jimbear wrote:The folks who actually had this two day have yet to post, but I was there and it did happen. That being said, I'll start it off for them. I was not able to get a visit this year but I stopped by Hobus' place, said hello to Colin, and had a few "pops", watched, listened, socialized. I did get Colin to consult briefly on my alternator issue and made it as far as checking out the bulbs in the dash to make sure they were in working order. They all are. They was my freebie for the visit. I'll post some pics that I have of the others and let them take over the thread.
Thanks, jimbear,
Not many people believe I actually do all of this traveling and they think I just make up all my stories, and while that is true for the past thirty seven appointments, the Bishop call actually happened. Course, they all will just call you a sock puppet unless you get those pictures up.
Good bunch of people down there, but the Kleine Frankenstein fuel injection system has almost destroyed my mind, not to mention my lungs, not to mention my good name, and certainly my hopes and dreams, for this was the first time in my career that I have been wholly totally incontrovertibly inescapably stymied. Damn thing.
I arrived at 9:00AM on a cool morning for a three-for-two appointment, three buses over two days. I was nervous, do I slap on "professor mode" and multi-direct lab practicums? Do I get engrossed in my usual one-on-one tasks and just do a serial individual tasks sort of marathon? Do I milk the unexpectedly high regard these people seem to have for my alleged expertise? Good thing I didn't.
Somebody was calling me "sir" a lot. That startled me every time. I
never get called "sir" in cut-offs, but here I was in blue jeans. That is why I wear them, folks.
What did we do? I think I remember putting the BobD's flasher relay in Hobug's bus to discover that whatever dire notions there were about why the turn signals and emergency flashers dint go blinky could be put to rest with just another flasher relay. I remember a noisy engine in the Hobus bus, a serious clattery idle that reminded me of the Road Warrior's Bus Depot "0" camshaft gear that I finally tore out of the engine in 2007 at VWbusrepairman's house, only this one was worse. I await a teardown to find out what the real cause was. Waiting for Belle Plaine's report, too . . . We adjusted the "honkin dual carbs" and got nervous as I always do at the dead cylinders these monster carbs give at idle. So we go through all the valve adjustment and compression test stuff only to find that they are fine cylinders that just can't get enough fuel/air through the empty caverns of hugeness that comprise "performance" carburetors and manifolds. The part I liked, was driving the Hobus bus. It is a real genuine easy broken-in daily driver bus that just knows about the road. It also now knows about my penchant to testing brakes in panic stops. We panicked and panicked.
"Was that a front tire?"
"Damn, can't tell."
"How about now?
"Looks like both."
"Front and rear?"
"Side to side."
"Let's do it in reverse."
Upshot was that the pressure regulator appears not to regulate, a typical Georgia Republican regulator that clearly needs to be replaced.
greg in ga was first up. Shifting difficulty says greg in ga. I think, heck, if we are going to pull the engine to access the nose cone, better know about it now. I am backing his bus up the driveway.
"Watch your side . . . sir."
"What side?"
"There's a car there."
"Sure."
"I didn't know if you saw it."
"Saw what?"
I do love to torture nervous nellies. His bus shifted pretty well. I did not have any issues on the road, so I tortured Mr. Nellie with horrendously sloppy turns up in the out lane of the local school and down back out the in lane, with a carefully adopted clueless nonchalance.
"Seems to drive good."
"Well sir, maybe it just me, maybe I just need to work on my shifting."
"You do."
"I do?"
I enjoyed his caution and thoroughness and delightedly threw open several doors of "imperfection" in his bus over the next two days, ending the appointment marathon with,
"this tailgate closes wrong."
"It does?"
"It does. It is supposed to have a double latch."
Boom, he and hobus are off to get a replacement rear latch just like that.
I had to wait for him to leave the premises before I dared to pry off the tailgate's brittle dried-out birch panel. It was half hanging off when he returned. Was it Kris or John who I enjoined in a little Make Nervous Nellie Neigh skit?
"Let's pretend the whole damn thing splits in half."
"Not before we *actually have it clear* of the tailgate."
"Good thinking."
"What if we made a joke about this clip here and then accidentally destroy it on the next one?"
"You're right."
On the last retainer, I feel it let go of the hole only with a little splintering sound,
"damn, oh damn, the WHOLE THING JUST SPLIT IN HALF!"
"No it didn't, I'm right here."
"Oh."
So his doors are adjusted and lubricated and the tailgate closes smartly and the shifter shifts, but
Kris' fuel injected bus was the Anchor, the Anvil, the Aggravation of the weekend.
Ran rich. Could hardly get past 50 mph.
I did every single diagnostic in my repertoire, going so far as to tear out the BobD airflow meter and gutting its 7-pin connector assembly and grafting Kris' 6-pin to the BobD's afm, and installing it and no change . . . filthy filthy rich (they are, you know). Every trick. TS-II, TS-I, harness, air flow meter, CSV, double relay, fuel pressure regulator, on and on, everything checked out. Made it so terribly lean at idle that it would barely run, but it would stubbornly richen itself to black acrid clouds. Tightened the cog a full turn and a half, no difference. With two other buses on the premises, perhaps I was unable to go full tilt focus, but the results were the same. Defeat.
No more "sir" crap from anyone.
I am *excited* nonetheless, to see what the resolution is going to be.
There were a couple of magnificently tasteless moments that I cannot share, but the comaradarie of three or four beer-swilling good ol' boys working their cars into shape is a vast pure canvas upon which the most startling and base observational pigments can be thrown with perfectly politeless abandon, it was sheer art that still elicits little chuckles weeks later.
Thank-you for a thoroughly enjoyable Saturday enchilada feast, week-end end of fuel-injection-expertise-end. Pictures, people! Or it didn't happen!
Colin