03 The Great 2020 Miami Caper

Moderators: Sluggo, Amskeptic, Jivermo

Locked
User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

03 The Great 2020 Miami Caper

Post by Amskeptic » Fri May 01, 2020 4:26 pm

( prior installment 02: viewtopic.php?f=79&t=14003&p=234780#p234780 )
Oh things got interestinger all right. But first, I had to go camp at my favorite Palm Tree Nursery, the Manny's Palm Tree Nursery south of the population center of Miami. Only 120 blocks south of the McIntyre Home For Wayward Volkswagens, there are no electric lights, no streets, no houses, just trees and rows of irrigation ditches. As an added bonus, if you arrive before 10:00pm, you get a wan single bugle playing Taps for the local military air base, and it'll play Reveille at 7:00am, too!

Image


You see, I needed to get away from the mechanical mayhem to defrag my brain, condense memory notes, and jot down a pile more notes to float in my mental desktop. Were all necessary bearings and incidentals ordered? Will the pistons and cylinders arrive? Is the GumOut supply holding up? Is that Reveille blowing already?

Image


Drove back into civilization and bought a cup of coffee ready to make another day of engine rebuilding. Do I have razor blades, Permatex sealant? Where does Ian live again?

Image


There was a flurry of activity when I showed up at the worksite. Ian, Marc, and Eliana were all engaged in a parallel operation of great effort, to make all of the ancilliary and external parts look new again. Sometimes, grinding was called-for. Sometimes sanding was called-for. Sometimes, the air compressor was needed. Most times, I was a needling wheedling scold, an outraged mother hen, "don't get the work area contaminated, don't sand there, don't blow anything over here, what? what do you need? What? Oh, 12mm is better, but 13 will do ...." Over a few days, Eliana pretty much washed and wiped down every part ever. Ian straightened tins, repaired tins, sanded tins, painted tins, and a whole exhaust system, too.

I got to work on those heroic connecting rods which spend their lives yanking up and down and round and round. Had to weigh them. Heavy ones got ground down, all got lubrication grooves filed into the crank cheeks, pointing straight up at the undersides of the pistons for Porsche-like oil-cooling:

Image


Image


Image


Image


You will note in the photograph directly above, that there is a piston that say's "yes". That is because the set of pistons and cylinders that Marc had ordered from Bus Depot arrived with two broken cylinder fins. I had gotten on the phone with Debbie at Bus Depot the day before. She was very responsive to our predicament and overnighted (!) a new set. Of course, the new set arrived with a couple of broken cylinder fins as well. That is what happens when you drop-ship. The shippers do not feel the regard for the items being shipped half so much as they feel the work load. After a chat with Debbie.. .. ..

["what do we do? What do we do? How do we impress upon our shippers that this damages everybody's reputation and torpedoes good will?" We agreed that the supply chain is too compartmentalized for anyone to feel much regard these days. So, double-box, folks, your precious items are in for a rough ride in today's world]

.. .. .. we decided to mix-n-match good cylinders to make an intact set, but I had to re-weigh all pistons to match the lightest good one amongst the two sets. Hey SPOILER ALERT: it did come to pass that this damaged shipment of pistons served us in a sorely needed future moment ....

Here we have a camshaft with good end play courtesy of the new camshaft bearings, correctly inserted in the case, just for a test fit here.

Image


With all of my bitching about distraction and cell phone cameras and filth and questions, it is a wonder that I have any friends. See those yellow boxes in the background? Those were the new bearings that we ordered based on our unsteady micrometer guesses. They fit the case nicely, thank-you:

Image


Yes, now the day gets complex. A phone call in the late afternoon from Kit Whistler whose engine we had worked on last February 14th here at the McIntyre Home For Wayward Volkswagens, "Colin, it is leaking oil all over, and it doesn't feel as peppy as I am used to ..." We attempted to assess the rate of leaking, we attempted to assess this loss of power, we did a cylinder rpm-drop test, and all cylinders dropped mostly the same amount, which at least meant we did not have a dead cylinder, right?
"Do you want me to adjust the valves again? They were closed up just last week ... I haven't gone that many miles, but there was a headwind today."
"I should probably go look at it with you."
"No, you don't need to come all the way out here. I think I can make it, I am outside of Naples, it is 130 miles, I can make it."
"Darkness is falling, check your oil, check the engine for heat, I can come out and caravan with you ..... ?"
"No, I know Sunshine, we can do it."
... and some four hours later, Kit and Sunshine pull into the McIntyre Home For Wayward Volkswagens, running seemingly well enough, coated in oil, but you know old Volkswagens who love their owners ....

Image

( next installment 04 : viewtopic.php?f=79&t=14008 )
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

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: 03 The Great 2020 Miami Caper

Post by Amskeptic » Tue May 26, 2020 1:37 pm

place holder
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

Locked