Itinerant Air-Cooled

Yep, we're in Texas:


. . . driving the BobD:


It was not easy slicing and dicing the interstates with my legs and feet feeling like they were dangling in front of the front wheels no less than the sensation of legs dangling in a ferris wheel bucket. Here is the sacriligious cabin view set up like the Road Warrior:



Car ran flawlessly under my crabby ass bitching about the seating position being too high on these later buses (botches up outside rear view mirror angles, ruins the armrest elevation, puts the steering wheel under the perfect elbow prop position, and crops the view when your head is up near the headliner, and Mr. SafetyParanoid is not pleased with the upper door edge now in line to crack my cranium with a minor side hit):


Engine was peppy and locked in happily at 72 mph exactly like I remember new Volkswagens in my youth, however it ate a half quart of my finest Castrol GTX 10-40:



. . . and the emission sticker :


Lubricated the heck out of the front suspension and loose center pin bushings, and cleaned off the bottom of the crankcase, which delivered brand new clean aluminum under the oem cryolin wax:


. . . and of course, I had to wax the Konis:



So, I am trying to figure out how to make the next step honest. I refuse to blithely attempt to recreate something that has indeed come to an end.
Stay tuned . . .
Colin

Amskeptic wrote:Car ran flawlessly under my crabby ass bitching about the seating position being too high on these later buses (botches up outside rear view mirror angles, ruins the armrest elevation, puts the steering wheel under the perfect elbow prop position, and crops the view when your head is up near the headliner

Thank you for confirming this. Both I and my wife have noticed the difference between her '70 and our '78. I thought the reduced visibility was because the '78 is a Riviera camper rather than a transporter but your statement above makes perfect sense. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

The BobD looks great. I'm glad your crabby ass is back in the saddle.

fly that bird south for the winter...

Interesting figure on the oil temp. Seems awful low from what I've seen on my gauges, even in frigid ambient temps.

Westy78 wrote:Interesting figure on the oil temp. Seems awful low from what I've seen on my gauges, even in frigid ambient temps.

That's the temp the oil should be at when making adjustments, not what it will run at on the road.

Vdubtech wrote:

Westy78 wrote:Interesting figure on the oil temp. Seems awful low from what I've seen on my gauges, even in frigid ambient temps.

That's the temp the oil should be at when making adjustments, not what it will run at on the road.

Ah, that makes more sense.

Amazing photos to accompany the start of a new story.

=D> =D> =D>

Amskeptic wrote:So, I am trying to figure out how to make the next step honest. I refuse to blithely attempt to recreate something that has indeed come to an end.

A couple of good quotes from Chuck Yeager seem appropriate here....

"You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can't, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don't give up."

and....

"You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done. "

Roll on, Colin and BobD, Roll On!

Inside joke alert:

Hey Colin! Nice hand-brake warning light lens...






I soooooooo wanna drive that car.

That's a lot of oil...
Hey seating comfort/angle is everything. If that doesn't feel right, then why drive the damn thing? Might as well be a Wright Flyer, history be damned this should be a practical contraption because you are above else a practical man. Unless you're just crabby and need time to settle in.
Push comes to shove, ditch it and get something that fits like an old shoe. There are plenty of lovely pound pups out there - you need them/they need you.

hambone wrote:That's a lot of oil...
Hey seating comfort/angle is everything. If that doesn't feel right, then why drive the damn thing? Might as well be a Wright Flyer, history be damned this should be a practical contraption because you are above else a practical man. Unless you're just crabby and need time to settle in.
Push comes to shove, ditch it and get something that fits like an old shoe. There are plenty of lovely pound pups out there - you need them/they need you.

I agree with hammie ... but correct me if I'm wrong, the bad seating position is because of the seats ...couldn't you put a set of 73 seats in there and have the same seating position?

TrollFromDownBelow wrote:

hambone wrote:That's a lot of oil...
Hey seating comfort/angle is everything. If that doesn't feel right, then why drive the damn thing? Might as well be a Wright Flyer, history be damned this should be a practical contraption because you are above else a practical man. Unless you're just crabby and need time to settle in.
Push comes to shove, ditch it and get something that fits like an old shoe. There are plenty of lovely pound pups out there - you need them/they need you.

I agree with hammie ... but correct me if I'm wrong, the bad seating position is because of the seats ...couldn't you put a set of 73 seats in there and have the same seating position?

Different rails.

Either he needs to install vanagon seats or weld in the early bay rails.

Colin, its nice to hear you're on the mend. or as close as you can get at the moment. BobD looks gorgeous. I'm glad to hear that i"m in the ballpark of your cruising speed; I thought keeping up with traffic (aka 75mph) was pushing it a wee bit too hard.

You've been knocked from one river to another. Relax and enjoy the trip. As Hambone sez: don't fight it, the ropes only get tighter.