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Wed Aug 13, 2008 1:23 pm

Well as you all know life with the Westy is always interesting. Started from the Philly area for a camping, mountain biking, and canoeing trip with my 22 year old son. It was a sunny Saturday and we got off around 10:30 for a 7 hour ride. I had just replaced all the fuel lines (2nd time, another story) so my thoughts were on them. About 3 hours into the trip north we pulled into Binghamton NY with a loud noise and banging coming from the exhaust area. I unloaded the gear and looked into the engine area while running. The exhaust pipe, which I knew was getting older, separated itself from the flange and was leaking and banging. It was not connected but the banging noise had me worried. When I saw exactly what it was I felt better- outside the engine not inside. Well there was a Monroe muffler shop down the road. We stopped in and I pointed out the problem. One hour later and $27 out, the pipe was welded to the flange and we were back on the road.
We headed up to Utica on our way. About 2 hours later after passing through Utica and climbing up a steep grade on RT 12 toward the Adirondacks we suddenly had no pedal. The Accelerator went to the floor. We were halfway up and there was virtually no shoulder. All the Westy could do was idle. Accelerator cable had snapped. Out came all the gear (lucky we have a swing away bike rack). The gear was moved to the the center area and I adjusted the idle screw for a very fast idle. We poked our way up the hill at about 10 mph took the exit. No services there so we crossed over and headed back down the 4 mile hill of RT 12. Now we cold get up some speed and glided down at almost the speed limit. We got off at rt 49 River rd. and pulled into a Walmart lot. The cable had broken just inside the engine compartment. 2 problems on the same trip and neither were the fuel lines which I worried about.

Well to make a long story short, next to Wal Mart was Lowes. I bought 12 feet of 1/16 cable, 2 packs of ferels and crimping tool. I cut out a chunk of the plastic tube under the mid section with the accelerator cable running trough. I pulled the old cable back to the mid section I had opened. I crimped an end stop on the new cable at the throttle and fed it through to the opening, and spliced the new cable to the old at the opening I cut mid way up the car. I used those double hole ferels to splice. It worked perfectly. I also ordered the accerator cable for overnight delivery from Bus Depot and received it the next day in Speculator, NY. It is a good insurance policy since the splice job is working very well. Thanks Bus Depot. This is probably a good part to carry as a spare.

I mentioned all this to my wife (who isn't on the trip) and she said that the Westy always breaks down, you should get rid of it. I told her it just keeps getting better because I keep replacing more and more of it. I guess you should just not mention every thing to the wife. She just doesn't understand.

John

I don't think I will change it till

Wed Aug 13, 2008 1:38 pm

Adapt and overcome. Way to go.

Wed Aug 13, 2008 1:38 pm

Sounds like good times. Who needs a boring predictable life anyways? Good tip about the throttle cable. I seem to remember several stories here on the Samba of cables breaking during a trip.

Wed Aug 13, 2008 1:47 pm

John Sullivan wrote:

I mentioned all this to my wife (who isn't on the trip) and she said that the Westy always breaks down, you should get rid of it. I told her it just keeps getting better because I keep replacing more and more of it. I guess you should just not mention every thing to the wife. She just doesn't understand.

John

Some would argue (that's me) that the challenges faced on a trip are at least half the fun, getting diverted, but hopefully not inverted.

Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:11 pm

Nicely done John. =D> That's what these vans are all about. Sorry to hear about the problems, but fortunately these vans are generally simple enouch to fix in just the way you did. Not permanent, but good enough to get you where you need to go, until the proper parts can be had.

I had a cracked and leaking H-pipe in Palm Springs in 110F heat. I was able to fix it with a hose clamp long enough to finish my day in the field, and get home to SD. In fact, it's still on there (gotta get to that).

A friend of mine was in Mexico 1,500 miles from home, when his clutch went. I don't know the details, but some Mexican guys were able to use just about gum and duct tape to fix the clultch and get him the 1,500 miles home. Apparently the job they did, albeit primitive, was good enough. His US mechanic was impressed how well the quickie fix worked. These vans are built for this stuff!