Itinerant Air-Cooled

The three legged dog that sat in it's auto cocoon for the last 2 years (down to the weekend!) burst forth to life in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday. This was a culmination of two visits; one from last year, and this year's visit on Friday. I calculated that between the two visits it took Colin and I 56 man hours to do the engine swap.

The two stubborn exhaust studs I had worked on diligently for two days wouldn't give up their hold even for Colin's finesse. However, Colin slayed them by cutting them off and retapping the two holes. That whole process took nearly half of the regularly scheduled day (we went over by a quite a bit..... didn't get to bed until 3:30am. Could have knocked off a little earlier if we hadn't started at 9am Mountain time in the Eastern time zone eh Colin? :) )

Seemed I got fairly lucky with my 'pound puppy' engine .... runs pretty darn good .... and I stilll can't believe she doesn't leak! By the amount of saw dust we found last year under the valve cover we figure this was sitting in some carpenter's work shop for some length of time.

My self proclaimed hippie girl friend loves it, already making plans to add her own personal touch (okay, stock Nazi's and Colin please look away) she want's to paint the hub caps vibrant colors with alternating smiley faces and peace signs... .. as soon as her OCD self gives the interior a good scrubbing!

I'd like to know Colin's secret for working completely effortlessly without stopping for so much as a munchy break for 14 hours... just an occasional cigarette and a sip of cold black coffee.

I was going to spend quality time bonding with the bus Saturday, however, a leaking hot water tank thought otherwise (darn thing was only 2 years old!).

Colin - Thanks for the gift of your time Sat morning to repeat your EFI tutorial....much appreciated!. You were correct, there was a loose wire going to the starter (assuming it was for the cold start injector based on the cold start issues we experienced). I reconnected it several times and wiggled the connection around to ensure a good connection, but she stilll takes a fair amount of cranking when cold... will investigate further; don't want to ruin that brand new battery from Auto Zone.

Drove her around a bit yesterday, so headed out to readjust the valves and exhaust manifold nuts.

Once again, Thanks Colin! Felt good to get behind the wheel again.

awesome stuff and great write.

personally, I like the touch of "this-is-my-bus", let the GF run with it. :)

I don't think Colin much minds the personal touches, as long as one's personal touches don't include 009s or Weber Progressives.
Or barefoot gas pedals.

Success!

Post a photo of your ride, brother. With you and your gf smiling next to him/her...er, what's your bus' name?

That was one of my tougher days, lemmeetellya.

Those exhaust studs had to come out and would not budge. Tight access up there prevented a good proper drilling straight through the stud, with the later heat exchangers having much less exhaust pipe offset than the '72-'74 exchangers. What looked decent at 5/64s turned into unfortunate off-center at 1/4. Then, the drill bit started walking off-center and preferring the soft aluminum of the boss when the outside edge of the stud was finally gone. I am HISSING TO MYSELF under that engine with shards of aluminum and spirallettes of steel stabbing me in the back, "damn it, Colin, you better drill this straight."

"Wanna Diet Coke?" is met with a "nah, I'm good".

Then I have a horrid thought, what is the tap going to do? It is going to do what the drill does, it is only going to want to cut threads in the soft aluminum and the steel remnant of the stud is going to just sit there. "You better deal with this," I hiss to myself. Each 3/17,236ths of a turn of the tap is coaxed with hammer blows. And prayers. It snags and peels sideways into the soft aluminum side of the hole, which will soon be too big to install the stud anyway. I unpack the drill AGAIN and clean up the hole as best I can, and get back to the millionth of a degree turn/tap/turn deal while the shards of aluminum and steel declare victory against my skin and ... hair? Hair! Wild Man Who Hisses "what are you going to do when you screw this up past all hope of recovery?" is now having a Bad Hair Day as well. But the semi-opaque safety goggles look goooood.

"Wanna lunch break? We cou. . ." "Nah, I'm good."

Finally, in silent desperation, I just send that tap up the torn-up half-steel/half aluminum hole. "Good luck!" I hiss. Well, whaddyaknow? The tap does not distinguish between steel and aluminum and calmly makes threads through whatever material is on whatever side of the hole. Glory.

Not so fast. Now the new studs are in, but they are seriously closer to the other exhaust studs. TFDBelow wallows out the holes in the exhaust manifold flanges while I am tapping and installing the studs, but even so, I eventually have to make oval holes in all of the flanges. We pry the exchanger over the new drilled studs and hallabaluja, it torques up nicely.

What a little engine. This thing was unbelievable last year. It looked like it came out of a barn. The heads were full of sawdust. We had to clean the crap out the cylinder head fins. Looked like it had not run in years and years (and one more since I last was there). Yet, it started up coughed a little, blew bits of sawdust out the muffler and sprayed me with rust from the fan, and just got stronger and smoother as we went through the timing and mixture. It was a real pleasure to take that car back out on the road.
Colin

and then youve got me and my Big Questions . . . right in the middle of it all.

i really meant it when i said--thanks for calling. :)

cindy

Lisa, my GF spent about 3 hours today sanitizing/scrubbing/cleaning ... bus hasn't been this clean inside since I've owned it. I've been driving it around a bit this weekend; think it may have a rod knock :/ Checked valve clearance to ensure I wasn't confusing with sloppy valves...didn't affect it. Sounds louder on the 3/4 bank. I should probably post this in the engine forum, but anyone have a suggestion as to how to isolate and properly diagnose the engine noise?

Thanks,
Mike

TrollFromDownBelow wrote:
think it may have a rod knock anyone have a suggestion as to how to isolate and properly diagnose the engine noise?

With a warm engine, rev and hold briefly at 3,000-3,500 rpm and listen closely for a knock just as you release the throttle. If you hear something, shut off the engine. Loosen all plug wires in the cap and keep lightly seated in the cap. Start the engine and get back there in the noise. With one hand you are going to rev the engine to knock noise rpm, with the other, you are going to pull, one at a time, each wire out of the distributor cap briefly to the point that the cylinder dies. If you cannot get a rod knock noise when you rev the engine with a particular cylinder dead, it is that dead cylinder that has the bad rod bearing. If you have a gentle knocking, a soft knocking that is more apparent when the engine is started cold, that is typically the sloppy piston clearances required with the 94mm cylinders. Let me know what you find.
Colin

followed Colin's advise. Changed the oil, adjusted the lifters, retorqued manifold nuts.....seems quiter. I did the test as prescribed and don't think it's a rod knock...think I'll just roll her as is and keep an ear out.

Not sure what to call her yet... she definitely has personality!

Cheers,
Mike