Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled In NY

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Amskeptic
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled In NY

Post by Amskeptic » Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:45 am

I am just four miles from what used to be my home base for thirteen years or so outside of Rochester NY. What appalls me, is that I have been out of that life for seventeen years. And, thirty years prior to that, I was finishing up eleven years in Los Angeles ... life, it racks up big numbers when you are not paying attention. For example, NaranjaWesty now has as many miles (111,075) as the BobD, and by the end of the day, it will have more.

Left Columbus OH and headed northeast, sad for the loss of the open road summer. You know it is over when there are no more open vistas to be had, no more casual pull-offs to glory in the timeless landscape, no more austere views and no more dome of firmament at night. So, I pulled off a truck stop parking lot outside of Medina? OH and ducked around the corner of bushes and weeds and at least I had this little place to ... remove the sliding door hinge. See the two boxes of cylinder heads and one oil filter holding up the back of the door? :

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Here are the guts. I just wanted to re-paint the hinge and use primer this time, because, apparently, VHT engine enamel allows moisture to permeate it and rust the underlying metal ... :

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Hinge all taped up and hanging at the edge of my usual drying rack. Two coats primer, three coats Duplicolor Aluminum, three coats clearcoat engine enamel. Better not rust again, either:

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This was a delicate delicate operation. Remove the tape from one side, lubricate, and insert into the door anchor, install circlip, all while not touching the still tacky paint. Then, handle the door anchor piece, while installing the roller assembly with the indexed cam stuck in place at mid-insertion, DON'T TOUCH THE PAINT, and what a twiddle-twaddle:

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Hey, but look. We did it, mild adjustment on the rear ride height, everything normal:

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After the side cover is back on:

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Camped in a equipment yard with huge piles of gravel in the night under the late moon, popped that poptop, and listened to truck traffic on I-271 and yakked on the phone until sheesh 1:00AM. The next camp spot was in New York outside of Jamestown off I-86. It was freezing! 48* WTH? Yakked on the phone until 3:00AM, freezing. My last words were, "I better sign off, I am in a parking lot of the highway department that will be here bright and early."

Woke up at 8:30AM. Yep. I was boxed in solidly by a Ford F-250 to my left, a Chevy Silverado, and another high-lift Chevy pick-up just inches from my front bumper. To my rear were eight plow blades with attachment brackets about two feet from my rear bumper. To my right was a row of trees and an embankment down to a brook. Yeah, nobody was in the building. They had highway trucked off to their highway maintenance day. Fine, we can do this, NaranjaWesty, we can do this:
a) back into the plow bracket (light tap)
b) hard right into the bushes right where the right front tire began to go down the embankment
c) hard left until my mirror was an inch from the (metallic blue) left fender of the Chevy
d) diagonal back until my front bumper cleared the edge of the Chevy, hard right back into the plow bracket
e) b, c, d,
f) fold mirror on the Chevy and the VW, and just squeeze past Chevy with right wheel crabbing on the embankment, then rolling up the tree trunk root bump, some bush whacks, and we're free.
g) restore all mirrors and brush the brush to look all natural-like.
Those guys must still be wondering how the hell I got out.
HA) don't screw around with a tidy little VW camper that has serious suspension ... :cyclopsani:
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

Abscate
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Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled In NY

Post by Abscate » Sat Sep 21, 2019 11:00 am

You are back in upstate NY at the best time of year. Love September for so many reasons

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