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It’s 5 degrees out – we just survived a 3 day snowfest – and yeah, I went out and started up the bus.   It struggled with the first turn of the key, the starter slowly chugged to life – the engine fired up, but then died.  I pumped the pedal a couple more times, turned the key, it roars to life!  I kept my foot on the pedal for a few seconds to keep the engine going, and then backed off the gas.  The engine idles smooth, sounds great.  No, I didn’t drive it around in the snow, but still – if the stupid thing starts when its this cold, I have to think it is good to go.

I snapped the pic above as a car drove by to illuminate the awesome event, and I made another video of my beautiful engine running, even in the cold, but I didn’t want to post it because then people might come across my youtube channel and think I have some weird VW engine fetish… which I don’t! … I think

I also spent some time crawling around underneath the bus, confirming that some genius of a previous owner had decided to add a real hack-job of a weld to the front bumper brackets.  They are now solidly attached to the bus, and I can’t actually fit a wrench behind them to put the bumper on.  I’ll be figuring out the least destructive way of removing these shortly.

Its supposed to be -15 below next week – lets see if any more body panels try to fall off!

I’ve finally got a decent chunk of time to work on the bus.  The weather should be a little warmer over the next couple of days, and today I set about getting the fuel lines all replaced.

I managed to get the guy at NAPA to be at least somewhat helpful (although he was reluctant to make any real effort) – I bought a 20” piece of 1/4” brake line tubing to replace the old rusty metal fuel line.  Given the state and shape of the old metal tube, I do not think it was original at all.

I cut the connector ends off of the brake line tube, and filed down the sharp edges.

I used a wire as a template, and the handle of my hammer to help bend the tubing – I think this is close to the original design, and it routes the fuel around the hot engine which will prevent overheating and vapor-lock.  I also replaced the soft rubber line under the bus, and secured it to the tank nozzle.  Finally, I rigged up a wire to suspend the line off of the engine tin – I’ve noticed that this gets pretty hot.

Overall, I’m happy with the way it turned out – and it all only cost like $10!  The engine won’t quite stay running yet, but I’m hoping to make some significant progress tomorrow – more to come!

I think it hit like -5 degrees below zero this week – so cold that it cracked the crappy bondo job on the right rear panel!  I knew the exterior had been repaired at some point, but obviously, that spot got more attention than the rest.  I’m thinking it got cold, the metal contracted more than the Bondo… and eventually… crack!  Not good!  I’m not freaking out too much because I figured I would need some additional bodywork done when I get a full paint job – but it kind of sucks having a big cracking running down the bus!  If it’s this cold in Chicagoland mid-December, I shudder to think what it will be like in January and February!  Maybe my next post will be from a nice beach rental in Florida…. maybe!

After running back in to tell Noelle all about the new expensive crack in the side of the bus, I got busy propping up one side so I had better access to the underside of the fuel tank.  My plan was to pull the underside hose and connector off, and see if it is all gunked up.  I got the old hose off no problem – it is definitely time to replace – the rubber felt almost rotten.  I then spent the next couple hours trying to figure out how to drain the gas out – I thought it would just rush out of the now exposed connector, but it was dry.  I tried blowing compressed air up into the tank, tried using a hand pump to siphon it out, nothing worked, I couldn’t get any gas out of the tank!

Thats when I realized  – yet again – I’m just being an idiot – of course I can’t get any gas out – the stupid bus is tipped up on one side, and all the gas is sitting on one end of the tank!  Seriously – I can be so dumb sometimes – yet here I am, trying to fix this cribbily old bus! As soon as I lower the bus, gas comes pouring out of the nozzle – I hook up an extra piece of hose and drain the tank.  My plan now is to remove the nozzle, clean it and any gunk that I can from the tank.  I’m also going to pull the old rubber hose and metal gas lines – replace the rubber, and clean out the metal.  But honestly – its frickin’ cold, and I can’t feel my toes – so I’m going inside!

Spent $500 at a local car shop this week… for a water pump replacement…

“But wait!” you say. “The bus is air-cooled, it doesn’t have a water-pump!” – you would be correct – but this repair was for Noelle’s Jeep Liberty.  We started hearing a weird ticking noise when the engine was running, and I wasn’t about to start taking that engine apart too! We took it to a shop and walked out with no more ticking noise, less money, and no idea how to fix the problem if it happens again… And that is why I bought a bus – because when we are out and about in that thing, I might hear a strange noise, and it might break down on the side of the road – but I will have the tools and the knowledge to get it working again.  Compare that to the Jeep – the car shop people know I’m clueless – its like they can smell my ignorance!  The place I took it to came highly recommended, and I was happy with their work – but I have also decided I really don’t like car industry people!  How many times do you take your car to the shop and the people act soooo superior with their massive automotive intellect.  They will sell you everything you don’t need, but don’t actually know any real answers – I don’t trust car people!!  This place charged me $20 to “charge the battery” – I’m like – “what do you think is going to happen when I drive it home…”

I continue my rant with example #2 – NAPA. I live close to the regional NAPA distribution center, which is pretty sweet because they have a lot of the harder to get parts that other locations would need to order from.  I’ve been in there quite a bit over the last few months, and every time I get the feeling that they look down on little old me.  Well today, they crossed the line!  I went in to buy a few fuel filters – I’m trying to avoid having to pull the rusty gas tank for as long as possible – I ask the guy at the counter for three filters – he’s like “what size”  I’m like “I don’t know, last time they didn’t ask me that”  he’s like “we have lots of sizes, you need to know what size” so I go back home, pull the current filter and take it with me back to NAPA.  Go in – talk to a different dude – ask him for the filers – he’s like “no problem, they’ll pull them from the warehouse” – I’m like “Sweet”.  They grab the filters, and the original guy rings me up – I open one of the boxes to check, and they are totally a different type of filter.  It looks like they might fit, but the filter part was much bigger, and the connector nozzles were different.  I look at the guy and I’m like “these are different, do you have this type (pointing to the filter I brought in)” – he’s like “Nope thats all I got” …….  The older Drew, the less confident, less curmudgeonly Drew, would have probably just taken the new filters and hoped for the best.  But I’m not that Drew anymore – I’m pissed! Screw that guy, WTF does he know.  He is standing there telling me a complete lie because he assumes that I am some clueless fool who will just believe whatever his handlebar mustached mouth spews out – so I say to him “I just bought the that type of filter like 3 weeks ago, unless something changed, you do got it, and I need the original, not this new one that won’t work as well” – he’s like “oh yeah we’ve got those right here” I get my new filters and I’m out of there.  I’m tired of car industry people thinking they know everything, but actually they know nothing, and are too stupid and/or too lazy to actually provide useful information or services.  Car people seem to have no trouble charging me an arm and leg for anything they can get their grubby paws on (literally – car people have grubby paws), but yet their total lack of a brain makes me wonder how these places even stay in business!  I’m done with my rant, but I’m just letting you know – if you are a car person – I don’t trust you – you’ve turned me into a paranoid skeptic – anything you say is probably wrong, and you are probably trying to rip me off in some way, and that’s not cool!

Regarding the bus progress… I didn’t get anything done today except stall out in the parking lot and enlist Noelle to help me push it back into the garage – its just cold out there – too cold.  More to come tomorrow!

Happy Thanksgiving!  I had some great time with family this week – I also had a little time to work on the bus. I’ve been trying to diagnose the ongoing engine troubles, and I decided to start tackling one of the bigger restoration projects: the front bumper!

I noticed that my brand new spark plugs are completely fouled with carbon – most likely due to the new carb running rich.  I replaced them with even more brand new plugs… even though I think the carb might still be rich, so I probably just wasted like $10.  I’m thinking about opening the carb and replacing the main jets with smaller sizes – if these new plugs get fouled right away I’ll look into that.

The engine is still dying after its warmed up – this time, it started up great, I made it almost all the way around the parking lot, shifted to first after the stop sign – the engine lost power, I goose the pedal for more gas, but nothing happens – its dead.  After it dies, it doesn’t start unless I spray carb cleaner in the carb fuel bowl.  My theory now is that 1) the gas tank has some rust which is constricting the lines and clogging the fuel filter, 2) the gunk in the fuel lines may have blocked a carb jet, 3) the fuel pump rod is getting stuck at higher temperatures, resulting in less fuel flow at idle.  All of these are relatively easy to fix except for fully replacing the gas tank – I’ll keep you posted on the progress!

The front bumper is actually in pretty solid shape. It has some surface rust, the paint is chipped and coming off, there are a few dents – but it doesn’t have any holes, it is straight, and has accurate curvature.  My plan is to strip the thing down to bare metal, neutralize any rust, fix any dents, spray paint with professional grade primer, base coat, and clear coat automotive paint.  I spent like 3 hours with various grinding wheels and a wire brush on the drill – this is taking quite a while!  I’m about halfway done, but so far its looking like I will have a really nice bumper for a fraction of the cost of a new one!