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Sun May 23, 2010 10:57 am

Well, it has been 4 months since I posted any update on the bus (trying to work, go to school, and pastor a small church at the same time doesn’t leave a lot of bus time). It didn’t help any that my truck got all jealous and cost me $700 to fix. :x Well, I took care of the money problem by selling my 04 Miata, and classes are winding down for the year so it is time to get to work on the bus. :D

The front end is all back together with new wheel cylinders, hoses, and shoes (for some reason I failed to get pictures). I will get then when I finish the front by installing the new Master Cylinder, shocks/steering damper, and steel brake lines.

In the meantime, I have been getting few things ready for my neighbor to weld. First the bases for the Vanagon seats. Since I am not going to use the swivels, I am using only the top part of the swivel bases. The problem with this was that they would not sit flat. I had to cut the centers out, and then I ground off the old seat bases. I set them as far back as possible to make sure that the driver’s seat would slide in and out (I probably did not need to go that far but…). Then I notched then to fit around the bulkhead. I will be welding these in and then POR 15ing the whole area.

The other area that I needed to get ready for welding was the battery tray. Since the engine and transmission are coming out eventually, I decided to pull them now to have more room to deal with the tray. The hardest part of that was getting the axles out. I had to use a small screwdriver to clean out the holes for the 6mm allen wench. Then I had to tap the allen socket into the holes to get enough grip to pull them out. Eventually they all came out without having to resort to the vice-grips. 8) After that, it was a piece of cake.

I am concerned about this oil coming from the trans though.

It appears to be coming from seals in the final drive.

How big of a hassle is this going to be to fix? Or, should I use this as an opportunity to rebuild/replace the transmission? I have a new 1914 TM-10 coming from Chico and do not want to cheap out on the transmission. At the same time, I do not want to throw money at things that do not require it.

Engine out, and the rat droppings cleaned off of it :shock: (will I every stop finding these?).

The engine bay all empty and ready to get it cleaned up and POR 15ed. I will get some more picks when I do the battery tray.

Tue May 25, 2010 9:00 pm

After doing some research, this (transmission seals) looks like a fairly straightforward fix. Now the question I have is where to buy the parts. Who sells a quality kit for this?

I figure that the input shaft seal will also need replacing after 20 years of sitting and I will be getting the kit for the shift rod bushing (which I assume includes the seal) and most likely replacing the ball joint while I have the transmission out. Is there any seals or transmission maintenance that I am missing here?

Wed May 26, 2010 8:15 pm

Anybody?

Thu May 12, 2011 11:00 pm

Well, it's been a very long time since I posted here, but that does not mean nothing has been happening. In fact the bus is now running and has made its maiden voyage. I am going to attempt to bring everyone up to date on how I got here.
I spent most of last summer doing the interior. I sand blasted the whole floor;

Also blasted the underside center section:

Along the way I also welded in the Vanagon seat bases.

Next I POR15’ed everything.

Then it was time to build the new interior. First, the full-width bed.

I used the original hinges for the bed that required a bit of fabrication to make the passenger side fit. (if you do this take care because the fuel inlet does not allow you to exactly copy the driver side)

Next I built the new fridge/sink cabinet It is not really a fridge but the seat holds the water tank and a Coleman Steel-belted ice chest. The center section holds the porta-potty and the drivers side has a place for canned goods in the back and storage under.

The sink folds out from the seat back and holds a lift-out steam pan. It turned out pretty good;

Fri May 13, 2011 9:29 am

It’s looking good :0)

There are a lot of tings that can be done to improve the original setup… one of which may be to try to use light weight materials where ever possible, weight reduction on a westy has the similar effect as adding more HP to it ;0)

Cool Camper interiors, you may have seen them already, but some of them are very cool/interesting :0)

http://kustominteriors.co.uk/

http://news.cnet.com/2300-11389_3-6121227-4.html?tag=mncol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJXTBZLRfR4

http://www.camperinterior.webfotos.co.uk/index.html

Looking forwards to seeing your interior finished!

Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:25 am

Ok, it’s been almost a year since I updated this thread. I put the bus on the road Mothers day weekend last year, and it has been my daily driver since then. In December I pulled the engine trans and installed a Rancho rebuild. The trans had a problem popping out of fourth but Rancho was great and sent me another one. This is where my current post starts. I am preparing for a 4000 mile road trip so there are some things that I need to get done before I go. I found a great deal on an oil cooler with fan and fan thermostat here in the classifieds, and installed it while I had the motor and trans out, and I relocated the oil filter which had been behind the driver’s side rear wheel.
I didn’t like the idea of running the fan through the tiny wires of the thermostat so I used a relay. The thermostat now triggers the relay which pulls power straight from the starter with a 12 gauge wire. I also hooked up a wire that goes back to the oil pressure gauge where I installed an LED to let me know when the fan kicks on. This allowed me to verify that my oil temp gauge is pretty accurate and make me very glad I installed the oil cooler.

I mounted the oil filter on the outside of the frame rail and turned it on its side to keep it out of harms way. You can see the fan on the oil cooler just the other side of the frame rail.

Oil lines…

Now it was time to tackle the windshield. These last few rains have left me nearly swimming as the old seal (possibly OG) had big chunks missing from the bottom edge. I have been afraid of what I would find under the petrified puppy but was pleasantly surprised to find that it was not that bad. Only one teeny tiny hole.

Wire wheeled and then POR 15ed and laid a coat of primer over the POR 15 (unfortunately I fail to take pictures of the bare metal and POR 15…

Sandblasted, POR 15ed, primed, and painted the upper dash panel.

Put it all back together. I was surprised that we got the window back in without it breaking as it has two chips in it. I didn’t want to replace it until I paint it (I will get there…I WILL GET THERE).
Wow, what I difference!

I also replaced the passenger door as it was in really bad shape and the window seal whistled bad. It is hard to see in this picture but the old door had a big dent from a shot to the nose just above the turn signal at some point.

It took some persuasion but the nose is close to where it should be and door gap is pretty even. This nose might just be salvageable after all.

Well that is it for now.

Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:48 am

Mountain Minstrel wrote: Well, it's been a very long time since I posted here, but that does not mean nothing has been happening. In fact the bus is now running and has made its maiden voyage. I am going to attempt to bring everyone up to date on how I got here.
I spent most of last summer doing the interior. I sand blasted the whole floor;

Also blasted the underside center section:

Nice work!

Along the way I also welded in the Vanagon seat bases.

Next I POR15’ed everything.

Then it was time to build the new interior. First, the full-width bed.

I used the original hinges for the bed that required a bit of fabrication to make the passenger side fit. (if you do this take care because the fuel inlet does not allow you to exactly copy the driver side)

Next I built the new fridge/sink cabinet It is not really a fridge but the seat holds the water tank and a Coleman Steel-belted ice chest. The center section holds the porta-potty and the drivers side has a place for canned goods in the back and storage under.

The sink folds out from the seat back and holds a lift-out steam pan. It turned out pretty good;

Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:03 pm

Nice work! Definitely a project!

Sat Apr 28, 2012 2:15 pm

Thanks tweakhx,

The work is coming along and now that I an finally out of School I will have time to get the body work done. Might get it in new paint by the winter. In the mean time It will be getting used a lot :lol: