Itinerant Air-Cooled

Just got a call from whc03grady/Mitch. mtcamper and whc03grady/Mitch met up. They are going to travel together to look for Colin on an alternate road Colin and mtcamper talked about yesterday. It's called Rooster Creek Road.

Colin just called me. He's in Deer Lodge Montana. He's fine, but his former alternator is not. He sends many thanks to mtcamper for giving him an extra alternator and "saving my butt".

How embarrassing . . . .

The yowling alternator finally started grenading at about 11:00PM, and I thought it best to pull over before the battery would completely die. Cell phone battery . . . already dead. With no car battery, we have no cell phone charger, no cell signal out here either. What we had, so thankfully, so thankful, was a spare alternator, supplied by mtcamper just hours earlier.

I was SOOOO confident that this job would be easy that I took photographs of the disassembly of the BobD's engine to get the grenaded alternator out. And it did leave happily and uneventfully, its bearings desperately glad to never have to turn at 8,000 rpm ever again.

Original Alternator:



The "new" alternator was caked, CAKED I tell ya, with a fine silty mud EVERYWHERE inside and out. Just like the Used Yuma Heads in Chloe, I wasn't going to worry about a "little dirt", this thing had every indication of being good used German machinery. The first step was to take apart and clean the poor thing. The clean-enough Silty, The Autocrossed Alternator:




Now for the catastrophe that set me back all day. Embarrassing doesn't begin to describe it. Had to get the alternator pulley off the BobD. Every single operation on this car since I have owned it has been like a Bentley procedure, everything has glided apart with amazing perfectness. Here is the last photograph of my "procedure", because all hell broke loose right after this shot:




Yeah, so I am cranking away on my three jaw puller with the dainty little 13mm presser bolt expertly centered on the divot I put in the middle of the alternator shaft. Pulley has to pop-glide off, right?
It popped.
"Hey, why is the pulley still stuck on?"
The three legs of the puller actually caved in the pulley and the "pop" was one of the legs breaking through the pulley. The pulley is a contorted chewed mess. Instantly, I am on damage-control mode. We are stuck here. Battery, I expect will give me one surface charge start, but it is not going to drive the car very long. I can drive the car with the new alternator with no pulley, but where to? Anaconda? Missoula? Do I call mtcamper and beg for a pulley right after being given an alternator? Will he have one? Will the guy who does Volkswagens in Missoula have one? Hey, maybe whc03grady will have a pulley (special for the late buses, probably not). Try to start the phone. Stupid little jingle "hello!" (that's what it does). Wait for signal bars. No signal bars. We're along a railroad track access road. "Goodbye!" WHAT? Damn battery on cell phone has died.

The once-beautiful pulley spins like a demented amusement park ride. I hate myself for about thirty seconds. Gotta do something. Drench the shaft and woodruff key, re-install the pulley nut to flush with the shaft and pound the nut/shaft while holding the damaged pulley. No dice. No let go. Pout about the stupid Germans, "does this pulley HAVE to be so TIGHT?" What am I going to do here? Set the BobD Once Glorious Alternator on the ground (you're Inductance Non-Gratis now) and grab my brake adjusting spoon and big big screwdriver and pry the pulley and hammer the pulley down with a socket over the shaft to "get the PB Blaster down in there" but also to work off some rising irritation at my Predicament Plus Rain Pelleting. Yes, the thunderheads heard that I was immobilized and decided to give me my come-uppance, "hah! he can't drive away now!"

At maximum discouragement, I was prying with the above pry bars and the pulley popped again.
"Now I have broken it totally!" I scream under my breath. Actually, the pulley moved up a bit.
"Thank God! I am saved!" No, I am not. This pulley couldn't pull to save its life. Wobbling with broken edges, it could turn a fan belt into blackish confetti fluff in record time. I stopped the pull and decided to try to straighten the edges while it still had a grip on the shaft. That is when I found out why my dainty little puller could wreak such havoc on this pulley. It's a cheap little pulley. The metal bent back down with the mini Visegrips but the torn spot would not allow the ripped away tab to come back down.
"Dremel!" I exclaimed. "No voltage inverter available!" I exclaimed.

Every effort to pull back one of the three damaged sections of the pulley would render the thing hopelessly wobbled. Slowly, all three sections got sort of un-pulled and the pulley was banged sort of straight, and the halves were filed endlessly to try to smooth the belt-riding surfaces.

At 5:30 this afternoon, apparently while whc03grady and mtcamper were looking for my wreckage
( "it's over here! LOOK at this pulley!" ), I finally got to start the engine to see if this silt-infested thing even worked. I knew I only had enough juice for maybe one start. It started as I was releasing the key in resignation, that loveable ol' engine just kicked over and started. Revved the engine and the idiot light went out. Yay! Then the rains came in.

Never have I been so grateful for the miracle of paddling magnets through coils of wire. The belt looked to be tolerating its passage through Devil's Pulley Pass. Look close and you can see the closed-up busted tab through the shine:




On Interstate 90, Silty The Autocrossed Alternator got used to life once more in the 8,000 rpm range, with the windshield wipers, headlamps, turn indicators, and fresh air fans all giving it some load with no untoward noises. So far, the belt does not smell like burning rubber, but there is a lot of driving coming up as of tomorrow night.

Mtcamper, thank-you! That was the most timely and appreciated part I have ever received. That was the most timely and appreciated part I have ever received. That was the most timely and appreciated part I have ever received. Your new alternator grommet shall be mailed from Anaconda.

The schedule is in a woeful bit o' trouble. I am doing whc03grady tomorrow, the 9th.
I got in touch with grifftenstein since his appointment day of the 11th is now a travel day. He is flexible with a reschedule. I would like to push back Belle Plaine to the 13th, so I can make appointments line up west-to-east.




Thank-you all for your concern. Warn me if this becomes habitual . . .
"You know, Colin, you've been doing this itinerary for a long time."
"Yeah, ain't it great?"
"No, I mean, that's the eighteenth time you have stranded yourself out in the middle of nowhere."
"Well, I wasn't paying attention to the gas gauge, it's good, it only took three days."
"But this is eighteen times in the past three weeks . . . "

Colin

If I had one of those little GPS trackers, I might've stuck it under there. I really might've.

whc03grady wrote: If I had one of those little GPS trackers, I might've stuck it under there. I really might've.

That is eerie. I am still parked there until 8:16AM . . .
Colin

Isn't he on his way to your house this morning, whc03grady? Do it.

Cindy

Whew, I was glad to hear it worked out. You are very welcome for the alternator. Its funny because it has been sitting in the same spot in the garage for 3 years with no use for me, then you showed up and needed it. I hope all goes well today!

The 13th is just fine by me, better even.

sitting in the same spot in the garage for 3 years with no use for me, then you showed up and needed it.

VW Karma, boys. Gotta love it.

glasseye wrote:

sitting in the same spot in the garage for 3 years with no use for me, then you showed up and needed it.

VW Karma, boys. Gotta love it.

Good morning from Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.
Silty The Autocrossed Alternator is finding this sudden highway life too rude of a wake up.
We have a growl this morning, still subtle, but I am monitoring with the engine hatch cracked open.

For all of you annoying pesky bugs here on the forum, you flitting little moths, you buzzing banzai lightbulb chasers, you incessantly whiny little mosquitoes, you skin crawling critters who then fly away just ahead of your richly deserved swat, you biters you, you horseflies, here's what happens when you GET IN MY WAY:




Actually, last night, they almost won.
The windshield got totally blanked, there were bug parts blowing out the fresh air vents.
It was horrid, like my life, bus parts blowing out my serenity.



For such a horrid life, that full moonlit drive through the mountains of Montana was amazingly gorgeous. We wafted along the highway in and out of the cool shadows of the peaks, our taillights a phosphorescent display of the pulse of civilization.
Colin

Hmm both of our pulleys failed on the same day...

I always wondered what would happen if one kept driving across the country in an antique bus, repairing antique buses parked across the country. Alternator got ya, but it WAS whispering before it got you!

amskeptic wrote:For such a horrid life, that full moonlit drive through the mountains of Montana was amazingly gorgeous. We wafted along the highway in and out of the cool shadows of the peaks, our taillights a phosphorescent display of the pulse of civilization.

The moonlit drives through the foothills north of Los Angeles last night and tonight have been simply Divine. It's hard to find words to justify why I drove four times the distance required in six times the duration, but one look out the windshield and even if you did have words, they would be forgotten.

tewa3240 wrote:I always wondered what would happen if one kept driving across the country in an antique bus, repairing antique buses parked across
the country. Alternator got ya, but it WAS whispering before it got you!

Whispering? Yowling. Piteously. For weeks, it was just a little whistle early in the morning. I thought it was the auxiliary air regulator playing flute. The sound stopped reliably within three minutes of a cold start. The last day, however, it was singing constantly . . .

Here's the thing. I was brazenly confident in this bus because of the memory of the Road Warrior's astonishing 419,000 miles on its original alternator. This junky new '78 was not made of the same stuff! This bearing seized due to what I believe was an inadequate initial charge of lubricant:



The yowling was from the shell of the bearing (still stuck on the rotor) spinning in the housing that it once was pressed into. The brushes got hateful from what, severe dusty conditions? I did 26 years of dirt roads with the Road Warrior.The slip ring diameter of this alternator was not even close to the minimum 31.5mm:






Here we are in Minnesota with Silty still hanging in there . . . 9,100,000 successful rotations so far.
Colin