I’m posting a little video of driving the bus around the neighborhood. Just more proof that this crazy bus is up and running!
I think we can all agree that Noelle did an excellent job w/ the camera – I look/ sound like a dork, the tire iron is clanging around in the background, but oh well, I’m a dork driving a VW bus – heck yeah!
Now I can move on to taking videos of the bus in cool places like the gas station and other fun parking lots in Chicagoland suburbia – sweet.
Had a real roller coaster of a bus day today. Started with a call to AAA in the middle of the night – then ended with a nice drive through the neighborhood!
So last night we decide to go to the store… at like 10pm… in the bus… Bus drove great on the way there, but on the way back a clunking noise started and quickly got worse. I barely got it pulled off the road and into a parking lot – whew – I’m thinking at this point that something catastrophic has occurred in one of the wheels or the transmission. As soon as we slowly clunk to a stop… it starts raining, like pouring – this is just perfect! Time for AAA to the rescue – call them, wait an hour for the tow truck, the dude takes one look at the bus and starts laughing. I’m like “Um, whats so funny” he’s like “Um, check your front wheel” Sure enough, the lug bolts are all loose – the stupid wheel is just loose, and I feel like an idiot! So yeah I had to deal with the tow guy making fun of me and Noelle making fun of me – but the bus is ok, and I’m going to be checking the lug bolts everyday from now on!
Fast forward to Saturday – beautiful day, drove the bus all over – went to lunch, took a drive in the neighborhood, fun times all around. After the debacle’s with the loose wheel and loose axle nut, I’ve started checking and double checking everything – did a valve job this morning, but everything was in order, gaps were right at .006. The bus is running well, and I’m really getting the hang of driving it!
Did a little repair work on the rubber vacuum stops – they are falling apart, so I patched them up w. electrical tape (well first I bought a replacement set from NAPA, but of course those didn’t actually fit).
I also took the front VW emblem to my local Ace hardware to get the metal posts threaded. They have the tools to tap holes and thread posts, and don’t charge anything for it – the emblem is now much more secure, and it won’t be bouncing down the road like the hubcaps did!
Noelle got some sweet action shots – check out that intense concentration!
I think I fixed the bus! And the best thing – it was free!
I spent some time this week researching the swooshing/ clicking/ clattering noise I was hearing from the passenger rear wheel. I had determined that it wasn’t tire related – the drum was hard to turn by hand though, and once I backed off the brake adjusters, the drum seemed loose. It also had a lot of brown brake dust everywhere. The possible diagnosis’ were everything from a loose axle nut, to a problem with the brake internals, to a bad wheel bearing or CV joint. The common denominator in all of these is that I needed a torque wrench and 36mm socket to remove/ tighten the axle nut. Unfortunately, those torque bad boys are like $100 or more – having just spent some coin on getting the bus to this point, I was very hesitant to go buy a big tool that I might use once.
Thankfully, this is where my local Autozone comes in – turns out you can rent tools like this torque wrench and the axle socket that I needed. You pay the value of the tool… but if you bring it back in working condition within 90 days you get your money back – like all of your money even the sales tax back – free is always a sweet deal! I looked at their brochure and you can rent all kinds of stuff like steering wheel and brake drum pullers, wrenches, compression kits, etc. I’ll be sure to utilize this service going forward.
Back to the bus, it was pretty simple – I pulled out the little pin in the axle castle nut, spritzed the nut with pb blaster, fit the torque wrench on, twisted it up to the required 250lbs and slowly added pressure to the nut. It was definitely not torqued to 250, and it moved easily to the right until the wrench hit the 250 mark and clicked over. Put the pin back in and started the bus up for a nice trip around the parking lot. No noise, no problems, brakes work – Success!
In the end, I don’t think the shop took this drum off, so I definitely can’t and don’t blame Darby – he did a good job with the shifter and the mirrors – bus is running well, and I’m excited to start driving this thing around!
I’m still recovering from yesterday’s revelry – it sure helped that my safari windshield kit came this weekend! Unfortunately I also haven’t fully figured out the new noise I’m hearing from the right-hand side of the bus.
I’ll start with the good (and might just end with a rant). I bought this safari kit from EIS parts, the kits are some of the newest on the market, and have a v-shaped frame similar to original factory installations. They’ve had decent reviews, and I’m looking forward to making this upgrade to the bus. I was thinking I want shiny chrome frames, but the options for this kit were primer or powder coated white. I went with primered so that I can either paint them, or have them chromed. Although it will be a while before I get these bad boys installed, they are going to look cool, keep us cool on the road, and thats cool!
Ok now the bad – I noticed on Friday that the bus is making a new noise on the right side – it started as a swooshing/ squealing noise, and seems to be getting worse. It’s not engine related, and I think its coming from the right rear wheel. I started to try to diagnose by jacking up first the front, then the back passenger-side wheels.
The front spins freely, the back does not. I can spin the wheel by hand, but it takes quite a bit of force – not good! I’ve also noticed the outside of the drum is a lot dirtier than it was before I drove it to the shop. I run inside to do some research on what could cause the brake drum to stick – first culprit – brakes need adjusting. Didn’t I just pay a guy a bunch of money to adjust the rear brakes?! It turns out its extremely easy to adjust the brakes; Thanks to Noelle for these great and exciting action shots.
I turned the little adjuster stars until the drum would rotate nicely with just a little resistance, had Wifey help me test that the brakes still work to stop the drum, and took the bus out for a spin in the parking lot. The swooshing noise has now turned into more of a rapid clicking noise, and is very noticeable even just creeping along. Clearly there is more wrong than just a brake adjustment – again not good! From the research I’ve done, it might be the wheel bearing, but doesn’t sound quite like they say it should; it could be something with the axle nut, or maybe the CV joints.
Either way, it’s really disappointing that I just waited six weeks and spent the better part of a grand to get the bus back and have it break after 1 day of driving! I should expect a bunch of gremlins like this though, and honestly it just motivates me even more to get this thing fixed up… and by using my own knowledge and labor! I’ve said before that I don’t/can’t trust car people in business – the nice folks at the local auto stores are so clueless I’m surprised they can get their pants on in the morning (maybe they just don’t take them off?) – the car shops around here are very pricy, and now my bus is broken a day after leaving the local VW expert. I’m definitely not blaming Darby at this point – I know this bus is a jumble of mismatched and rusting parts, but its disappointing none the less. Looks like I’ll be learning how to replace some brake and axle parts!
I went to a VW air-cooled show in Oskaloosa, IA today. Had an absolutely amazing day with a bunch of awesome people!
My friend from work has a beautifully restored 23 window Samba that I’ve highlighted in an earlier post – he wanted to take it to this show, so thats what we did. We gathered at his house at like 5 in the morning – loaded the bus onto a U’haul car trailer and set off for Iowa. 5 hours later, we roll into the little town of Oskaloosa.. not quite sure what to expect. What awaited us was a wild day of VW’s, friendly, fun people, drinking, sunshine, and more drinking!
The show was put on by the owner of the Cellar Peanut Pub, and was an absolute blast. The pub is set in this old train station house, and has a massive selection of craft beers – they are working on setting up a micro brewery in a train car out back.
We met a bunch of awesome people and saw a lot of sweet rides – including two fully stock ’67 busses – looks like I need to soak up some inspiration! I dig those wide tires and sweet fog lights.
One guy brought a completely stock, unrestored ’51 split window bug – super rare, and word on the street is that this dude has a warehouse full of bugs and busses!
We finally got back to Chicagoland around 1AM after a day full of awesomeness – we’ll be back Oskaloosa!