Restoring 'Jules' -Chilean style...Our Jubilee Joker rebuild

[ben_in_bus]

INTRODUCTIONS

This thread chronicles the purchase, failure and subsequent restoration of a 1985 Jubilee Joker acquired explicitly to carry our family from Chile back home to the states. I will focus on progress in various projects, titled using all-caps as above. Specific issues or questions I come up with will be posed in separate threads and linked. As this is my first foray into the world of Westy/Vanagon/Transporter/T2.5/T3, I welcome any feedback, advice, scolding etc. Because our adventures in vanagon ownership started in December I will provide a few brief summary posts to bring us up to the present, then focus on active projects.

Here is one of the seductive photos the previous owner sent me.

Here is a rather unseductive photo about six hours after the purchase. Note oil track, puddle and tow truck.

[ben_in_bus]

CAR SHOPPING IN CHILE

Here is a brief summary of how we found Jules for if you ever find yourself in Chile need to buy a Westy. This is largely a suite of links to Chilean VW enthusiast sites and links to 'for sale by owner' classified ads. Here's a little spanish useful when searching. A 'furgon' is a van used for transporting goods and a 'casa rodante' (literally rolling home) is an RV. These are the categories vanagons are typically placed under. When entering search-terms, it is important to note that Vanagons are often advertised/described using a broad array of names including:

Vanagon, Westfalia, Westy, Transporter, Joker, Kombi, Combi, Kleinbus, T3, T25, Camper...

Chilean VW Enthusiast Sites
KleinBus, the largest national organization. Their blog, largely focused on gatherings.
http://www.kleinbus.cl/wordpress/

KleinBus Forum, the best place to find folks to help you with buying and fixing. Also includes classifieds, 'Avisos Clasificados.'
http://www.kleinbus.cl/forum/viewforum.php?f=21

Bettlefriends (various chapters, see sidebar in first link). Mostly active on facebook. Though bettle focused, lots of good help/info here.
http://www.beetlefriends.cl/vw/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/36052043208/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bfconcepcion/
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10152139406950090&type=1

Chilean Classifieds
http://listado.mercadolibre.cl/vanagon
http://www2.chileautos.cl/cemagic.asp?region=0&...mp;boton=4
http://www.yapo.cl/chile/todos_los_avisos?ca=9_s&l=0&q=westfalia
http://www.olx.cl/nf/search/vanagon
http://www.todomercado.com/westfalia
http://www.elrastro.cl/resultado.html?q=westfalia&cl=0&c=0&t=
http://www.mejoresdatos.cl/Avisos.aspx
http://www.kleinbus.cl/forum/viewforum.php?f=21
http://www.drivetheamericas.com/forums/vehicles-salewanted
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forum.jspa;j...ywordid=-1

What is the stock like?
Most vanagons in Chile are from Europe. There are a handful of American vans here but most are the European 'Joker' models. As such, many have original or modified diesel engines. Body quality tends to be quite high because the more populated parts of the country are dry and the vans spend little time in snow or rain. There are many 'high-top' and other mark campers including Carthago's and Dehler Profi's. As there is not a large stock of vans here, it is difficult to find quality, original parts or experienced mechanics, thus most work done on these vans is done by owners or sometimes experts in T2 buses which are abundantly supplied from Brazil. Waterboxer experience mechanics are hard to find (more on this later).

How did we ultimately find our Jules?
After looking at a number of the vehicles for sale and test driving them, we were contacted by an owner who read our 'looking to buy' post on the KlienBus classified forum. NOTE: if you are in Chile under a tourist visa, you can (relatively easily) either buy a car from a Chilean or another tourist. If you have a resident visa (temporary or not) or are a citizen, you cannot buy a car from a traveling tourist.

What are the prices like?
Let's just say most Westfalia Vanagons in Chile typically fall in the $6,000 - $20,000 range.

How hard is it to import to the states?
Same situation with importation from any other country (Canada, Europe)...if the vehicle is older than 25 years old, it is relatively easy.

[ben_in_bus]

MAKING THE PURCHASE

After probably 2 months of considering the idea and 2 months of shopping we settled on a van to purchase. It is a good idea to use a few federal Chilean websites to check on the ownership history and outstanding violations that might be related to the license plate/registration. You want to be sure you are buying from the real, on-paper owner. There is a great wiki describing the Chilean car-buying process here:
www.allchile.net/chilewiki/index.php?title=Cars

Unfortunately, at the end, the process was rushed. I failed to follow through on numerous purchases (either with Chilean owners, or with tourists) for various reasons and had to act fast as my parents and brother were coming to Chile for Christmas and we had planned an ambitious tour. We needed something dependable to move the whole family around in...what better option than a new-to-me vanagon? After arranging a test drive and non-expert assessment, the seller and I agreed on a price and a day to finalize the sale. Note that I am not a vanagon expert and failed to ask a mechanic look at the vehicle before agreeing to purchase. Also note that we agreed upon a purchase date that was two days into the parent's visit and happened to be the same day that we planned to drive 6 hours south of Santiago to Concepcion.

The act of purchasing is relatively easy:
-meet with the seller at a notary office
-owner presents paperwork documenting ownership
-buyer presents paperwork documenting identity and address
-notary creates transfer-of-ownership document. signatures and lots of stamps.
-notary submits this to civil registry. registry sends official title of ownership some time in next 1.5 months.
-buyer makes bank transfer from his account to the now-previous owner's
-previous owner confirms transfer using smart phone and hands over keys.
-new owner marvels over new vehicle sitting in notary parking lot
-new owner begins to dread driving through downtown Santiago to pick up parents. no insurance, no circulation permit.

I successfully navigate to the hotel in the center of the city (Santa Lucia), gather my brother, parents, and luggage and gleefully drive the team out of the city, south-bound toward my waiting wife and kids. The warm, proud glow of ownership is barely kept under control. Everyone is having fun. Road trip!

[ben_in_bus]

ENGINE FAILURE AND TOW TREPIDATION

After a thrilling 6 hours of ownership and ~300km of travel, disaster struck. I first noticed the oil warning light (an indicator of low oil pressure) come on a toll booth as I slowed down. But the light went away as I accelerated back to modest highway speeds (~80km/hr). About 20 minutes later I felt a rapid loss in power and immediately a passing car signaled to us that white smoke was coming out the back of the vehicle. Sure enough. I pulled over (fortunately at a bus stop!) and quickly assessed the damage. A trail of oil marked our path to the side of the road and a pool was slowly accumulating. Smoke billowed from under the car. Fire extinguisher in hand, I pulled the licence plate flap open... no flames. Good. Unloaded baggage, pulled off the engine lid and saw splatters of oil on the right side, near the head/water jacket seal. No clear source, nothing obviously broken or deformed. Oil still dripping. I started the engine once, it started, ran roughly and I turned it off. Looked in the coolant reservoir. Low level and a grey, soupy mix of oil and coolant. Dead engine.

Fortunately, the tolls on the Pan-American highway in Chile (Ruta 5) go toward a free towing service. If you have a problem, just call the number on the back of the receipt from the previous toll booth and a technician arrives, assess the situation and helps you toward a solution. In our case the awesome highway team did four things. (1) Confirmed that we would not drive our way out of this situation, (2) set up safety cones, (3) arranged a tow to the nearest official exit with an overpass and nearby food source and (4) successfully flagged down a commercial, double decker bus and arranged seats from my parents to Concepcion. My brother and I would stay with the vehicle to resolve our situation somehow.

Competent highway team at work (Mom's shadow with camera):

Dad assessing the progress:

Sunset unloading at a cloverleaf exit in nowhere in particular:

Waiting for the tow back to Concepcion:

Once at the cloverleaf I began to make calls to friends back in Concepcion to arrange a rescue. Enter first two Chilean angels: Claudio contacts his mechanic, Mitchel, who agrees to come with a friend to tow us home. He drives 2.5 hours north and meets us at around midnight. Fortunately they brought a rigid tow bar to connect the vehicles. Unfortunately, the ends were attached to the vehicles using thin, suspect rope. One end was tied to the weak-looking tow loop under the vanagon's front bumper. The other end was tied to a sturdy loop on the towing vehicle's bumper. In case that knot failed, the rope was also tied to the ladder leading up the back of the towing vehicles back door. On multiple occasions, I imagined any number of failure scenarios...under tension the ladder would zipper off the back of the towing vehicle...under compression the tow bar would penetrate up through the floor of the vanagon and skewer me...etc. The mechanic's friend drove his vehicle, the lead car, and the mechanic would pilot my vanagon. I got to watch from the passenger seat, located roughly 10 feet from the back of the towing vehicle.

Almost to Concepcion:

This tow home was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. (Note that I often find myself into questionable situations.) How then, you ask, could this situation be so bad?

First, the car battery died around 2 hours into the 5 hour trip home. That meant that we were close to invisible to the traffic approaching us from behind. The vanagon was wider than the towing vehicle and thus blocking its lights. During the decent into Concepcion, logging trucks and huge buses were passing us at roughly 3 times our speed. My brother was so concerned, he programmed his smartphone to blink a red screen, which he held up to the back window when he saw one coming. Eventually that died too. The other downside of this situation was that the driver had no quick way of communicating to the lead car if we had a problem (no horn to honk, to lights to flash). I asked whether we should stop, charge up and then continue in the morning. The driver replied no, as we had to get home before daylight when traffic would increase and our jerry-rigged tow set-up would be scrutinized by the police. Remember, no insurance, no permission to circulate.

Second, the two drivers had worked all day and completed the tow between 10 pm and 5:30 am. On multiple occasions I saw my driver rubbing his eyes, jerking his head up and rolling down the window for fresh air. I did my best to keep conversation lively...but my broken Spanish was probably more frustrating than entertaining. I asked, "Shall we rest?" Nope. Need to keep moving.

Third, about an hour out of Concepcion I noticed we kept bumping into the tow bar and the smell of hot brakes. The driver switched to using gears to regulate speed. Clearly the brakes were no longer useful. By the time we were at the outskirts of Concepcion, the handbrake was the only thing available to sort-of slow the car.

My brother and I hopped out downtown and walked home as the others towed the car another 10 minutes to the mechanic's shop. I thanked them for all their work and arranged to make discuss repairs later. I kissed the sidewalk. I was tired from strained conversation, depressed about my broken car (now with fried breaks) and rattled from fear of getting sandwiched between a semi and the tow vehicle. My brother and I looked at each other, gave each other a hug and admitted that we were glad/lucky to be alive. "I'm never doing that again."

Assessing the situation:

-First, the broken engine.
My mind raced about who to blame. Was it my fault for driving too far or too fast on the first day? Or did I get screwed by the previous owner? Did he know that the engine was not stable? Did he know there were issues looming and that was why he sold it? (to the PO's credit, he refunded me ~$600 to help with costs of the tow and repairs. Nice guy. Still friends.) Or, as this is an old car, was it my fault for not making more frequent checks of fluids, temperatures and pressures along the way? We stopped twice and I checked nothing! Before leaving Santiago I should have had a mechanic look things over at the very minimum before starting on a long drive. Definitely should have done that. Rushed things don't always work out so well. Should have changed the fluids and replaced key parts. Done a compression test to know roughly how tight the system was. Shoulda-shoulda-shoulda.

-Second, the crazy tow.
About 20 minutes into the tow I thought to myself, "This is unsafe. We should be doing this differently." Though my brother and I talked about it, I said nothing to the driver. I thought to myself, "This is another country, and things are done differently here, so I should just sit down, strap in and shut up." So I did. I probably should have called for a 'stop-work' and told Mitchel to go home. I'd wait till morning and arrange a real-deal flat-bed tow home. Yes, I'd pay more, but it would have been more safe for both us and the vehicle. Shoulda-shoulda-shoulda.

At least it makes for the start of a crazy good story.

[ben_in_bus]

MOVING FORWARD TOWARD RECOVERY

People like to say that everything happens for a reason. I have begun to embrace that as a new vanagon owner (and as a fearless optimist). The breakdown along Ruta 5 was actually a good thing, right?

First, imagine if the van had crapped out somewhere in remote southern Chile in the middle of my parents Christmas visit. We'd be screwed, unable to make ferry and cabana reservations (all with large, nonrefundable deposits) and generally have to adapt in an unfamiliar, less well equipped environment. In the situation as it was, friends were able to tow us home for not that much money and we arranged the rental of a comfortable, large minivan that had seats and belts for everyone and did not require removing the kitchen to fit all seven of us on-board. There was concern that some of the cabanas were too small and the vanagon would be needed as extra sleeping space. This was not the case. In the end, the breakdown spoiled nothing about my brother and parent's visit. Southern Chile is still an amazing place to visit, even if not in a vanagon.

Second, I am now obligated to rebuild the engine and examine all the other systems. This means that when driving home along the Pan-Am highway, we will have a stronger, more reliable vehicle. Will it be a headache to get everything fixed and put back together? Absolutely, but I will learn a ton along the way. I will be better prepared for the eventual breakdowns, regardless of where they happen and I'll have the Spanish language skills to describe car parts and associated problems.

Here are a few photos of our vacation without the vanagon. We still had a wonderful time together, regardless of transportation.

Volcan Osorno and Puerto Octay

The road around Reloncaví Fjord

Ancient Alerce trees in Parque Pumalin

The caldera rim for recently erupted Volcan Chaiten

Family beside the galacier at Ventisquero Yelcho

Searching for penguins on Chiloe

[madspaniard]

Very cool, keep them coming, show us Pucon, Frutillar, Puerto Montt, Petrohue Falls, Punta Arenas. We go to Chile every two years. Still so much to see!
_________________
1991 Westy auto w/ Peloquin TBD

"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad” - Salvador Dali

[ben_in_bus]

DOCTOR, WHAT'S THE DIAGNOSIS?

Thanks to thesamba members, I was guided through the process of assessing my engine and making a decision on how to proceed. I will give a quick summary here. The extended conversation can be read in this post:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=580222&highlight=jubilee

The first project was to diagnose what happened to the right side of the engine. With the valve covers removed, Mitchel, our mechanic in Concepcion began to remove the nuts from the studs. One could just be pulled out by hand. It had a corroded, conical tip like a pencil. Another snapped as he tried to twist off the nut. Again a thin, conical, tapered end. The other head nuts could be removed in the normal fashion. Removing remaining studs would prove a near-insurmountable task.

Head stud with corroded, snapped tip

The state of the heads was pretty good. Surprisingly little corrosion around the sealing gasket. Instead most of the corrosion was on the parts of the head that are within the water jacket. There is a hairline crack between the valves, but a tiny, insignificant thing. There is some corrosion near the place where the cylinder butts against the head, but these relatively small.

Right side head. Note little corrosion near seal, but corrosion on head face.

The likely explanation for the engine failure is that the cooling system has been over years filled with water and phosphate-containing coolant. Besides the studs, there is more rust and corrosion on the walls of the water jacket. The corrosion, combined with the stress and heat of a long drive finally snapped one of the head studs, weakening the seal between the head and the cylinder and allowing water into the piston and oil into the coolant. Upon further inspection, the last time the engine was rebuilt, excessive black silicone was used and we found that clogging many ports in both the oil and coolant circulation systems.

So what to do? Rebuild this engine? Buy a new waterboxer? Do some type of conversion (Bostig? Subaru? VW diesel?) In the end I decided to do a rebuild on the existing engine. Whether this was the right decision...I will never know. My rationale is as follows:

-The Joker Jubilee is a rare, limited edition model. Keep things original if possible.
-The cost of the engine rebuild here in Chile (labor + parts) is much less than a conversion ($500+$1000 vs. $5000).
-I also have concerns regarding the conversion process here in Chile. I worry about (a) the time and cost of shipping and importing conversion kits, (b) the familiarity of mechanics with doing the engine conversion (especially the electronics) and (c) the ease of repairs along the road.

I know that many say that a conversion engine is more reliable and efficient and would be better for the long trip, but I have decided to rebuild for the reasons listed above. I will invest the time and money in the rebuild, drive around Chile a lot and if the old engine remains troublesome or unstable, I will consider the conversion option.

How to proceed?
First find the most reputable waterboxer mechanic in Chile.
After some discussion on the Klienbus enthusiast forum, I settled on Alberto Muñoz. He and his son, Juan Pablo, run a shop in Santiago. They have been repairing waterboxer engines for a long time and come highly recommended. For a decade Don Alberto was the fleet mechanic for a suite of 20 Vanagons used by the mega-foundation Teletón that helps kids with developmental disabilities in Chile. Through this period and after, he has also worked to keep many other private vehicles running. An obvious choice. They also restore and sell Westfalias http://www.westfaliachile.cl/

Father and son team Don Alberto and Juan Pablo.

Because I was uncertain about the feasibility and price of shipping the entire vehicle to Santiago (as well as wanting to work on other parts of the system in Concepcion), I decided to extract the motor with our local mechanic, Mitchel, and ship it to Santiago. The extraction on January 4th was relatively simple and efficient (~2 hours work) and heavily photo documented. With great luck, just a day prior, we found from Juan Pablo Muñoz that there was another Westfalia that was being shipped up to Santiago. We contact the owner of this vehicle, Christian, and he was glad to let us slide our engine in his vehicle. We loaded up the motor and a box of parts onto the floor of his engine-less 1985 camper and pushed it into the back of another Volkswagen freight truck. It traveled to Valdivia, then to Santiago, then to the Muñoz shop on January 6th.

Our motor and parts, boxed and loaded inside of...

another vanagon on it's way to the Muñoz shop (for an engine replacement)

All this was then put into this truck, and driven to Santiago

[ben_in_bus]

A LONG-DISTANCE PARTS RUN, NOVICE REPAIRS, AND MOTOR PREPARATION

In Santiago

Within a few days of the motor's arrival in Santiago, Juan Pablo had dismantled the engine, sent us photos and assessed that the engine was a good candidate for a rebuild as all the interior workings were in relatively good shape. No red flags. The big problem would be extracting the head studs two had already snapped and another two had the same problem when torqued on. The block would have to go to a machine shop to have the studs removed. Fearful of how reputable the machine shop might be, a good friend in Santiago, Jose Antonio, had his mechanic friend (another Christian) confirm that the shop doing the work was reputable. Absolutely! The problem was that it is summer in Chile and February is a hard time to get things done as many are away on vacation. The first machinist started on January 14th over time was able to extract 6 of the 16. Then it was sent to another shop, that extracted 4 before giving up. Another shop did another 4 before stopping and a final machinist did the last 2. All bolts were out on Feb 25. Here is what was left of them:

One stud required over drilling at a larger diameter. All the others are stock size. The studs were locally constructed here in Chile as they needed to fit the one custom hole, are constructed of the same material with surface treatment and were cheaper than buying from the states. These were finished on March 1. Here is the new team:

The main problem we had with this process was time...it took over 1.5 months just to get the studs out! During this time I was able to do a few things in preparation.

(1) Find out which parts we would need for the engine rebuild
(2) Find out which parts we would need for projects on other systems.
(3) Fly to the US to buy and import the parts (and various other reasons)
(4) Do as many as possible of the repairs on other systems in the van.

In California

The internet is a scary place to buy parts...it is easy to get carried away..."I'll take one of those and one of those, and, oh, that looks useful." Based on time spent over, under and inside our vehicle parked engineless in Concepcion (labeling all kinds of things with tape) as well as time spend talking with the mechanics in Santiago, I decided on a purchase of the following items:

For the motor:
-water pump, thermostat, full gasket kit, new clutch kit, all new engine bearings, distributor and cap, lifters, piston rings, oil drain plug.

For the brakes:
-new pads and shoes, front caliper rebuild kits (rubber and steel parts), steel flex hoses, copper hardlines for rears, emergency break cables, grind rear drums

For the trans/suspension/rolling:
-new sealing for shift selector and shift rod boot, one CV joint kit as a spare, full bearing set for front

For Interior/Camper parts
-New 3 window tent to replace highly ripped one, rain fly for tent, curtain ring parts, LED lights to for dash, door panel clips, skylight handle. Fuse box cover, 2 handles for climate controls, Lights-R-On kit, spare fuses.

For the brain: Haynes and Bentley manuals

I had an opportunity to run home and accomplish many things at once (important family visits, computer repair, camping equip purchase, vanagon parts pick up, etc.) When arriving back to Chile I declared all the parts and was waved through customs.

Back in Concepcion

At this point I was able to start in earnest in repairs to our vehicle at Mitchel's garage. He was kind enough to give us a space at the very end of his storage/work space where we could tinker away at things. I had permission to use his tools and ask for advice when I was uncomfortable with something. The shop was a family operation with dirt floors, undefined hours and a comfortable atmosphere. The guard dogs were more interested in cats than burglars. I bought some simple tools at a few local shops, some overalls and started to get dirty.

We started with the simple things that we were confident in such as wiping up the oily engine compartment, labeling wires or flushing the coolant hoses, heater core and radiator.

Gradually we incremented up to replacing flexible fuel lines, and doing electrical and brake work. Once done, Mitchel did a full check of my work, confirming that I had not screwed up anything. I read a lot and the kids helped at times.

Our car has the ATE Teves calipers in the front.

Before:

After:

On the driver's side, the pads were in ok shape but the dust covers were completely fired with hard, brittle edges likely from over-application during the tow. This was the side that the brake-smoke was coming from. The pistons on this side came out easily with air pressure.

On the passenger side, one pad was only about 2mm thick and the piston behind it was stuck and refused to come out with air pressure.

I was able to use a C-clamp to lightly crank it squarely back into the cylinder a little, breaking what ever rust or gunk was holding it in place. With all pistons out of the calipers, I cleaned all parts, lubed with brake fluid and installed rubber rings, pistons and dust covers. The disks are thin and will need replacing soon. I replaced the flex tubing in the front and back with the expensive steel stuff cause I could not live with myself if I bought rubber and they failed (I know, unlikely). I also replace the hard lines that connect the flex to the drums because I had issues getting the press fittings out gracefully.

On inspection, the drums had a wavy inner surface so I had them lightly ground. The shoes were in great shape so the new ones stayed in the box. The old emergency break cables were really crushed up by road debris and stretched from the use during the tow. New ones were fitted and adjusted. As the new drums were now larger, the auto-adjuster was spun to open the shoes a little wider.

I also replaced the transmission shaft selector seal as there was lots of fluid leaking out and replaced a number of torn rubber boots on the shift rod.

Before:

After:

Cana did an awesome job cleaning and rebuilding the sliding door mechanism and I pulled the old eberspacher heater from under the vehicle...is this thing worth rebuilding and reinstalling?

Thanks Mitchel for sharing your space, tools and expertise!

[geo_tonz]

Awesome thread man! Read it cover to cover so far...
_________________
---------------------------------------------------
"Ron Burgundy": 1991 Vanagon Multivan (Weekender) 2.1L Auto - Driver/Camper

[luVWagn]

[Summers420us]

[luVWagn]

Any updates? Still alive and traveling?
_________________
'91 Syncro 16 Reimo Hightop Conversion, eTDI

[tarandusVDub]

Wow, what a restoration! Just love the backyard shop photos. And another wow, I bet the shifting improvement will be night and day!

Keep posting, Joker!
_________________
1990 Syncro 16" DoppleKabine 2.1 DJ 112i
________________________
Sold: 1972 Bay Campmobile; 1984 Westy, base model, 2WD.

[ben_in_bus]

Hello All.

I realize I left this thread hanging.

The engine rebuild in Santiago was successful and Jules has been doing great since. We were able to drive down to the tip of South America and return back to the states, successfully importing the vehicle to be registered in Idaho.

The details of that adventure are chronicled here: http://jokersinjubilee.blogspot.com/

and mapped here: http://jokersinjubilee.blogspot.com/p/our-map.html

Along the drive home there were plenty of mechanical mis/adventures including CV joint replacements, starter rebuilds and a twice-blown transmission (eventually replaced with a 4-speed rebuild from Costa Rica).

If anything, driving a van reinforces one's faith in the kindness of strangers...

Though Jules has not seen an equivalent adventure since (understandably), she still gets out for western, multi-day, thousand mile adventures a few times each year. The current project is a refurb of the house electrical system. Always tinkering!

Take care,
Ben