I made some more progress with the bus today, but it also decided to stop working… again…

I started the day with another exciting shopping trip.  I purchased a sweet tool bag that will keep all the of the tools that I have had the pleasure of working with organized and mobile.  The plan is to keep this bag in the bus so I have access to just about anything I might need to fix problems on the road – this is part of the reason we bought this thing – it is so simple!  Basically three sizes of wrenches (13mm and 10mm and the big 21mm to turn the generator pulley), a flat blade screwdriver, and a few other odds and ends will allow me to do just about everything.  I’ve also included some carb cleaner, gloves, and some electrical stuff.  It feels good to get more organized, and setting this bag up is definitely a step towards a mobile camping bus!

I also test drove the bus some more – it started up great, ran beautifully, and everything seemed to be working out great.  I did notice that after the engine had been fully warmed, and running for maybe 15 minutes, the idle was fairly slow, and the exhaust was spitting out perfectly formed white smoke rings.  While this was kind of amusing, white smoke it not really a good sign.  I think its better than blue smoke (oil burning), or black smoke (gas burning), its still not good.

Then, at the end of the day, I decided to take one more trip around the lot – “you shouldn’t a dun that!” Backed the bus out, shifted to first fine, shifted to second – immediately lost power, and the engine died.  It wouldn’t start, but since I had my new onboard tool bag, I grabbed the carb spray and shot some of that into the carb’s fuel bowl. Engine starts, but dies almost immediately – I can’t keep it running!  I have to push the thing back to the garage, and then, with the help of my new bus friend Dennis, we got it pushed back into its home – what a fail!  I’m not really sure what happened, but it won’t stay running, idle speed wanders which is a sign of the dreaded air leak.  I bought a compression tester a while back, but never used it – I’m going to test each of the four cylinders – this should give me a rough sense of the engine’s health.  Its possible that now that I got it running for more than a few minutes, something inside the engine is worn out(valve rings, head seals, main seals, other things that I don’t even know about yet).  If the test is bad, I might be pushing up the date for a new engine!  In the mean time, enjoy this exciting and poorly done video of exhaust smoke rings:

My new 30pict carb and intake manifold arrived in time for me to get some serious work done this weekend.  What follows is a brief account of how I struggled to get this stupid bus engine working again – the end result – yeah it works… kind of.

I started Friday by pulling off the old carb and intake manifold.  I had done this before, but for some reason I really couldn’t get the pieces off the engine.  With a lot of effort, I was finally able to rip the old pieces off – the new manifold has detachable heat riser tubes that will make this job so much easier in the future!  I grab the new carb and decide to test fit it to the new manifold before I bolt everything on.  Thats when I notice that the two threaded studs that were included with the carb kit don’t fit into the base adapter plate.  They are just a little to big.  I pretty much freak out – WTF!  I have been very apprehensive that this new carb will be a piece of junk, and it looks like my fears are being realized.  I try to keep calm though – call the local Ace hardware store to see if they have different studs.  I take the new carb to the store, and the guy at the counter is an old VW nut from the ’70’s… Sweet!  He takes a look at the base of the carb, and pulls out a re-tapping kit – quickly twists an 8mm tap into the base holes, enlarging them enough to hold the threaded studs, solving my issues!

Back at home, I bolt the carb onto the new manifold – and notice my next issue.  The throttle assembly that links to the accelerator pump is rubbing on the base of the manifold – basically, the stupid thing doesn’t fit right!  Again I freak out – I’m ready to call the shop I bought this stuff from, and see what they can do.  Before I give up though, I decide to try and modify the manifold and throttle arm.  I bent the metal linkage ever so slightly to just clear the side of the manifold, and trimmed the new gasket – success!

By now its Saturday afternoon – I haven’t taken many pictures because I’m been to focused on getting this stupid thing to work!  Bolt that carb on, reinstall all of the cables and connectors when I notice problem #3 – the electrical connector on the carb is too big for the current connectors on the wires coming from the coil – off to NAPA to get new connectors!  Ok, that problem solved – the last step is to reattached the accelerator cable coming from the gas pedal… but it can’t reach the place where it attaches – WTF! this is problem #4 and its a big one.  I can force the cable to connect to the throttle piece on the carb, but it is stretching, and won’t let the gas pedal all the way up – not good!  I don’t know what to do – I’ve spent two days trying to get this stuff to work, and I have totally failed!

Fast forward to Sunday morning – I removed the adapter plate on the base of the carb (the same one I had to have re-tapped).  This lowered the base of the throttle, giving me just enough space to attach the accel cable – Success!  Until I tried to pull the throttle arm back – now problem #5 – the the carb is lower on the manifold, it catches on the side – oh, and I can’t fully bolt the carb down because there isn’t enough clearance for the two nuts – basically, the manifold is very poorly designed, and just doesn’t work well with the size of carb that I have (remember I’ve downsized from 34Pict to 30Pict…  I’m tired of dealing with this, so I do what I do best – try to destroy everything!  I bought a metal file from NAPA and went to town.  I was able to whittle the manifold sides down just enough to allow enough clearance for the throttle arm – Success!  I can now freely apply full gas pedal, and have everything close up properly on release.

Turn the key, pump the gas – it fires up!  The engine sounds beautiful, and it idles extremely well – even when full warm!  My problems aren’t completely over – it struggles to start, which might be a result of timing, or maybe I’m flooding the carb?, and I think I still have a small air leak at the base of the new carb – and the starter seems to be making some weird noises.  I’m sure I will address all of these issues soon, but in the mean time, I have a working engine again!  It took three days, and a ton of stressful one-off workarounds, but I’ve got this thing running again.  Yay!