Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Moderators: Sluggo, Amskeptic

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by Amskeptic » Sun Feb 25, 2018 9:26 pm

Just an update on the "dogged determination to give up" . . .

Drove to Home Depot in Pensacola and bought some slightly wider bar stock:

Image


It took some serious effort to bend this wider stuff. I knew better than to use the garage door tracks as a sheet metal brake here at the Pilot House. Thankfully there was a vise, not that the whole table didn't want to come along for the ride:

Image


This bracket needed an evil and accurate bend. It has a diagonal offset and the little bolt holes in the tin had to line up and the bracket had to do a diagonal outward offset to land at the exhaust "flange":

Image


Because it was such heavy stock, I used the dremel only to make score grooves then bent the metal until it fractured. It actually fit properly, an accident of inexplicable proportion:

Image


Here is the vise secured to the insecure table as the bracket gets its last hole via my now-long-suffering DeWalt drill:

Image


As I have been typing here, I have done two primer/two silver/two clear coats of 2000* VHT paint.

Image


Tomorrow shall be hellacious. I AM drilling out the bolts in the rusted flange and sticking in new ones so I can simply bolt up this silvery bracket.
Colin - did I mention that it was 78* and partly sunny? Yeah, it was 78* and partly sunny.
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

Jivermo
IAC Addict!
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by Jivermo » Mon Feb 26, 2018 5:35 am

Yes, drilling out those bolts will be a hellacious task. Exoticdvm has some rust welded bolts in various sections of his exhaust, which will need to be dealt with at some point, but not now, as there are no exhaust leaks at those points. A contortionist with a Dremel will be called for. By the way, the exciting array of craft beers is appealing, but is somewhat tempered by the Mountain Dew items. Arguably the worst soft drink ever.

User avatar
weisswurst
Addicted!
Location: NW Florida
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by weisswurst » Mon Feb 26, 2018 7:21 am

Amskeptic wrote:
Sun Feb 25, 2018 11:51 am
weisswurst wrote:
Sat Feb 24, 2018 8:35 am
Hey Colin we got the propane water heater finally lit too!
I am working on turning the rest of the covered and concreted area into my little biergarten too! :cheers:
-Jeff
Well? What on Earth was the problem? (copy/paste this X to the appropriate answer)

( ) not very flammable propane in the bottle
( ) hideous drafts rocketing across the floor
( ) poorly indexed self-starter electrode
( ) totally defective Eaton gas valve
( ) your appliance guy here is a moron

If I ever should get the Lincoln all the way down there, do we call it a biergarten or a HellYeahWeCanFitTheBarbecueInTheBootTailgateParty?
Colin


turned out it was:


( X ) needed more bleeding (we were soooo close). it only needed a few more minutes of "holding down" the button thingy

2 nice hot showers later we noticed the bottle was getting lighter way too fast so changed the regulator to a new BBQ style and easily relit the pilot with the push down sparking device and
2 more showers later she is holding well!
"I drink, therefore yes ma'am..."

User avatar
weisswurst
Addicted!
Location: NW Florida
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by weisswurst » Mon Feb 26, 2018 7:29 am

Jivermo wrote:
Mon Feb 26, 2018 5:35 am
Yes, drilling out those bolts will be a hellacious task. Exoticdvm has some rust welded bolts in various sections of his exhaust, which will need to be dealt with at some point, but not now, as there are no exhaust leaks at those points. A contortionist with a Dremel will be called for. By the way, the exciting array of craft beers is appealing, but is somewhat tempered by the Mountain Dew items. Arguably the worst soft drink ever.
I see an Andechs, Ayinger Schneider and several other great German beers on the bench, I think this pilot and I have MUCH to discuss!
sounds like the need for a beer tasting (I can bring some rarely know fine examples to the meeting). :cyclopsani:
-Jeff
"I drink, therefore yes ma'am..."

User avatar
tommu
Old School!
Location: Sunny Burbank
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by tommu » Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:08 pm

Amskeptic wrote:
Fri Feb 23, 2018 5:06 pm
diesel Range Rover
Ahem. Land Rover. 110 I believe. The car for the working farmer rather than the tax dodging monarch. It matters!
Image

Thanks for the write up. Sounds like a lot of fun that deserves more time to enjoy.

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:38 am

tommu wrote:
Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:08 pm
Amskeptic wrote:
Fri Feb 23, 2018 5:06 pm
diesel Range Rover
Ahem. Land Rover. 110 I believe. The car for the working farmer rather than the tax dodging monarch. It matters!

Thanks for the write up. Sounds like a lot of fun that deserves more time to enjoy.

Ahhh yes, pahrdon me old chap! I so did not intend to besmirch the decent good name of Land Rover with that abysmal sop to insecure poseurs wishing that they were on the Queen's visit list.
And please inform the man that the wipers must be aligned correctly forthwith.
Colin :king:
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Feb 27, 2018 8:20 am

Jivermo wrote:
Mon Feb 26, 2018 5:35 am
Yes, drilling out those bolts will be a hellacious task. By the way, the exciting array of craft beers is appealing, but is somewhat tempered by the Mountain Dew items. Arguably the worst soft drink ever.
The advertising for Mountain Dew is at the very top of the list for campy:

Image


By the way, that little Lionel kid has been mocking me, day after day after day. See, his eyes don't match his grin. I come up to the counter with a botched Lexus instrument cluster needle repair, there he is,
"yay!"

Image


I struggle to remove the left side exhaust manifold on NaranjaWesty, there he is,
"oh you did it!"

Image


I lightly trip over the jack stand and miss the edge of the counter as I try to find my balance and check my fall with my chin and send some priceless old plastic piece slamming into the concrete, and here is our boy,
"Wow! You ARE a spastic!":

Image
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

User avatar
cheesehead
Getting Hooked!
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by cheesehead » Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:33 pm

Colin thanks as always for your posts and pictures I love them, missed them ..I guess I have some catching up...miss you too :flower:

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Feb 27, 2018 8:42 pm

cheesehead wrote:
Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:33 pm
Colin thanks as always for your posts and pictures I love them, missed them ..I guess I have some catching up...miss you too :flower:
Awwww, I'm blushing, but you wouldn't know it, through all of this dremel rust dust. This exhaust bracket problem is turning into a Saga.

Back when I thought I was good at this Volkswagen thing, say 9:00AM, I painted the r/s heater pipe-to-front tin bracket:

Image


Painted the muffler strap, the new muffler strap. For your edification, please note the misalignment both in provided width to engage the hooks on the crossover, and the tiltedness of the damn thing anyhow (that'll stress out the hooks and the strap, nice:

Image


Image


Sure. Looks like a nice suburban day in a nice suburban garage:

Image


But we all know, we all know it is a desperate day in Old Volkswagenland:

Image


Photobucket flagged the next picture as
"Whoa! this image violates the Terms of Service and has been removed from view" I re-uploaded it with a different suffix letter and sent an attachment of the offending automobile porn to support@photobucket. I'll let you know how it resolves. Yep, curvy exhaust pipes can trigger those rip-off idiots in Denver:

Image


Here, I am dremeling the last bolt head off between the manifold and u-tube. Consider it the point of no return:

Image


The bolt just said, "no, I am not leaving." It shattered four cutting disks in succession, no matter how delicate, how aligned, how patient I was. So, I went after the nut instead:

Image


Here's the end of the busted bracket after 41 years of being hidden. You can see the aborted guillotine sentence on 13mm Marigrade Eightantoinette:

Image


Image


Drilling very carefully here, very carefully, you sure wouldn't want to snap a bit off in the middle of drilling because there sure isn't any access on the other side of the flange where the heat exchanger blocks any access:

Image

After snapping the damn bit off because it hit sumpin I tell ya, I had dark thoughts until I had a bright thought, "just tap the headless bolt out!" ... and that is exactly what I did. Don't tap too hard! wouldn't want to disturb the flange and destroy the petrified gasket in there, then you'd have to drill out all the other bolts too, not just the bracket holding bolt.

Image


After drilling out the other headless bolts and bashing the flange apart (carefully!) , I came upon this:

Image


Two hours of listening to earnest NPR, I had a system.
a) stone dremel the outside ears of the flanges
b) bastard file in a triangular circle to see the high spots
c) stone dremel the high spots on the outside ears of the flanges
d) bastard file in a triangular circle to see just how little was accomplished
e) rinse lather repeat until overall flange looks to be within gasket's capability to hopefully maybe "seal"
(this was the "good" flange)

Image


Oh shut up, I drink Diet Coke and I do not have a sheet metal fabrication shop:

Image


It was this flange that was horribly caved. Bent all the ears towards flattish in the vise, very carefully:

Image


Then I
a) stone dremel the outside ears of the flanges
b) bastard file in a triangular circle to see the high spots
c) stone dremel the high spots on the outside ears of the flanges
d) bastard file in a triangular circle to see just how little was accomplished
e) rinse lather repeat until overall flange looked to be hopelessly unable to "seal"
(this was the "bad" flange)

At 8:00PM, I just couldn't stand up anymore. Paint and reassembly tomorrow.

Image
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

Jivermo
IAC Addict!
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by Jivermo » Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:58 am

Man, reminds me of my first Itinerant visit, wherein we redid my exhaust system, dremeling the rusted bolts in place, under the bus. Then, finding the “U” flanges all sorts of warped and missing metal, we built them up with weld, and then ground them down flat again. But, we made it leakproof! What a dirty, miserable job.

71whitewesty
Addicted!
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by 71whitewesty » Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:57 am

Good stuff. Is this a part that’s is hard to find in good condition?
I admire the tenacity to make it work without the expense though. =D>

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by Amskeptic » Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:26 pm

Lawdy lawdy, I am tested by the VW gods, I am. Spent an entire Wednesday February 28th removing the u-tube from the exhaust manifold. Every single obstacle that met the separation of the u-tube from the exchanger on February 27th greeted me anew with this here separation from the manifold.

I decided that I had to replace the headless bolts. I had to. I could not countenance driving around the country with such a stark example of Unacceptable.
Let's review. This photograph does not show you specifically, but it is true that there is not one intact bolt/nut on the flange between the u-tube and the exhaust manifold. Not one:

Image


Dremeled off the bolt heads, tried to drill out the studs, broke two drill bits in the headless studs, had to knock out the studs, destroyed the petrified gaskets, carefully vise-pried the triangular flanges to "straightish", stone-dremeled each flange, bastard filed, stone dremeled, bastard filed, stone-dremeled, bastard filed for hours, and here is the result:

Image


Each flange (four all told) was painstakingly made "pedestrian-friendly" if I should run anyone over, by means of rounded edges. All pits were sanded out:

Image


The interior surfaces were smoothed you know for better air flow at 8,000 rpm. Then everything was scrubbed in the sink with hot water and Dawn:

Image


Looky there at those flat flanges under a nice coat of flat primer:

Image


Exhaust manifold under its third coat (two primers + a silver, with three coats more to go):

Image


Then it got dark and spattery rainy. So I gave up for the night and woke up at 5:30AM, fired up the Norelco coffee maker and here is 5:45AM:

Image


Image


Dremeled bigger slots in the clamp screws that hold the heater pipes to the exhangers and control valves to the pipes, just a detail that gives me inordinate joy:

Image


GumOut + steel brush + bucket agitation + Dawn and hot water bucket agitation + rinse and dry and primered all fasteners and washers:

Image


The upper two gaskets have not yet been mated to look like the lower combined gasket, but these distressed flanges were given double gaskets The Ultra-Copper plastic cap exploded in two, thus the ultra-copper kept curing in the tube all damn morning:

Image


Manifold installed . . . just before the Great Clusterfrick of brackets and bolts and orange goop and droopy gaskets and fiddle-flucking washers and nuts abnd heater pipes and good grief:

Image


Let's remember what the left side still looks like. I really thought this was unrepairable until I was dragged backwards into learning that you can work with this hopeless looking titanic corrosion:

Image


Repaired right side:

Image


This bracket had to line up with the two holes on the front tin, yes, we already fashioned this thing, but add a heater pipe bracket, go ahead, then get the exchanger to align vertically with the u-tube in front saying that it actually likes to shove the whole exchanger back a half an inch. Fun times, no really:

Image


The paparazzi found me around 2:00PM:

Image


Here's my "friendly face" as I think to myself, "did that &@!% nut just *@$# slip down between the &@!$ exchanger and the fan #^&! housing??"

Image


Here's my "put the exchanger duct cover on with the correct longer screws one of which I know is on the left lower tin when I re-torqued the exhaust manifold in Homosassa Spgs" face:

Image


A very very important step is to paint all fasteners at the conclusion of the operation. Every nut, washer, bolt, exposed thread, a coat of primer, two coats of silver, applied with a brush:

Image


Image


Three days, this . . . now done, waiting for the one-hour dry spell before first start:

Image





The air-conditioned mobile Ted Talk Stage whisked me to Home Depot to return the Milwaukee drill bit set with the three busted drill bits from the last two days. I brought along my Century drill bit kit,
"See, I haven't busted one of these in the past three years, but I have busted three of yours in the past day. The only thing I can tell is that this here Milwaukee drill bit set was 'made in China'."

Image


Whisked back to the house and started NaranjaWesty's engine for the First Cure:

Image


See the great thing about wasting three days with all of this is that nothing sounds any different, but I know that the exhaust is now unable to fall apart on a whim.
Colin

Image


Image
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

User avatar
Mr Blotto
IAC Addict!
Location: Northern Burbs / Chicago
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by Mr Blotto » Fri Mar 02, 2018 8:07 pm

Reading this is reminding me of what turned out to be a very costly attempt at replacing the u-pipe gaskets on my '78. My bolts looked very much like yours, and I ended up having to hammer/torch/bang/pry/drill/punch/swear the remaining bolts out. After I got everything apart, I soon realized that the flanges on the u-pipe AND the flange on the heat exchanger were corroded paper thin (no meat on them), so I had to source a new pipe and exchanger......and boy, they did not want to line up like the originals....

Glad to see you were able to reuse these parts!

Question - As a man that is all things air cooled, don't you scratch your head sometimes and wonder why the old German engineers couldn't think of a more elegant way to let that engine breathe while giving the cabin some heat? It IS an engineering feat, but far too many parts and changes in directions in that system.

Question 2 - I am surprised to see that you are taking Naranja on another lap. Still working the kinks out, or do you find it easier to work out of?
1978 Sage Green Westy - 2.0 FI - SOLD WITH 109887 miles :-(

User avatar
asiab3
IAC Addict!
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by asiab3 » Sat Mar 03, 2018 4:03 am

Mr Blotto wrote:
Fri Mar 02, 2018 8:07 pm
Question - As a man that is all things air cooled, don't you scratch your head sometimes and wonder why the old German engineers couldn't think of a more elegant way to let that engine breathe while giving the cabin some heat? It IS an engineering feat, but far too many parts and changes in directions in that system.
I'm not THAT man of all things air-cooled, but I am air-cooling in the sun, rain, and snow tomorrow… Remember that the factory had to get all four cylinders exhaust through the catalytic converter as well; that wasn't possible on the slightly-better-flowing (according to STF) 72-74 collector muffler setup. The Vanagons of the water-cooled era have delightfully contorted tubes that arbitrarily collect on the left side of the car. They require almost a dozen scrap metal braces, and the amount of weight resting on complex pipe bends is less elegant than the late bus U-Tube system, I think. You have to solve a Rubiks Cube before you're allowed to remove those Vanagon pipes in situ, unlike the bus which happily disassembles itself if, well, if your fasteners have been coated with anti-sieze recently…

Colin, watching this Saga unfold is almost as nail-biting as watching Chloe's cylinder head swap in Texas all those years ago.

Barb says hello; heading up the hill tomorrow,
Robbie
1969 bus, "Buddy."
145k miles with me.
322k miles on Earth.

Jivermo
IAC Addict!
Status: Offline

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Miami Meander

Post by Jivermo » Sat Mar 03, 2018 5:43 am

I like the late bay exhaust system arrangement. Recalling my first experience with my rust welded fasteners does not bring pleasant memories, but by now I’ve worked on several different buses systems. The arrangement has a certain beauty to it, and when all mating surfaces are flush, there is a real satisfaction gained as you reassemble it, with new gaskets, copper nuts, and fresh 2000 degree high temp paint. When you start the bus, and see that there are no exhaust leaks..,well, that is a pretty good feeling. I mean, really, who but the Germans could have designed such a system?

Post Reply