71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again!

[70westie]

I'm not sure if the ones that came with my bus are the "tall or short". I can't really tell just by pics. I will take a look the next time I am over there.

-70

[VWDog]

[Xevin]

The was for Sunnydog making fun of my name. Your post snuck in there before me. And good for you offering some overiders
Cheers!

[VWDog]

[sunnydog]

[camit34]

Great thread...Great Bus!

[Terriers 2121]

[sunnydog]

Hey Everybody! The bus has been in garage hibernation -- I have been paying attention to other projects and mostly absent from the Samba. But even if the east coast is embedded in a string of blizzards, those of us up here in the Pacific Northwest are enjoying some crazy spring weather. This weekend it was sunny and 60. We are apparently on track for having some record warm days this next week. Sunday I started up the bus, and it started on the second try. I found the shifter almost impossible to move. It had got bound up with grease in the tube, so I shot some degreaser down the tube and it loosened right up. I took a spin around town and everything sounded great, looked great, felt great. So...

Today I convinced Mrs. Sunnydog to play hooky in the afternoon and we set off for a short hike near the south side of Mount St. Helens. We took some rural back roads through the valley of the East Fork of the Lewis River, stopping in at Lucia Falls and Moulton Falls. We continued on through Yacolt, Amboy and Chelatchie to Yale Reservoir, where we pulled off at Yale Park and I took a few pictures. You can see the upper rim of Mount St. Helens through the trees on the left. We parked at the boat ramp. Hand brake is set tight at 6 clicks!

After leaving the lake, we climbed nice grade of 1100' in 3 miles and 25 MPH corners. We passed a broken Subaru, but they needed no help or tools. We continued on, getting closer to the trail head. I took a few front windshield pics, so that all you folks in the Great Plains flatlands can see what PNW forest roads look like:

Pulled off the road at one of the headwater streams of the Kalama River:

Then right as we got just to the last few miles from the trailhead, we found the forest road closed by a gate! Oh no! We could have parked and gone in on foot, but that would have added 6.5 miles onto our original 3.6 mile hike, and there was no way we would have made it back out by dark... So we backtracked to Merrill Lake and walked down the road to the campground and lake edge, and took a nice seat in the sun, admired the giant trees and just relaxed. There was nobody else around, because the road to the lake was gated off, too. Why is everything gated? Well, it's still February! These places are normally covered with a couple of feet of snow! These gates don't get opened until spring actually arrives! After a peaceful time, we headed on home, and the sunset was looking like it was going to be so beautiful we decided to head on down to the Columbia River and watch to colors. Here's the bus at the Camas/Washougal marina, with Mt. Hood in the distance on the left. The blue building is a Carribean-styled restaurant called the Puffin, where we found our best option to be a Cadillac Margarita...

Sunset colors refelected on the Columbia:

When sunset was done, we headed home, and the dinner we cooked together tonight was ribeye steak, lobster tail with butter and garlic, and asparagus with parmesan cheese and basalmic vinegar.

People, maybe I'm a softy, and full of good food, but we just made 144.5 miles of memories. In my first post of thread I said maybe I would see some of you on the backroads of the great PNW. I am happy to be out on those backroads looking!
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'71 Westy w/ a 1776 singleport, 34P3 & 205Q. Points.

[67sash]

Awesome thread!!!! Great to see a North West Bus Rolling, cant wait to get mine on the road and hit the back roads.

[secretsubmariner]

Awesome dude! Some badass adventurin' goin on up there.
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-Tony
ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ
1978 Champagne Edition Bus FI
1970 Auto Fastback FI

[ultralite]

Love this thread. I send pitiful non-VW owners here all the time to show them what they're missing
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Godspeed

'76 Beetle (sold)
'69 Beetle (sold)
'72 BMW 2002 (RIP)
'69 Westy
'02 BMW wagon AWD w/stick shift(sold)
'67 Beetle (sold)

[sunnydog]

My sister commented that this is actually a drinking and food thread, poorly diguised with Volkwagen info.

She might be right...

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'71 Westy w/ a 1776 singleport, 34P3 & 205Q. Points.

[Xevin]

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Keep on Busin'

[Marya]

Oh. My. God. I have kids to get up in the morning! Early! This is nuts. I can't believe I just read all this. And needless to say, I have no regrets. Wow. Wowwy wow wow.

My own story is far different from yours and not anywhere near as cool and yet is remotely (VERY remotely) similar in that I now have my grandpa's '70 VW bus (Riviera) - Lotus White - which he bought new back then. I think in Beaverton. I have his original receipts and a ton of paperwork, brochures, the side tent (Rivi/White Stag version), etc. He bought it when he was about 68, and was a lot like you are now (will explain later, if we ever chat). He was the dearest man I ever knew. He would have absolutely adored your entire story. It's sat virtually abandoned in his garage-slash-barn for the last 21 years (a no-door garage that he and his bro-in-law built out of the pieces of the old barn that once sat on the property). And has lived with 2 old goats (literally - I don't mean the old goats that lived in the house with my grandpa ). Before that - for a few years after my grandpa died - my brother had it and didn't treat it all that well. 10 or 11 years ago my brother finally gave it to me after I threatened to disown him should he give it away to a co-worker which he was considering doing. The bus is relatively okay - could be worse. The engine has been worked on for the first time in the last couple of weeks and has been brought back to life by a mobile-VW-mechanic (feels more like a friend at this point). Still has a ways to go but I drove it for the first time the other day - just a short distance - and it was an incredible experience. I'd never driven a bus but more importantly there are all the memories of my beloved grandpa driving the bus... I felt like his spirit jumped inside me. And all the memories of camping with him. Then a couple of days ago I finally was able to drive it from the farm house in SW Pdx to my house in inner NE (by Lloyd Center). It was soooo cool, driving it all that way. Said friend is dropping the engine Monday morning at his own house now not far from where I live, and will tend to leaking oil (new seal) and whatever else it needs while it's out. I'm super psyched. Now have to decide between body work or transmission. Tough call and funds are running low.

I'm also your age (well, a couple of years younger I guess). So see, little things in common here and there. Love the '70s garb btw.

Thanks so much for the inspiration! I won't be thanking you in the morning, however (or later this morning I should say)!
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1970, Riviera, 1600 cc type I [single port]

[Kirk]

I absolutely love this thread, love your bus and love your posts. Keep it up!
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MAKE FORUMS GREAT AGAIN

Bear
Coble
Super
Oppenheim

[sunnydog]

Well I guess I never came back to check in here after my last post, though I dropped a few sarcastic comments in other threads. I am a bad thread host and ony show up every 2 months or so...

Marya, I see your threads about your Grandpa's Bus and it sounds and looks great. I'm sure our paths will cross, especially if you figure out a record player. Kirk, thanks always for your kind encouragement. I think you posted on Day 1 of me putting up photos. I hope you were able to order a set of the Zoll plates for your square.

I have a special guest photographer today! Oldest daughter is back from college from 6 months in Ecuador and I took her out for a spin today in the bus. We drove down to the Columbia River just in time for some awesome sunset action. Here we are rushing down the highway, heading to the riverside. You just know this sunset is gonna be good:

Photogpraphers call the time before sunset "golden hour" which refers to when the sun is at a low axis and is light is diffuse, scattered and more reddish. It is beautiful indirect light for taking photos. There was no wind, the river was still and calm, even even more light was reflected off the river. Spring chinook salmon fishing is not quite on yet, but soon...

She likes arty photographs that reduces stuff to abstraction. When I look at this I gotta stop only seeing the paint needs buffing, and also notice the photo composition, the reflection in the glass.

Backlighting turns the bus into a silhouette, except if she had gone for the full obscuring of the sun, then there'd be no lens flare. She wants lens flare. Apparently lens flare is good. She is awesome.

A zillion miles of happy bussing, everybody! Teach your children well.
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'71 Westy w/ a 1776 singleport, 34P3 & 205Q. Points.

[sunnydog]

I mentioned a long while back that I was rich . I mean, running rich, here take a look at my #4 plug:

Sooty black exhaust, smells like gas, 16 MPG...

So I've been sorting out my carb. Remember I am running a 009 mechanical advance distributor and a 34-PICT-3 on a '71 center section intake manifold, into oversize single port heads and a 1776. I spent some time on the internet learning all the different theories about how 34-PICT-3 carbs work, not all of which agree. (Is it a pilot jet? Is it an idle jet?)

Anyhow, In general I am upsizing jets 1 step because of the larger motor, and maybe 1 more step because 10% ethanol gas brings it its own oxygen with it. So the standard pilot jet is 57.5; I am using a 60 (1 step). The main jet is a 125 with a stock DVDA distributor, sometimes a 127.5 reccomended for buses. I am using a 132.5 (2 steps) and have a 135 if I need it. Stock air correction jet is a 60Z, and that's what I stayed with...

So I am now running much leaner than I was, but it smells right. The previous main jet says 135, but I suspect it got reamed out and is not actually a 135 but might be even bigger mystery jet. With the new jetting I got also some new hitching and bucking that showed up. I didn't have the IR thermometer with me, but the base of the carb was freezing for certain when I grabbed it. The next day I started it up and watched temps with my IR thermometer and found they dropped to 11 degrees while warming up!

Since the rebuild, I never had the carb preheater hooked up, but knew I had the stovepipe elbow around in a storage bin somewhere. I dug it back out and hooked it up. I tested my '71-only wax pellet thermostat actuator for the preheater flap in the aircleaner and found that after 44 years, it does not work. And they are NLA. So I adjusted it for a fixed 50%-open setting and took the bus for a drive. The IR thermometer told me my preheater pipe was 150 degrees, the rubber boot right above the carb was 100 and the carb base was a much happier 80 degrees. Hitching and bucking? Gone!

How to test it further? Today was an beautiful and unseasonably warm 80-degree April day. We went to one of our favorite little Mexican restaurants in downtown and enjoyed the sunny weather with some tinga tacos and a ginger margarita at a sidewalk table. Here's the view across the street...

So, without a realtime air/fuel meter to tell me if I am in the ballpark for the elusive ~13.5:1 AFR, I am just going to go old school and drive it for a while, watching my plugs and exhaust again. Better than having all that extra gas wash the oil off my cylinder walls...
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'71 Westy w/ a 1776 singleport, 34P3 & 205Q. Points.

[BajaXJ92]

Rarely post, but I sincerely enjoyed getting absolutely nothing done at work for the past 2 days and reading this thread.

[pierrox]

Great story! Clearly you were the one bound to inherit that van because you were not able to drive it when it was sold. The story wasn't complete then!

Since you were not alone on that trip - and probably were too young to remember - did you talk to your siblings about it? How do they feel like now?

The story of my van - have yet to tell it fully on the Samba - has reminiscences of yours. My parents bought a VW bus in november 76 after lots of research from my dad on a second vehicle that would fit a family of 5, be able to carry loads on holidays, go skiing, yet be usable as a daily driver. After looking at station wagons, he set his mind on a VW van. I was five when we drove it back from the VW dealer, and I still remember sitting at the rear, on the engine bay, in a completely bare van. My parents spent the winter making the interior from scratch (and there was no Bus Depot then), and it became the sixth member of the family for years. 10 years later, my dad had a bicycle accident that left him in a wheelchair. Being the elder and close to driving license, we all decided we would keep it. It became my first car at 18, I drove it until 24 as a main car (with a couple of breaks during Uni), then my brother used it a bit when in Uni. It had some rust holes (hey, in the Alps we love to put loads of salt on our winter roads), so it got fixed by an old school bodyshop and parked in a friend's dry barn as I moved to London for 6 months. I ended up staying 8 years before moving to Paris. 15 years later, I had a flash of inspiration and got the van out of the barn. That was in 2009. The van now lives with me in Paris, I take it on trips, I use it when I need it, it's a trusted companion in my life, at all stages, not a tribute to my past.

Unlike you, unfortunately, we don't have many pictures of it, but here are some:

In the family album, that one's called "First drive in the VW":

A few years back, the family in the back. That's me on the left. We actually did a reenactment of that picture last year, have to upload it:

Parents and friends on a ski day:

The whole story (in French) is on the French forum:
http://www.vw-camper.fr/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5532#p68645

Yet the story continues. My brother now owns a 1971, exactly like yours, that we found in NYC last year. It was made in late october 1970, and the M-Plate says "transit delivery to the US". Clearly, a close brother of your van. A week after we found that van for my brother, we rescued one from a garage fire in NC (where my girlfriend's family is from), and it turns out that it was built 3 days after my brother's one. That one is red (weren't they either red or white as seen in a picture on a previous page here?), yet will require more work to drive again.

[sunnydog]

Pierrox -- I missed my email notification that somebody had posted a response here, my apologies for not replying sooner! This has been a crazy year and I have been even busier than usual. My wife and I were in Paris last November for a few days, then took the TGV south to Avignon/Chateauneuf-du-Pape for a week, then on to Marseilles. Like I said... this may actually be a food and drinking thread with some VW stuff thrown in. I only saw one VW bus while we were there, but it was not in Paris. I'd be nervous to drive in that traffic! Thanks for your link, I will read the whole story. Mon français est mauvais, mais je suis un Américain, et tout mes autre langues sont mauvais...

Because we have been so busy, I have only been able to get in occasional day trips. Today was one. Me, Mrs. Sunnydog and daughter #1 took a tour up to some nearby waterfalls and sat in the sun. Then we stopped in at a little rural winery. The weather was sunny, and they had an accoustic blues guitar player/singer who kept busting out Howlin' Wolf songs.

No real major updates to the bus except those of you with sharp eyes might notice I did put in a set of retro-styled curtains. There is a guy here on the Samba who has a classified ad; I ordered a set and got a Canada Poste shipping confirmation number 42 minutes later. That is awesome! There's one part he clearly advertised that was sewn wrong, but he states, "you can get your mom or girlfriend to re-sew that part for you". As if no VW Bus owners have wives... Or even better, as if no VW bus owners know how to sew. I busted out the seamripper and the sewing machine and did it myself, thank you very much!

But while we were hanging out it got a bit darker and colder, and on the way home it rained pretty a pretty good shower. Went down to my favorite river access point and found the low angle sun made a complete rainbow. I had to use my phone to take a vertical panorama to get the entire thing (and part of the bus) in frame. My bus is not actaully bent down the middle; it's the pano feature that makes it look like that.

Speaking of daughter #1, I have finally been teaching her to drive the bus. Kids these days grow up without manual transmissions, but you gotta know how to shift a stick. Rolling along in a bus sure does put a smile on a person's face! Even if all you are doing is loops around an empty parking lot in second gear!

Here's hoping that some real camping happens in the second half of this summer!
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'71 Westy w/ a 1776 singleport, 34P3 & 205Q. Points.