It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.  The high-level story is that I’m in the process of quitting my very stable and safe corporate job to fix up the bus and drive it around the country!  Noelle has been building up a graphic design business, and we’re planning on taking a year or so to work remotely while we travel around the US (and maybe beyond!)

For the time being we’ve moved to the sunny hills of western Iowa, and into my parents’ basement (classic millennials). The bus is all set up in their nice detached garage, and I’m really looking forward to tearing it all apart.  The plan is to get going in earnest on restoring and turning this thing into a camper – I’ve also started a build thread on thesamba.com to glean as much info as I can from that amazing resource.

We’re going to get started taking this thing apart so we can really see what we are working with!

Thankfully, this isn’t a picture of hail damage on the bus. It is a picture of hail damage on my real car… but at least that has comprehensive insurance!

Crazy storm rolled through on Tuesday night – of course I had driven the bus to a friend’s place for a friendly game of poker…  It started with a few rain drops while I was slowly but surely giving away all my precious poker chips.  I thought to myself “hmm might be driving home in the rain.. won’t be the first time”  Then all hell broke loose – huge chunks of ice start raining down – biggest hail I’ve ever seen.  I’m freaking out, Noelle is calling me… she’s freaking out.  The poor bus is sitting entirely exposed in the parking lot!!  I run out into the storm, hail smashing down around me, fling the cargo doors open, the sound inside the bus reverberating off the sheet metal was deafening – I grabbed the blanket that covers the rear seat, flung that up on the roof – grabbed the thick rubber floor mat, hefted that up on the roof.  I got most of the roof covered and ran back inside completely soaked!

Fast forward 10 minutes, I dominated the newly restarted poker game, and decided I better get that bus back home and safe in the garage.  The bus definitely took care of me on the way back – pouring down rain, massive wind, flooded out roads, and hail, more hail – we drove through it all; the roads were basically empty, and I roared that thing all the way home.  The engine was strong, the bus felt solid, I pushed it hard. Finally pulled into the garage – safe!  I did a cursory check of the roof – definitely some paint chipped off, but it doesn’t look like there’s any real damage – whew!  My real car wasn’t so lucky…

I spent some time Wednesday airing out the bus and garage – glad we survived the storm!

This bus definitely has gremlins. “Gremlins… You got-you gotta watch out for them forgeiners cuz they plant gremlins in their machinery.” Gremlins, 1984

Haha, that movie is seriously terrifying… Went to start the bus this week, chug chug chug – it wouldn’t start! I think maybe it was flooded so I grab the carb cleaner, spray a good amount into the carb and try to start the engine again – it starts, but it wasn’t happy.  I do a test drive around the parking lot, everything seems ok – park the bus, attempt to start it again to test it – this time – nothing!

Ok fast forward a couple days – try the bus again, it doesn’t start, doesn’t even turn over.  I start in on the Muir checklist of what to do when the engine doesn’t start – I checked the coil – it sparked so thats good, I adjusted the auto-choke – it needed reset after John and I messed with everything last week.  I tried rolling the bus backwards in 3rd gear (this has never worked for me, but yet I still try it optimistically every time!)  Finally I decided it’s either the ignition switch or the starter. Its easier to check the starter, and sure enough, I climb under the bus and immediately notice a loose wire hanging down  “there’s your problem right thar!”  Looks like the wire that comes from the ignition switch worked its way loose – a gremlin. Reconnect it, bus fires right up – I mess with the choke a little, drive around the neighborhood, and call it a day.

It makes me nervous because even though this was an easy fix, I have this sense of foreboding every time I drive it that them gremlins are just waiting to get me.  I’m thinking that I won’t be fully confident in this bus until I’ve checked or replaced just about everything on it – sounds like fun!

Went to a car show in LaSalle with a few VW guys today.  We had a ton of fun – beautiful day, cool cars, nice people!

I decided not to drive the bus to the show given how far it was and the possibility of afternoon rain (which definitely materialized!)  A group of guys from the Harsh Winters VW Club drove down to LaSalle, Illinois for a car show; we all had a really good time!

My friend’s perfectly restored 23 window Samba won Best Import – sweet!

Took the bus to a friend’s house today.  He’s got a big garage and a sweet car lift so I was able to check out the underside of this thing.

Overall, I would say it’s some good and some bad.  The underside of this bus is definitely crusty – the cargo floor will need a full replacement, the front valance and A pillars will need replaced.  One cross beam looks pretty bad, but the big frame pieces are solid.

The front beam and steering components will need to be replaced eventually – I’m looking into getting a new front suspension built, and upgraded w/ disk brakes.

The rear set-up is in a little better condition.  The bus has been lowered w/ a Beetle transmission and straight axle kit.  I’m thinking that I want to replace this at some point with the stock bus reduction gear boxes and “freeway flyer” tranny from Rancho.

After checking out the underside of this beast, we took the bus to another guy’s house – John is retired and has worked on VW’s/ Hot Rods for a long time – he checked out my engine/ carb work and got everything running really well.  I had it running ok, but he got it running real sweet!