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IAC In Bishop GA

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 9:38 am
by jimbear
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.

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 10:36 am
by Amskeptic
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

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 11:08 am
by THall
Amskeptic wrote:
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.
Colin
That sounds familiar....

(IAC in Verona, WI 2015 will involve tuning a newly installed FI system :thumbleft: )

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 1:00 pm
by Cindy
Good ol' boys doing anything are a fine sight to see. :flower:

Cindy

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 6:45 pm
by Amskeptic
Cindy wrote:Good ol' boys doing anything are a fine sight to see. :flower:

Cindy
Easy there. There were some things doing that could not be in any way a "fine sight". Good ol' boys squatting at the engine of a VW can eclipse the high noon sun with a full moon display, and after pizza and beer, they can mimic the sun itself erupting coronal ejections of deadly plasma-hot gases, I read it somewhere.
Colin

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 9:45 pm
by SlowLane
Sir.
Have you ever used your dwell meter to measure injector duty cycle? :geek:

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 7:06 am
by Cindy
Colin, don't spoil the fantasy.

Cindy

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:02 am
by greg in ga
A little update from Nervous Nellie or Greg as I prefer to be called :sunny: and in my defense...he didn't see the car....

My bus was the one with the shifting issues etc. It's much happier now. runs great, nice and cool CHTs. Starts faster etc. I was pleased to fix many things I didn't even realize were broken/not working.

Jon bus, Jon will have to chime in but from what I've heard, it's much happier as well. The engine will be replaced but the rest of the bus is much happier.

On a side note.....I'm a little disappointed I didn't win best bus of the day. I feel we may need to count the votes again :thumbleft:

Chris' bus: I haven't heard from chris, I think he pushed it off a cliff after colin left...or just lit the raw fuel on fire coming out the exhaust.

Here is my take on the weekend if you're interested

http://www.athensvwclub.com/phpBB2/view ... 1958#11958

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA--Greetings From The South Y'all Part C

Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:07 am
by greg in ga
couple of pictures, scroll down about 1/2 way till you see a couple of old run down beat up heaps standing beside some VWs :)

https://www.facebook.com/athensvwclub

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 10:41 am
by Hobug
This was my second visit with Colin, but my first with other buses involved. Greg, Kris, and I agreed that the two day visit was about making the most progress possible and not about 'did I get my fair share of Colin's time.' We had no problem with that as Greg and I made several improvements to our buses and Kris's bus refused to improve much no matter what new ideas were tested.

Coffee was ready and so were we by 9:00am.
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Colin arrived and after filling his coffee cup we hatched our plan of attack. We started with the previously described test drive of Greg's bus. (Damn good thing his brakes were up to the 'Colin test') After Greg's driving lesson corrected some of the shifting problems his bus was having we moved to my bus.

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There were several mystery wires in my engine bay which Colin corrected by cutting them out. Something about 'BS diagnostic crap', clip, snip, no more problem.
We then listened to the less than pleasant noises my engine makes while it is running.
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The diagnosis was cam gear something or other. "Just drive it till it dies." "Any guess how long that might be?" " Oh yeah, be easy and you might get 30000 more miles or three days, who knows." "Now let's look at those carbs."

So we proceeded to balance and sync my carbs as well as checking into the dead cylinder at low RPMs.
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Engine issues resolved as much as possible we moved to my non-functional turn signals and high beams. Both were caused by bad relays. Luckily for some reason I had a new in the box turn signal relay hanging on the wall. One more problem fixed. A quick trip to my parts bus produced the relay for the high beams, but there was one small problem....it was full of water. Doh! No problem says Colin. He loosens the seams at the base and hands it back to me. "Open it, dump the water, clean it up, see what happens." Cleaned it well with electric parts spray and reassembled with some dielectric grease. Plugged it in and now I have high beams!

Fixing water logged relay.
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I was a happy camper (pun intended) at this point. Other than a test drive later, I was pretty much where I wanted to be with my bus so we moved on to Greg and Kris's issues. Rather than describing their adventures with the written word enjoy these pictures:

Greg hard at work with supervision.


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Greg hardly at work.
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Jimbear arrives.
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Artsy photo of the students and the teacher.

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The bus that refused to be helped.

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Day one continued till it was dark. Work finally ceased and we all enjoyed the dinner my wife prepared. While eating we discussed the following day's plan. I mentioned that I would like to adjust the valves on my wife's automatic Squareback. I had no idea if you did things differently for automatics. I believe it was Colin who said if it is my wife's car she should do the adjustment. Well, my Mary doesn't back down from much and accepted the challenge. Sunday morning started in the high 30s, but we hit the driveway anyway.
With Colin's tutelage Mary did her valve adjustment with only a few choice words heard form under the Square. (Thanks Colin, that is not something a husband can do and survive)
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Many more pictures here if you are interested -> http://s1136.photobucket.com/user/Jonho ... t=2&page=1

Thanks Colin for another educational and productive visit. :cheers:

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA--Greetings From The South Y'all Part C

Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 10:46 am
by Hobug
OK, a couple more summary photos:

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Rehashing the last two days
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Colin gives dance lessons. =D>
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See you next trip Colin.
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It should be noted that we were able to have so many fine photos of the days' events because my son Little Jon (he is 6' 2") was active with the camera recording our activities for you.Thank you son, because we all know 'pictures or it didn't happen'.

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2014 5:00 am
by Jivermo
Thanks for the great pics, and report. I am happy to see the wife doing her valve adjustment. Were the enchiladas redolent of Indian Head Shellac, perchance?

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2014 6:54 am
by Amskeptic
Wow! Pictures! It happened.

I should have mentioned that Mary was a real trouper getting out there in the chilly morning and diving in to her valve adjustment. The Squareback was very glad to see us, by the way, with some very tight valves waiting for the tender ministrations of its owner.

For the record, we DID get the windshield wipers fixed on Kris' bus, and he has until October 23 or 24 to get a free appointment installing a replacement fuel injection system. I want that bus running correctly before I head souther.

Great photographs, Little Jon. I hope to see you behind the wheel of your Volkswagen Beetle.

Cindy, were these good ol' boys all that you imagined?
Colin

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2014 7:35 am
by Cindy
Yep.

Re: IAC in Bishop, GA

Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2014 8:46 am
by glasseye
And, from the Resident Cinematographer: "Great coverage, Little Jon!"'
The Colin departing shot is classic. Well imagined and expertly executed.