On the trailer and on the road!

I met up with the transport truck Monday and delivered the bus for shipment.
After a thorough inspection, up on the truck it went.  The old girl climbed the hill without even breaking a sweat.  I hope the new owner enjoys it as much as I have.
Hmmm.  What will be next?

The truck driver was very thankful for that old school drip rail on the bus,  it gave him an extra grip to walk past the bus on the way down.

The purple color trailer and the teal color bus are clashing a bit!

Time to sell the Bus!

It has been a fun and fascinating journey.  I have enjoyed every minute of the whole process, however; It's time to move on to the next project.  I am not entirely sure what that may be yet, but the search is on.

Thank you to all my blog readers for riding along on this little adventure.  When I discover the next journey, I will post it up in case anyone would like to have a look. 

Some Exhaust Modifications

Last year after the fall bug run, you may remember, I purchased and installed a new EMPI GT exhaust for the bus.  I really like that exhaust, the look, the sound, etc.  It is just a nice exhaust, however, it doesn’t work very well for a bus!  The problem lies with aerodynamics.  Apparently, there is a large swirl that forms in the back of the bus.

This swirl seems to keep the exhaust gasses and any other junk that gets caught up behind there, in a state of swirling suspension until it finds a nice new resting place, either on the bumper, rear glass, or the paint on the entire rear of the bus.  It is very messy.  

The solution?  Exit the exhaust way off to the side of the bus, just like the VW engineers figured out many years ago.  I guess that is what happens when you install a beetle exhaust on a bus.  Good thinking on my part! (sarcasm)

Well, at a recent VW show I purchased a couple pieces of exhaust pipe so I could re-work the GT exhaust to be a side exit.  I crawled under and started making a few measurements.  It looked pretty feasible so I started cutting!

I started by simply cutting off the passenger side twin chrome tip.  I measured and cut a piece of elbow pipe to turn the exhaust parallel to the muffler and headed toward the driver side of the bus.   After making sure things were going to line up, I cut off the remaining chrome tip and ran the right hand pipe past the left hand exit from the muffler.  Next I used another portion of curved pipe to “blend” the remaining pipes into one nice exit pipe.

After the main plumbing was completed, I used a portion of curved pipe to blend the exhaust into one of the chrome tips I had previously removed.

I tacked it all together to make sure it was straight and square.  I then welded all the seams solid, cleaned the pipes with solvent and scuffed them up a bit with fine Scotchbrite in prep for paint. 

I painted my new pipes with a high temp header paint and re-assembled the little bits I had to remove to complete the welding and painting (bumper and rear apron.)

I like the sound, it sounds the same as before, just a bit quieter.  I will have to report back on the performance and how clean the back of the bus stays.  I don’t have any “longish” trips planned to test this out any more this summer.

One additional modification I think I may do is to remove the double chrome tip and replace it with  curved piece so it looks very much like the stock exhaust, only with a much nicer tone.  I think It’s down to the appearance now.

Symbolism Over Substance?

A quick update on the electronic ignition upgrade.  After the upgrade, I noticed the bus starts almost instantly, very little cranking, it just fires right up.  However, I also noticed one additional "Feature".  When I installed the ignition, I also installed a new cap, rotor, plugs and wires.  Well, the wires were a 7mm, nice pretty new set of blue "hot rod" looking wires.  It took me about a day to figure out what that whine/click was in my stereo; it turned out to be the new wires.  I pulled them out and replaced them with my original (two year old) set of Bosch wires (black) and the noise was gone.  I guess the allure of the pretty blue wires was just too much for me and I bought them on a whim.  Oh well, lesson learned.  Symbolism over substance?  It wasn't worth it in the end.

Time for a new windshield

My original windshield had a nice chip right in the drivers viewing area, and the edges were getting pretty cloudy.  It really was time to replace it.  So, last Spring I bought a new windshield and seal at a show in Lansing Michigan.  I have been putting off doing the swap because I was half afraid of what I might find lurking under the seal.  They have been known to harbor some pretty scary rust holes.

Well, Last Saturday I decided to dig in; partly because I don’t like procrastinating, but mostly because my son will be heading back to college in a few weeks and I really needed his help to do the switch.  I started by cutting the old seal with a Stanley knife.  I did this from the outside.  I laid the blade as flat as the knife would let me, and just cut gently outward.  This removed the outer portion of the old seal and left the glass sitting nicely on top of the old seal that was still hooked over the sheet metal flange.  It was very easy to do.  I had the old seal cut out and the window lying on the table in the garage in less than 5 minutes!

The reveal?  It looked excellent under there!  There were a few minor surface rust spots under the seal, but it looked excellent for a 42 year old bus.  I started the cleanup using a damp cloth and Westly’s bleach white.  That took 90% of the crud off.  I followed up with a bit of mineral spirits on a cloth.  This pretty much did the rest.  I put a cylindrical wire clean-up brush in my drill motor and used that to remove the small surface rust.  I them painted the entire seal channel with the same paint I used to paint the top.  I did this with a small brush by hand.  It took about an hour to clean and paint (two coats) the entire channel.  While I was in there, I also had an opportunity to repaint the top of the dash that I got a little overspray on when I painted the interior.  Looks much better now.  I let it sit overnight to dry.

I started the install by sliding the seal on the edge of the glass with the seam centered on the top.   I inserted a length of parachute cord (Literally.  I got it from the military supply down the street!)  into the sheet metal grove part of the rubber seal.  I made two complete loops with the cord.  This not only gave me a second chance in case the flip didn’t work the first time, it opened the grove a bit wider as well.  I then set the whole thing out in the sun for about 30 mins.  As it turned out, it takes so long to get the thing installed, the pre-heat had little effect.

The first attempt didn’t work.  We started on the bottom and every time we tried to work the seal inside, the glass would push up in the hole.  This was difficult to counter because it meant we would have to pull down on the glass to keep it in the correct spot.  The top of that windshield is pretty high up there for us to reach, that meant that it was at a really awkward angle to apply pressure.

On the second attempt, we started on the top.  This allowed us to keep the glass pushed up into the hole easily by pushing in from the bottom.  This worked much better.  We found that there was no need to hit the glass at all.  It could be moved around by pushing with palms and sliding and pulling and scootching.  The new seal I bought has about a millimeter more coverage than the OE part (probably due to shrinkage from 40+ years) This covered up my paint edge perfectly.  It sealed up nice and tight, no leaks.  This is not a difficult job, it was just a fairly physical job.  It takes a bunch of pushing and pulling and hopping in and out, even with a helper.  You will find muscles that you have not used in a while and you will work up a sweat.  I don’t think I would try this job without a helper.  Doing this solo would be really tough.
The new glass is excellent.  So clean and clear, it looks like there is nothing in front of you.  Very cool.

Generator rebuild follow-up #2

I found an additional side effect to the generator rebuild project I thought I would mention.  The generator has always charged fine and the gen light has always behaved as normal, but!  I had the stereo connected to a full time 12 volt lead under the dash.  It works fine, but it almost always would lose it's presets and the clock would reset.  This happened after I restarted the bus.  Just shutting it down had no effect.  This is where it gets a bit loopy; After the new brushes in the generator, the stereo has not lost its presets even once.  Hmmm.  Maybe cleaning up a ground, bumping a wire, or the new brushes did something good in there.  Oh well, Happy Camper I am.

Some notes on reworking the VW generator

To dis-assemble the generator, I loosened the two long bolts that go all the way through the generator, end to end.  I left a full thread engagement into the end cap and I broke the end cap loose buy  tapping the slotted end of the bolts.  This made a nice gap to insert a couple of pry bars in between the end cap and the generator body.  I just tapped on the end of the armature shaft with a bronze hammer until it slid out from the bearing.  I did almost the same thing to the opposite end.

Next, I released the springs that apply pressure to the brushes and I loosened the screw that connects the end cap to the electrical contact in the body and the whole assembly just slid apart.

I removed the two screws that held the bearing into the end cap on the fan end and the cap came right off.  Next I pulled the bearings off the armature shaft using a small puller.  They were not on very tight, they slid right off.

I sprayed all the parts with cleaner and pushed the bearings back on the armature.  I just reversed the disassembly process and it was back together and ready in no time.

I used a piece of 400  grit sandpaper to clean the commutator.  Make sure there are no burs left that can cause excessive ware to the new brushes.
Pay close attention to the brush spring positioning upon reassembly.  The coil spring should be positioned so that pressure is applied to the center top of the brushes.  This applies a nice straight even linear pressure on the brush so it is being pressed against the commutator.  Be sure to check the travel of the brushes to be sure they do not bind.

A couple of notes here, this procedure applies to a generator that was previously working, it just needed the bearings replaced.  The coils were fine and the generator produced power, it just had noisy bearings.

It really isnt possible for a DIYer to repair bad windings. The parts should just be replaced if that is the case.  Used parts are out there, just be sure they are good.

Be sure to polarize the generator before you reinstall it.  To do this, connect a jumper wire from the D- terminal to the ground screw. Connect a +12 volt DC source to the D+ and the D- terminals.  The generator should spin up like a motor.  Only allow this to run for a couple of seconds, that's all you need.  This magnetizes the iron/steel cores between the windings and the hysteresis in the system (trace amounts of magnetism left over in the plates) will allow the generator to produce power.  Generators that have been sitting for long periods of time will eventually loose their trace amounts of magnetism in the plates and will "forget" how to make power.  The polarizing  restores this magnetism and you are off and charging.
Good luck!