My 74 Westy

[914guy]

Thanks for the kind words. I hope you don't have to learn as much as us. I hope your bus treats you well.

Cojones, we should get together and work on buses - either yours or mine.

[averr789]

Hey everyone I have another progress update.


Basically our engine is still waiting to be taken apart at Drews Offroad.


So we focused on the transmission.

I hope I'm not speaking too soon about this but the trans seems to be one thing that we got....lucky with so far. It doesn't make noise, shifts well and its got a beefy case.


But it did leak trans fluid. Interestingly enough for the brief period of time the old girl was on the road it developed a shutter in first gear.

Well I crawled underneath and found the nose cone mount was loose and trans fluid was covering it. I think the former caused the latter. None the less I will loctite those babies on the next round.

My dad did a little research and found that the seal by the trans linkage is typically the culprate for these leaks.

First we drained the trans with this giant allen-wrench.

That's the part. It is cheap and I didn't have any problem removing it.

Basically you remove the 8 or 9 bolts around the tail shift housing. Then it slides right off. I was amazed to see that the linkage fits extremely snugly. Also the spot where you attach the linkage is basically just an 'L' shaped bar that slides right off the linkage that goes deeper into the trans.

The seal is in that housing.

That's a different (914) trans but we used the same method to remove the seal. Both leak and they are actually the same part numbers.

Anyways we used a lifter puller to get the oring out.

Then a few drops of oil on the seal and a hammer tap get the new one in place.

Next we decided to paint the trans case and touch up our fan housing while it was out of the car.

It took probably a total of 5 hours to clean the transmission. The casting has so many pockets where gunk and dirt collect. But simple green and a garden hose and some wire brushing will take care of it.

Once we finished cleaning it we used the same paint that we used on the case. It's great stuff. It dries very smoothly and it does not require priming. The finish is also very durable.

It still needs a bit of touch up but I think it came out awesome.

Then we filled it up with 3.5ish quarts of oil.

[averr789]

Hey all,

I have a small update. I was trying to figure out what to do with our old crusty and pitted hub caps.

I started out by polishing them up with a scotch brite pad on a die grinder. The problem was that I'm lazy and I didn't think I could get a good consistent mirror finish.

Thus I went a different route.

I used spray paint that we had laying around to make a spackle paint job.

I figured we have a funky/ugly bus already...might as well keep the theme. Honestly I like it that way haha.

[LarryC]

[notchboy]

Looks like Neon Green

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[Blainejohnson21]

May I add its nice to see more young people in the VW scene I'm 18 and I'll be the first to admit that my bus isn't perfect. but I think it still looks good. It's hard to make it perfect when you have a low income job. it's also my daily. I think your doing a fine job. Good luck with the bus!

[LarryC]

It isn't quite neon, that is what I like about it.
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It never hurts to park on a hill.

[averr789]

[averr789]

Also I have a small update.

The heads were sent off to Rimco Machine. They should be back within the next few weeks.

Our engine is at Drew's Offroad. As far as I know the cam, lifters, crank, rods, pistons and jugs are all staying. They were pretty new to begin with.

There was a bit of metal that made it in but it looks to have only affected the bearings (according to the builder).

Thus we are getting new main bearings and rod bearings. Then he is going to assemble it and tune it on the dyno. That surprised me to the max and I will definitely have a video.

Next we are in the process of getting the middle rocker in. It fits I just need to finish sealing and prepping the area. I will have a full write up soon.

Finally we went to Volksfest in Columbus last weekend. The event was awesome and there was a huge attendance of high quality cars. There were probably twice as many buses there this year as well.

I took 350ish pictures and I am trying to edit them all. I will throw them up on my blog (not here) so anyone interested can check them out.

It's not a bay window (I haven't gotten there yet). But there is a bunch more of that. (Think turbo beetles, lifted things, mint original westys, slammed water cooleds and other miscellaneous funk)

http://speedstyles.blogspot.com/

[averr789]

Back again today with good news everyone!

The heads came! There were many good things but also a few things I am concerned about.

There's the one good one we sent them. It looks as if they added surface to the bottom. Also they left the pits in the combustion chamber as they were.

I assume that mean's it's OK.

There is also a crack in one of the fins. This may have happened during shipping. I'm not too sure.

The second head was an AMC product they rebuilt for us.

The casting is certainly lower quality than oem.

Overall it looks pretty good though. It's just missing rocker assembly studs.

I think despite the existing flaws the shop would not take their reputation to chance by sending us something that doesn't work.

Overall I'm pretty pleased.

[averr789]

Hello all,

I have a big chunk of an update on the 74 (Karmaan) for everyone.

We successfully welded in the middle rocker. I bit the bullet and picked up a very reasonably priced dual carb setup. And metal work continues (and on and on).

On to pictures.

Basically we started with an NOS middle rocker. It fit great, in comparison to some of the other pieces we have put in. The only problem was that the floor section we replaced did not have nearly as drastic an indent as the OEM pieces.

Thus the rocker needed a little modification.

It was pretty simple. I just bent the indented lips up to form a sloped area. Then I tweaked as necessary. The idea was to weld it to the floor at a seam instead of a plug.

We also installed our front jack point prior to installing the rocker. At first we thought this might be a problem from reading others' experiences. But we had already removed the metal covering bits above the jack point, as they were rusted. And the rocker only needed slight notching and bending to fit.

In case you don't know this project has made me despise rust. Thus I painted the middle rocker.

It's hard to see but I also cleaned and painted the area above the middle rocker with KBS which had a little surface rust.

Don't worry I did not try to weld through the paint!

A few hours of cleaning and grinding a few days later and the middle was ready for some hot fiery surgury.

We started by using sheet metal screws to snug the upper lip very tightly against the floor. Then we plug welded through holes in the floor into the rocker.

Next my dad plug welded through holes in the middle rocker into the inner rocker.

You will need to have your welder on a medium heat setting and we used a medium speed setting also. On ours the welder was set on "B" and the speed ~5.5 give or take.

After that my dad finished the front area with horizontal plugs into the inner rocker.

My impressions on doing all this so far is... You HAVE TO get the inner rocker in the correct position. It WILL take time and lots of it. But once that inner is located correctly the middle really is a piece of cake as many of the surfaces locate off the inner. I should say ALL of the surfaces basically locate off the inner rocker.

Locked in!

We also took off our rear bumper and my dad is going to fill and paint it.

The brackets were covered in undercoating gunk but underneath they still had OEM paint and primer. The bumper and brackets were definitely sprayed body color bolted together.

Were also refinishing our headlight buckets. They needed it.

I painted the front calipers with the same paint used on the trans and cooling shroud.

I'm half way through bed lining the rear of the old girl and I will update with pictures.

Also I am currently working on the C pillar that needs rust repair. It's a pain but I will do a full write up there as well.

Finally I plan on rebuilding/ rebushing the dual German Solex 32 34 PDSIT's.

I found this link to a re-bushing DIY so I may try it.


http://shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=129722&hilit=throttle+shaft+bushing

Also there's more Volksfest pics up for anyone interested...

http://speedstyles.blogspot.com/2011/08/volksfest-21-part-4still-milkin-it.html

And I think that's all I got. I hope to update soon with moar details of success and/or failure. Though I hope it's the former.

[averr789]

Hey everyone,

I have a small update. The engine is finished. It's a good and bad thing. Unfortunately the weber is back on it. Also we are now running an 009.

Shit happens.

We plan to attend the vw porsche reunion. The engine is going back in Friday/saturday.

I will definitely post pics and a vid of it running.

As much as it annoys me that we are running inferior, ancient technology parts I have some confidence in the engine builder. It was also run on the dyno so it better be dialed in.

Finally I finished about 250 pictures from columbus volksfest.

Check [url]speedstyles.blogspot.com[/url] if you want to see those.

Also I will definitely cover the vw porsche reunion.

Here's a few buses for the road.

Interior

[averr789]

Alright well after a few days of work we got the motor installed. We worked for probably 20 total hours and got it together. It was nice to have it start right up when I turned the key. Practice makes perfect, I guess.

A few tips from 3 motor installs.

First use numbered wire markers and a notebook to mark all your wires.

Second we installed our thermostat because it was left out during the engine build. We had trouble with the wire catching on the cooling shroud. We ended up drilling a hole in a screw and threading the end of the spring into it.

We moved the fuel pump to underneath the back seat. It had plenty of space. Hope it won't vapor lock.

Put lock washers on the cv axle bolts.

Locktite the transmission tail housing cradle bolts. Ours came loose and made the whole bus shudder.

Also be ready to make a few trips to the hardware store.

Cheers

[AirSchnitz]

Nice work. I saw your bus at the show but didn't realize that you had this blog going on your restoration. Be sure to enjoy the bus from time to time during the restoration with a good campout.

I had that same guy build an engine for me last year. The thing runs great. I've put about 8,000 miles on it so far trouble free. Happy travels.

[averr789]

Hey thanks,

He did alright but I think that him being busy might have forced a few things.

The engine is currently leaking oil apparently from a valve cover (no big deal) and the area around the oil pump. So they are going to fix it.

Also we will probably have them put on the dual 34 picts I rebuilt. I hope that the vacuum advance dizzy will go back on as well.

I noticed the second time around with the weber and the 009 that there is now a huge flat spot we never felt before. The carb is certainly part of the equation but it seems to me that the mechanical advance distributor is constantly playing catch up with the carb. Our vacuum advance dizzy was much much much more responsive to throttle input.

We will see what happens as my dad is the one making these decisions. But he was driving it all last week before he took it back in.

[averr789]

Well I'm home for the weekend and I just drove the bus after it got the oil leaks fixed. I think it still may drip a bit but it's nothing major.

I will say that Drew's does back up their work and I give them credit for that. I would recommend them to anyone in Cincinnati who needs some Vdub help.

We are having a recurring issue of the gas filler hose partially slipping off of the tank. Our original was totally gone so we replaced it with some auto parts store gas filler hose. It's attached with a hose clamp to the tank filler area. The problem seems to stem from modern gas pumps not fitting in the filler hole. If one tries to jam the pump into the hole it moves the assembly and the hose slips off. The trick is to put it in upside-down but I think that a new setup should account for impatient and rambunctious gas fillers. If anyone has any ideas or setup experience please let me know.

Thanks

[jtauxe]

Great project. Kudos to you and your Dad and brother for working on it together. I also have 3 kids, but I simply could not get them interested in working on the buses with me. Lots of opportunity, but no interest. Good for you guys.
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John
"Travelling in a fried-out Kombi, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie..." - Colin Hay and Ron Strykert
http://vw.tauxe.net
1969 Transporter, 1971 Westfalia, 1976, 1977, 1976, 1977, 1971, 1973, 1977 Westfalias,
1979 Champagne Sunroof, 1974 Westfalia Automatic, 1979 Transporter, 1972 Sportsmobile, 1973 Transporter Wild Westerner, 1974 Westfalia parts bus, 1975 Mexican single cab *FOR SALE*, 1978 Irish 4-door double cab RHD

[AirSchnitz]

I'm glad to hear that they made it right for you at Drew's. My experience has been the same. They always make it right. As for your oil drip, I've never seen an air cooled VW that didn't drip a little.

I also tried the weber progressive on my type IV bus. I was never able to make it work well either. It had a huge flat spot on acceleration and suffered from carb ice in the venturi because there are no heat risers on the type IV. I will admit I never tried running a vacuum advance distributor with it. That would help the flat spot but would not have helped the carb ice issue. I ended up putting dual empi HPMX 40's on it and it runs great now.

Best of luck and I'll look for you at the local events.

[averr789]

[averr789]