Sanchius and Tuna ride again...

[dlb154]

Sanchius - I believe that's Dog Valley, not Long Valley. Been going there for years!

[sanchius]

Thanks, dlb154! I corrected the post.
The map I was looking at had Long Valley Rd running through the meadow and I assumed that was the name of the valley.

And Tuna approves of this morning's Donner Pass forecast calling for 11+ feet of snow to fall in the high country in the next 10 days.

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[Abscate]

Geeks, my Huskie Is enjoying the 10F , 15-20 gusts today.

The rest of us without Husky fur, not so much
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[sanchius]

(Consolidating posts from other threads as part of my online upkeep/repair log here)

(BLUF*: It was a worn out rear sliding door latch mechanism. *Bottom Line Up Front)

I spent way too much time this weekend dialing in my rear slider hinge, latch, and latch bolt to fix my sliding door.

My sliding door had always been loose & rattly at the back and lately it had been randomly spontaneously opening. I tried the quick fix of moving the 15mm rear latch bolt both in and out, but no joy. When it got to the point where I had to strap the sliding door shut to make any kind of drive without the slider popping open, it was past time to fix it.

The latch operation is shown below. When properly closed, upper pawl 3 engages lower tooth 2. To open, lever arm B is pulled forward (by the bowden cable to the front handle), which rotates the lower mechanism L downward, freeing upper pawl 3 from lower teeth 2 and 1. The spring forces are counterclockwise for both U and L and clockwise for B.

In my case, when closed, pawl 3 was only engaging lower tooth 1, resulting in a loose & rattly door at the rear that would pop open while driving

[UPDATE: The upper spring is perched in the wrong location. Picture updated noting the incorrect and correct location]

I had picked up a spare latch from a recent trip to the bone yard and compared it to my latch.
I saw immediately that my upper pawl 3 was worn and rounded to the point that I could force my latch open with only moderate force.

Great, problem solved.
If I could fix my latch, I could sell the boneyard latch and recover some of the time-cost of doing all this. I got out the fiber disk grinder and a triangular file and restored my upper pawl 3 to a nice sharp profile that would catch and hold lower tooth 2 so securely that I couldn't force it open. I lubed all the moving parts and a bench test showed everything working smoothly and properly. I installed it and reassembled everything, confident that it was solved. I tried shutting the sliding door and it was still loose and rattly in the back. I looked close and saw that upper pawl 3 was still only engaging lower tooth 1.

Ugh, problem not solved.
I spent the next hour trying many different combinations of door height adjustment (2 silver bolts in photo from teej below + one more not visible in the picture) and hinge bolt location (green arrows in bottom picture), but I could not get pawl 3 to properly engage tooth 2; pawl 3 always stopped at tooth 1 no matter what I tried. Frustrated, I gave up, put tools down, and walked away for awhile.

(photo from user "teej")

When I came back out, the only thing I could think to try was installing the bone-yard latch as a last-ditch hail-Mary. When I did that, the door closed properly on the first try, with Upper pawl 3 securely engaging Lower tooth 2 and the door tight and snug to the body seals. I adjusted the rear slider hinge up and the Bolt down a bit to align the outer door panel lines and I was done.

I wasn't able to determine why my latch would never engage right and the boneyard latch would. My latch bench tests fine, nothing feels or looks worn, and there is no absolutely adjustment in its location on the back of the door. It's just going to have to remain a mystery for now.
[UPDATE: see https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9569554#9569554 for solution]

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[sanchius]

From: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9556294#9556294 with more kid pics added.

[joetiger]

Fantastic photos and thank you for positive view of the future! I need all the help I can get.

I'm curious about your rear latch and wonder if I'm having a similar issue. Mine shuts but doesn't fully seat unless I push in on the back when closing.

EDIT: I wonder if your springs were worn out? GW sells this little kit:

https://www.gowesty.com/product/-/23924/sliding-door-latch-spring-replacement-kit-?v=
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'86 NAHT Vanagon GL Syncro/ supercharged ABA 2.0 "Pigpen"
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[sanchius]

Out here, everyone waits for the big snowstorms to come through, then heads for the mountains to play in the fresh powder.
Having lived in a ski town in my youth and skied more than enough for a normal lifetime, my winter sport of choice now is snowshoeing.
It had been dumping in the high country for the past week, so now was the time to get up there and enjoy it.

Early this morning I put Tuna in the van and pointed it uphill to the Tahoe Meadows trailhead just over the Mt Rose Summit.

There we parked and snowshoed through the new powder, the light wind becoming dead calm once we hit the pines.
Tunes was sporting her blue pack harness today so she could carry in her water & snacks and pack out her dog waste to keep the watershed clean.

Tuna loves to pull, so much so that I refer to her as The Escalator, which makes ascending much easier.
We climbed and climbed through the pines and eventually crested the ridge-line that overlooks Lake Tahoe.

The cool thing about this place, "Chickadee Ridge", is that if you hold some birdseed in your hand, flocks of little chickadees will fly up and perch on your hand to eat the seed.
It was so wholesome and cute it put me in a great mood for the whole day.

All done, we trekked back to the van, stopping for a picture on the way back over the Mt Rose Summit.
Then we headed down the mountain into Reno, where an exhausted Tunes spent the rest of the afternoon napping in her chair.
There's another burst of snow inbound for early this week, so I wouldn't be surprised if we're back up here later in this week.

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[Abscate]

The last time I got chickadees to hand feed was at Tifft Farm in Buffalo!

If you put two sided tape on your hand, you get a free Husky snack!

Woof woof woof
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[dobryan]

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing Tuna.
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'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 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

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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]

That's awesome! My girlfriend would go nuts about feeding birds by hand.

Do you think that the worn latch just didn't have the height to catch anymore? Even if it was the right profile? Maybe some beads of weld to add metal might work.
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[sanchius]

Slider Latch: Thanks for all the great suggestions. I've ordered a new set of springs to test on the old latch, as well as a new set of rollers since the originals are a bit crunchy. I'll also examine the latch hook to see if it needs more metal added. I'll report on the results once they arrive and I get them installed.

Chickadees: Since the Husky word for chickadee translates to "delicious light snack", I kept Tunes secured to a nearby tree while feeding the birds. She was quite animated and husky vocal in expressing her displeasure with the situation to the great amusement of the other folks who were up there at the time.

African Queen update: We are nearly finished with the first iteration of the basic African Queen Project website, while The Queen rests safely on display in the national Air Force Museum for the winter. Now our attention turns to finishing the non-profit business plan, defining and starting the STEM education & veterans service programs, setting up a Jeep GPW restoration summer school class with the local community college, and exploring how to apply for philanthropic/foundation support for the project. We recently received a group of extra images from the magazine shoot 18 months ago and there are some real beauties in there.

1943 White M16A2 with ammunition trailer.

(Photo credit: Gary Kessler http://www.kesslerphotography.com)

M16A2 defending the Ludendorff Bridge during the Allied breakout over the Rhine at Ramagden, March 1945.

(Photo credit: U.S. Army)
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[Jake de Villiers]

Wow! That photo by the bridge in Germany is fabulous! Thanks, Sanchius.
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[sanchius]

We had a beautifully calm and clear day, so I took Mrs S snowshoeing up to Chickadee Ridge to show it to her. It was lots of fun.
I tried reproducing a pro shot of a chickadee landing there (inset) with my camera (background) in burst mode.
While it's clear I have a lot to learn about shutter speed and f-stops, I was happy to just get one in frame for my first try.
It was also nice having to bus to chill out in and sit in back sharing post-outing tacos with Tuna before getting on the road back to Reno.

Tunes sure loved the fresh powder. She'll sleep well tonight.

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[Abscate]

Little bit more depth of field but that’s tough with the shutter speed needed to capture the Dee of Chick. I managed to get hummingbirds at my feeder this year in SLO-mo mode, 200 FPS
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[sanchius]

To wrap up my slider door project, I ordered a set of new slider door roller bearings and rear latch springs from GoWesty.

In going through their instructions and comparing their picture with my non-latching latch, it looks like my initial fix of squaring off the upper hook was correct and the subsequent nonlatching problem may have been self inflicted. I used the wrong perch for the upper spring when I reassembled it last week making the spring much stronger, which would explain why it wouldn't latch all the way when I reinstalled it. The boneyard latch, which did work, used the correct spring perch.

Once I reinstalled my original latch with the new springs indexed correctly, the slider door latched easily and perfectly, though I haven't had a chance to road test it yet to see if it says latched when moving.

Installing all new slider door rollers made a great improvement and returned the sliding door to a much quieter state where it could be easily opened/closed with one finger. GoWesty has some nice videos on doing this.

If you do this, note that there are slightly different sized spring clips for some of bearings (you can see the spring clip groove near the top of the 2nd, bare, bearing post below). The big bottom door roller uses a very small clip. So both retain and mark the size of all the old spring clips as you remove them.

Some of the old rollers came right off and others, like this one, required drastic measures after defeating my normal bearing pullers. This door bearing was really stuck on and only released with a big BANG! after I put a bunch of pressure on the retasked ball-joint separator.

I'm really happy with how smoothly and easily the sliding door operates now and I regret not doing this a long time ago.

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[sanchius]

While I was messing with the slider door, I knocked off a little project that I've been meaning to get to for a long time.

I usually keep a small flashlight in the cubby under the driver's seat, but I usually forget about it and rarely check if the battery is still good. So I mounted a flashlight holder to the lower dash in a very visible and easily accessible location.

The silver/black push button next to it operated the big air horns under my old Syncro, which were not transferred to my 2WD, much to the relief of jay-walking pedestrians and right-of-way-violating motorists everywhere who no longer get launched to the moon when they do careless/dangerous things in front of me.

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[sanchius]

Yes, I can live with these 2/2021 post-rebuild compression numbers now that I have a couple hundred miles on the engine.

12/29/19 pre-rebuild measurements for comparison.

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[bobbyblack]

Sweet numbers!!! I'm still gathering parts (still need to spec the case and crank for bearings), looking forward to when my garage warms back up above 35F to start!! My RJE stage 2 heads are taunting me Maybe I should just build it in my living room, you think Mrs. Black would be mad about that? Would Mrs. Sanchius have been?

Btw: is the cam-lifter face lube/break-in compound the main reason a first oil change needs done right away, or is it just a general thing regardless of that? Is that stuff sticky or clingy enough to make it through the first change?

-bobby
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[sanchius]

[sanchius]

This weekend I finally had a block of time to do some much needed maintenance.

While I renewed the rear brake pads in Mrs S's Acura (1st things 1st), I drained the Westy's WBX 30-weight dino engine rebuild break-in oil and refilled it with the rich Mobile-1 syn 15w-50 oil I prefer to run. That sure helped improve the hot idle oil pressure, which had been lower than I liked with the 30-weight oil.

My alternator light had been glowing faintly at high revs, which usually indicates worn alternator bushes.
These bushes are very easy to replace with just two screws on the back of the alternator.
I grabbed a good set of bushes off my spare alternator and installed them, which fixed the problem.

I added a clamp to the ISV hose as I suspected it was leaking a bit of vacuum where it attached.

While I was in there, I noticed that the throttle cable seemed pretty slack.
I checked if the throttle was completely open when the gas pedal was fully depressed.
I found that it wasn't and that I was giving away the top 15% of my throttle!
I was never triggering the WFO TPS close and never telling the ECU to go into Open-Loop at full WFO throttle!
That too, was easy to correct.

Finally, I swapped in the proper 2WD air intake book for the too-tall Syncro boot that I had mistakenly installed after the rebuild (full write-up here).

The end result was a van restored.
It now starts much quicker than before and pulls to full-rev with alacrity.
That was a morning well spent.

But then the slider popped open again during the test drive...
Looks like I need to revisit that rear sliding door latch yet again.

But, that'll have to wait for another time.
The sun was shining and it was time to get out of the garage.
With the slider strapped closed, we hustled up into the high country to celebrate the new snow that arrived yesterday,

and wore Tunes out snowshoeing in the fresh powder for a couple hours.

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