TheSamba.com :: View topic - Seamus-77 westy resto

Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:19 am

Happy Birthday brother! 8)

Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:33 am

THall wrote: Jetfxr69 wrote: Put another 300 miles on ole Seamus last night. My Tahoe based daughter flew home to go with dad to a concert on his 50th birthday yesterday.

Nice! Love Gov't Mule.
I have a Boulder, CO based daughter and it's a blast going to shows with her at Red Rocks.
Please tell me where you got your bus t-shirt, I need one of those!

Red rocks is on my bucket list for sure. Have been to the Gorge at George and that is spectacular for a show. Shirt is off Amazon, but its a Go Westy label, so probably on their site as well. Nice heavy cotton shirt.

Notch- thank you sir, feeling my age. That lift ive been dreaming about is gonna have to be a reality soon.

Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:42 am

Hey Jason, remember that discussion about westfalia stickers?

Just came in the mail from England. Tail on fire and all.

Im only gonna use two, so if anyone wants the other pair, drop me a note with a mailing address. Would love to share.

Fri Sep 13, 2019 7:15 am

Yep. I think I got my original set long ago from the same guy - after Id bought the modern version from someone else. They will look good on the bus. 8) Im pretty sure that the ones on mine now are those as well. Lasted fine over the last 9-10 years and 3 states :lol:

Fri Sep 13, 2019 3:09 pm

Happy birthday, my friend!

Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:38 pm

Looks great Jay!

Wed Nov 06, 2019 7:05 pm

Seamus got his last cruise for the season as we are expecting snow tomorrow and that dreaded salt monster. I envy you guys who take yours out in the winter, and I feel confident in my tires and bus ability, but seeing what the salt up north here does to even new cars, scares the shit out of me.

A stop at my buddys gravel pit for some sunset beers and then off to wild wing wednesday at Rosa Flamingos pub in Bethlehem, NH.

Got home with frozen toes and fingers but happy thoughts.

Thu Nov 07, 2019 6:45 am

Rosa Flamingos! I worked for Barbara and Jodie for a few summers and winter breaks around college. Best food, great people. Barbara and her late husband Joe had The Villa and The Villa West on Main St back in the 70's, the Villa burned to the ground, Joe passed, and she packed up and moved south for a decade or so. In the mid 80s came back, ran Fabian's in Bretton Woods for two years while building out the new place. Ok, enough random history of the North Country. Seamus tucked away for the winter and parts buses getting stripped? We are expecting the same shitty weather as you, my bus tucked over on the side yesterday, too. At least it moved under its own power this year :).

Thu Nov 07, 2019 12:32 pm

Ya, my bus might be parked for the Winter, too.

Fri Nov 29, 2019 8:11 pm

So against my better judgement and against any rhyme or reason, I decided today to take Seamus out for a North Country blast. I have decided that instead of pushing him up to the pasture for the winter, he will now occupy my heated, Tacoma garage bay for the winter, much to the chagrin of my 350,000 mile, 02’ , turn-key go truck.

The Tacoma will be getting an oil pan heater, as it, or any other vehicle, doesnt care for the -20* nights that will coming our way eventually.

So for a last, (maybe), ride today, we went by to visit some friends,

Ryans’ Olive is out for the winter as Henry has gone in the shed for winter surgery.

What a nice ride today. Changed the 20w50 summer oil and dropped in some Castrol 5w30 for a cool 20* cruise today. As expected, an air cooled motor loves the cool air in its lungs. I intentionally hammer it hard and revel in the response on the mountain roads.

I will have to check my globe, but im betting German latitude aint far off from me. They were built to run in this, but back then they probably didnt have the road salt of today. No worries as Seamus being in the garage for the season means he gets a nice hot hose bath and drip dries on a radiant heated garage floor.

Im anxious to pull his front end out, but even with cold toes and gloved hands ( no heat), I just cant seem to want to disable him, even for a few months. Fever is climbing, dont care if or when it breaks. Cheers!

Our flavor of the day.

If your in New England, Wormtown is not a real place. Its a Brewery in Worcester Mass that thought it sounded better to be called Wormtown than Worcester. If you know the area, as I do, its hard to disagree. Great beer for the weather.

Always better on tap, out of our redneck kegerator.

Fri Nov 29, 2019 9:21 pm

What are you trying to say; if you actually drive your Volkswagen it seems to function better?

Looks like a nice porter or stout for the winter… We just finished brewing a New England Hazy IPA for the holiday festivities :)

Robbie

Sat Nov 30, 2019 9:11 am

Jetfxr69 wrote:
The Tacoma will be getting an oil pan heater, as it, or any other vehicle, doesnt care for the -20* nights that will coming our way eventually. every vehicle in the family, as far back as I can remember, had a 110 plug dangling someplace. Jan-Feb, every night, “did you plug in the truck?”

Quote:
Im anxious to pull his front end out, but even with cold toes and gloved hands ( no heat), I just cant seem to want to disable him, even for a few months. Fever is climbing, dont care if or when it breaks. Cheers!

The beam and steering box good from the blueberry upside-down bus?

Quote:
Our flavor of the day.

If your in New England, Wormtown is not a real place. Its a Brewery in Worcester Mass that thought it sounded better to be called Wormtown than Worcester. If you know the area, as I do, its hard to disagree. Great beer for the weather.

Probably cuz anyone outside of New England wouldn’t pronounce it right, lol. Plus, it’s not like it’s Roxbury or Fall River...

I still owe you a good brew for the MC :)

Sun Dec 01, 2019 5:49 am

Gonna go all new on the beam, excepting the beam itself i hope. Havent seen any deep rust or rot on the beam. Will mallet test it once out but all the moving parts will get replaced with new. Steering box will be evaluated and decided as well.

Im so used to bouncin around and driving with sloppy steering, im bound to oversteer when done, and put it right in a ditch.

Sun Dec 01, 2019 6:06 am

That porter is going to bring me back soon. Let me know if I can drag anything heavy up that way for you othe Milgram ship program.

Your commie pinko liberal NY friend

Sun Dec 01, 2019 6:26 am

Abscate wrote: That porter is going to bring me back soon. Let me know if I can drag anything heavy up that way for you othe Milgram ship program.

Your commie pinko liberal NY friend

See, who says political adversaries cant get along. Agree to dis-agree, thats all. Its all good. Everything is made better over a nice pint.

Your gun toting, libertarian, self reliant NH friend.

Sun Jan 05, 2020 6:15 pm

A belated thank you to Danam404 who sent me his spare tire cover to put on Seamus.

Guess I should have considered my oversize tire size before I asked for it. Doh!
Big dummy!

Oh well, it will look nice on the shop wall.

Sun Jan 05, 2020 6:25 pm

Today began the winter project of front beam removal and refurbish. Pleasantly surprised to see how well evrything looks and/ or came apart.

Sun Jan 12, 2020 11:27 am

Damn, that is clean for the age. Gonna ride like a dream come spring!

Mon Jan 13, 2020 5:13 am

ImAddicted wrote: Damn, that is clean for the age. Gonna ride like a dream come spring!

Thats what I said. Best thing I ever did was put it up for 20 years. That and the fact that it spent its first 20 years in Georgia clay. Pulling right side spindle today. If all goes well, will have arms and leaves off later tonight.

Got the sweet ass ball joint tool in the mail the other day.

Mon Jan 13, 2020 9:02 am

Right side spindle and lower arms and leaves out. Everything looks real good so far. No broken leaves and bearings look good. Plenty of grease on everything, although it probably hadnt been greased for years before i parked it. You can still see the copper brownish colored grease on there. Im assuming that was factory grease.

Not to worry, I marked the stack for proper orientation and restack order.

The weld broke off all but one leaf, which is perfect, cause i will use it to co-locate the other leaves to it upon reassembly.

Upper arms and leaves come out next, strip steering gear and brake booster off, and then a nice light beam drop.

Edit: my initial assesment of the beam lower bearings was totally wrong!
Once beam was out and on bench found the drivers lower tube end bearing disinegrated and housing cracked.

Put the paper inside to contrast the crack. Rest of the beam, bearings, and top leaves look good. Gonna bring the split back together and weld up. May take some honing to get correct ID for new bearing, but not expecting that to go too bad. What looks like rust and rot just inboard of the crack is just dirt and surface scale. The crack was caused by the arm moving around in there, not due to rot.

Worse case scenario is it cant be fixed and I have to pull beam out of one of the other two busses. More hours spent.