AirSpeed VW Community Forums

Specialty Forums => Bay- curios? => Topic started by: Geoff on January 01, 2014, 11:03:44 AM

Title: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Geoff on January 01, 2014, 11:03:44 AM
Who's got a Bay project that will hit the road in 2014?

I hear Bruce may get his on the road?

Richard?

Let's see some projects.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: 70's Looker on January 01, 2014, 06:00:36 PM
Common Bruce get it there, before you enjoy the SUV lifestyle!
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Richard Kuczko on January 02, 2014, 06:22:43 AM
As soon as I pick up my wicked engine that Darren is building and put in I it will be complete    Except head liner.  And I will take a bunch of pictures and post them. 
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Richard Kuczko on January 02, 2014, 06:26:52 AM
  I think Bruce spent too much time slamming my bus and didn't make time to finish his own.   So thanks Bruce.  Still don't get tired of all the smiles and thumbs up when I drive it down the road.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: aircooleddave1965 on January 02, 2014, 06:59:32 AM
I just got dropped spindles and boomerangs for my 73 Hightop. I have been driving it stock since I got it last spring. Rims and tires and altitude adjustment are coming soon!
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Hansk on January 02, 2014, 11:27:17 PM
Got a wheel package together


(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1275.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy458%2Fvolks1960%2Fvwbuspictures001_zps540f27cc.jpg&hash=e9130b0b1da4f1e43155f7e4d09036b12a163217)

(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1275.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy458%2Fvolks1960%2Fvwbuspictures004_zps823c87dd.jpg&hash=7dc07fae7074710886bbeb7655ad206d6964e9c3)

(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1275.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy458%2Fvolks1960%2Fvwbuspictures006_zps0a1ba3b6.jpg&hash=40a7bdcefee8e049ecab4436345144421472f109)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: pittwagen on January 03, 2014, 11:53:30 AM
This is my project.  It is a year round driver but there is plenty left to do.  I figured it would be a 3-5 year project and I am approaching year 4 in a couple of months.

(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.thesamba.com%2Fvw%2Fgallery%2Fpix%2F1008440.jpg&hash=c5eccf3066412499789802df8c0d2c0cfada9b4f)

Most of the mechanical items have been resolved.  Westfalia interior is mostly complete with the exception of a head banger closet. Installed a big AGM battery (under the back seat) and 110/12 volt electrical system last summer.  No problem handling the original Dometic 12 V fridge.  Still need to figure out some auxiliary heat for those cool overnight trips.  Espar D2 or Propex 2000 are the choices.  Both are thermostatically controlled and very fuel efficient.  The propane unit is a little more costly as I will need a new tank.   

I also installed a set of proper winter tires in November so I don't have to worry about ice and snow.

It is still very lonely out here.  Almost never see any Bays on the road here in Ridge Meadows.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: rekka on January 03, 2014, 06:25:57 PM
Hey Hansk. What size are those? I like em.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Hansk on January 03, 2014, 11:29:22 PM
 Those are P225/70/15s  so still not LT rating but oh well.  They're on eurovan rims which actually DO NOT work on a bay.  Everyone else probably already knew that but I just had to try and make them work anyway. Don't try this at home.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Geoff on January 04, 2014, 07:49:31 AM
In 1993 I put euro van wheels on my 71 bus. All that was needed was to enlarge the center bore for the bearing hub to pass thru. The fwd offset worked good on a lowered bus.

A better way to go is the 15" Benz steel wheels.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: rekka on January 04, 2014, 09:05:55 AM
Thanks Hansk. I've increased the centre bore on a few sets of Audi and Mercedes rims over the years. Not a big job.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Hansk on January 04, 2014, 04:29:38 PM
Yes but to have these steel wheels properly machined would not have been cost effective in this case .  So I went red neck back yard  , now they fit ... but can never be balanced again ,  plus I'm pretty sure the wheel has been weakened somewhat .  I can live with this but would not recommend it to anyone .
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: rekka on January 04, 2014, 04:49:07 PM
I think you can balance the wheel and rotor/hub together as the bore in that will still be in the right place. Problem solved.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Hansk on January 06, 2014, 09:27:58 AM
True but the other issue with these is the bolt holes are up off the surface of the rotor more and probably should have longer studs . I agree with Geoff , mercedes wheels would be better.  I think in the long run I would go with one of the 27/8.50/14's LT tires out there on stock wheels.  Same outer dia. as these.

Hey Pittwagen , what winter tires did you go with?   Mine is also my daily driver rolling project. 
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: pittwagen on January 06, 2014, 10:53:53 AM
These are Hercules 185R14 C.  Nice tall skinny tread.  Got them out of their warehouse in Toronto a couple of months ago.

(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.thesamba.com%2Fvw%2Fgallery%2Fpix%2F1154656.jpg&hash=7cec6e3a3b3b1432966050a386deb217d3c7b56d)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Richard Kuczko on February 06, 2014, 08:09:35 AM
Here she is.  The never for sale bus.  I had a great time putting her back together.  The story was a interesting one.  I bought her in Calgary and she had many problems

No ignition
No bumpers
No brakes
Half dash was incomplete
And the bottom half was 60% rusted
And nose had a nice big dent with a inch of filler in her


I really liked this bus and looked like it was a good save.  So after I drove to Calgary to pick her up my first stop was to a real good suspension guy I have had work done by before, Bruce c.  Aka notchback.  When he seen it he looked pretty hesitant to do so much work since the work would be worth more the than the bus itself.  But he did it and did a wicked job of the slam. Plus other things. 

Once I got her home I figured I would insure it and drive it around for the summer.  Well I think she was very angry being neglected for so long she must have been pissed.  Because when I took the paper work in and the insurance company went to do a out of province vin check the noticed they didn't match.   Well that is another story in itself. But in the end of a 8 month process I got the clear title.

Anyway before I could insure it the bus needed a out of province inspection.  And to pass that I would have to get a structural done because of the rust and the slamming of it.  I did find a body company that really like vw and agreed to repair all the rust and give me a pass on the structural since the frame was modified (joys of living in a small town). Not too many can say they have that piece of paper with that much mods done. 

Finally with a clean title a structural inspection and out of province inspection she was finally a complete happy bus.  And when I went to get my new plate I was amazed by what I got.  After all the work on her and hoops I jumped through and the plate there would be no gutting name for her then Khristy

So anyway I had Darren k build me a 1776.  And it turned out awesome.   Thanks

It was fun.  And a headache.  But man is it sure fun doing it and make life interesting.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Richard Kuczko on February 06, 2014, 08:12:08 AM
More
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Richard Kuczko on February 06, 2014, 08:14:44 AM
Going for the cheech and Chong look. Gotta have some fun
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Richard Kuczko on February 06, 2014, 08:18:17 AM
That is a smooth running engine. Thanks Darren!  Only thing that spooks me now is the muffler is only 2 3/4 inch off the ground.  But looks cool
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Richard Kuczko on February 06, 2014, 10:40:35 AM
So tell me what do you think ?
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: aircooleddave1965 on February 06, 2014, 06:40:43 PM
I like it! Nice stance.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: rekka on February 07, 2014, 09:40:14 AM
Can't go wrong with a lowered bay. I dig it.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Hansk on February 07, 2014, 09:57:25 AM
Nice work.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: westcoast-paul on February 10, 2014, 08:20:08 PM
i agree - nice stance!

what are the suspension specs?
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Richard Kuczko on February 11, 2014, 08:05:33 AM
We'll Bruce put in a adjustable  4" narrow beam with drop spindals in the front.  He welded a all new front tubs to give me the clearance too. It is a 2 1/2" lift below the seats.  And all new spring plates and stuff on the back. 
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Richard Kuczko on February 11, 2014, 08:09:19 AM
Rear bumper is off too because I am getting it cleaned up along with the front and vw plate to match the roof color
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on March 24, 2014, 02:48:52 PM
I'll start posting pictures soon.   Just waiting for good weather as I have the difficult situation of 3 x 1975 Bays (2 Westfalias and 1 Riviera) and no garage: we do it all on the driveway.   An orange one, an almost neon-yellow one and a white one.    The orange bus is my daughter's pride and joy and daily driver (short distances mostly) but in an unfortunate slip of her attention a month ago got T-Boned by a small truck and damaged pretty badly everything from the front drivers door bottom (dog-leg area completely mashed in, door too damaged to make a worthwhile repair) all the way to the back bumper which was bent like a pretzel on one end.   Front wheel driver's side wheel wrecked.  ICBC wrote it off in record time.   But I'm unwilling to be the person to put one of these wonderous vehicles into the ground so we pushed hard to allow us to keep it on the road and take the 75% value payout.    They agreed after we did the basic safety fixes (replace wheel, check steering, suspension, brakes, etc), fix the left rear marker light (simple right?  Not always.....) and replace the back bumper.  With two other bays in the driveway we had our choice of bumpers.   But rust..........rust.........rust.....always rust.    Anyways, after an amazing 3 hours of work and possible occasional cursing, we got one of the other bumpers off and put onto her orange bus.   Meanwhile, the insurance ran out (just coincidence) and now I need to do a tune up before trying her out at Aircare.    Then she's on the road again and I'll work on the panels/bodywork when possible on weekends.    She also has new canvas top material we plan to install this summer and a new sliding door rail insert.   This bus alone is going to keep us busy.

Meanwhile, the other two buses do not currently run (won't start).   I'll work on them as time is available.  The yellow bus ran for the first month but then stopped running.  Initial quick tests proved no gas flow so I suspect fuel pump or possibly even just a neglected fuel filter.  Spent a couple weekends late last summer replacing the back brake cylinders that should have been simple until I had to deal with frozen bleed valves and very corroded brake lines, all of which I ended up replacing and learning the tricks of bending stainless steel brake lines with my new bending tool.    It's trickier than it looks.... 

The white bus is the Riviera.   I bought it in Squamish, where it had not run for a year.  Someone from some VW club had been helping them work on it and I don't think had a chance to get too far into the diagnosis before the owner just gave up the battle and put it up for sale.  I had it flat-bedded over to my place in Fort Langley.   Other than charging the battery so I could play tapes in it's cassette player while I worked on the orange bus, I have not had any time to even look at it but  I look forward to getting to that point.

Oh yeah, the yellow and white buses have original engines.  The orange bus has a 1979 2000cc engine in it.   One thing I've learned is people were pretty inventive on disabling all the diaphram valves that wore out over time (decel valve, EEC valve) and of course the whole charcoal canister and where the various hoses that used to go to it now go to.   

I'll post pictures and progress, simply described as orange bus or yellow bus or white bus.   

Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 03, 2014, 07:09:54 AM
It always amazes me how much longer some things take to do than I initially figured.   I'll admit right now that other than Grade 9 automechanics, I've had no formal automotive training.   But I do seem to have some meager level of mechanical understanding and a background in electronics and add to that a bunch of manuals, reading online forums of repairs/explanations and yes, even Youtube, I'm learning as I go.   14 months ago I had a Nissan Leaf and  Jeep.  Then I added my first 1975 Westy and started working on it and I was hooked.   Now I have the three I previously have mentioned.   

While I'm sure some will question the validity of this but I assure you, it happened and my youngest daughter can attest to it.  The absolute horrendous, stomach-sinking sound and shaking that came from our one running bus a couple months ago as we drove along at 50km/hour on 88th Ave in Fort Langley was a sudden shock.   I thought for sure we'd lost a rod or somehow a piston broke or something incredibly bad.   The noise and rattling and intense shaking from the rear of the bus was simply terrible.   2 seconds later it stopped running and we gently coasted to the side of the road and sat there and wondered.  The best part of that moment was that I was exactly, and I mean exactly two houses away from my ex-wife's house and I simply could not imagine having me and the bus that she was quite against me buying die there.   I could not believe the timing. 

So we tried to start it up again (yes, I know: damage damage damage but from what I heard, I had to really wonder how much worse it truly would be if I tried to get it going in any way).   I simply had to get to my own house and driveway, a mere two blocks away.    Well it started but it sounded terrible and unless I kept the gas peddle reasonably pressed down, it simply would stall again and die.   So giving it more gas than made any sense, I managed to edge it slowly (and I mean slowly!) down the road, shaking and banging and rattling away that must have had people look out their windows.   Freaking red light at Glover Road and it died again.  Sweating bullets, I waited for the light to go green and tried to start it again.   It had to be a careful combination of starting and lots of gas or it would die again.   Other drivers were now clearly looking my way wondering what the noise was.   I crawled along Glover and edged into my driveway and shut down.   

I could not imagine what disaster I would find in that engine compartment (assuming I could even see what it was) and I did not want to face it just yet.  I went in the house and made a coffee as I mentally thought out scenarios and what each one would cost, all the the way to complete engine replacement.   Oh yeah, and did I mention?   This bus is actually my 18 year old daughter's bus.  Her pride a joy.   Voted at her school WGSS as "Cool ride of the year".   I hardly ever drive it.   I get to fix it but I'm not allowed to drive it.   And now..........it looked like I'd killed it.   

So, coffee in hand and flashlight at the ready, I opened the rear engine door.   It was less than a second for me to see what then took my brain many, many seconds to comprehend.   There standing up way out of place was one of my spark plug wires up in the air.....with the spark plug still attached.   Seriously, I must have stared at it without moving for at least 30 seconds as  my brain went in to a WTF......WTF.....WTF  loop I could not break out of.   I could not have been more surprised had I found a watermelon sitting there.   

Then my consciousness finally returned and I reached out and gingerly pulled the end with the spark plug towards me.  I started thinking it must have had it's threads all mostly stripped from years of previous folks doing a bad job of changing plugs and the threads finally gave up.   But as I looked at the threaded end of the spark plug, I saw no telltale metal shavings or bits on the threads.   Other than looking like a used spark plug, it looked utterly normal.   So I then peered into the hole (deep under the tin, of course) and with what little I could see, the hole had threads and no obvious damage.   I kept looking back and forth between that spark plug and the hole but could see no clue that would explain how that could possibly have popped (exploded) out of there.   The bus was running fairly well right up to the second it happened.   

So what else could I do but get a new plug and try and see how it went in putting it back in.  Well, as per my earlier explanation of my lack of expertise, even though I've done lots of work on my buses in the past year, I have not yet done an actual full tune-up (but I plan to soon and have all my learning done) so I had never changed a spark plug on these engines yet.   Ok so I'm sure lots of you have lived this already and possibly many times but to quote my daughter with a healthy "OMG", who the heck designed such a nightmare of a place to have to put in a spark plug?    Is it going in straight?  What the heck is "straight"?  I kept running back to one of the other buses to peer into it's tin cover to try and memorize the bizarre angle that spark plug had to be oriented at to go in properly.   After all this, I believed the threads had to already be compromised and possibly they were not even good enough to hold any more and here I was, Mr. Novice, trying to thread in a plug into that questionable hole at an angle that was very difficult with the engine tin in the way and no easy way to feel/see how the spark plug was progressing.   What was too easy to turn (not going in at all)?  What was too hard to turn (cutting nice new threads at the wrong angle)?   If I was sweating earlier, I was a freaking Niagra falls at this point.   I was using a new, small torque wrench that supposedly  makes a little "tick" noise when you get to the set torque.   I'm upside down. sweat pouring down my face and dripping off my nose and all I can hear is my heart pounding in my ears, trying to listen for that little "tick" noise from my torque wrench and continually praying to the VW Gods to please not suddenly rip through the remaining threads and end my ability to get that spark plug snugged in properly.

FINALLY!  The torque wrench makes that wonderful tick noise and I know it's in there at the proper tightness.  I felt it was at the right angle.  I was relatively sure it did not have the hard-to-turn experience of cutting threads at the wrong angle.   It just kept nagging in the back of my head "how the heck did it pop out of there?"    Now the moment of truth.   I got in the driver's seat and turned the key.   If my heart was pounding before, it was now pretty much in fibrillation.   But the engine fired up and immediately sounded............normal!    Really?   Was I really that lucky?  I ran back and stuck my head in as much as I dared and listened and listened but it sounded like it always did.    Nothing bad.  Nothing expensive-sounding.    I went back and gingerly revved it a couple times and all was good.   

So I've decided all it could have been was the PO or whoever used to service it, possibly in fear of stripping the threads, didn't put the plug in very tightly and it slowly, eventually unscrewed itself until only a thread or half-thread held it in and it finally popped out.   You likely are wondering, just like me, that surely that cylinder was losing a bunch of compression leaking around those threads near the end of it unscrewing and I don't have an explanation.  Sometimes that bus purrs along and sometimes it's a little rough sounding.    Maybe it was a little rough and we just did not notice.    But that's the only explanation I can figure.   

So why did I start this post with my comment about things taking longer than I always expect?  Because two days ago I went back in and changed out the other three spark plugs so I would have all four as new ones.   All the others were fairly snug but I'd venture to say not as tightly as I would have expected.   But it is a huge pain dealing with the lack of space, the angles and the engine tin with it's small hole a couple inches above the plug.  Even with my new set of "wobbly" extensions, it's no picnic and worrying that one minor mistake and you could start stripping the threads...............it's a very stressful job and I'm glad it's done.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on April 03, 2014, 08:05:03 AM
Now that's a great story , glad it all worked out , what's next on ur to do list for the bus ?
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 03, 2014, 08:17:36 AM
Next for the orange bus  (the one with the new plugs) is the rest of the tune-up: new points, new condenser, set the timing and then a day-pass from ICBC to take her down to aircare to see if she passes so we can get her back on the road and my daughter can re-claim her freedom.   We still have body work and the driver's door to replace after the car accident three weeks ago but that's all cosmetic (already replaced the wheel, the side marker and the bumper) and I'll take my time with that and practice with my new MIG welder as one of my summer projects.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on April 03, 2014, 08:44:28 AM
Fantastic !! Make sure you throw $40 bucks of chevron 94 in and run it for awhile before goin threw Aircare . I had my 69 engine totally rebuilt , mechanic took it threw Aircare and failed , he threw $40 of 94 in , went back and it passed ???? Wtf really !!!!! Sounds like ur well on ur way , good luck :)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: LateBaySteve on April 04, 2014, 09:55:01 PM
Don't wanna clog this up too much, but I just gotta say that I am really enjoying George's stories. As much as I appreciate all you "air-cooled since '91" (or earlier) type dudes, and all that I've learned from you,  It's refreshing to hear from an ordinary hobby-mechanic cutting his teeth on VW's like myself. Even though I've had my bus for 10 years, I've still got a lot to learn. Coming from the 60's Ford community (which is less than inviting to novices) I guess I've remained a little intimidated.
Ironically, I've never found type 4 spark plugs difficult to change even though John Muir describes them as being "At an angle that will seem crazy to you...It's not a big angle (10 to 15 degrees) but just enough to drive you crazy getting them in" (yes I'm one of those novices that still reads the "idiot book"). But I have had similar experiences: It took me two weeks to replace my front beam!
Anyways, great reading and thanks to you all, new and old.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: LateBaySteve on April 04, 2014, 10:36:42 PM
Okay, here's where I'm at with my baywindow project:
I have a '73 Adventurewagen that I've had for 10 years. Art from AVR in Abbotsford built me a 2055 and trans for it, and I have replaced/upgraded most of the mechanical and interior over the years. The problem is that it has rust, and front and rear body damage that prevents me from operating the cold air intake, and more importantly, closing the engine lid. So I've been on the lookout for a donor body. I bought a '78 body that is much better, but not perfect rust wise, and it was a panelvan so I'll have to weld in window frames. I'm on the fence as to wether it is worth it to swap my components into said van, or continue the search for a better body. So that's where I'm at.
My '73 driver is still a driver, apart from some brake lines that I have to sort out this spring.
I first bought my bus to live in while freelance mushroom picking and treeplanting and still look at it from a utilitarian point of view. I have no interest in building a show car, but I do apreciate "stock" and German parts.
I still don't fully understand why most of you seem to like to lower your vehicles (especially buses), but I am firm in my belief that "each to his own" and I don't look down upon anyone in the hobby.
I used to shop at airspeed, and have so much appreciation and respect for Geoff, and those of you who keep the local ACVW scene going.
Thanks.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 06, 2014, 10:16:24 PM
Ok.......I was all ready for the rest of the tune up on the orange bus.  One thing peculiar about this 1975 bus was that the PO told us it was a 1975 but had a 2000cc 1979 engine installed.   At that point, early in our Bus-Lives, who were we to question?   However, in reading the Bentley manual, it says ignition timing on the "1975 cars and 1979 and later Calif. cars" is 5 degrees AFTER TDC, set with vacuum hoses attached (I assume they mean to the vacuum advance canister on the side of the distributer).   But then it says "1976  and later -- except 1979 and later Calif. cars" is 7.5 degrees BEFORE TDC, set with vacuum hoses attached.   

So here I went, assuming it was a 1979 2000cc engine and therefor would want 5 degrees AFTER TDC.   First, I would change the points and condenser and if it looked burned/pitted, I had a nice new distributor cap and rotor too.   So I pop off the distributor caps with the two spring clips and that part was super-easy.   I look inside with anticipation to see how the points look.   I pull out the rotor (easy) and........and...........where are the points????  I'd read the instructions several times, saw lots of pictures but nothing inside this thing looked like points to me.   Instead there's a thick black round thing in the middle and what looked like a little black plastic box where the points should be.   Two wires came out of that little black box and went to the coil........except.........except, where was the condenser?   What the heck had I been reading all these past nights?   This was nothing like I expected.   The little black plastic box had some writing on it so being 53 and my eyes are crap these days, I did my favourite trick of taking a photo with my phone and then blew it up to read it.   Pertronix.   Heyyyy......I remember reading something about that. 



So I went back in the house and while'd away another coffee and some significant time reading about it and figuring out which one I had.   Turns out it is the Pertronix 1847.  So no points and no need for a condenser.   Cool.   But not as fun as replacing the points which I was actually looking forward to.   Since there was a lot of scoring and pitting and black burned marks on the metal parts in the distributor cap, I went ahead and changed the cap and rotor.   I test-started the bus to make sure she still fired up ok.   I was certain that she already sounded better and smoother.  Ok...............now to try my new toy of the strobe timing light.   

So.....lessee...............it's a 1979 engine so I needed to set for 5 degrees after TDC, which I assumed (and still do) that means it was approx where the 5 would be to the right of the zero on the timing scale bolted to the engine in the usual place.   I would make a white mark on the flywheel (the fan thingie) where the notch was so I could easily see it.    First off, freaking hard finding that notch was but after some reading and looking, I did find it.    Fire up the engine and the timing light running off sparkplug #1 wire and Holy crap, it was no where near 5 degrees after TDC and was more like 12 degrees Before TDC on that scale (wildly assuming that zero on that scale is TDC).    I did the fun thing of loosening the bolt that holds the whole distributor section in place and started to turn it as per instructions and with engine running (idle) and timing light a-strobing away, I moved the notch area more to the right on the scale, towards the zero with the plan to move it over to the 5 degrees after TDC but long before I got it over there, the engine was running so slowly, it was threatening to simply stop.  The only way to get it's speed back up was to spin the distributor back the other way.  It seemed happiest around 8 degrees before TDC but I worried that made no sense and did not want to burn out my valves or something over time if the explosions were happening with valves not fully closed or something.   

One article I read was if I removed the vacuum hose from the vacuum advance thingie, it could well swing over to 8-12 degrees Before TDC so I wondered what would happen when I pulled off that hose.   Well, nothing happened.  No difference at all.  Makes me wonder if the vacuum advance piece even works anymore?    Anyways, with lots of tweaking the the distributor around we finally got it running not too bad (engine warmed up by then) with a couple degrees After TDC on that scale but it did not sound really strong.   Let the engine cool for an hour or two and started it up again.  It started fine but it ran really really slow on idle and very slowly sped up as it warmed up.    I gotta figure that is not set correctly yet.   I did not take it for a test drive yet to see how power has been affected. 

Part of this process also had me questioning if that really was a 2000 cc 1979 engine.    On the thick engine tin that houses the fan/flywheel is the engine code number and it starts with  "ED xxxxxxxx"   So.........isn't that a 1800 cc engine from 1975?  Did that guy lie to me?   Either way, according to Bentley, the 1975 1800 cc engine also gets set to 5 degrees after TDC.   

But it was dark and I was getting hungry so the next excerpt will have to the next sunny, non-work day.....

I'll post pictures......once I figure out how to do that.   Copying and pasting or dragging apparently is not how to bring in pictures.  I'm sure someone will give me a hint.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: BUSDADDY on April 07, 2014, 07:04:53 AM
PM sent ;)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on April 07, 2014, 08:56:51 AM
Dude we gotta hang out , that's funny !!!
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 07, 2014, 08:38:07 PM
Ok, so I've learned a few more useful facts about the orange bus, yellow bus and white bus.   The orange bus is the one I'm working the most on right now as per my previous posts.   The question I had on my last update was what exact engine does that 1975 bus have?   With help from a couple other members of our site, I finally now understand where the super-secret (to me, anyway) location of the engine code on the actual engine as opposed to the potentially misleading number on the rear engine tin.  It was mentioned to me that people have been known to swap engines and keep the engine tin that was original to the bus.   So the engine code on the actual engine itself on my era of buses (75-79, possibly other years as well?) is on the top rear between the oil breather "stack" and the tin shroud just above the cooling fan.   It's back there.  You cannot see it from the rear engine hatch.    You cannot see it from the top engine hatch.  You need someone with a smallish head and very good close-up vision (not someone 53 like me!) to put their head deep into the rear engine hatch (you'll want to make sure the engine is off.....) and put their nose/eyes right over that spot, looking straight down with a flashlight. 

And that's how we got ours: my teenage daughter, absolutely thrilled to be helping her dad work on our buses with this important task, going deep into the engine bay and calling out the numbers to me.    So now I know EXACTLY what I have, for the first time:

Orange Bus:   Engine code on tin shroud "ED" but on engine itself is "GD".   VIN starts with 235.   So yep, it's a 1975 with a 2000cc engine replaced into it with likely keeping the original tin shroud from from the original 1800cc engine. 

Yellow Bus:   Engine code on tin shroud "ED" and on engine itself is "ED".  VIN starts with 235.   So all is likely original: 1975 bus with expected 1800cc engine.

White Bus:  Engine code on tin shroud "GD" and on engine itself is "GD".   VIN starts with 238.   So.....this one was the surprise.  Advertised and sold as a 1975, it's clearly a 1978 with the appropriate 2000cc engine.  Coooool........   

So now that I know for sure what engine I have in the orange bus, I will once again tackle setting the timing correctly when I get a day off and some sunshine to work in.   

Meanwhile, I'm very happy to finally know for pretty certain what I have in each bus.   One day I'll write an outline of all the mods that PO's have done to each bus to disable various vacuum-driven devices (EEG, Decel Valve, EGR, charcoal filter, etc, etc) and how each one appears to be done (some interesting re-runs of vacuum hoses, etc).    Makes diagnosing issues especially interesting......

-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 08, 2014, 07:59:36 AM
Howdy Westy69.   The KMS 3 hour MIG welding course I got from here:  http://www.kmstools.com/classes-and-gift-cards-29000000/     It's in the big Coquitlam KMS store and I tried to get in the morning class but they wrote me back and said it was booked up so I moved to the afternoon class but I fear it's now full too.  I think they said they could just get me in if I got back to them quickly (although, that could have been a sales pitch too, I suppose).   

-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on April 08, 2014, 08:17:53 AM
Howdy George ;) thanxs for the link , that could have been fun , so Plan B is to see how much of a pro you turn into after and see what you can do ;) then as most guys here are experts at welding and will probably say , nooooooooooo , you can teach me !!!:D
But hey if you ever need a house or shop built to house ur welding projects , no problemo :))

Keep us posted

Cheers Jerry
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 09, 2014, 10:08:00 PM
And...................setting the timing to around 7 or 8 degrees BTDC (at idle) did the trick.   Passed AirCare at approximately 4:55pm today!  Sooooo happppy!!!!!     The orange bus is mechanically sound and back on the road but still looking pretty battle-scarred on the driver's side (and I mean bumper to bumper on that side is battle-scarred) until I can get the bodywork done.   Meanwhile, my daughter has wheels again so she's happy too!   

The bizarre thing that happened though (and really, nothing surprises me anymore), is as I was tightening the bolt that holds the distributor in place (i.e. to stop it from turning on it's own after the adjustments were complete), I inadvertently hit the fan that forces air for the heating system (the one attached to the top of the engine bay with the two air pipes coming out of it) and it fell onto the top of the engine.   How the heck did that happen?   At first glance it looks like three bolts hold it up there but that may have been some previous mod made by someone but I'm looking at it and cannot for the life of me see how the bolts held it up there.   So, bring in my better set of eyes, my daughter and she looks at it and says "I think it was glued up there....."   Sure enough, that's what it was and me jostling it made the glue binding give away and down it came.   I'll compare it to one of the other buses later and figure out how to fix it properly but meanwhile I was running out of time to get to AirCare so I zip-tied it back up there.   

Everything went fairly smoothly at the AirCare inspection station.   The only moment of confusion was when the tech got out of the car at the end and asked me "Why do you have a bungee cord attached to your brake pedal?"........

Yep,  I'll admit there has been the odd case of me applying a very quick fix until I get a chance later to do a proper one.  What can I say?   Just keep it going.   

Good night for now.

-George

 
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 21, 2014, 08:30:37 AM
A little work on the 1978 white bus this weekend.   This bus arrived via flatbed several months ago (from Squamish) as it had not run for over a year for the PO.   Someone from some VW club had been working on it with them periodically and I can see clues of the work he did as he went through a plan of figuring out why it was not starting.  But they never finished as the owner just gave in to frustration.   

After a cursory look around the engine bay and most everything looking like it should, and looking inside the distributor (Pertronix "points', just like the 1975 Orange bus), I figured I'd give it a turn over and see what it all sounded like. 

However, with a fully charged battery (and even replacing that battery with a spare good battery), the engine cranked over really really slowly, like it was a huge struggle, barely turning over.   Exactly what I would expect to hear from a near-dead battery but since I used two that were both in good condition and fully charged, it could not be battery.   I'd guess it was turning over less than 1/4 of the speed of what I would expect and sounding like it would just stop turning at any second.   I would imagine there are not a lot of common things that would cause this.   

My #1 guess from reading lots last night is that there is a main ground strap that is rusted/corroded that is not allowing the maximum current to flow to the starter.   Next I will check the voltage at the starter itself as my helper turns the engine over to see how it measures as well as cleaning up all the heavy ground strap connectors (the main one off the battery, the one from transmission to body, etc).    I would have loved to get to that step yesterday but my bus work is out in the open on my driveway and the rain started coming down a lot right in the middle of this diagnosis.   

I will write more when I get to the next steps.   In the meantime I did make myself a little happier with getting the old cassette stereo and Grundig equalizer going as the PO had it wired incorrectly (but the main problem was a broken wire).  Certainly not the highest priority or the most urgent thing needing to be done but now at least I can have tunes when working on that bus!   Just having music playing in a bus when I'm working on it makes it seem like it's got life and just needs a bit more work to get on the road......

-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 28, 2014, 09:11:00 AM
So made progress on the orange 1975 and the white 1978 buses this sunny weekend.   Never the speed of progress I plan, but progress nonetheless.

I decided this weekend would be a good day to tackle replacing the orange bus's drivers side door as the first step of doing the bodywork needed after my daughter's accident a couple months ago.  As mentioned earlier, the entire bottom 1/4 of the bus on the driver's side from bumper to bumper is badly dented in/torn/squished/missing with the door and the back of the wheel well in the worst condition.   The window would never go down again.   I had managed to acquire two driver's side doors over the past two months, both in fair-to-rough condition (one was missing some or much of the window crank assembly, missing window trim, lock/latch frozen, missing inside door panel, etc and the other door had minor damage but the hinges look like they were pretty much pried/torn from the body of the donor bus so the body part of the hinges were still attached and would have to come off).    Both doors, given time and effort are quite salvageable.   

So, first was to remove the damaged door from my orange bus.   Looked simple enough: 4 hex-head bolts for the two hinges and a metal pin with a c-clip on the bottom for the mechanism that stops the door from opening too far and dampens it's movement overall.    The metal pin and c-clip came off perfectly.  Into the plastic bucket for cleaning before putting it all back together.  Now the hex-head bolts on the hinges.   So yeah.........just like I always fear, frozen in place, and in severe danger of suddenly stripping the hex-insert part as I put dangerously high torque into trying to unseize them.   They were painted over so nowhere to put in penetrating oil.   So........out comes the propane torch.   Let me tell you, those hinges are bolted on to a very thick, substantial hunk of metal (for obvious reasons) which, of course, acts wonderfully like a giant heat sink.    After going at the top hinge for a good 10 minutes or so, there was no give, no change.    So I went at the bottom hinge: anything to get at least one bolt loosened so I would have at least the theoretical hope that they could actually be taken out before I stripped the heads and had a real major problem on my hands.   

10 minutes later and try again on the bottom hinge.  Not a freaking hint of any give at all.  I could see minor denting in the hex head of the bolts, so I knew I was courting very close to stripping them.   I felt I just was not getting it hot enough with the torch.  So......out comes the propylene cylinder (burns hotter than just propane) and I go at it again.   This time I used a little physics in my head:

1.  I wondered how much side-stress is on those bolts with the door hanging off of them.  I wanted as little friction as possible so I put a bottle jack on 3 pieces of 2x6" boards and jacked it up under the fully-swung-open door until it met the bottom of th door.  Just a wee bit more to take some of the weight off the hinges but not so much that it would start putting strain on those threads in the other direction.   

2. I figured I want the outside threads of where the bolts screw in to expand with the heat more than the bolts themselves so tackling the top hinge, I concentrated the very tip of the blue flame on the metal all around the bolt and as much as I could on the backing metal where the bolt threads actually screw into.   It was darned hot this time.   Not a trace of paint or burnt grease as the metal was getting nice and clean as I burned everything off in the process.   Then, with it still super hot, work gloves on, I gave the giant allen key a strong pull and YES, it gave that wonderful little "snap" feeling as it broke the bond and the bolt turned.  I gave it another 1/2 turn to make sure and tackled the 2nd bolt on the top hinge.    Slowly I worked my way through all four bolts, doing the exact same process, spending a good 4 - 5 minutes per bolt with the hot tip of the torch flame.   

Happy days, the door finally came off.  From start to finish it only took me.......a good 90 minutes to do what I'd hoped would be an under 10 minute job.   And the bolts were still in very good condition and other than the paint on the hinges themselves, everything was nicely intact.   

The best spare door I had was a completely different colour but was pretty  much completely intact.  However, now as I looked closer at it, I had a much great appreciation for what had happened to it's hinges.   Whoever had taken it off had faced similar challenges (and maybe worse) than I had.   Remember that this door still had the hinges (bolts) attached to the heavy metal side that used to be welded to the frame of it's donor bus.   Those metal mounts clearly had been pried/broken off, likely with a giant crow bar or pry bar.    And now I understood why.   All four hex head bolts were no longer hex heads.....they were round heads.   Any sign of the original hex pattern for my allen key to go into was long-gone.  Damn.   Ok, so now what?   I could use my 3" air-powered cuttoff wheel to try and cut them off.....and I'll admit, I did try that for a few minutes but that metal is THICK and there was just no way it was going to come off like that, especially trying to save the door-side of the actual hinge itself.   10 minutes of cutting away got me..........nowhere fast.   

I then brought out my trusty old but little dremel tool and put a small cutting disk on it and cut new slots into the hex heads so I could use my largest standard, slotted screwdriver to get a way to try and turn them.    I then gave them the same propylene torch treatment but with the home-made slots, a screwdriver that does not have the torque of a 6" long allen key, none of them were moving.   I then tried the ridiculous attempt at grabbing the screwdriver from the side with my largest vice-grips and using that to provide torque to the screwdriver..........and for the first time of owning that particular screwdriver for over 20 years, I could see I was actually bending the blade of it's slot-head.   Well.....crap.   At least my dremel-cut slots held up.   So then I started drilling out the bolts.   I've never had to do that before but I understood the concept.   Well, I did get through the bolts with a couple of smaller bits but as I got to the larger ones, I was just not able to get enough cut away to get those bolts out.    I stopped to think a while.   

Maybe it was time for Plan #2: use the other spare door that's missing major parts of it's door including the window lift mechanism.   Since we were going to junk the original door off the orange bus that was now removed, I had my daughter tackle removing the entire inside panel off the door and then the vapour barrier.  My idea was I could take out the parts I needed from that door to fix the 2nd spare door, which had good hinges, ready to go.   

I'll try a lot of stuff but I gotta say, that window mechanism scares me.  You cannot see most of it due to the large pieces of welded-in structural metal on the inside side of the door and I decided it was quite possible I was not going to be able to figure it all out and very likely spend hours trying to get it put together only to find I did not do it properly and the window would no longer work at all.   Sigh.   I stood there and stared at the original door laying on the ground, panel and vapour barrier removed and I started thinking: what do I have to lose?  I can see much of the inside part of the smashed in bottom half now.   So, being the expert body-work guy I plan to become one day, I went and got my 10 pound sledgehammer.  Not that I needed a giant sledghammer, but other than some small body-repair hammers, it was all I had that would ever have a hope of moving all that metal.  I started hitting it in the worse places from the inside-side as it laid on my lawn.....as gently as I could considering how much damage that size of a hammer could do......

15-20 minutes later, using the sledgehammer, some wood, my smaller body-work hammer and a lot of flipping the door over to see the progress and I'd hammered it  more or less back into shape.   Sure, it looked like a dimpled, pockmarked nightmare but it was at least close enough that I could likely have a decent chance of finishing it with body-filler to smooth it all out.   So, we put the door back on, pre-oiling those hinge bolts and then doing them up plenty tight.   On first try, miracle from the heavens above, the door closed and latched.  The handle properly unlatched.  Over and over again, without fail.  The window slid up and down (had to do a little more small-hammer work on the structural parts inside the door to get that as smooth as possible).    For fun, I went at it for a while with my circular, orbital air palm sander to at least make it look like all that damage was more or less on purpose to move towards ultimate repair.   

You may be asking yourself why did I not just plan to fix the original door in the first place instead of getting those other doors and doing all that work?   Well, I firstly thought that original door was so damaged and bent, I'd never get it proper again.   Secondly, I thought one of the spare doors would simply go on without a ton of work and all I'd need to do is minor tweaks and repaint.    But there's always something else that you don't see at first with our little 40 year old vehicles and as you get into it, the work effort changes and decisions have to change to follow different routes.   

I will post pictures tonight and write the update on the 1978 white bus.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on April 28, 2014, 09:59:17 AM
Wow !!!! That sounds like an epic weekend !!!! To bad you weren't closer , I would have just given you a set of doors from a 77 here ;) hehe
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 28, 2014, 12:12:58 PM
Hi Westy69.   Yeah but then my story would have been written with the entire last 7 - 8 paragraphs replaced with:

"Got a door from that great Westy69 guy and popped it on and we are on the road again".   

I've resigned myself to the fact that my little hobby will never go that easy. 

Good times!

-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on April 28, 2014, 03:13:45 PM
Hahaha , well one of two things , you would be done that project sooner and the other is your story is way more interesting to read ;)

I'm goin with the story , kept me laughing and understanding the struggle as I have been there done that  ;) good on yah man !!
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 28, 2014, 08:31:55 PM
Ok here are the pictures I said I would post this evening of the orange 1975 bus fun yesterday removing and reinstalling the accident-damaged door.   You can read the previous long post of that fun.

Picture one is getting the weight off the hinges.
Picture two is my poor hinges heated to a crisp to get the bolts unstuck.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 28, 2014, 08:35:47 PM
More on the orange 1975 bus door removal/re-attachment

Picture 1 is the door finally off!
Picture 2 is cutting new slots into the stripped hex bolts with a dremel
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 28, 2014, 09:17:47 PM
Ok so lets move on to yesterday's adventure with the white 1978 bus.  Again, I brought this to Langley on a flatbed from Squamish where it had not run for well over a year (18 months now) and the PO had someone from some VW club helping them out some weekends working on getting it going.  I've seen many traces of his repairs including (thankfully) all new fuel lines and various other new parts.   

Other than getting the stereo going (can't fix things without music), the only thing I knew from cursory looking at the engine and inside the distributer cap, etc, was that even with a fully charged battery with cleaned terminals, when I went to turn the engine over, it was incredibly slow, like what an engine sounds like just before the battery completely dies, making a small chug sound every few seconds as it barely (and I mean barely) turned over.   Far, far slower than any other bus I'd heard.   I had tried a 2nd battery but same results exactly.   And zero sounds of life from the engine other than the almost-dead cranking.   

As I wrote previously, my plan was to go after a couple of the questionable ground points and I'd also check the positive voltage connections on the solenoid attached to the starter itself.  Open to the elements they usually look like corroded, rusted, green, black, brittle and questionable under most buses I've worked on (all three of them.....ha ha).   Two were heavy current ground returns and one was the ground for the bundle of wires that run overtop of the engine and go to the ECU.  That ground is one or two wires bolted right to the top of the engine block.    I located them and cleaned them first with electric contact cleaner.  They were plenty gummed up with dirt and oily muck.  (see pictures below)  I knew the connectors and terminals on the battery were already bright and clean as I'd done that a few weeks ago.   The ground wire from the battery and bolted to the body looked clean and solid and not mucked up or corroded so I decided to just leave that be as it's tricky getting at it with that giant bundle of wires to the ECU stiffly right in front of it.   

So under the bus I went to look at the solenoid connections.   I sprayed them with penetrating oil and loosened off the two nuts that hold on the main current-carrying positive wires (one from the battery and one to the starter, both located on the solenoid end).   I took them apart, cleaned them off, liberally sprayed them with electrical contact cleaner and then put them wire connectors and nuts back on and just as they started to tighten, I moved them back and forth to extra-wipe the connection metal-on-metal and then I did up the nuts good and tight.   (See pictures below)

Lastly I located the thick ground wire from the transmission housing to the frame of the bus.    Its near the nose cone of the transmission and I took pictures but I'm not sure they help much with showing how to locate this important ground strap but at least you can see what it looks like.   Again, I sprayed with penetrating oil, got the bolts on each end loosened off, cleaned them off, sprayed them like crazy with electrical contact cleaner and as I got them starting to tighten up, I wiggled them back and forth a bunch, cleaning off a better connection and then tightened them down.   

Now the moment of truth.   Did one of those things work (It dawned on me that second that I should have tried the starter after each fix to see which one, if any, made a difference).   But I heard two things when I turned that key.   First I heard the engine cranking over, nice and strong, nice and fast, just like the other buses sound.   And that brings me to the 2nd sound.  The sound of no signs of happy cylinders firing away at all.   Like not a single puff or belch.  Just the engine happily spinning over and over driven 100% by just the starter motor.    But I was very happy.   I was certain whatever else wrong with the bus, that slow cranking it had when I got it there was no way it was going to start.   So now all I have to do is figure out is it electrical or fuel related?   I kinda go my own way at this point.   I know there are lots of fun, logical steps to take to start to figure this out but I like to leap ahead and just see whats up in the grander scheme.   So I pop open the air cleaner box and spray quick-start right into the opening that goes into the throttle area (i.e. I don't spray it into the air cleaner itself).  Quickly close up the air cleaner box with it's little clips and hop I into the drivers seat, quickly glancing at the fire extinguisher behind the seat and wondering how my house insurance would work if that bus went up in flames 6' from the side of the house.  No matter..........let's see what happens!   So I turn the key and with a wary eye looking in the rear view mirror for smoke or flames, it starts its happy cranking.    Now I'm not a super-religious guy but I swear I heard the angels singing as the engine roared to life for a good 3 - 4 seconds until the fumes from the quick-start ran out.   Happy, happy day!   

So I figure that tells me several things:  The timing is probably more or less ok or close enough.   The spark plugs are all firing ok.  The fuel injectors are working.   What it also tells me is very likely no gas going to the engine.   For fun and I'll admit just the joy of hearing that engine run even for a few seconds after a year or two of not working at all, I did the quick-start spray into the air cleaner box again and it ran again for a few seconds.    So now I start to check the fuel supply system: filter, pump, hoses, and whatever else I need to get into.  The good news, I think, is that it's 100% getting no fuel so that seems to be easier to diagnose than those intermittent/rough/stalling problems that happen time to time.   I'll keep in touch as I work through this.  Meanwhile, here are few pictures.   

Picture 1 is the two (or three) ground wires coming from that bundle of wires across the top of the engine from the ECU.   Not the easiest place to see them or get to them.   Picture 2 shows with an arrow where they are on the engine, under the various hoses.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 28, 2014, 09:23:02 PM
Continued pictures of the repair process of my white 1978 bus.

Picture 1 shows the two main positive voltage connectors on the solenoid that carry most of the current for supplying the starter.
Picture 2 shows (poorly) the ground strap that comes from the transmission housing to the chassis of the bus.  This picture is the bolt on the chassis end.  The ground strap is that wide/thin piece coming out from the bolt and wrapped in old rubber.  You can sort of see how it goes up towards the transmission housing above.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 28, 2014, 09:25:23 PM
My white 1978 bus repair progress.  Final picture for today.

Picture 1 is a really difficult to discern picture of the heavy ground strap going from the transmission housing to the chassis.  This picture is the bolted end of the strap to the transmission housing.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 29, 2014, 10:57:45 AM
Ok I hate sounding like a greenhorn on this stuff so I will correct my story specifics of the orange 1975 bus doors (earlier post above).    The bolts that hold on the bay doors are actually "hex socket head bolts" and not the "hex head bolts" I referred to them as.   Hex socket head bolts have the hexagonal socket IN the head and require a hexagonal driver such as an Allen Key (aka a hex key) to turn them whereas hex head bolts are a more typical bolt head that the hexagonal shape is around the outside of the head and you use crescent wrenches, adjustable wrenches, socket sets, etc to turn them.   

Ta-da!

-George

Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on April 29, 2014, 07:24:00 PM
So you did it !!! You managed go greenhorn ur way from newbie to semi pro !!!way to go George , when I'm over next , a visit I think is in order :)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 30, 2014, 06:29:43 AM
Hey Westy69, absolutely.   When the sun is shining I'm usually out there playing with the buses and the coffee is always on.   

You almost missed the opportunity of seeing the white 1978 bus though as last night I decided I was getting suspicious of any fuel being in the tank whatsoever.   This is the bus that now cranks over nice and fast but zero signs of firing anything.   Spraying quickstart into the air box gets her going for 3 - 4 seconds.    So I figure no gas getting to engine.    The fuel gauge says empty but who knows if it's correct or dead.   So I put in a gallon of gas yesterday.   I checked under the rear right tire area to ensure it was not pouring out from some bad connection in the filler sections.   

I jumped into the drivers seat, wondering if it would be that simple now that I had the grounding problem resolved.   Well, after 3 successive 6 second bursts of turning the engine over with the ignition key, there was still zero response that would give me any hints of fuel to the engine.   I get out of the bus and........

OH BOY:  a 2 foot wide puddle of gas under the left rear tire, right below where the fuel pump/filter would be......and widening fast.  I look underneath.   The ignition key is off (out, actually) and there is a steady stream of gas literally pouring out onto my driveway.   Out comes the fire extinguisher as I plan to fight this to the death, out comes the garden hose and I grab a bucket.   No, the hose is not to fight a gas fire (as exciting as that would be), the hose is to water down all my driveway and gravel under and all around the bus so I don't make an inadvertent spark and have a bad end to the day.    I then get my open bucket under the streaming gas.  I need to get this leak stopped so no choice but to grab my little hose-pinching tool and my creeper and under the bus I go, wondering what level of crispy-fried I will be if things go really, really wrong.

I look up with my LED flashlight and the gas is frigging coming out of the middle seam of the white box filter.   Who the heck has ever seen one of those split open?  Not me, that's for sure.    Well, it's damned tight under there and I cannot for the life of me get both arms/hands up there (the bus is not jacked up at this point) so I have to feel my left hand up around the small approximately 1.5 inches of hose between the metal gas line form the tank and the filter.  I get it on, gas pouring down my arm, and I start to tighten it's little wingnut.   For a moment I crazily think I'm the wingnut for being under there.    Finally it starts to tighten and 4 turns later and the fuel stream completely stops.    I get the heck out and go wash my hands and arm.   Stream in lots more water to get that gas off my driveway as much as possible (there's gonna be a section of grass there I won't have to mow for a while, I suspect).   

So before it got too dark, I got the bus jacked up and got the old filter out and ready to put my spare new one on but holy crap-on-a-stick, that hose between the filter and the fuel pump is freaking thick and whoever worked on it last put one of those crimp-on hose clamps that I had to cut off and I have no hose clamp that big (it's apparently the only 10mm ID hose in the whole fuel system, the rest being 7mm ID which I have lots of clamps for).   So today I will go buy a larger clamp (3/4 inch it looks like) and finish putting in the new filter today and once again try to fire it up.........without actually firing it up, if you know what I mean!

Good times!   

-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 30, 2014, 07:02:12 AM
This is the fun little hose clamp (pincher) I put on with one hand, unable to see exactly what I was doing, crammed under my bus with gas pouring down my arm.....  Tricky but effective little tool and supposedly won't damage/cut the rubber hosing.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on April 30, 2014, 08:05:03 AM
Hmmm , water and gas , hahaha , I remember way waaaaay back when I started out my electrical apprenticeship , the company was switching there trucks from gas to propane , one day at the shop , the boss man suggested that I go empty the 6 or 7 gas tanks into gas containers , you know recycle it !! Well , lifting a large gas tank and getting it into a funnel to go into a gas can isn't the easiest task , needless to say , I had a massive amount of gasoline streaming down the parking lot , of course it was a hot summer day , couldn't leave this mess of gasoline there , so out came the water :)
Thinking I was safe enough to have a cigarette , the parking lot was douced with gasoline  , out comes my smoke , a match and ahhhhh the taste of relaxation , hosing down a parking lot and getting paid for it even :D then I tossed the match :O
Well , the WHOOOOOOSH OF FLAMES , shot straight up and down the lot , I swear they reached 15 feet in the air , whoooooooly shit , the drain , THE DRAIN , the city drain , the fricken flames are going towards the drain !!!
Well by this time , the secretaries are all looking threw the window , none of which are on the telephone , staring in amasment at this long haired kid is racing around with a hose to keep the flames away from the drain and the cars , THE CARS , ohhhhh shit , cars have gasoline !!!
Ok so I have a 50 foot hose and the drain is at least 100 feet away , I'm so screwed , this is going to be an epic explosion for sure !!!
Well flames are everywhere and the last person I wanted to see was the boss , he is on the road trying to get into the parking lot , flames , water shooting everywhere , he gets out of his truck and runs up into the shop , comes out with a couple bags , at this time I'm screaming , THE DRAIN , the gas is goin into the drain !!!! He opens a bag and spreads it around , he screams and says grab the other one and get it around the car there , the main fire goes out with a few little ones remaining , what was this magical stuff !!!!
Well of course I had the WHAT HAPPENED ? Question , I told him and he looked at me and , I thought for sure I was fired , no pun intended , fired !! He started to laugh , what the heck was so funny , I just about died here !!! He said he got a call from one of the secretaries , that I had the parking lot up in flames and the play by play he was hearing as he was racing back to the shop was the funniest thing he had ever heard , better then Abbot and Costello , the Anti spill bags that he had shown me to use in case of a fire or oil spill where right by the fire extinguishers , that he had also shown me about a year ago to say the least where right , and he pointed to the sign that said FIRE EXTINGUISHER & the lower one , spill kits , beside the eye washing station !!!
Ohhhhhhh that stuff I proclaimed out of young innocence , he said yeah , the water will lift the gasoline and float it on top , oil product , and when you threw your match into the water , you were actually throwing it into gasoline , ohhhhhhhhh now that makes sense eh ;)
He looked around and saw that I at least had the smarts to have loaded all the old truck gas tanks into one of the trucks and all the gas cans were tucked away in the shop before I lite my smoke :)))

Sooooooo the point of this story is even though the gas wash washed down and diluted , the chances are still high that if sparked , like I did , you might have an epic ending ;)

My tool of choice for gas lines ;
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 30, 2014, 10:51:36 AM
Westy69: I never thought of how much more fun it would have been had I thrown a match on all that water.  You one crazy guy.  I may not be young anymore but I still have the long hair.   

By the way, I thought all the purests say to never use vicegrips on fuel hoses cuz they may cut them?   I gotta admit though: with my life potentially on the line I probably would have been smarter to just pinch that hose off with my needlenosed vicegrips and save myself a lot of dangerous time under there.   

Great story!

-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: finkmobile on April 30, 2014, 11:00:26 AM
One year after a fuel hose sprung a leak at Thetis Lake on me I bought those hose clamps just in case that ever happened to me again.  I didn't have anything at the time that would have worked to pinch the hose, so I had to sit there with my finger pinching the hose closed while my friend cut off the section that had a pinhole with a steak knife so we could stop the leak! Scary stuff seeing that gasoline puddle forming under your bus....
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Hansk on April 30, 2014, 11:01:25 AM
Great stories guys . Good lessons and reminders for all of us.  I know when I look back at my younger days , I had many fuel incidents that could have gone very bad.  Just pure luck that I'm alive today. 
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Trevor P on April 30, 2014, 11:46:53 AM
OK, it turns out I'm a bit bay curious after all. Picked up this deluxe on the weekend. Now I just need to find some time to give it a bit of love, but it is a runner/driver right now.
(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.thesamba.com%2Fvw%2Fgallery%2Fpix%2F1200034.jpg&hash=18b51302ab67105839914b274806b0ae2ce763d6)
(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.thesamba.com%2Fvw%2Fgallery%2Fpix%2F1200033.jpg&hash=06f9ffe43d9ab31019cc0d6e06c6694d6a189237)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 30, 2014, 11:52:56 AM
Now that's a serious back bumper!!!!
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Trevor P on April 30, 2014, 12:01:47 PM
Sure is! It's going to be donated to the scrap pile shortly. ;D
Thankfully it also came with the correct one.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: bwaz on April 30, 2014, 01:18:57 PM
Looks super solid Trevor! Nice.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on April 30, 2014, 03:24:45 PM
Fantastic looking bay , great patina starting , u gunna slam it or keep it stock ?
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Trevor P on April 30, 2014, 06:32:20 PM
It's going to get some wheels and a lowering job. Maybe a bigger mill put in next winter. It's finally nice to have one that doesn't need 800 hours of metal work! Lol
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on May 04, 2014, 05:59:02 AM
A quick update on the gas-spilling, non-starting white 1978 bus.    Two days after my last post I once again watered down the driveway to lower the chance of sparks and got back under there with a handful of paper towels and my new gas filter and my larger hose clamp.    I'm sad to report I ended up using a regular stainless steel hose clamp from the plumbing section at Canadian Tire.  After looking at the fuel line clamps at Canadian Tire, Lordco and CIP1 (online), there seemed to be no local place to buy the large size fuel line clamps that one section of hose requires (3/4" by my measuring).    I believe there are a few US suppliers who carry a larger size of proper fuel line clamps and I'll order a couple over the next while but for now, the regular hose clamp had to do.

So now, my corroded grounds were fixed, the connections on the starter solenoid were fixed,  my badly split fuel filter was replaced and I still had around a 1/2 gallon of gas in the tank so time to try her again!    Cranked it over 3x at 6 seconds each and while once again, mostly no signs of ignition, there was one little cough 1/2 way through the 3rd cranking but then nothing.   With not a ton of logic, I wondered if another blast of quick-start into the air box would do anything.    Popped off the clips, gave a healthy blast (3 seconds) into there, clipped it back together and back to the driver's seat.   Turned it over and 3 seconds later it once again roared to life on the powerful effect of of the quickstart but this time it kept going.   Within a few more seconds it settled down to that wonder VW engine sound of a happy, idling engine.   

I did not even bother texting any information my daughters, I took a 20 second video of the engine going and sent it to them via text-messaging without any other explanation: they would know exactly what happened.    Happy days!!!   

Next sunny day (i.e. raining here since Friday.....), I'll get out my timing strobe and tach and do a quick timing check and adjust the distributor as necessary.   Even though it's running, it sounds a little fast and I have to wonder how accurate the timing was done by the PO and his friend when they could not get the bus to start at all.   

So while the rain is falling, I've turned my attention to the inside of the bus and am removing the home-made cabinet that the PO put in.  While quaint a kinda rustic, it does not look VW bus to me so out it comes and I'm putting in a rescued VW cupboard/sink/fridge to give it the proper look.   The upper bunk is too short as well since it appears to be missing the flip over section so while a smaller child could easily sleep up there, an adult would have to be in near full-fetal position.    So that's all indoor work while the rain is falling.   The other next sunny day thing is to cut out all the rusted rot that used to be the rocker panel under the sliding door and weld in a new one from CIP1.    I started simply breaking off the really nasty pieces on Friday and found an older rust repair someone did by filling the void with crumpled tin foil and then body-filler over it.     The good news is that the track amazingly is firm and hole-free.   I still have to replace that entire track on my daughters orange 1975 bus and I'm not looking forward to that at all.   

Good times!

-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on May 04, 2014, 08:01:43 AM
Sweet !!!! You got it to run , check off item #376 on the too do list and ur off onto the next :) good times for sure !!! Go Habs Go ;)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on May 12, 2014, 09:21:03 AM
Here's an obvious question but I figured I'd ask anyway.   If a mid-seventies bus has several fuel lines that are cloth-covered, is that pretty much a given that they are original?   The ones I've seen replaced are pure black rubber (or whatever compound) but my 1975 orange bus has a lot of cloth-covered that I thought looked in pretty decent shape but as my daughter pulled out this am to school, I saw the little clear fuel spill where I usually see oil drippings.  I phone her, she stops just down the road, I run over and look underneath and sure enough there is a cloth-covered fuel line from the output of her fuel pump to the metal fuel line going through the firewall into her engine and that cloth covered fuel line is dripping with gas.  I'm going to replace it at lunch time (it's not moving and back on my driveway till then).   So now I'm thinking that while it looks like the fuel lines around the engine are all newer and black-rubber, some of the ones under the bus are cloth-covered and very possibly plenty old.    So I'll be replacing all those, I imagine.   

-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: BUSDADDY on May 12, 2014, 09:54:01 AM
If you are unsure about the age of any fuel line or know any line is more than 2 years old replace all of them with J30R9 or higher rated fuel hose, bus fires happen too often and can be prevented with $30 of good FI rated barrier hose and a handfull of real FI style clamps (don't use the worm type). 5/16" fits everything except the short one between the filter and pump.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on May 12, 2014, 09:25:07 PM
Great info Busdaddy and good catch George , I'm going to replace all mine so this is good info !!
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: BUSDADDY on May 12, 2014, 10:14:30 PM
..........I'm going to replace all mine so this is good info !!
Just to prevent you buying the wrong stuff the 5/16" only fits 75+ FI buses, the closest SAE line for an early carbed bus is 1/4" and you'll have to squish it down a little with the clamp to make it hold the nipples well. The line of choice used to be braided German line but it can't stand up to the ethanol in our local fuels now, barrier hose seems to be the only option as the braided stuff sometimes starts leaking in a few months or less, FI or not.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: WESTY69 on May 12, 2014, 10:29:57 PM
Definitely the 1/4 inch lines , I've noticed using the high ethànol had eaten away a new line in one of my 61 bugs and a 69 bus , now I run only 89 and not the 94 and I've had no more issues . Thanxs for the info , nobody wants to loose their Veedub to a cheap gas line causing a fire !!
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: pittwagen on June 21, 2014, 03:24:30 PM
Just an update for my 79 camper conversion.  I finally constructed and added the rear headbanger cabinet.  I gave up trying to find one although there have been opportunities. Now all the P21 Helsinki cabinet pieces are in place.  Just a few small items/additions to complete.

(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.thesamba.com%2Fvw%2Fgallery%2Fpix%2F1222736.jpg&hash=07312242ecc7069d29399e066d771209c4610ab3)

For those of you that don't know, this model was never sold in North America as far as I know.  The later P21's were all Berlin versions.  For 79 I believe all the Westfalias were all pop tops, at least over here.  This is one of the very last Bays to come from Hannover and is probably the newest one still running and driving on a daily basis at least here in Canada. 

It was originally a 7 passenger but I wanted to replicate a 74 P21 that we had bought new in 74.  This one spent most of its life in California and was virtually rust free when I liberated it from the Island a little over 4 years ago.  The journey continues!
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on July 09, 2014, 10:57:32 PM
Pittwagen, that is simply a freaking awesome cabinet you built.   I just made some cabinets in a '78 bus that came pretty much gutted to me and I would not dare to even show them now that I've seen yours.    My mom liked them though:  she's always proud of my accomplishments even if it looks like a 12 year old made them with a plastic saw and some school glue.    OH well.....
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: pittwagen on July 10, 2014, 07:54:41 AM
Thanks for the kind words.  It's taken a few years (like over 40) to get the skills built up.  I've built/renovated a few camper van interiors over the years. Had some help gathering the parts too courtesy of steveo_32.  Door is from a hacked up Berlin seat bottom and the front face is from a Helsinki seat bottom from which I was somehow able to find a good undamaged portion.  Rest of it was baltic birch that came from Windsor Plywood. By the way you can find a laminate that is close to the original and along with the birch you can replicate pretty much any 74-79 cabinet.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: bwaz on July 10, 2014, 08:01:59 AM
Ah... now I know the secret, bring cabinets to Pittwagen! ;) Nice work, I think you should be making fine cabinets...
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: pittwagen on July 10, 2014, 08:22:04 AM
Ha ha.  The real secret is finding the original cabinet faces that are decent.  Minor imperfections can be repaired and the interior pieces that are damaged can be replaced with new material that is of a fairly good quality. 
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on July 11, 2014, 08:52:46 AM
My mom's quote yesterday (she's in her 80's, I'm in my 50's) when looking at my built from scratch cabinet:  "Maybe another layer of varnish will help...." 
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: bwaz on July 11, 2014, 09:48:43 AM
I read this on the samba, a place in the UK that sells the laminate material pre-cut to size. Not cheap, but if you're looking for that perfect restoration... they also have some other cool goodies.

http://nlavw.com/
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on August 19, 2014, 01:31:42 PM
Ok, so not exactly a Bus-specific item, but driven by necessity to do further bus repairs.   The problem with living in a 1928 house with a mariad of wiring upgrades and three separate power panels put in by three different previous house-owners is my one little 15amp outlet on the outside of house trips every few minutes when running my compressor and I just know that trying to run my MIG 140 welder off it will be a unfulfilled dream.   

So yesterday I finally went and bought 10' of 10gauge, 2-wire (plus ground) home wiring, a 30amp breaker (stab-lok) and a heavy-current outlet and weather-proof box.   It's always fun doing this stuff in an old house, you just never know what you'll find (once I found a window inside a wall during renovations that originally would have been to the outside world).    So instead of 5 minutes cutting a 3' x 4" strip of simple wallboard out below my breaker box to run my new wire, I found there was a 5/8" layer of plywood under the drywall (up against the wall studs).   That added to the cutting time significantly.    Then, measuring 3x to make sure I knew where my inside access point should be compared to where it would be on the outside wall, I drilled from the outside.........missing by an amazing 5" and hitting right in the middle of a stud.   Seriously?  Where is that luck when I play Lotto 649????   

And?  Have I learned from previous adventures to turn off the power to the panel when running those three wires to their nice new breaker (well one wire to the breaker and two wires to the neutral bus and ground bus, but you know what I mean)?   Yep, one little slip and running that bare ground wire oh-so-slightly up against one of the main hot wires coming out of the breaker for the stove/oven and it's quite the little party of sparks!  (Don't bother admonishing me, it's far to late for that).   

But at the end of the day, almost exactly 3x the time allowance I planned for and I have my new 30-amp dedicated outlet to start my new hobby of trying to learn how to weld, starting with my currently missing right hand side rocker panel on my '78 bus (after I weld in a long piece of 3/4 x 3/4 square tubing to attach my new CIP1-supplied rocker panel piece to)  (Again, don't bother admonishing me for using tubing instead of the proper body parts, it's probably too late for that too).   Learning as I go.....

-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: bwaz on October 05, 2014, 10:58:06 AM
Ready to go back in! Thanks Steveo (and Lordco) for the ball joint work
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: bwaz on October 14, 2014, 08:43:35 PM
As good as this part will be.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: pittwagen on October 14, 2014, 09:43:58 PM
Well after a summer of house repairs I am finally getting around to some maintenance/repair items on the bus.  Thought it would be nice to have a functioning gas gauge.  After 2 new and faulty sending units and an equal number of new but garbage vibrators, it looks like the post it notes on the speedo will be around for a while. Now on to the heater cables.  Left one is in and appears to be too long but I won't rush to judgement until the right one is in place.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: StrictlyAaron on October 17, 2014, 01:53:02 PM
Loving the inspiration. I have a 71 Westy that I will get around to shortly. Ill post some pics and make a post about my progress soon
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: coreys59 on November 27, 2014, 09:36:40 PM
Starting my 70 soon.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: BUSDADDY on November 27, 2014, 09:50:05 PM
Starting my 70 soon.
Always a treat to welcome a new member from Australia :)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: coreys59 on November 27, 2014, 10:33:07 PM
Haha! Why is my photo upside down?

And I'm from Langley BC
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Geoff on October 25, 2015, 09:20:21 AM
Fall is well upon us again... That means project time. Who will have their Bus ready for spring and what are you doing to it this winter?
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: 72vwtype2 on November 08, 2015, 12:42:21 PM
Planning on getting my 72 bus back on the road by next spring. It's been slow and painful. Every time I fix one thing something else breaks :)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: slammedbus on November 28, 2015, 08:14:14 AM
Nothing this year. Frame is rot around the axle tubes and I have no time to repair.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Geoff on January 03, 2016, 10:04:04 AM
Time to get those Bay's finished up for Spring! There's a local VW Spring camp out in the works, more details to follow.

(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi68.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fi7%2FDasDragon%2FBlackstar2.jpg&hash=8f2f2d614856cc33dd3f7f15b46628fabe929057)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: pittwagen on January 03, 2016, 06:43:22 PM
I managed to spot that token bay amongst the splitties in the pic.  Great idea G.   My buddy and I are ready to go.

(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.thesamba.com%2Fvw%2Fgallery%2Fpix%2F1101223.jpg&hash=7997152db150cf3aa64a1a36ea879ac4517d4fc7)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: silas on January 04, 2016, 08:08:08 PM
...There's a local VW Spring camp out in the works, more details to follow.

sounds like it could be fun...keep us posted!!
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Brenticon on January 04, 2016, 09:12:10 PM
Time to get those Bay's finished up for Spring! There's a local VW Spring camp out in the works, more details to follow.

(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi68.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fi7%2FDasDragon%2FBlackstar2.jpg&hash=8f2f2d614856cc33dd3f7f15b46628fabe929057)

Awesome! Nothing better than camping with a bunch of buses.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Alp on January 11, 2016, 09:04:44 PM
sure there is....camping with a bunch of women and one bus......
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: pittwagen on January 15, 2016, 08:39:54 PM
Just got a BN4 installed in the bus. Temps inside are downright tropical even with outside temps near freezing.  Dual controls - standard switch in front and rv thermostat in the rear.  Still a few items to tidy up but it is in and running perfectly.  Just one more step in making it an all season vehicle.

Ready for the spring camping trip.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Geoff on January 16, 2016, 06:15:30 PM
Now that sounds like a nice addition to the van! Hopefully details next week
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on February 04, 2016, 11:28:17 PM
Reading tonight, I realize I have written nothing on my 3 bus progress since......2014.  Well, that's because due to work and family, life and a small stint at website idea, I have not had any time.  I did do some bodywork on the my white 1978 bus but the fall weather stopped me from painting so it will need some more work done in the spring and then painting will commence.   Picked up a really nice pair of paint guns from KMS on sale this past summer so cannot wait to try them out.   I did get all the missing (rusted away) rocker panel parts and outriggers and jackpoints welded in under the white bus so it's good to get ready for painting once weather gets warm again.   

Speaking of welding.  One of my last posts was about my KMS 3 hour course on spot welding 2 years ago that is basically all the training I've done.   But my oldest daughter, the one who owns and drives and helps maintain the orange 1975 bus, dropped out of University Biology a year ago and switched over to taking the Welding Foundations Course at University of Fraser Valley in Chilliwack where hopefully she graduates in another 2 and 1/2 months from now.  She has absolutely loved it and thrives on it.   Welding styles and gear and types and things I have no idea half the time what she is talking about........except the endless "bend tests" her welding has to pass.  I get that.  Bend Tests sounds absolutely horrifyingly frightening and she has to go through them continually.   But?  It seems she's pretty darned good at it.   In fact, fathers pride aside, it seems like shes really darned good at it.   What did my 19 year old daughter want for Christmas this year?  A 220v TIG/MIG/Stick welder.   Easily the most expensive gift I have ever given for Christmas but if it helps her along and keeps her interest and skill up on this life she is embarking on, I'm more than happy to help.   So that is what she got.   Then I got to spend the weekend after Christmas ripping a large hole in my interior wall and running very stiff thick wiring from two new ganged breakers in my circuit breaker panel and out to the outside wall to one of those giant 220v receptacles that the welder could then plug into and draw ample power from.   

So this summer?  THIS summer?   We are going to make some serious progress on body work and frame work on the orange bus and the yellow bus and get them all fixed up.    I smile when I think of a posting I put on Craigslist 3 years ago asking if anyone was doing welding on bus frames and got zero response.  So...........instead I grew my own personal welder:  my daughter.  ha ha
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on February 06, 2016, 07:17:26 AM
Picked up a 1979 VW bus yesterday afternoon from Surrey.   My first tin-top, non-camper bay.    I love the campers but this one had a few things that drew me to it.   A very decent price.   A great-sounding engine.   All gears seem good, brakes........work, all the lights work and the interior is in really good shape.   I guess a po had planned to do something with the back seat because it has like three of them thrown back there but not sure exactly.   Lots of body rust but the outriggers and jack points and main beams all seem plenty solid and body work I can handle.    The sliding rail for the side door has no pits or holes.    She's green and always has been green but someone at some point painted 1/2 of one side with a brush and a green that does not quite match.  But she drove all the way from the West side of Surrey to 176th in a ton of stop/go rush hour traffic and then rolled along decently on the highway slow lane to 200th and then made her way easily to Fort Langley and into her new parking spot on my driveway, right in front of my house where tomorrow morning my neighbours will wake up and look out their windows and think to themselves "Are you kidding?  Not another one!"   

I don't know about the rest of you, but this past year or two decent bay buses sure have been hard to come by that have any kind of a decent price.   People want $3000 for non-running buses and $5000 for ones with lots of rust these days on Craigslist.  Finding one at a decently low price seems to have become almost impossible on Craigslist/Kijiji these days.  Not that I really need more at this point.  My three projects plus my daughters bus are more than enough to keep my spare time busy getting them fixed up and finished.   I just worry that when they are done, then what?   I guess as time marches on, 70's buses simply get rarer and rarer and far less likely to suddenly appear from families who were still using them.   

 
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: gsun on February 06, 2016, 02:34:33 PM
I saw that one and it looked like a decent bus at a decent price. Good score!

BTW - you are a bus ho.... ;)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on February 06, 2016, 04:42:01 PM
Here is one picture of the 79 bay bus I picked up yesterday.   You know you have an interesting project when you open the engine door and you see a bottle of oil sitting in the RV battery tray.  I'll post other pictures later but believe me, this is by far the best angle.    Every other angle shows the ugly bits and missing bits and crumpled bits and the rusty bits.   My dad (86) came out to look at it and give his opinion like he always loves to do as he taps his cane against the worst looking areas and looks at me like I have completely failed him.  ha ha.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: pittwagen on February 06, 2016, 05:58:07 PM
Well the nose looks decent.  I hate nose jobs.  Let's see the rest. 

Nice to see another 79 in the neighbourhood.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on March 19, 2016, 08:53:47 PM
We have started a project I've wanted to do the past 3 - 4 years.   Our 1923 house in Fort Langley has no garage.   We have three of those temporary storage tents in the back yard from Canadian tire but as I've learned (and was reinforced a week ago during that windstorm), even though they are advertised to be UV-resistant, there is no doubt after 3 years or so, the sun does enough damage that heavy wind will rip those things up.   So, given all that, we have embarked on planning a 3 bay garage for our house, along the driveway, mostly in the back yard.  For this summer, we plan to just make it into a carport and look into walls and doors later.   The main thing is to get it up and get the buses under a roof.   

I managed to get a brand new 4-post car lift through a friend who lucked into 4 of them, all in original packaging.   So Ill have to plan the height of the inside ceiling to be able to handle that.   It would seem lifting a bus into the air is going to require a fair amount of space up there.   We spent the past two weeks demolishing and carting away a very solidly built 8' x 6' tool shed that was attached to the house but in the way of the new garage.  Next we have taken down and mostly emptied one of the three storage tents to make space for the new building as well.   Then just have to finish off the drawings of the proposed garage, the yard/lot layout of current buildings and apparently I have to submit a drawing of the location of the septic tank and septic field.  Then hopefully we'll get a building permit without too much trouble and we can start putting down post foundations (cement and rebar) deep into the ground.   Woo-Hoo.....   

I'd have been in better shape to do this in my 40's rather than my 50's but it should go ok.    I built a single car garage about 6 years ago so this will just be a wee bit bigger.   Even at that, it's not as big as it could be but will be approx 20' deep and approx 35' wide.   Simply don't have the space to make it wider. 

I'll post pictures along the way, just for fun.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 17, 2016, 07:19:32 AM
Ok, well we have waded into the body repairs on Jennifer's orange 1975 bus.   This one has a fair amount of rust and the sliding door track completely failed with the previous owner so we have never opened it.   Then Jennifer got T-Boned on the driver side coming home from school 3 years ago by a pickup truck and did significant damage to the body, and some minor structural damage (front left wheel area, outriggers crushed, bumper mangled, etc).   ICBC wrote it off and we managed to literally hammer it back enough and replaced wheel and bumper and signal lights to get them to give it an inspection pass and it was back on the road but looking like it had been through a war.   

Jennifer passed her welding course and has her foundations ticket and is now working in Aldergrove.   On the weekends we plan to work on her bus in Fort Langley and get it all fixed up and repainted......including rusted out pieces, body repair, accident damage repair and replacing the track for the sliding door.   Some parts we will repair and some will be outright replaced with new or parts we have gotten from others.   

This weekend Jennifer started cutting out all the bad parts.   Most of the lower driver side body panels, the driver side dog leg, the two drivers side outriggers and jack points.   Some parts we got from CIP1.   Some we got from our friend LateBaySteve (such as the dogleg he had at the Dubs In the Barn show in Cloverdale last weekend). 

I took a few pictures yesterday of the area we are working (mostly Jennifer doing all the work).  Hope you like them.   

By the way, most of the body panel sections we cut out: we intend to hammer them back into shape and re-weld them back on again.   It was just too damaged to fix them in-place so we decided to cut them off, fix them on the bench and then re-attach them.   Heck, why else would she take the welding course???   

Todays goals are to get the dogleg fully cut off, get the two outriggers/jackpoints cut off and grind down the mounting areas flush and hopefully have time to weld in the two new outriggers/jackpoints.    The dogleg welding will likely be next weekend.   This bus has been repaired before, some time ago and I'll post the pictures of what we found on another post but the work was extensive on the body panels which makes this all just a little more interesting.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 17, 2016, 07:22:16 AM
Here is Jennifer cutting out the drivers side dogleg.  The 2nd picture is the crushed area (one of them) where the truck hit her and took out the area behind the front left wheel and made the outrigger and jackpoint 1/2 their original length.   But heck they were rusty as anything and had to go anyway.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 17, 2016, 07:29:51 AM
Last pictures for now:  First one is the very typical rotted out outrigger with jackpoint which will be removed today.   The second picture made me happy because the cross-members support pieces are in nice shape with only fairly minor surface rust on them (the three between the two jackpoints) so other than cleaning, painting and eventually undercoating them, they don't need any major surgery.   

Of course we'll have to replace the inner and outter rockers but that was expected.   I picked up (to try out) a locally fabricated inner rocker from a guy out of Victoria (I believe) who is fabricating bent steel parts for buses (had a box of outriggers too) who I met at the Dubs In The Barn in Cloverdale last weekend.   I'll find his name somewhere and post it later.   I'll say one thing: it's plenty heavy-duty so I'm looking forward to seeing how Jennifer likes it when she installs it later.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: silas on April 17, 2016, 08:28:37 PM
thanks for the updates, great work kinggeorge13 & jennifer! full steam ahead! also cool to hear jennifer passed her welding course!  :cool:

one friendly suggestion...i can very much appreciate the use of the safety equipment (respirator, face shield, gloves, boots, jacket, jeans, etc)...but please modify the way the grinder is held. jennifers left arm/wrist is dangerously close to the cut off wheel and a slip or if that thing kicks back or the disc shatters  :(  grinder guards can also help protect the user from the tool too.

(https://airspeedparts.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.airspeedparts.com%2Fforums%2Findex.php%3Faction%3Ddlattach%3Btopic%3D22471.0%3Battach%3D7393%3Bimage&hash=1204d5acb8800fe1f421f33cd4e1e9274104e7e9)
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: gsun on April 17, 2016, 08:55:14 PM
Agree. Ask me how I got the scar on my left wrist..... >:(
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Bruce on April 18, 2016, 12:30:31 AM
.... we intend to hammer them back into shape and re-weld them back on again.   It was just too damaged to fix them in-place so we decided to cut them off, fix them on the bench and then re-attach them.   
I recommend against this.  Don't weld back in a panel that has been damaged.  Get a panel from a donor Bus that isn't damaged and weld that in.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 18, 2016, 06:36:27 AM
Howdy guys! 

Grinder control:  good advice on the usage of the grinder with the cutting wheels.   It does have a grinder guard installed (although hard to see in these pictures) and I will talk to Jennifer about how she is holding her grinder when doing her vertical cuts.   I looked at the other pictures of her cutting the other areas and she had it properly.   I'm guessing she found that angle difficult but I agree it's not worth the risk. 

Reuse of the body panel parts.   I think for now we will likely continue with our current course of action.  I realise there is a wrong way and a right way and many variations between the two but this will never be a show bus and she just wants it looking better than it was after the accident.  The bottom of the metal panel is in pretty good shape because what we discovered when we cut it off is someone riveted new metal all along the bottom, probably to replace the usual rusted-out area some years ago.  We will fully replace the inner rocker and outter rocker with all new metal because they are 75% gone and/or destroyed.   The same with the back left corner metal.  While I'm sure there are many who will cringe at some of the decisions we will make, in the end, I think it will look ok.   Consider that we will be painting it in open air on our driveway because that is currently what we have available.   We've done it before and while it certainly is not showroom quality, it will still be lightyears better than it is now and wayyy better than two of the buses I have where someone painted areas with what clearly had to be a paintbrush.   In the end Jennifer will be happy and she'll get to drive her bus with happiness for at least another few years.   Please don't get me wrong, I appreciate the suggestions and pointers because everything helps.   It's just that on this particular bus, with limited time and funds, we are not setting the bar really high, we just want it better looking than the crumpled, rusty mess it currently is.

I will promise one thing though.   I've now worked on two buses where I had to replace rocker panels and on one of them, most of the rotted rocker section was full of tightly crumpled newspaper and great wads of body filler.   The other one was the same thing only this person used crumpled tin foil instead of newspaper.    I won't stoop to that low, at least.   I will actually replace metal with metal (new or old) and conservatively use body filler only for final smoothing areas before painting.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 18, 2016, 09:39:47 AM
Here are a couple of pix from yesterdays work.    The Dogleg area is now cut off and we started evaluating using a spare used dogleg we have but has rust that will need repair or use the brand new one from CIP1.   Gotta say, I personally am leaning towards using the used one and fixing the rust because it's simply more heavy-duty and has the double-wall construction where the CIP1 is lighter material and only single wall-construction.   

Picture one is the bus with the dogleg area cut away (required removing the door to get into that corner properly)

Picture two is a little drain pipe or something that was a surprise.  Anyone know what this is for?   Surely liquids of some type did not drain down into the dogleg internal parts did it?  Or is this a chopped off tube that originally went out the body below the bus somewhere but during some previous repair it got cut short?    Anyone know?   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 18, 2016, 09:47:41 AM
And just two more to add to the 2 pictures above from yesterday.

Picture one:  one of the pieces we found riveted in from a previous repair someone did some other time. 

Picture two:  Russell got bored as we worked on the bus.    She loves being in the buses while being worked on but not when the grinder was going........ and especially the air chisel.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Hansk on April 18, 2016, 12:13:42 PM
Wow Big project guys , very cool , can't wait to see it finished !

 btw is it possible that tube is a sunroof drain built in along with the roof ?
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: BUSDADDY on April 18, 2016, 12:24:12 PM
The tube is the atmosphere vent for the brake booster.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 18, 2016, 12:38:18 PM
The tube is the atmosphere vent for the brake booster.

Ahhhh........ok, that makes sense.   Apparently I've never followed that particular brake booster tube to see where it ultimately ends up.    That is good to know.   

Thanks!
-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Hansk on April 18, 2016, 03:15:27 PM
The tube is the atmosphere vent for the brake booster.

ah ha ...
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on April 21, 2016, 10:38:11 AM
Just doing preliminary work on the 1979 green Kombi/Transporter.   Last month I got it all cleaned out (years of dirt, mud, pine needles, sawdust, construction screws and nails, wood bits, more dirt and mud, rust, etc) and dried out.   So, and some of you will curse me for this, our intention is to build cabinets and install a spare z-bed I had picked up a few years ago and make it somewhat like a tin-top Westfalia (i.e. no poptop). 

Yesterday I went to remove the back bench seat and as you likely already know, the bottom section of the bench seat is attached via two big bolts to the floor and those came off easily.   The back piece of the bench seat has a release mechanisms that allows the back part to disengage and hinge forward onto the bottom section making a more or less flat area for cargo carrying (but not sleeping as there is a big gap and.......yeah, no foam mattress.    The two large bolts (one at each end) of the hinge piece of that back seat section go through to the wheel well which turned out to not be a great design cuz it gets rusty in a hurry.  On my bus, it clearly completely rusted out right there and at some point the back of the seat likely no longer was held in place at all. 

So rather than replacing the rusted out section with metal, some previous owner made a semi-permanent repair by filling in the holes with some combination of body filler/epoxy/whatever and sunk the bolts into it where they would remain forever (or until that repair failed one day with more rust or an accident).  Anyways, kind of a tight area but a 4" cutting wheel on my angle grinder and out they came.    I'll fix those two spots later after I figure out where the z-bed needs to be bolted in.   

Kind of a slow VW Bus news story day today but here's a couple pictures of the bolt mounts as I found them.  Oh yeah, and that is the same place the seat belts are anchored.  Jeez.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on May 10, 2016, 06:03:07 AM
Ok, jumping all over the place and back to working on the 1978 White Bus.    I almost got this bus painted last fall and simply ran out of good warm mornings (windless).   Body work was done, primer paint was done.   I was taping it up to do the full paint (blue) and the weather changed and I wrapped her well with tarps and it just never got warm enough again to do it.   A week later I removed the tape before it became a problem (and all the newspaper) and she sat outside on the driveway all winter, partially covered but still getting plenty wet from dampness and splashing and tarps blowing off, etc.    As you know, primer paint is not waterproof so now she has minor rust streaks in several places down her outer panels.   But you know what?  I've decided this was a huge blessing in disguise.

This shows me exactly where she is likely to start rusting again after I'm finished because of areas I did not pay enough attention to.  So I've photo-documented those areas and will now re-sand and re-primer those areas much better than last time.   But the big surprise was how much rust reappeared all around the engine bay door at the back.  I kinda knew I did a bit of a crap job on that but I completely missed just how much water gets in there and stays stuck between metal and rubber gasket and just rusts merrily away.   

This time I'm removing the engine bay door to deal with it separately, removing the rubber seal around that opening and then fixing/removing all the rust, painting it properly and then installing a new rubber gasket from CIP1 that I ordered on the weekend.   

Getting the door off is kinda simple other than the rust/seized fun of the one large Phillips machine bolt that holds it on.   For those of you who have not removed this door before, it's really easy (other than the seized bolt).    Remove the license plate light housing and disconnect the two wires (I marked the connectors just to make sure they go back on the same way in case one side of that light bulb socket is supposed to be ground).   I also had a PO's trailer wiring plug to remove so I labelled all those wires, cut them and removed that as well.   The two hinges are the trick:  The one on the right side is has the bus-side welded to the frame.   The one on the left has the bus side held to the frame with a single Phillips head machine screw/bolt that once you remove that, you can slip off the little arm out of the right side hinge and voila your door is off.   

My machine screw/bolt was rusted and seized badly (see pic below) but as always, a darned good blast of propane torch heating that sucker up and liberal sprayings (and waiting) of penetrating oil always works.   You can kinda tell from the pics below that I used a fair amount of heat before the thing finally broke free it's seiziness (I just invented that word now).   Since I'm repainting the bus, I did not really care about the heat damage to the paint.   Then easily pulled out the old rubber seal gasket and yeah, look at that rust (pics below).    I'll do it right this time.   

Also removed the old RV battery which turned out to be a regular starting battery (no wonder it worked like crap) and replaced with a larger RV deep cycle battery and installed new battery wires and post connectors so it's all nice and new and should be problem-free for a very good long time.   

Here are the photos apres-torching:
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on May 10, 2016, 06:06:10 AM
This was the seized machine screw/bolt before torching.    2nd picture was the rust found under the rubber seal/gasket.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on February 11, 2019, 09:13:08 PM
I guess this is still a decent place to post a project update or should I start a new post?   Anyways, this is another area of my 1975 Westy "Serenity" that I'm working on.   The rear "apron" /valence/skirt had many rust holes along the bottom and as usual, as I got into it there was so much rust and so little metal left inside and the inner piece that is right behind the engine cooling fan was 30% just completely rusted away.  Not much fun cutting away all the metal to get the two new pieces fitted and welded in.   But?  Everything lined up pretty good and flat and Woo-Hoo the door latch fit perfectly with the engine door closing.   

First photo: it is about half way-through the welding (the inside piece is already welded in behind this).   I had gotten a little ahead of myself with the body fill leveling of the back corner not realizing all that welding was going to be needed so I'll be doing that corner over.   

Second photo: I was about 25% through cutting out all the old rust.   The rear outer valence has already been cut away.....what there was of it.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: 52 split on February 18, 2019, 01:56:39 PM
if we could only wave a magic wand for the rust to disappear. keep plugging on.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on February 18, 2019, 06:40:02 PM
Classic photo time from this past summer.   You have not really lived fixing rusty buses until this happens at least once to you.  Hint: 2 minutes before I took this photo that bottom left corner of the door was not all bent in.......   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on March 11, 2019, 06:32:02 AM
Rusted out battery trays.   It's not just that it's a pain to work in that tight space removing the old rusty metal but it's also a pain setting up new metal and "brackets" to hold that metal in place and welding it all up.   I'm getting less flexible with each year and for some reason my hands seem to be getting bigger so they don't reach places as well.  The aging process sucks: both in me and my buses. 

Plus?  I don't know about the rest of you but removing those 4 nuts that hold the tail light assembly in is enough to keep me awake at night worrying about it (almost).   First off they are always corroded and stuck so you have to plan ahead and soak them with your penetrating oil of choice at least a day or two in advance.   Then the fun of the two on the outside side of the taillight assembly are 100% out of view.   And if your lighting assembly has had a lot of fun in the sun and is already getting crumbly, just the action of trying to get the nuts to break free of their frozen in place state will sometimes cause the plastic holding their bolts in place to just disintegrate.   On the other hand, working with the brand new light assemblies you end up having to order is kinda nice even though they had zero to do with fixing the battery tray itself.   

Meanwhile, it's always interesting to find what previous owners have stuck in there to try and strengthen and prop up their slowly disintegrating battery tray area to delay the inevitable falling through of the heavy battery.   

These two photos are from Serenity, my 1975 Westy.   One is just the holes where there is no support left along the outer edge at all and much of what metal was left was very thin and brittle.  The second photo is the amazingly thick piece of fibreboard (or whatever it was) that was rammed in there trying to hold up the battery.   The photo does not exactly do it justice but it was around 2 inches thick.   

Anyways, today should be a nice rainy day to stay inside and do some cutting out of old rusty metal and start prepping to weld in a nice new battery tray.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: gsun on March 11, 2019, 08:37:55 PM
That fibre board didn't start out two inches thick.....
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on March 11, 2019, 09:02:13 PM
That fibre board didn't start out two inches thick.....

It's amazing, right?  That's a lot of acid and water affecting that poor thing for many years.   Reminds me of that Christmas when my dog ate a whole pack of gummy bears without taking the time to chew them (before she got caught) and then went outside in the wet snow and threw them all up.   The next day we had all these 20x size gummy bears in a pile outside the back door.   They were freaking huge!   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on March 14, 2019, 03:28:28 PM
So here we go.  I've finally learned  how to embed photos after all this time.   All I had to do is read the instructions that were written here years ago and it worked like a charm!  Or  I guess we shall see how it works.    In the earlier threads on this post, I already showed the sorry state of my battery tray with most of one side just hanging in the air and most of the rest of it was a heavily rusted, thinned and holed piece of metal trying desperately to hold my heavy battery up.   As my 2nd photo (above in the earlier part of the thread) showed the very swollen/warped pressboard some previous owner rammed in there many years ago.   

So I got to use my oxy-acetylene torch (woo-hoo!) and cut out most of the old base but I purposely left around 1/4" to 1/2" around the edge where I could to help sit the replacement tray onto and give me more metal to weld to and generally keep it all as strong as possible.   Not the straightest cuts but not a lot of maneuvering space either:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/giNFjTT5cTeFWi1v05gW2j3Q5R5pv0IbAcz3ZPtpEBcwEnDxdp-ro00yGZ_7MS3jjkaPSfBi0-Fayf7HqAQbn0H6BjZOPmXMAYXg1M88y3rM5yonF1zmCoaTuD3YOF3dTZJQzqTQd6U=w1000)

I had to trim my new piece a little to make it fit, it was clearly too long by 1/2 - 3/4 inch.   Then I pre-drilled holes along the edge of the new tray so I could plug-weld down into the 1/2" old edge I'd left behind inside the battery compartment (I ground that edge inside there to make it nice and flat after oxy cutting it out).   Here is the new piece trimmed and drilled:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/t-2FUpFqwp1cMXqNIf2iutYxd3zeX-iPCztM2GZaBYmvduUM5UDvtx6vQYxYnPguNwhGR2I99txYvdd66OYUzV3xtbz84CjkLBUGwMtGB1jWYpcBnRznCJbnvGjs97zTR8lx2XQ7DE0=w1000)

It was still a tight fit and you have to put the front down in place first so it does not get jammed into the large connector going to the ECU (I coulda taken it off, I suppose).   I banged it down nice and tight with a ball-peen hammer.   This photo is after I got a few of the plug welds done and it was on the home stretch now!
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/gw-QPSog4nN-Wm2q2lszA5zrjXVVRQjEJhLo5P2ruOjOueqTnw0SNs7aPoFnS49WzjYn8BoptjOrOl4eL7ffNT6NQtUhA34_GAJnetzix2so1NNKJht1xphMfWBa8t5KDcFaQHHmCTw=w1000)

This is where I suppose I'll get some criticism-feedback.  I painted everything on the tray and up the sides a few inches with black rust paint. I did do light sanding first.
 (https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/4zK6viP7U2Byahhk2bLz4mL1c3U7K_gjf-zuKg4_RacBFckqvktAZgqLbx8gTAmUqk6KW1XuXI22zzcCeLSHOOB3v-s0CxUTkbp1uWNx4XmnWNsCQmcuBCZCDt-oo3hP2np2UONMlXE=w1000)

After that paint cured I then sprayed over it all with an orange rust paint and wayyy up the sides mostly just to make it match the orange colour a little.   The black stuff you see around the edges is a water-proofing automotive seam-sealer.  Not the prettiest but darned hard working in that small space and the main thing was to keep water from gathering in the seams and/or coming up through from below.   It's not perfect but it should last longer than doing nothing, I hope.  And it is as solid as a rock!  Later on I'll add some seam-sealer to underneath as well when I'm back working underneath the bus.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/AJm1KKCvVn76X2LMReCe4PIVRTRGnouSWgFc_UR6ga-pAvZGimjyNSYY6auo16401iVXtXEsIPLAT6Iqrgh3Suag7Xz12pS41woCwx3xagn0KmFED5yf1Z_oQwI8KMewdCtX2fvw8zQ=w1000)

Now I'll let it cure and harden for a few days before dragging my battery back in there.  Need to pickup the threaded battery clamp thingie as well since the new base provides a handy connection point for it.  I imagine I'll get better and prettier at doing these as I have 3 more buses that need the same thing but heck now that I've finally done one, it seems far less intimidating.   
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: gsun on March 14, 2019, 08:31:51 PM
No see pics.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on March 14, 2019, 10:07:07 PM
No see pics.

Well, that sucks.   Back to figuring out a better place to host the photos for sharing other than Google photos.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: Brenticon on March 15, 2019, 08:07:09 AM
I found Imgur quite simple of your using a desk top/laptop.
City figure it out on my phone.
Here is a tutorial link from another forum.

http://miacvw.proboards.com/thread/960/post-big-juicy-pictures-imgur
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on March 15, 2019, 08:23:19 PM
No see pics.
Ok, I think I have it fixed.  Anyone reading this post if you see my photos above of my installing the new battery tray, if you could let me know it's working, that would be great.   Apparently only I could see them before due to the permissions set by Google Photos.   Looked great to me but no one else could see them.   They should be able to see them now.   

Thanks!
-George
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: gsun on March 15, 2019, 09:49:31 PM
Works now. And I use Imgur too. easy.
Title: Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
Post by: kinggeorge13 on March 15, 2019, 10:09:50 PM
Works now. And I use Imgur too. easy.
I found a way to use my Google Photos using a third party paste/redirect application.   I really don't want to have to upload photos to another host system after putting pretty much my life and family onto Google Photos.   In the end, once I settled on an application to do this, it works fairly easily all things considered.  Probably not as easy as having my photos uploaded to another hosting service like Imgur and just pasting one link but I do like having all my photos on just one hosting site and dealing with everything just from there.   Next time though I think I'll shrink the photos just a wee bit more.   I don't need super closeups to show my hamfisted repairs.

Anyways, I'm happy it's working.  Thanks for the help!

-George