an update with great anticipation.

b) Beautiful area, the Almost Outer Banks of North Carolina, and a beautiful dirt road to jp6210's work space, an old barn within which was a '76 Westy with some real southern patina. We performed a pretty serious leaning operation on the AFM and found that the engine was a bit lacking in power. JP6210 has a journey ahead of him to stop the rust and get the car ready for the road. His kids have memories to be made in this thing. We had a made-for-reality TV moment with re-positioning the distributor drive gear, hair-raising.

c) by now, I am getting woozy from lack of sleep. Drove to Savannah and found a "perfect" dirt road under lovely southern foliage under the moon with a humid ocean breeze in view of the lovely suspension bridge that leads to downtown Savannah.

the next morning shot:

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The mosquitoes found me, so I slathered on that greasy repellent (Deet?) and dozed off only a while before the repellent attracted to my comforter and the mosquitoes revisited my nose and ears and ankles. Re-applied the greasy gross repellent some time around 2AM and had a brief three hour nap until I discovered that the "perfect" little hideaway dirt road was actually the main access for a big refinery. A parade of pick-ups came bashing down the dirt road starting at about 5:00AM. The last truck came by at about 7:00, clearly late, because he was going damn close to 60 when he cracked my windshield. Yeah, so here's the bridge on my way to bclark357's house:

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That is the morning sun over Savannah as I went over the bridge:

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The view from the center of the bridge:

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Lost my keys in Savannah. Had gone in to stock up on water and Diet Coke. Looked in the car. Finally retraced my steps and decided that the most likely place for the keys was in a plastic bag stuffed in the old mashed-flat Diet Coke container crammed in the trash can just outside the door of the Publix supermarket. Yeah folks, I am a trash can picking New Yorker in hideous cut-offs at 8:00AM in Savannah GA just trying to pick up a few quarters from aluminum can recycling, but I DID find my keys in the bottom of the plastic bag stuffed in the mashed-flat Diet Coke container stuffed in the trash can just outside the door of the Publix supermarket, so there. Savannah has a decidedly old downtown:

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Enjoyed meeting bclark357, his wife, and his spirited brood of kids. We quickly ran into issues. Lash caps falling off of two valves, what is up with lash caps on an engine with less than 200 miles? How about that tall battery with the positive terminal just an inch from shorting out against the ECU and no hold down because the new battery tray has nothing to hold a battery down with?? And I opened Pandora's Box when I demanded that the timing be set to a factory 28* BTDC @ 3,400 rpm (I was promised that the camshaft was "stock"), rather than oh about 40-45*. The engine spit and coughed and bucked and acted like it was running out of gas, and I was dialing the mixture screws all over the place and making things worse by the second. Finally, we reverted the timing to the horrible over-advance to see if it would hide the symptoms I had unleashed. Why, no. Reset the timing to 28* and I suggested that bclark357 have a chat with his engine guy who I think left the timing way advanced so he could "sign off" on his incomplete work. Another customer whose report I anxiously await.

d) Then I drove to a field in Georgia, somewhere near Dublin. Woke up to a tickle in my eyelash. An ant. An ant and a billion or so of his little friends. The entire interior was overrun by ant trails. All night, they had been coming in through the drain hole I have near the center aisle heater outlet. They were everywhere. I have never seen such a thing. Swept and Chlorox-wiped the interior down, especially under the floor mats. Just a little irritated. Was shaving and washing off the damn mosquito repellent when Mr. White Pick Up came in the overgrown driveway.
"Get the hell out of here, this is MY land, who said you could park here?"
"Sorry, I did not see any 'no trespassing' sign, I'll be on my way in a few minutes."
"Well just what the hell makes you think I have to have 'no trespassing' signs, this is my land and I told you to get the hell out of here."
"Did you wake up angry?"
"Oh, you're from New York? You're from New York. New York . . ."
"Yes, I am from New York, I am here to apologize for being from New York just like I apologize for New York unleashing Donald Trump on all of us."
"What the hell did you just say you son of a bitch? You are going nowhere now, you don't move you son of a bitch."
He backed his truck up to block the overgrown driveway, I could not see any other egress.
"You need to get it straight. You told me to get the hell out of here, now you are telling me not to move. Well, I am planning on getting the hell out of here, and this is America, and I apologized to you for a couple of things. Number one, I apologized for trespassing. Number two, I apologized for New York unleashing Donald Trump upon this great Nation. This is America, I have my opinions, you have yours. You decided to take my lame little joke personally. It was not personal."
He sat in his truck and leveled a stare on me. I was sort of fascinated to be in this predicament. He was not an unattractive angry hardly-old white man, but he was angry . . . but I was having no part of it.
"I come from six generations of Buck Corbin, this is Buck Corbin Road, I own this road, I own this land."
"Six generations. So your daddy gave you a leg up and a career, and his daddy gave him a leg up and a career, and here you are in God's great country, and you're angry as hell why again?"
"Aw, get out of here."

Oh, I did too, me and six million ants.
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 Greetings SE 2

Post by Jivermo » Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:58 am

That Buck Corbin tale brought to mind the ending of the great fiim, “Easy Rider”. Glad you got the hell out...a Georgia farmer with a right leaning cob up his ass is a distressing start to a day.

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings SE 2

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Oct 06, 2017 8:28 am

Jivermo wrote:
Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:58 am
That Buck Corbin tale brought to mind the ending of the great fiim, “Easy Rider”. Glad you got the hell out...a Georgia farmer with a right leaning cob up his ass is a distressing start to a day.
I never saw that. Should I see that? Would I learn anything?

Had another Georgia boy light into me because he made an error in his lane choice.
"You f***ing idiot!, You're a f***ing idiot!" he screamed at me as he discovered that he was actually in the side road turn lane and not the interstate turn lane.

Now it turns out that I might be a f***ing idiot, but not for the reasons the above gentlemen may suppose. I am battling poorly running VW engines and I am offering generous credits against the balance owed because the day ends with hardly any-to-no improvements. But I don't know yet what the true causes are, so I cannot yet say if I am correct or not-correct.

Yesterday's visit was an all-day battle to make a fresh and lovely L-Jet installation hold an idle. I specified with great vehemence and clarity that a stock cam is what works best. I battle in a world that says blithely but with certitude, "our Brand X cam works well with L-Jet." But this engine has a perky little cam and we have no vacuum. And I have doubts about the engine not because I worked on it, but because I did not work on it. These variables can waste my day. And the growing insecurity (see: f***ing idiot) is making me second-guess and that leaves my customers in a sea of confusion. So, I need to get back to kleinevw's VW, and I need to seriously embark upon a deep search for this horrendous loss of vacuum at low rpms. I can RUN the engine with the brake booster line yanked off by compensating at the wiper. This is as it should be. I have that great of a mastery over the engine, the mixture, and even the timing. Yet, at slow rpm, the engine does not respond to the wiper and the vacuum drops to zilch, and the only way we could get it to run was to jack the timing to 12*+ at idle and we'd watch the advance take off right off the scale at high rpm. This will not do. I think we have, as my customer nicely put it, "stagnant air" at low speed, an aggressive camshaft that is allowing exhaust in low speed due to too much overlap, and no mixture can save that.

But, I shall invest a day on research, make sure we don't have a weird vacuum leak like along the intake plenum seam (see: djmiller; Mankato MN), and then and only then do I blame the camshaft that I did not specify, then defer to Jake Raby's recommendation that this camshaft works "fine" with L-Jet, then retire.
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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airkooledchris
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings SE 2

Post by airkooledchris » Fri Oct 06, 2017 9:32 am

intersectingroads.png
at the corner of Buck and Mullet?

your first red flag that this might be a bad area to pull off and camp. :geek:
1979 California Transporter

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings SE 2

Post by Hobug » Fri Oct 06, 2017 10:52 am

Jivermo wrote:
Fri Oct 06, 2017 7:58 am
a Georgia farmer with a right leaning cob up his ass is a distressing start to a day.
That's how his tomorrow is going to start! See you in the morning Colin. :thumbleft:
76 Westy
69 Squareback (auto)
63 Bug
73 Thing (Type 4 powered)

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings SE 2

Post by BusBassist » Fri Oct 06, 2017 3:05 pm

Please don't retire Colin - we need you and I'm still hoping to get on your schedule in 2018 and beyond.

Jeff
Late 73 Bay w/a transplanted 914 Engine.

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings SE 2

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Oct 06, 2017 8:01 pm

airkooledchris wrote:
Fri Oct 06, 2017 9:32 am

at the corner of Buck and Mullet?

your first red flag that this might be a bad area to pull off and camp. :geek:

That's near Phillips Cemetery, where he buries all the trespassing punks. I was up near, I think, GA 297.
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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tommu
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings SE 2

Post by tommu » Fri Oct 06, 2017 11:08 pm

Amskeptic wrote:
Fri Oct 06, 2017 8:28 am

I never saw that. Should I see that? Would I learn anything?
Yes. And of course you would. Whether you wanted that learning would be a different question.

:scratch:

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zabo
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From SE

Post by zabo » Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:44 am

Just wanted to thank colin for the visit yesterday-
We had a full day installing a new clutch and pressure plate. No more chatter!!

only one pic :blackeye:
colin.jpg
this is me on the phone trying to locate a pressure plate while colin looks disdainfully at my blower hoses.
60 beetle
78 bus

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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings SE 2

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:33 am

Drove into Hobug's driveway fully expecting to see a Georgia farmer with a cob up his nethers (it was promised), but instead I drove into a cup of coffee, a football game on the garage telly, and a bus that needed a little tender ministration.

After the confusions and obstacles of the markannenorton and kleinevw calls, I was feeling no small trepidation that some new mystery was to confound me, but thankfully, greg in ga's engine with the "slightly massaged" cam profile behaved as expected. Kleinevw was there, and he got to watch an engine respond to simple adjustments correctly. Our test drive proved it with smooth acceleration and good power. Then I attacked the paint:

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Many chalky VWs have had their paint sprayed over by new lousy quality paint when all that was needed was a good rub out and wax. Greg in ga's bus actually does need a respray after some bodywork, so why not a few polka dots in the meantime?

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Enjoyed our day with good company (Kleinevw not present for this portrait) and no small relief that it is was mostly "successful" in outcome:

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Next call up was Sally the Bus in beautiful Loganville. Sally the Bus needs to make memories for a young family, and I believe she will be able. There is, however, some work to do. On the list was to replace the Weber carb with the factory dual carbs, but we instead decided to make a comprehensive list of all the parts necessary to make it a full installation. Most of the morning was devoted to generating a pencil-illustrated list. We dove into the rear brakes a bit to discover that the drums were sticking on the hubs, ebrake cables were sticking, the star adjusters were sticking, so we did a sample disassembly just to show the way for when new parts arrive. Car drove nicely. We did a few recommendations on timing the shift into 1st from a dead stop, and the double-clutch lesson went quite well. I shuudawuddatook pics.

Last call of the season went to Zabo, the forum's page layout guru and technical advisor. After discussing the future of this site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . we took out his engine and replaced the chattery clutch. Halfway into the surgery, I see that his pressure plate and clutch disk actually look pretty good, they did not look like they could be responsible for such chatter. The engine had acceptable end play, no real oil leak evidence. As insurance, we uber-sanded the flywheel and installed a new pressure plate and clutch disk, Sachs brand, Sachs of Mexico Not Brazil No Way. The test drive was a glorious relief of smooth clutch action. I needed that. Yes, I was most disheartened to lay eyes on the heater hoses (on the list: lack of heat) but it was much more a sympathetic horror than disdain, the right hose had been tortured most cruelly into grotesque shapes suggesting horrific violence in the "positioning" of said hose past the air filter. You know, since the first day I met this bus, it has developed a presence, and the interior is really coming into its own, a nice assortment of warm wood browns and white headliner and curtains and it is a very nice car.
After advising his youngest offspring to keep an eye on dad's nervous tic with the gearshift when he shifts into first gear ("come up with a warning word", "Oh, I got it,"), I sallied forth into Atlanta Commuter Traffic Hell for the next hour and forty minutes (23 miles!) to put my loyal little cow in the barn.
Colin

Image
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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