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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!

Had a great time with the bus today, drove it to work, took it out to lunch, drove it home, and took the wife out for dinner.  Lots of bus driving = good times!

The first dinner spot for the bus happens to be Buffalo Wild Wings – and we all know that people who love Vdubs love Bdubs! haha well I just crack myself up.

I gassed the bus up again today – I’m not quite sure how many miles per gallon I’m running right now – the fuel gauge doesn’t work – but I put around 6.5 gallons in last night – drove probably 40 – 50 miles total, and put another 3.5 gallons in today.  Its a 10 gallon tank and I never filled it completely full.  I’m thinking its probably around 10 – 15mpg, and I’ve read that healthy engines run around 20 – 24 mpg’s – I’ll try to start tracking this better going forward

Unfortunately, I noticed a swooshing/ grinding sound that started up sometime during the day – it sounds like it might be coming from the front or rear passenger-side wheels.  I’m hoping its not anything major, but I’ll try to check things out this weekend.

But it will have to wait until Sunday, because tomorrow I’m heading to Oskaloosa, IA for a VW show with a couple guys and a fully restored 23 window!

After many weeks sitting outside the shop, we finally got the bus back!  Yeah I mean I ended up driving it the 35miles home at midnight, in a rainstorm, with no window wipers… but hey, we got it back!!

I got the call that the bus was ready on Tuesday, but it was a busy week at work, so I had to let it sit a little longer.  Thursday night, I decided screw this I want that bus back, and I’m going to go get it – even though it was like 10:30 and rain was on the way.  When we set off for the shop, it was still a clear night – but of course, 5 minutes before arriving it starts pouring down rain!  Noelle and I debated for a while if I should try to drive it home, and we decided to try to drive it around the block – I get in, fire that bad boy up, and pull out into the street.  With the near vertical windshields, I could actually see pretty clearly, so I just kept driving towards home – sweet!

Stopped on the way for some gas – the first time I’ve actually added gas to the bus via a gas station. only $4.50 a gallon – thanks Illinois

Even though the skies really opened up along the way, we made it back with no problems – this whole bus thing is starting to work out.

While I wasn’t happy with how long everything took, Darby’s a busy guy, and we may still end up doing the transmission swap with another ’67 bus.  For now, he fixed a few things on the shifter, changed the gear oil, adjusted the brakes, greased everything he could, and did a full mechanical/ bodywork inspection.  I didn’t end up having him to anything to the engine – it’s running fine now, just leaking oil, and I’ll keep working on that myself.  The shifter feels much tighter, and I’m getting the hang of driving this thing around!

I finally got around to completing the second Hehr jalousie window.  It feels great to get this project wrapped up!

Like I mentioned my earlier resto post, cleaning and restoring these windows is a big, tedious, PITA – but its definitely worth it. They are looking good! I will add the silicon sealant right before installing on the bus – I’m hoping for no water leaks and no cracked glass.

I’m also planning on getting the bus back this week.  As I mentioned before, I’ve heard this shop does good work, and I certainly trust Darby on his abilities… but its been like 6 weeks with no progress at all…. We still may or may not be swapping transmissions with this other guy – either way, I need that bus back this week.  Without that stupid bus, I’m going a little stir crazy. I just can’t wait to get it back so I can drive it until it breaks down – yay!

Yeah its snowing in April – so thats cool.

I still don’t have the bus back yet, but I decided to try to clean up the slightly rusty VW chrome emblem.  I read that submerging chrome in a bath of oxalic acid will lift and kill any rust.  Went to the local big box hardware store, and searched for this magical solution – couldn’t find it, but I did find this “Metal Rescue”.  It says it’s a “rust remover bath”… mmm thats the best kind of bath!

I left the emblem submerged in the solution for the suggested 2 hours for light rust – checked the progress, but still rusty. Left the emblem submerged for the suggested 8 hours for medium rust – checked the progress, but still rusty. Left the emblem submerged for the suggested 24 hours for heavy rusty – the picture below shows all of the progress – none. (and yes that is a plastic drawer from under the bathroom sink – it fit just perfectly)

So after 24 hours, the thing was as rusty as ever; yet another product that absolutely does not work.  Yeah I knew it was too good to be true, but still I had a sliver of hope that I would buy something and that thing would just do what it was meant to do – how naive!

Maybe someday I’ll actually get the bus back – in the meantime, I’ll need to think of something else for this emblem project – time to go play in the snow!