I’m working to get the engine put back together. I’m really hoping I can get this thing to work soon; I want to be driving around before the Chicago weather takes a turn for the worse (and then stays there for 5 months).
I started putting the manifold back on. The gaskets that came with the new rubber boots to connect the end castings to the cylinder heads don’t fit… at all… but the original aluminum gaskets are still in place. I eventually got everything to slide into place, and snugged down securely. It’s very possible that something on the manifold was causing my vacuum leak, and the cleaned up parts look solid. I then moved on to the generator – got it shimmied back into the fan shroud, and strapped down. I filled the carb bowl w/ some gas, replaced the top, and placed it on the manifold. After dropping the front tightening nut underneath the newly secured manifold (and spending like 2 hours trying to get it out) the carb was set up and ready to go. The last step was to reconnect the electrical wires to the carb and generator – easy!
Except that as I tightened the DF ground terminal on the generator I heard a SNAP, and the thing started spinning around with my wrench…uhoh… I broke the little wire inside the generator that grounds it to the voltage regulator. Not good! For a second I freak out – I’ve just spent all night putting these stupid engine parts back on, this was the last step and it should have been easy, I don’t know what I’m doing, I can’t do this!! Ahhh!!
Ok, so after I went inside in a huff, I realized that I can probably fix it fairly easily by re-securing the terminal, and soldering the little wire back to the connector end. So thats what I did – I’ve never soldered before, but I bought a little soldering iron a while ago – watched a couple YouTube vids and went to town. It probably isn’t the prettiest solder job, but it seems to have worked. I hooked the generator up to the battery to polarize it, and it spun around quickly, just like it was supposed to. Success! I carefully attached the voltage regulator wires and called that project complete. I’ll finish hooking everything up, and finally test the engine this weekend.
This picture is pretty much every night for me right now, but honestly, I can’t complain. Even though this bus has been one problem after another, I have thoroughly enjoyed working on it, and learning everything as I go. While I’m spent most of my time troubleshooting and fixing, I’m really looking forward to the day when we’re out there road-trippin to some campsite! My motto: Keep calm and carry on!
This is great I have had alot of the same troubles with a 68 bug that I built for my daughter as a college graduation gift . Made me laugh because you and I have had the same conversations with the machine. Keep up the good work it is all worth it when you get to drive it. Don’t get me wrong it will still cause you trouble thats what these things do. You can’t expect to drive a vehicle this old and not have it be an “adventure” from time to time. But then again thats why we drive them.
Thanks David! I’ve tried to take a methodical, slow n’ steady approach to this bus project – I’m sure I’ll be on the road eventually; if it was easy, it would be boring right!