The "great-life-lesson-on-limits-and-not-cheapening-out" Syncro

[4Gears4Tires]

Thank you Samba for this tip on supporting cargo loads, it may have been Dan or Sodo. Either way I felt a lot safer about the dirt bike on the back of the van with the soft straps around the tail gate hinge. The rack/bike did not sway or rock. It was very very steady the entire trip, even with this cheap $90 rack. I drove down to a meet up with a friend in Pisgah NF for a weekend of dirt biking.

First thing I did when I found a free dispersed site was park the van and get the dirt bike out!

Vanagons are such wonderful base camps. I was starting to get annoyed at all the little things I need to fix on the Syncro and this weekend made me appreciate the van all over again. We had a dispersed site on the forest service road to the trailhead, so we were able to ride straight out of the camp site into the trails. It was awesome to ride for a few hours, come back for lunch and a nap, and then go back out to ride some more.

BRRAAAPPPPPP

Headed out. It felt so awesome to see the dirt bike on the back of the van. Honestly, I don't even know why that felt so cool but it did.

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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[jimf909]

Sad face because he’s thinking “I wish I had a van and didn’t have to sleep in a tent”.

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- Jim

[4Gears4Tires]

He actually said something close to those lines.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[dobryan]

[4Gears4Tires]

Back up in Maryland I wanted to put the Syncro on the lift to take a look at a few things. The steering wheel was pretty heavy sideways when it drove straight and the tires were dancing around a bit. But, the rally e30 was on the lift with a blown head gasket, too much boost! Once that was taken care of, I got the Syncro on there.

The nut was completely loose, it was on by just a few threads. Add that to my "check torque when changing oil" routine now. I wonder if the bushing cracked and it changed the tension on the nut? It should be hard up against the metal sleeve though.

My speedometer/odometer stopped working a bit back. I read about the gears sliding out of place, so I wanted to see if I could spin the gears after pushing the little gears back in. This worked to spin the odometer, but unfortunately a dremel spins backwards to how it should. So while I confirmed my odometer now works (it went from 0 to 997), the speedo didn't move. The cable fits perfectly though. Maybe I can chuck it in a drill.

Then I wanted to check my drivetrain alignment again. Last I did this it was off, but over time I suspected maybe it was a me issue. Anyway, it sure doesn't seem off now. This has to be about as as well aligned as reasonably expected.

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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[dobryan]

That radius rod bushing has a metal sleeve inside it. The nuts on either side get tightened to fully compress the dished washers upon the metal sleeve. The bushing does not actually hold the torque for the nuts.
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Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2010 Subaru EJ25 (Vanaru) and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[4Gears4Tires]

Yep. The bushing failing was the only thing I could think of, but yeah, that shouldn't have affected it. Not sure why it came loose.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[4Gears4Tires]

I'm finally tired of tossing my phone in random places and armed with a 3D printer, I knew I could find a better solution.

I liked this phone holder
https://makerworld.com/en/models/1018445-cloud-phone-holder#profileId-999248
and then I found this switch blank
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3651980
and I knew I found a solution.

I adapted the two with a mortise and tenon and then printed them off. Of course I had made them mathematically perfect and in reality I had to take a dremel and sand down the tenon.

The switch blank / mortise side pops through

And then I popped in the phone holder with the tenon on the back

There's a little rubber band, so the gravity action closing the arms will open up when the phone is picked up

I forgot to grab an old phone so enjoy this picture with hand sanitizer

Overall, pretty happy with how it turned out.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[4Gears4Tires]

Printing it out in PLA did not work, the heat warped it. I reprinted it in PETG. It worked well then, but I think it either needs to move towards the center of the van by 2" or up by 4" as the steering wheel is covering too much of it when I slouch.

On Thursday I took the van out to the forest to run around on the dirt bike. I filled up with gas near the the forest and the van refused to turn back on. Slow crank to nothing. I looked under the rear seat for my jumper cables but did not find them and the jump pack was not enough to get the van running. Luckily a guy walked over with jumper cables and I jumped the van battery from the house batteries. I got into the forest and then made sure I could park where I could roll and jump start the van. I unloaded the dirt bike and got a few hours of fun in.

Downed tree means the end of the trail for me here

However the battery pack jumped the van no problem this time. So I think I need to replace the battery chassis cables, there seems to be some heat related resistance issues. Once jumped, the van did not run very well at low speeds, it lurched and jumped. I saw a Walmart 9 miles away, and while I hate Walmart and boycott them whenever possible, this time was not possible. $80 later I had a T5 in the van and it ran well.

I swapped the dirt bike for gravel bikes and went off to the GW National Forest in WV for a few days of camping.

I saw a Bald Eagle overlooking the river. Would have been cooler if I got the van in this shot.

The van ran well all weekend, no problems. I think the battery issue is related to the powered subwoofer I installed. Not an issue with the subwoofer itself, but I think the cheap head unit doesn't power it down. I noticed that I could hear the speaker going boomboobmobom for several seconds after I shut the van down. But I figured whatever, just a few seconds. Not whatever at all, there went my $330 AGM battery. It's not holding a charge well anymore.

Another issue I had been fighting for awhile but now uncovered the source of was my overheating in traffic. The last time I got stuck on the highway during roadwork I was hanging out of my window and trying to hear the fan. I verified that indeed my fan was not turning on and the engine would start to overheat. FWIW, I can feel the low and high speed fan vibrations in the floor. I made sure to note this in the future. I removed the grill and used a small jumper on the fan thermistor plug and the engine ran totally fine even up steep passes at slow speeds. I am thinking about reusing the rear bench fan control (which does nothing because it's removed) as a switch for the front fan. Maybe the thermistor died, but I do like the idea of manually turning the fan on when I want.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition