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sanchius 
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Joined: May 03, 2007
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Location: IN
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dobryan
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Joined: March 24, 2006
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Location: Brookeville, MD
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1456
Location: IN
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 Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2020 7:48 am Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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Yesterday the dense smoke here lifted, making it a good time to go out and put some gentle break-in miles on the new engine.
But first it needed a fill up. Recently, Mrs S and I had been detecting the occasional faint whiff of gasoline from the bus, but I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. As I finished topping the tank off at the gas station, I saw an ominous pool of gasoline spreading out from underneath the vehicle. UH OH! WTF??? That shouldn't be happening, that's a new gas tank with all new plumbing!
I helped the attendant clean up the spill, then returned home to find & fix the problem. Looking in from the rear of the tank, I could see that the leak was originating from the driver's side/forward section of the new tank. Space was too tight to directly see into that area, so I illuminated that side with a small bright light and stuck my phone camera in the cavity to take a bunch of pictures. It quickly became evident what the problem was, the new gas tank vapor vent had pulled out of the tank, leaving a big hole in the top of the gas tank directly open to the atmosphere. No Bueno!
This was due to both the new vent gasket failing (below left) and the vent hose support clip on the frame above the tank pulling the vent system upwards. Luckily I had kept one of the more substantial original vent gaskets (below right) in my spares bin and was able to use that as a replacement. I removed the frame hose clip to relieve the upward pressure and reinstalled the vent using a generous coating of petrol resistant sealer, then zip tied the vent hose down to keep it in place. I also checked the px side vent and it was fine, so we were good to go.
Since we do a fair amount of traveling on dirt roads, somewhere along the line I installed the Syncro intake rotational air/debris separator, which I had left over from the wreck, upstream of the airbox. I did find pebbles and compacted dust in the clear catch reservoir when I had it on the Sycro, so the separator does appear to fulfill it's intended purpose.
Back on the road, we headed west to hit some back roads along the Truckee River, where we met the California Zephyr inbound from Sacramento.
It was a hot day, so Tunes and I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring and cooling off in the refreshing mountain river.
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1456
Location: IN
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Abscate
Samba Member
Joined: October 05, 2014
Posts: 22670
Location: NYC/Upstate/ROW
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| Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2020 5:50 pm Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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Woof, said the Husky.
Bravo Zulu on the suspension bushings
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.ssS!
Last edited by Abscate on Sat Sep 12, 2020 6:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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dobryan
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Joined: March 24, 2006
Posts: 16508
Location: Brookeville, MD
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thatbaldwinlife
Samba Member
Joined: August 01, 2011
Posts: 777
Location: Out exploring
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| Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:45 pm Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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Smoke has been terrible up here in Portland as well and can't even go in the garage for long. Have a few projects to get done on the Westy out there but guess I have to wait. Loving the updates on the new Westy!
nate
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1987 Westy
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1456
Location: IN
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| Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2020 11:23 pm Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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Making good progress and no show-stoppers so far.
I was dreading the step of removing the LBJ because of all the horror stories I'd heard about removing it, combined with the weird shape of the wheel bearing housing that looked like it would cause complications.
But, the UBJ and LBJ are aligned and using the 20-ton press I lucked into a year ago with the UBJ surround clamped to the press plates, the LBJ pressed right out, nice and easy.
The press will pay for itself with this one job.
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T3 Pilot
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Joined: January 10, 2011
Posts: 1507
Location: Deep South of the Great White North
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| Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2020 7:46 am Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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I’m glad that the LBJ pressed out easily. I must say that your tooling setup makes me nervous.
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1988 Vanagon
The most important part in every vehicle is the nut behind the wheel...... |
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1456
Location: IN
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| Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2020 8:19 am Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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| T3 Pilot wrote: |
| I’m glad that the LBJ pressed out easily. I must say that your tooling setup makes me nervous. |
I agree, it appears dicey. However, it was rock stable, I had confidence in the bottom clamp, the LBJ started moving with little pressure and I went slowly and avoided building up too much pressure. If it had stuck, I would have gone looking for alternatives.
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Abscate
Samba Member
Joined: October 05, 2014
Posts: 22670
Location: NYC/Upstate/ROW
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| Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2020 8:21 am Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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As long as you did that with awareness and watched the tension build, that is fine. If you just jammed the parts in there and cranked down on the jack, you could hurt yourself.
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1456
Location: IN
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| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2020 8:44 am Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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The first suspension part cleaned up, painted Tonka-Truck yellow, and rebushed.
I was pleasantly surprised to have the radius rod smoothly turn out after bathing it in penetrating fluid for a couple days and then standing & bouncing on the end of a long, well-centered, 27mm wrench. That'll make cleaning up the lower arm much easier. And the radius rod is in great shape, so I won't need to replace it.
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1456
Location: IN
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| Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:10 am Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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I originally posted much of this in another thread, but copied this here for documentation....
Here is my rebuild costs & links spreadsheet from my recent WBX rebuild.
I didn't need to do any machining, so that's not in the spreadsheet.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PbKUEuZ2gIhlpH_aPEz7npEssnABy_-I/edit#gid=1637704663
| mbwesty wrote: |
| So from the Googlesheet I see that you had used RJ's 95.5mm sleeve/cylinder set, and the stock conn rods. Do you mind letting me know how did the deck height checked out and how's the engine power and etc.? |
I didn't trust the pistons & cylinders in my original motor after the beating #2 took and a local Vanagon expert here said the P&Cs in my spare motor were low compression Brazilian aftermarkets that I might find disappointing. Since I was going to be buying pistons and cylinders anyway, I initially contacted RJE about using his 96 mm P&C set. Rocky indicated that his 96 mm P&Cs needed a 78.5 mm crankshaft ($600) and wouldn't work with my stock 76 mm crank. However, his 95.5 mm P&C's were bolt-on with no mods to the stock crank and rods, which was exactly what I was looking for. I realize now that I should have measured the deck height, but, instead, I just installed them based on the depth of Rocky's knowledge. Rookie first build mistake.
The performance definitely feels improved after the rebuild, but so much has been changed that it is impossible to attribute any portion to any single component. Rocky's estimate for the improvement of his 95.5 mm P&Cs over stock was "4-5 hp, unsure of the torque."
Additional useful information from [email protected] emails: The pistons with the 78.5 are made to come to the top of the cylinder putting them on a 76 mm stroke will them down 1mm or .040 from the top of the cylinder. This will lower the compression ratio and take away 7-10 hp. I’m replying to you FYI. [...detailed analysis of another product's flaws deleted to avoid potential litigation if publicly posted...]. All the pistons I sell are within 3 grams. Factory is 5. When I sell any or use any p&c sets I have a 10 point check on pistons and cylinders to make sure I’m selling quality products. From another email: All of my engines have passed calif. emissions.
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mbwesty
Samba Member
Joined: July 28, 2007
Posts: 295
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| Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:06 pm Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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Hi Sanchius:
I am certain that you are in good hands with the RJ P/L set.
Now, it makes sense and RJ is offering a 95.5 and a 96mm P/L set for wbx. The ad may be a little confusing to me as the pic seems to be showing the 96mm QSC set while the title read 95.5mm.
I think we all understood the pin height issue with the QSC, and that for the AA 95.5mm set the pin height issue was supposedly been fixed. I did reach out to AA last week and they had replied that it was fixed.
Ya, the QSC set will incur additional costs in either a custom crank or rods and/or giving the piston a little shave off the top. A while back I had reached out to Scat and the cost to rebush the rod pin bore for a 24mm pin was about $40 per rod BTW...
This is helping me to narrow down in what I need to do in my rebuild. Thanks, Sanchius!
| sanchius wrote: |
I didn't trust the pistons & cylinders in my original motor after the beating #2 took and a local Vanagon expert here said the P&Cs in my spare motor were low compression Brazilian aftermarkets that I might find disappointing. Since I was going to be buying pistons and cylinders anyway, I initially contacted RJE about using his 96 mm P&C set. Rocky indicated that his 96 mm P&Cs needed a 78.5 mm crankshaft ($600) and wouldn't work with my stock 76 mm crank. However, his 95.5 mm P&C's were bolt-on with no mods to the stock crank and rods, which was exactly what I was looking for. I realize now that I should have measured the deck height, but, instead, I just installed them based on the depth of Rocky's knowledge. Rookie first build mistake.
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ajdenette
Samba Member
Joined: February 15, 2009
Posts: 768
Location: Hope Valley RI
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| Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:48 pm Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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Hey Sanchius, are you running the intake boot from the Syncro on your 2WD with the 2WD mustache bar? there is a difference and it looks like your intake boot is smooshing the air filter housing into the engine lid.
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1456
Location: IN
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| Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:45 pm Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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| ajdenette wrote: |
| Hey Sanchius, are you running the intake boot from the Syncro on your 2WD with the 2WD mustache bar? there is a difference and it looks like your intake boot is smooshing the air filter housing into the engine lid. |
Wow, great eyes. Yes, I must have grabbed a Syncro boot rather than a 2wd boot from my spares box when I put it together.
I hadn't recognized that the Syncro intake boot needs to be longer due to the lower syncro mustache bar, but of course!
That explains why it was fighting me a bit going on. I'll fix that next time I'm back there.
More progress today, the 1st LBJ is pressed back in.
Using a cap on the 2" pipe didn't work for me because I couldn't tighten the cap on enough to thread it 100% onto the pipe.
When I put it in the press and apply pressure, the cap would jump down a thread and get uneven.
So I removed the cap and just used the straight 2" pipe, relieved a la Alika, which worked fine.
I used a 6" length and cut the threads off one end to make it just longer than the LBJ
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ALIKA T3
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Joined: July 30, 2009
Posts: 6360
Location: Honolulu,Hawaii and France
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| Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2020 12:23 pm Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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Hello!
I prolly didn`t post the updated tool I made for these.
The cap collapsing on the threads happened to me as well so I made a new one but asked my neighbor to weld it this time.
Also I got a flat bar welded across the bottom opening to avoid the tool to spread open, the flat bar sit on the ball joint across the boot, that I remove. Now everything is tight and I can press with no worries. 
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1456
Location: IN
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sanchius
Samba Member
Joined: May 03, 2007
Posts: 1456
Location: IN
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| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2020 10:45 am Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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I finally finished rebushing the front end.
Once t3technique's heavy duty sway-bar end-links become available again, I'll pick up a set and install them.
I also learned that hard way that smart mechanics hose out all the mud in the wheel wells before doing suspension work.
I gave it a rough alignment with a couple tape measures, a large T-square and a laser level and the ride quality is noticeably improved.
I'll get it a professional 4-wheel alignment once I finish with the rear bushings.
Our first outing was a relaxing run around Golden Eagle Park as the sun set.
For anyone thinking of getting a husky, here is the user's guide. Fortunately, Tunes is now 7.
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shadetreemech
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Joined: October 05, 2005
Posts: 777
Location: Claremont, CA
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| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2020 11:38 am Post subject: Re: Sanchius and Tuna ride again... |
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Beauty!
Hella yella.
Dan
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