TheSamba.com :: View topic - A Black & Blue Su-BUS-aroo Build Thread...

Fri Aug 02, 2013 7:16 pm

I was finally able to get the bus on the lift and cut out all the unnecessary stuff underneath, and I was sorely disappointed when I dry fit the radiator down below. Even with a slim rad fan the thing hangs sooooo far below the rails it's almost scary. I can picture myself on the side of the road, parked in a 22L sea of green coolant. I was really hoping that was going to be the solution, but I don't think that's not gonna work.

I thought about mounting the rad up front brazilian style, but when I cut the bus up and tunnel inwards to fit the fan and give air a way to escape, I'll lose all the stock heater vents, and if I lose defrost the bus becomes a summertime toy. Heat may be a luxury, but defrost up here is mandatory. It's still a possibility, but I can't even begin to imagine the difficulty of engineering a functional heater vent system right now.

So, I'm thinking about maintaining the current rear mount radiator setup. Part of me thinks it's a failure waiting to happen. The other part of me sees those ridiculous STI scoops grafted onto the sides of the bus (plus stock fresh air vents) and thinks that with some proper tunneling of air, and a foil to scoop more air from underneath, that I'll get enough air flow to cool the bloody thing. I mean, I'm bringing a LOT of fresh air to the back of the bus, and with some changes to an easily replaced rear engine door (should it actually fail), I should have plenty of room for air to escape.

Part of the reason the PO said the bus overheats is because he has the fan mounted on the wrong side of the radiator, so it's actually pulling hot air back INTO the engine compartment to mix with fresh incoming air (?!) as opposed to pushing it out the back of the bus. That and he never properly channeled air from his side scoops to the radiator. It all just kinda meanders around in there.

AND... I don't think his aftermarket coolant temp gauge is anywhere CLOSE to being reliable. I can start the bus up STONE COLD and sitting in the shade and the gauge reads anywhere from 108*-113*f. There's NO WAY that's possible. That and when I was messing with the headlights the other day, I just so happened to notice that turning them on (or off, I can't remember which) causes the gauge to immediately spike 13*f hotter. So, it's entirely possible that the engine wasn't running hot, but that he thought he was based on a faulty temp gauge sender.

I don't know what to do right now.

My buddy's gonna inspect the bus tomorrow and put a manual temp gauge on it, reverse the polarity on the fan, then I'm gonna open the rear hatch, drive and see what happens.

Fri Aug 02, 2013 7:29 pm

Nice thread! I've been designing my '77 in my head for the past two years lol. The motor and all is in but I still need to run coolant lines and mount my radiator. The throttle linkage is killing me too. Do you have pics of your linkage in the bus? I checked out the one in the Aussie forums but it looks like it's in a beetle. Keep it up.

Fri Aug 02, 2013 7:53 pm

Smurf wrote: The throttle linkage is killing me too. Do you have pics of your linkage in the bus?

Yup. I finally fixed that for good. I think it's a pretty good (ie, simple) solution too. It starts with the stock VW throttle cable. I attached that to the pedal assembly. Now, I can't guarantee yours looks anything like mine as the PO had this modified a bit, but regardless, a stock connection with a stock cable at the pedal should work. Here's a pic of mine:

I ran that all the way back and it was about 10" too short. sooo. I used the stock VW brass barrel nut connector just to the front (front means front) of the tube like end of the stock cable, and then threaded the stock Subaru cable in the other direction with an appropriate piece of flexy sheath over it.

Basically, stock VW connection up front. Stock Subaru connection on the throttle body, both grafted together with a stock brass VW barrel nut. Works great! just make sure to thread it thru the engine wires, etc so it doesn't snag on anything. That and you dont thread the Subaru cable along the circular cradle thing it usually sits in. it's enough to pull on the armature from below. Here's a pic. In the left box is the subaru to VW connection. The arrow points to the sheathed subaru cable, and the box on the right is the subaru throttle assembly. Note how the cable comes up from the bottom. WOT is easy to achieve :evil: and there's nothing greater than a 15* bend anywhere now.

Fri Aug 02, 2013 7:55 pm

also, here's some more pix of the heater core plenum. This side will be pressed against the side of the passenger seat, so no boxing in was necessary:

Here's a pic with the heater core inside:

and here's a pic of the bottom, so you can see how I routed the inlet / outlet piping:

Fri Aug 02, 2013 7:59 pm

saw this today, that doesn't make me happy :(
Gonna need to take the top off and re-fiberglass things. Projects, Projects

Though this DID make me happy. When I was under the bus cutting out old heater ducting, I found a mouse / rat / squirrel nest (yum). and a bunch of lost kids toys!!! There's no way any air was getting thru with all the crap in that tube.

Fri Aug 02, 2013 11:14 pm

Nepenthe88 wrote: That and when I was messing with the headlights the other day, I just so happened to notice that turning them on (or off, I can't remember which) causes the gauge to immediately spike 13*f hotter. So, it's entirely possible that the engine wasn't running hot, but that he thought he was based on a faulty temp gauge sender.

I have a dakota digital CHT gauge and a toggled cheapo Dragon voltage gauge. Whenever I toggle the voltage gauge to check alternator is working or whatever the dakota digital CHT drops from whatever it is down to like 80-90deg. They're not on the same fuse or wired together in the slightest. I've been flummoxed by this for a year. I have no solution except to leave the voltage gauge off at all times when driving, which is but annoying and not really an issue. But still... I'm vexed by it constantly. :twisted:

Sat Aug 03, 2013 10:34 am

BumbleBus wrote: Nepenthe88 wrote: That and when I was messing with the headlights the other day, I just so happened to notice that turning them on (or off, I can't remember which) causes the gauge to immediately spike 13*f hotter. So, it's entirely possible that the engine wasn't running hot, but that he thought he was based on a faulty temp gauge sender.

I have a dakota digital CHT gauge and a toggled cheapo Dragon voltage gauge. Whenever I toggle the voltage gauge to check alternator is working or whatever the dakota digital CHT drops from whatever it is down to like 80-90deg. They're not on the same fuse or wired together in the slightest. I've been flummoxed by this for a year. I have no solution except to leave the voltage gauge off at all times when driving, which is but annoying and not really an issue. But still... I'm vexed by it constantly. :twisted:
Sounds like your malfuctioning gauges need isolating diodes or chokes on the + and neg side..

Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:50 pm

Ok, I started the day with reverse lights. As with all things electrical, it took me a minute to figure it out. Turned out that the loose VW engine harness block he has laying in there contained a wire which came from the coil to power the lights (he also has a constant hot in the block just sitting there waiting to fry something). I hooked that up and... nothing? Wound up being the in line fuse holder had a corroded connection. Something so easy probably took me an hour to fix. sheesh!

Anyway, all I need to do is weld the seatbelts to the B-pillar and I can get it inspected. Yay!

Anyway, I started dis-assembling stuff so I can duct some air to the rear radiator more properly like. Here she is without the scoops. Ugh. Gonna need to tidy THAT up?!

but don't worry, it's like that on both sides! so at least things are symmetrically beaver chewed!

Then we removed the radiator. I've got plans. They might not be GOOD plans, but at least there's a plan! So, here she is before:

and here she is after. Man on man that subee looks good in there (despite the rats nest of wires :( )!!

First off, there was a TON of air in the system. Second, the drained coolant looked a little strange and milky. Didn't take long to find what caused it... problem is, what caused THIS crap?

Also found that he was running an aftermarket FLAPS brand thermostat. So on the way home I quick went to the Subee dealer and got a real one and WOW! the Subee one is almost twice the size as the FLAPS branded one. (pix later)

I figure, swapping the thermostat out, Flushing the white goops out and bleeding out all the air should by itself help the engine cool itself!

Sat Aug 03, 2013 6:09 pm

You know, I was starting to have flashbacks of Joel's headgasket leak. You can see pix of the caramel milkshake it created under the oil cap and how badly electrolysis ate away the heads here. It's pretty gruesome. Not for the faint of heart:

http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=77027&page=10

anyway, my engine looks NOTHING like that thankfully. Here's pix the PO took of when he replaced the head gaskets. Everything looks pretty good in there IMHO (I just wished he woulda powerwashed the thing, it's still as greasy as ever!). So this white stiff musta happened after. I wonder if it was hanging out in the radiator?

Sun Aug 04, 2013 6:26 pm

ok... I only had about 2 hours to work on the bus today, but i got a lot done, and I'm REAL happy about it. So yesterday I happened to go out back to the EJ22 I have wrapped up next to my shed to look at some connections & got excited when I saw the radiator. It just LOOKED like the perfect size. So, I unhooked it and brought it to the garage this morning. Here she is in place freshly mounted:

A couple things to note about the stock Legacy radiator as it fits in the bus here:
#1= While it could be a little wider (maybe), its vertical dimension is absolutely perfect as it's the same height as the bus engine hatch +1", which means nothing is being covered up, and there'll always be a free flow of air away from the rad.
#2= There are 2 stock fans on the subee rad. One is larger than the other (this is the main engine fan which comes on when the coolant reaches a certain temp), the second is smaller and comes on when the A/C unit is on to provide extra cooling. This second, smaller fan fits within the engine hatch opening damn near perfectly also, and is engineered to fit on this radiator perfectly! (I'm gonna go to the junk yard tomorrow or tues and get another one). Using 2 of these fans will pull MORE air than the 1 (slightly) larger stock fan (it's only about 1-1.5" larger in diameter). And pulling MORE air is a good thing!
#3= Using stock fans allows me to use the stock subee fan wire harness (more or less), or at least the quick clip connections.
#4= Using the stock rad means all the plumbing connections are roughly in the perfect spot (The rad is raised about 3" higher than stock in relation to the engine)
#5= I DID HAVE TO SWAP THE FANS FROM ONE SIDE OF THE RADIATOR TO THE OTHER so that it works to PULL air thru and exhaust it out the back. But that was no real problem.

Here's the bottom connection. Note that the curve of the back of the bus keeps the radiator about 1" from being as rear as possible. The rad is mounted as it would be in the subee. The nipples on the rubber vibration mounts slides into some heavy 90* brackets we made... also, don't mind the rust! This is all just a mock up to make sure stuff works.

And here's the top connection. There's another 90* bracket screwed into the outermost stock fan mounting holes. This rests flush on the rear engine tray and is then bolted to it. Just so happens that the bolt lands in a trough so the nut in the interior is recessed and won't rip the mattress! Bonus! Also note the hole drilled for access to the radiator cap. I'll weld up an access door of some sort soon. The radiator is now the absolute top of the system making for super easy bleeding, and eliminates the need for a header tank. Double bonus!

Sun Aug 04, 2013 6:52 pm

ok, so what's the plan from here?

I talked to Joel and he said that there have been a pair of successful rear radiator set ups. The trick seems to be to isolate the radiator from the engine, have a well designed plenum bringing fresh air to the rad, having fans to pull air thru and having a good means of exhausting hot air out and away.

So the plan from here is to make TWO smooth, airtight plenums. One that feeds the passenger side of the rad. One that feeds the drivers half of the rad. I want TWO separated air intakes to mitigate any unnecessary turbulence from the two streams of air running into one another in the middle. That should get air to the rad. I can then insulate one side of the plenum to mitigate any heat from radiating thru the plenum from the engine bay (I'll be using rolled aluminum to make it I think) and wasting any cooling capacity

Then I need to mount the second small fan and modify the engine bay door so that I have a free flow of air away from the radiator. I'll make it as pretty as I can. But the bus ain't stock anyway with the side scoops, soooooo.... who cares, right?

I THINK that should work :?

Now, I looked at a picture of MY donor legacy. The main grill is roughly the same surface area as ONE of my side scoops. So lets assume they bring the same amount of air to the radiator. Then there's a couple slots. Lets say they're equal to the surface area of the stock VW fresh air vents. The Subee then takes air from underneath the bumper. Is the amount of air sucked in here really that much more than the air being forced thru my second side scoop? I'm guessing it's roughly equal, meaning my setup SHOULD bring a similar amount of fresh air to my rear radiator (properly ducted) as reached the rad in the stock subee setup. And that's why I'm betting (hoping) my setup will cool properly. Cross your fingers for me!

If it fails, I'll mount the rad up front on the bumper behind a bull bar and plumb some stainless lines.

If it proves to be functional and cool decently, I'll spend the money and get a nice aluminum WRX racing radiator (I assume it will be the same size?) Or have one fab'd up by Wizard Radiator here in Buffalo! to give myself a little bit of a buffer should I need to push the thing up a mountain on a hot summer day :D

It's a bit of an experiment. Feel free to keep tuning in to see how things turn out

Sun Aug 04, 2013 7:14 pm

:popcorn:

Sun Aug 04, 2013 10:34 pm

benzzz wrote: :popcorn:

Yeah me too. :popcorn:

Mon Aug 05, 2013 4:25 am

Well done. Have you incorporated some sort of quick release for the rad so you'll be able to work on the motor?

Craig

Mon Aug 05, 2013 5:42 am

Sloride wrote: Well done. Have you incorporated some sort of quick release for the rad so you'll be able to work on the motor?

Craig

Undo the top two bolts. Then push the top of the rad in, this gives you enough room to pull the bottom of the rad off the brackets. Drop it down just a hair and it will come out of the rear engine door top first. Its easy to get in and out without water lines on it... And without the plenum in place. But both of those won't take much to get out either

Anyhoo.. For little fixes, I'll just crawl in the top hatch (that's how i,'ve done everything to the subee motor so far, and honestly I haven't found that to be difficult or frustrating, and I seem to have access to everything). Big fixes will probably require engine removal. But that's just a couple of quick clip wire connections, 6 engine bolts & disconnect the heater core lines. I'm thinking there will be enough flex in the system to drop the engine and rad together

Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:25 pm

Lets start with yesterday's adventures:

I got three rubber tie downs from BusDepot the other day. I welded the brackets to the bus' roof, and then (cause they're kinda flimsy) I welded a backbone on to them to give them some strength in the proper direction:

I then fiberglassed the swivel bracket to the pop top. I suck at fiberglass, and I don't much like working with the stuff. hopefully It's strong enough:

Here they are all three dry. I have no idea what this is supposed to look like in stock configuration, but this works and will keep the pop top from flopping up when I have the windows open.... I guess there was some issues when my buddy towed the bus to his place sans front windshield (and that was with a bungee cord on the handle!)

..

I also wound up welding on the seatbelt retractor thingies. Note, these are the REAR seatbelts from the donor Subee. I don't know if I mentioned it, but the bolts Subaru used to attach the seatbelts are the same size and thread as the hardware VW used, so other than the welding (and I'm sure I coulda worked up a bracket or something) everything bolts right on!

Just be careful to cool things down if you do weld the seatbelt mechanism on. I ALMOST burned the seatbelt material before I squirted them down with a waterbottle!

Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:52 pm

In order to source a new subee radiator fan, I had to make a quick trip to the local Pick-n-Pull junkyard. I always liked going there, so I recruited my gorgeous helper and off we went. As far as the small subee fans go, you'll have to find the right year donor car as subaru changed things at some point going from metal shrouding to plastic shrouding (obviously because the things rust at the bottom, oh well). Either way, I found the fan I needed in the 6th subaru I opened.

The girl (hopefully) had a good time. While I searched for radiator fans, she went off exploring nearby cars for loose change, locked glovebox treasures, odd keys and whatnot. She even found me what looks like an ancient bronze olympic medal. I took that. **EDIT -- Oh, and the LADY may have a pair of Caddy hood ornaments under her breasts and stole away with them, but that's purely speculation. I can neither confirm nor deny this-- End EDIT** All adventures need souvenirs!! and the junkyard guys refuse to haggle. Cost me $15 for the fan. Goodness! I coulda bought a NEW 11" fan off ebuy for the same amount!

Mounting the fan was easy. I just forgot to take pix. Anyway, after it was on I started making ductwork to chunnel the air from the side scoops to each half of the radiator. Here's the passenger side chunnel. Everything's made out of aluminum and is attached by self tapping zip screws to tabs I welded onto the inside edges of the scoop surround. Also note that I cleaned up the edges of the gigantic hole cut in the side of the bus. The bak edge tolerance is as tight as I could make it so that air will flow smoothly from the scoop to the inside of the bus.

I tried to make things as airtight as possible to the bus' form. Air should flow as smoothly as possible from the stock vents down to meet with air from the side scoops and then to the radiator. The chunnel plenum is made into Left and Right halves, both of which (when unscrewed) slide in and out easily, but because of the breaks (bends) in them, still have strength. the deep part of the scoop is gently curved. Here's a pic of the inside of the passenger plenum as seen from the hole in the drivers side. Note that I left a little space between the plenum and the radiator so it doesn't rub a hole or anything horrible:

I'm going to glue some of that aluminized bubble insulation to the engine side of the plenum and then wrap it in aluminum tape, just to keep the engine from radiating heat to the plenum and decreasing the efficiency of cooling. Still have yet to do that. Needed construction adhesive!

Here's the driver's side plenum. This side was much harder to fabricate because the spare tire wheel well kinda gets in the way, and I didn't want to cut it up. Instead I bent the aluminum around it:

Note that bending the aluminum around that curve created an unexpected gap between the wheel well and the outside of the bus... which is PERFECT!! I'm gonna plumb the fresh air intake of the engine over here, so I get nice clean, cool, fresh air into the engine (as opposed to dirty, hot engine air as things stand currently).

I also then used some aluminum tape to cover all the installation screws, just to keep them from jouncing around and working loose.

Tue Aug 06, 2013 8:05 pm

I'm truely amazed that original setup even stayed cool long enough to idle more than 5 mins.

You shoudlnt have any problems now with that new setup.

heres the one from Todds website, it's the 3L 6cyl in a bay but I can't remember what the rads were from.
It just uses a rad in each side with the upper stock vents scooping in air.
the rads are sealed in so the air only goes through the core not around.

http://www.subarugears.com/Builds/Danny%27s%20EZ30%20Kombi/Danny.html

Wed Aug 07, 2013 2:56 pm

Whoo!

Joel really knows his stuff and is my go-to of choice when I have Subee swap questions I can't find answers for, soooo... getting the Joel brand seal of "You won't have any probs with that" means a lot to me!! I'm stoked!

Wed Aug 07, 2013 5:06 pm

Joel wrote: I'm truely amazed that original setup even stayed cool long enough to idle more than 5 mins.

You shoudlnt have any problems now with that new setup.

heres the one from Todds website, it's the 3L 6cyl in a bay but I can't remember what the rads were from.
It just uses a rad in each side with the upper stock vents scooping in air.
the rads are sealed in so the air only goes through the core not around.

http://www.subarugears.com/Builds/Danny%27s%20EZ30%20Kombi/Danny.html

They're modified Honda rads turned on their sides, I asked them awhile back what they were. They had to cut off and weld shut the rad caps and relocate the inlets/outlets.

I'm going to be using these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aluminum-Radiator-For-VW-G...mp;vxp=mtr

they're the right dimensions, and require no modifications. The only difference is the price point -- you can get those honda rads for 45 bucks all day long, while these are almost 3 times that. I could cheap out and get plastic tank ones in the same style, but 1) they're plastic and 2) only single row. With 2 double row all aluminum rads, cooling should be the least of my problems.

For anyone considering going the same route, these are the three rads (ordered by "best fit") that I came up with to go in just like those honda rads:
1) VW Mk1/Mk2 "scirocco" style rads:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aluminum-Radiator-For-VW-G...mp;vxp=mtr

http://www.partsgeek.com/catalog/1985/volkswagen/scirocco/cooling_system/radiator.html

2) dodge neon rad (for some reason I could not find all aluminum versions of this)
http://www.genesisautoparts.com/product/rad12538X2362a.htm

3) toyota celica rads (will BARELY fit lengthwise.)
http://www.genesisautoparts.com/product/all26469X7222aa.htm

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DUAL-CORE-2-ROW-FULL-ALUMI...mp;vxp=mtr