German Chocolate heads for the hills

[Wasted youth]

A few days ago, I had really quite enough of the damned railroad, and taking advantage of the government mandated time off for rest for working too much, I took German Chocolate high up into the Sierra Nevada mountains near my home. It was about a two and a half to three hour drive from my home to where I wanted to go fishing with a one night camp out: Courtright reservoir, about 8,170 feet above sea level. High enough as mountains go, but certainly there are places we can drive our buses that are much higher. At some point, I'm confident we will read about some Synchro that did donuts at the top of Mt. Everest, but for now, all we can do is wait.

About an hour out of my home, I turned to face the climb, about 3 or 4 miles east of Prather, California at the foot of what the locals call the "Four Lanes." The day was nice, probably about 80 to 85 degrees with threatening weather promised at the higher elevations.

So, no need to stop here, right?!

I am well into the long ten mile pull up the four lanes, and my doubts about getting a speeding ticket were easily confirmed. Top speed in third gear was 35 MPH.

Not far from where the four lane highway reverts back to winding roads, I noticed what seemed to be a little more play in my brake pedal, and a little less power from the engine. I started to wonder if it had to do with the altitude as I figured to be above 6,000 feet by this point.

I stopped at Cressman's General store, about five miles from the town of Shaver Lake, Calif. but noticed nothing unusual except what felt like maybe a little softer brake action. Nothing amiss in the engine compartment, and I had good response on acceleration. In my ignorance, I chalked it up to altitude, but did not really have a warm fuzzy on this. I never had any other car react to high altitude with soft brakes, but resolved to investigate further when I got to camp. I figured that even though I had fuel injection, I was not convinced it could determine fuel/air ratio at high altitudes due to the lack of an oxygen sensor, so I presumed that it was running a little rich.

By the time I got to the McKinley Grove of Giant Sequoias for a little rest, I was starting to think about the very real possibility of a brake servo/booster diaphragm rupture, where I was getting a vacuum leak which caused the slightly off performance, and noticed that my brake fluid was just a little bit lower than I remembered. I bet the required vacuum was sucking the brake fluid through the rupture and into the engine's intake plenum.

Not one to let the lack of braking get in my way of a pleasurable high mountain drive, I simply plugged the vacuum port on the intake plenum for the servo unit, and carried on.

This is fun little stretch of road, where I quickly got up to max speed (good brakes be damned) and the rain and cool wind was just really special. I love this stuff, and am NOT looking forward to another shitty San Joaquin summer!

By about 6:00 PM, I arrived at the dam of Courtright reservoir. This location is far less visited than places like Shaver or Huntington lakes, and is nested between the John Muir and Dinky Lakes Wilderness areas of the Sierra National Forest. Growing up in the bowels of thickly populated Southern California, I could only dream of such places as seen in a Mepp's fishing catalogue. With German Chocolate at the ready (sans convenient braking), I easily shooed myself into the woods!

On a funny note, this was actually the very first time I got to sleep in my bus overnight! The other trips had mom and daughter in the bus while myself and my son slept in the tent. Very cool to simply climb in, draw the curtains, fold out the Z bed and snuggle into the sleeping back while it frosted up overnight.

The following morning, I made a hot breakfast at the edge of the dam. It is my understanding that Pacific Gas and Electric operates a hydroelectric power plant operation between Courtright reservoir at 8,170 feet in elevation and empties into Wishon reservoir far below and to the west. During the evening hours when electricity rates are lowest, the utility company pumps the water back up into Courtright for the next day's generation of electricity at premium rates.

Here is what I got myself into, and the bus easily motored me around the edge of the lake, while providing total interior comfort when any high mountain thunderstorm threatened to get my lunch wet.

On the way back home, I stopped for a little break near these waterfalls, and noticed that my brake fluid was pretty stable, so I figured my band-aid braking method would get me home.

The drive home was really uneventful. I spent $6.95 for a pint of brake fluid at the Dinky Creek General Store, but it didn't really do a whole lot at this point, as there was too much air in the system. I simply kept the overall speed down, downshifted a lot more than ususal, and started braking early. I used the parking brake a few times to augment my boot mashing on the pedal, but logged about 185 miles roundtrip regardless. I haven't had a chance to look into the exact nature of my brake issues, but given that I have not serviced the master cylinder or inspected the original 1977 servo, I will not be surprised of find some cracked rubber failure of some kind.

As it stands now, the only brake servicing I've previously done was to thoroughly flush the system, adjust the parking brake and rear drum brakes. On a positive note, my brake warning light worked!

[richparker]

Awesome trip and pics. Thanks for sharing.
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[Lionhart94010]

Glad you made it back down safely ;0)

Thanks for the tip, will have to check out Courtright reservoir, looks like a nice drive… did you stay at a camp site?
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Current VWs 71 T2 Westy SO-72/6(Miami), 71 Crew Cab, 2015 GSW TDI
Other owned VW’s 59, 68 1500s, 69 & 71 Bug’s; 72 & 73 S-Bug’s; 67 Westy, 67 Deluxe, Other 71 DC, 72 KG GT that now lives in Australia, 12 JSW TDI, 2015 GSW TDI, 2023 Tiguan
VW technical information sights
thesamba - www.ratwell.com - www.shoptalkforums.com/ - www.vw-resource.com - http://www.type2.com/
http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/ - www.aircooled.net/gnrlsite/resource/articles.htm

[cliveawn]

Nice trip! Those trees are huge!
Pity about the brakes but still fun I would imagine!
Thanks for sharing!
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''Funny thing about common sense is that its not very common''

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[Wasted youth]

[Kirk]

Great trip and great pics! Thanks for sharing.
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[Lionhart94010]

Thanks for the camp site info-

Hopefully we will take my 2.5yold on her fist camping trip this year, will be using a tent as I’ve been re-building our house, and wasn’t worth registering and insuring my westy as I have little time, however I am hoping to take my westy up there next year at least half a doze times…
_________________
Current VWs 71 T2 Westy SO-72/6(Miami), 71 Crew Cab, 2015 GSW TDI
Other owned VW’s 59, 68 1500s, 69 & 71 Bug’s; 72 & 73 S-Bug’s; 67 Westy, 67 Deluxe, Other 71 DC, 72 KG GT that now lives in Australia, 12 JSW TDI, 2015 GSW TDI, 2023 Tiguan
VW technical information sights
thesamba - www.ratwell.com - www.shoptalkforums.com/ - www.vw-resource.com - http://www.type2.com/
http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/ - www.aircooled.net/gnrlsite/resource/articles.htm

[tristessa]

If you haven't done it, be ready for the possibility of doing a complete brake overhaul. I had a master cylinder fail last summer coming down off Mt. Hood, leaking fluid into the booster. And when I got into things more, I found one of the rear wheel cylinder had been weeping and contaminated teh shoes .. and the RF caliper wasn't working smoothly .. and the drums were scored .. and the rotors would wind up too thin if turned .. and I might as well replace all the hoses and springs while I'm at it..

Kept the OG brake light switches, and was able to flush out the booster and save it, but everything else is new. Watch out, the "German" ATE master cylinder I got was made in Czech Republic, and the "German" ATE wheel cylinders came from Italy...

[eche_bus]

Beautiful mountain scenery! Thanks for sharing, but sorry to hear about the mechanical trouble. I guess one way to shake the bugs out is to just head out and drive. Hope it doesn't turn out to be too much work to remedy.

[chabanais]

Nice.
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[Wasted youth]

[Red Fau Veh]

Cool trippin' mr.! I just picked up a vintage tackle box full of fun, I'm going to go fishing in my bus soon too!
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[GeorgeO.]

I recently made a trip to Palomar Mountain which is only about 5k feet in altitude and the trip up was pleasant. However, going down, I developed air in my brake lines. What would cause that? The higher you go, the more those bubbles expand and you will either contend with it or have a disaster. What I figured is that the bleeder stem does not sufficiently prevent air from passing down the length of the threads and making it more difficult to bleed any air out of the lines. What I did was use Yellow Teflon tape you can get at Lowes or Home Depot and wrap the threads until it stops leaking. Once you bleed your brakes, you close the stem and that should help.

[Wasted youth]

I had just a few minutes to fool with the brake problem this afternoon. Can't hold any kind of vacuum at all when I put the hand held vacuum pump on the line that connects to the intake plenum. Noticed idle speed changes slightly when I apply the brakes when the servo booster is re-connected, indicating a vacuum leak. Crawled underneath, and did not notice any leakage anywhere. No fluid dripping out of the vacuum tubing when pulled back off the intake boot at the engine. Brake fluid reservoir still topped off, but I expected that because this was just a brief test.

Looks like it is probably time to remove the servo unit and master cylinder. They've been under there since 1977 by the looks of things!

[Desertbusman]

[Wasted youth]

[tristessa]

[Wasted youth]

[rustybutterknife]

Your CHT's must be way low if you're running German Chocolate heads for the hills.
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[Wasted youth]