What did YOU do to your van today?

[Icebox500]

LOL - my wife is an LSU grad and LSU law professor and our son was just accepted into the LSU music program.

Approval all around!

[shadetreemech]

When I bought my '88 Westy in August of '18, it had a CarQuest Group 41-2 battery in it; 650 Cold Cranking Amps, 813 Cranking Amps, Reserve of 110. That was goin' on 6 years ago. Coupla days ago, I left the slider open, with the cab interior lights on, all day. Grabbed my little NOCO boost starter (one of the best things I've ever bought for the Van) and no amount of assist was gonna get it started.

Turns out CarQuest was an Advance Auto Parts brand. Advance made the brilliant decision to buy Pep Boys parts division a year or so ago and then went out of business.

I buy motor oil and such from Autozone 'cause they're close by and there's an old guy there I get along with. They had a comparable battery for $208. After ordering and paying and getting a confirmation online, I went to the store they told me. It wasn't there, it was at the one nearest my house. Just an impromptu test of patience.

Once I had the battery installed (had to take the seat out) I turned the key. I had forgotten how the Van used to start with the previous engine. Click, boom.

Back in the saddle, again.

Dan
_________________
'84 GL 1.9
'01 Volvo V70 T5
'88 Westy - "MZDRTHY"

[4Gears4Tires]

[pbrown]

Today's work included installing a new ignition switch, fixing our tach (finally), and installing the RMW ladder.

The GoWesty foil replacement kit is nice but that tach fitting is a PITA.

We're getting ready for a big Utah road trip in the fall.
_________________
Patrick Brown

1986 Westy Syncro EJ25
Flickr --> https://flic.kr/s/aHsmQNUXEF

[buelteman]

Ever on the lookout for customizing my 1990 Westy, I increased the interior airflow dramatically by backing into the Mansfield bar corner on a parked semi.

_________________
'91 Westfalia Camper - VW BNB
1.8 Turbo courtesy Stephan's
Custom Geared 5-speed tranny with
Peloquin Limited Slip Diff
H&R Progressive Rate Springs
300 Watt 13 speaker stereo
Audi Disc Brakes
LED driving and interior lights

[vanis13]

[dhaavers]

- Dave
_________________
86 White Wolfsburg Westy Weekender
"The WonderVan"
<EDITED TO PROTECT INNOCENT PIXELS>

[RicMcK]

See my post here
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10402449#10402449

Painting project.
_________________
Rick McK
Seattle
89 Westfalia-2.2L WBX
2006 TDI Jetta
1936 Ford Pick up
70 tin top, 700k mi when sold in 91
58 split window bug - long gone.

[82westyrabbit]

If you did that much work on the van you should have no problem putting it back together again. John

[campism]

Those self-inflicted wounds are the worst. I did a small one long ago and felt terrible about it for years until a falling hickory tree proved what a slacker at van damage I really am.

_________________
'87 Westy in Wolfram Grey Metallic, tragically crushed by a falling hickory tree in my own driveway and now gone, leaving me Vanagonless and with no plans to replace it, alas.

[jlrftype7]

Removed my Wiper Arns for some Soda Blasting and repainting. It’s been a few years since I painted them. Highway driving and knicks or knocks on the painted arms takes its toll.
Primed, then painted several coats of Satin Black once each coat was ready.
Topped it off with new wiper blades from Van Cafe and new 6mm mounting nuts for the spindles.
_________________
'68 Westy- my first VW and vehicle/Bus- long gone.- sold it to a traveling Swiss couple....
'67 Type 3 Fastback, my 2nd car- gone
'69 Semi-Auto Stick Shift Beetle-gone
2017 MINI Coopers, our current DDs
‘84 Tin Top - Hilga....Auto

[Jake de Villiers]

I finally made the swap to the BMW booster I picked up years ago.

A series of delays (a move to Tsawwassen after 26 years in our house in Crescent Beach, a heart attack and bypass surgery followed by remedial surgery to close the hole they left in my chest...) meant I have had the parts kicking around for ages.

So, steering wheel out, dash out, master out, pedals out (!!!) New clutch and brake masters in on top of the 10" ATE booster and much, much bleeding.

The result? The pedal was atrocious, the diametric opposite of "confidence inspiring". Alika's description of stepping in a pile of dog poo is right on. It was mushy as hell and the travel was really excessive - like getting too close to the floor excessive.

I adjusted the pin very carefully and we have bled the brakes to the bone. When you bleed off the vacuum, the pedal is quite firm with only about an inch of travel.

So last weekend I went back in and replaced the bigger booster with the OEM part. The pedal feel is very good now, high and firm, though stopping power is still less than breathtaking.

I'm not sold on the Akebono pads and Van Cafe shoes on the van currently. It stopped a lot better with the Porterfield shoes and EBC YellowStuff pads.

I'm looking at a set of EBC Reds to get better initial bite.
_________________
_________________
'84 Vanagon GL 1.9 WBX
'86 Westy Weekender Poptop/2.5 Subaru/5 Speed Posi/Audi Front Brakes/16 x 7.5 Mercedes Wheels - answers to 'Dixie'
@jakedevilliersmusic1
http://sites.google.com/site/subyjake/mydixiedarlin%27
www.crescentbeachguitar.com
www.thebassspa.com

[Jake de Villiers]

Two weeks ago I finally made the swap to the BMW booster I picked up years ago.

A series of delays (a move to Tsawwassen after 26 years in our house in Crescent Beach, a heart attack and bypass surgery followed by remedial surgery to close the hole they left in my chest...) meant I have had the parts kicking around for ages.

So, steering wheel out, dash out, master out, pedals out (Ha!). New clutch and brake masters in on top of the 10" ATE booster and much, much bleeding.
The result? The pedal was atrocious, the diametric opposite of "confidence inspiring". Alika's description of stepping in a pile of dog poo is right on. It was mushy as hell and the travel was really excessive - like getting too close to the floor excessive.
I adjusted the pin very carefully and we have bled the brakes to the bone. When you bleed off the vacuum, the pedal is quite firm with only about an inch of travel.

So last weekend I went back in and replaced the bigger booster with the OEM part. The pedal feel is very good now, high and firm, though stopping power is still less than breathtaking.

I'm not sold on the Akebono pads and Van Cafe shoes on the van currently. It stopped a lot better with the Porterfield shoes and EBC YellowStuff pads.
I'm looking at a set of EBC Reds to get better initial bite.
_________________
_________________
'84 Vanagon GL 1.9 WBX
'86 Westy Weekender Poptop/2.5 Subaru/5 Speed Posi/Audi Front Brakes/16 x 7.5 Mercedes Wheels - answers to 'Dixie'
@jakedevilliersmusic1
http://sites.google.com/site/subyjake/mydixiedarlin%27
www.crescentbeachguitar.com
www.thebassspa.com

[jlrftype7]

Finally serviced the CV Joints to get rid of the weird Redline CV Grease that Id packed them with a few years ago.
4 new T3 CV boots, and 4 tubes of Sta-Bil CV grease later, it’s done.
All work done on my lift at work, so no heroics on my part needed.
Only one CV shows normal grease flow with the old grease, the other 3 mimicked what others had posted about using the Redline grease.
Just caked up and grey in color after being in service .
No abnormal wear seen on any of the CVs, so SOME lubrication must have been taking place thankfully.
_________________
'68 Westy- my first VW and vehicle/Bus- long gone.- sold it to a traveling Swiss couple....
'67 Type 3 Fastback, my 2nd car- gone
'69 Semi-Auto Stick Shift Beetle-gone
2017 MINI Coopers, our current DDs
‘84 Tin Top - Hilga....Auto

[campism]

Since its departure in March I've been working around the pile of stuff I salvaged from it that I was reluctant to leave in the junked carcass. We have a neighbor named Toby who owns an '86 Weekender and I ran into him at Kroger and offered him any of it that he might be able to use. He came over last evening and got a box of goodies I had accumulated over the years, the kind of crap you gather "just in case;" coolant bottles, lenses for taillights and parking lights, replacement ignition switch, A/C expansion valve, belts, filters, the slider screen my wife had made years ago, triple-square CV bolts and grease, etc. Useful stuff if you need it.

He's doing some electrical rehab of his van and hopes to be traveling in it again soon. I told him he can send me a check for whatever he thinks it's worth but I was just glad it might be used.

I did ask for first right of refusal if/when he sells his van but don't expect him to part with it in my lifetime and probably would not take him up on it.
_________________
'87 Westy in Wolfram Grey Metallic, tragically crushed by a falling hickory tree in my own driveway and now gone, leaving me Vanagonless and with no plans to replace it, alas.

[shadetreemech]

Cindy and I are planning a Road Trip to Oregon in August. I've been going through the Van; spark plugs, distributor cap, rotor, filters, etc. I came across a couple of small drops of coolant right on the seam of the coolant pressure tank. Probably ought to address that.

Searched the Forum for Aluminum Coolant Tanks, settled on VanCafe's version.

Easy install; Plug & Play on the existing bracket, connectors are provided for the (also included) Coolant Level Sensor lead and the ground wire. I bought an extra Level Sensor and Cap (it came with one) because, well, you know.

Waiting for the stars to align to install the Power Steering Rack & Pinion.

Dan
_________________
'84 GL 1.9
'01 Volvo V70 T5
'88 Westy - "MZDRTHY"

[vanis13]

Replaced sink pump. Put in a bilge pump 15? years ago because I found one in clearance for $5?... And picked up a spare at the same time for $5... Even back then the VW ones were like $50.... Had to wire the first one backwards and put in a restrictor to reduce flow. This one has low enough flow wired correctly. Both are 500gph.... Here's for another decade and a half or more for this next one!

_________________
83.5 Westy with Subaru 2.5, 4 spd manual, center seat, COLD A/C on 134a!, Winter camp heated with an Espar B4 gasoline furnace

www.SuperVanagon.com - some stuff I make

[Red Ryder]

[riceye]

Actually, over the last few days.

Got a few things accomplished in preparation of our annual trip west to Montana.

- Installed new front door window seals, sans the vent window seal. That went very well thanks to Dave's thorough write-up from a few years back. Also tightened the vent window pivot screws. The small needle-nose Vice Grip is a perfect tool choice for this. I also confirmed the presence of the larger foam block in the doors and added a couple smaller high density foam pieces to the upper tabs in the doors with 3M double sided trim tape with knowledge gained from Stacy's (16CVs) informative reply to a post. No more rattles and the vent windows stay fully deployed at 75 mph! I also replaced the door handle to body seals while in there.

- Changed the gear lube. It may have been a little overdue, but I was pleased with my findings. More on that at the end of my essay.

- Installed a new back-up light switch. Second time in, like, five years. Electrical parts ain't what they used to be.

- Checked breather vent in the (manual) transaxle. It was clear, but I now check annually since I developed a leak a few years back that pushed out the plastic plug on one transaxle output flange, necessitating removal, cleaning and re-greasing one cv joint 1500 miles from my tool box. This time I contrived a piece of plastic tubing, sport ball inflation needle and a few other bits to enable me to insert and blow through the vent hole. Using a small zip-tie didn't work for me as the passage into the gearbox is a tiny catacomb.

- Replaced the two drive belts. They were just starting to develop small cracks.

- Pulled the spark plugs (NGK BP6ET), inspected and restored the gap to 0.030". They're only a couple years old and don't need replacement quite yet.

- Popped off the distributor cap and scraped and buffed off a little cabon with my Dremel from the inside of the towers and the tip of the rotor. Cheap-ass tune-up.

- Cleaned the ground to body connections near the ignition coil mounting bracket. And the braided ground cable from body to engine block I added years back.

- Cleaned the air filter.

- Pulled off the wheels, inspected the brakes and front suspension components. Re-lubed the upper ball joints (I added zerks when I installed them years back). I had intended to rotate the tires but found that the fronts have 9/32" of tread and the rears have 8/32"s, and nice, even wear across the tread on all four. I never drive it in snow, unless it's in Montana in June, so I prefer to keep the meatier ones up front. They were new Bridgestone Ecopia 422 XL rated installed three years back and they have about 15,000 miles, and started with 10/32". I'm not unhappy, there. I think next year's big project will be replacing all the rubber bits in the front suspension and the ball joints, then a fresh alignment. All seems fine for now, though.

So, back to the gear lube change. This box was rebuilt by GoWesty back in 2005. I ran the first couple thousand miles with mineral 80-90 GL-4, then changed to Redline MT-90 at about 130,000 miles (Go Westy's recommendation at the time). I then changed to Amsoil 80-90 GL-4 in 2012 at 172,000 miles after some really negative comments about Redline here on our forum. A little over 50,000 miles. This was the plug at that time:

So, this time I changed to Amsoil Severe Gear 75-90 GL-5 after reading about all of the bad things I have done to my gearbox over the years.

When we travel, we pound the miles from Wisconsin on out to mountain time (western Dakotas) and frequently log 900 - 1000 miles the first day. Most of the time we fill up and run out the entire tank at 70+ mph. What I've read is that in fourth gear at that speed, some components can spin dry, and that occasionally slowing and downshifting to third for a couple miles may mitigate problems with this. Honestly, I rarely do this unless I'm in Montana at closer to 80 mph.

Anyway, here is the plug yesterday. I've accumulated about 65,000 miles since the 2012 fluid change.

I was careful to collect and keep the drained lube in a clean jug. The color is dark (I'm going to keep it for several months to see what settles out) but nothing on the magnet of any size whatsoever. And it seems to run and shift just fine.

Knock on wood!
_________________
'87 Westy Weekender - daily driver on salt-free roads

There's gonna be some changes made.

“I find that things usually go well right up until the moment they don't.” - Ahwahnee

"Quality isn't method. It's the goal toward which the method is aimed." - Socrates, later quoted by R.M. Pirsig

[mrinnovation1]

Earlier this week I installed a HD oil pump in my '85 1.9L. Since it has taller gears, the cover just barely fit next to the coolant pipe. I mean you probably couldn't get a sheet of paper to slide in there.