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71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again!
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AS350driver
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 12:54 am    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

sunnydog wrote:
Thanks to all of you for your kind thoughts... If you read my last post, then you know what's coming: earlier this week, my father slipped peacefully away, surrounded by family and love. While we were all together we shared stories, looked through boxes and files, and and dug out pictures from his archives none of us had ever seen.

If you'll forgive me a few sentences, my dad was a trustworthy and faithful adventurer. He joined the Navy right out of highschool in '44-'46, then graduated from UC Berkeley, went to Princeton, but steamed across the Atlantic and took 2 years in Beirut Lebanon in '52-53, where he traveled all over Egypt, Greece, Syria, Israel, etc. (Pictures of him climbing the Cheops Pyramid in dress shoes, tie and sportcoat!). He returned and graduated from Princeton with a Doctor of Divinity in '55. He preached and supported communities, served people well, and continued to explore and travel, spending much time backpacking in the Sierras and climbing mountains in Northern CA and OR. he and my mother married in 1961. If you've slogged your way through these pages, you know about his followup schooling at Westminster-Chestnut Theological College in Cambridge UK and our family's European tour in '70-71, but even after all us kids were grown and out of the house, he continued traveling with Elderhostel trips to Crete, Greece, Turkey, Sicily, Japan, and Bulgaria.

None of this is directly relevant to a VW blog, of course. But it is emblematic of his willingness to adventure and explore and learn what is out there in this big world. And a VW bus is one tool among many to make exploration possible. We found a letter he wrote where he said he cried when he sold our old bus because it had served him so well.

He's got all those pictures, but he's not in very many of them, because he was always the one behind the lens, taking the photos. But I stumbled across a small picture of him and us kids in Oct of '70, also taken in the parking lot of the London Zoo on the very day we got the bus from the dealership. If you remember, there a very similar photo of my mom on pg 1 of this thread, and I am the leftmost kid with the red pants, completely oblivious at that time to how cool and kind and dapper my father is.

I know better now.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go for a drive.
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What an inspiring, educational, and thought provoking thread this is. It amazes me how a common appreciation for these vehicles is an intersection for so many people, from so many polar opposite backgrounds. I'd never saw this thread, but 71 Westy grabbed my attention, and I started to read at the most recent post.

Realizing quickly that this wasn't the ordinary Samba bus thread, I did what I always do, and went to Page 1. You have to start in the beginning. Two hours later, I'm shedding a few tears, contemplating the meaning of life, and pondering mortality. Or, the opposite possibility. Of course, the story of the bus brought me along, but as the pages passed, one realizes it is the story of a bus....and in equal measure its family, and the man that selected it for that family. Was your getting the bus back simply chance? Three 7's lining up on the 3141'th spin of the slots? Or, was there something more divine at work....

I must admit, when I got to this post, and read the biography of your father, and his profession was finally revealed, it wasn't what my mind was predicting. From the few photos here and there, I did sense from his appearance and posture that he had been in the military at some point. I got that right. And that he was very intelligent and educated, with a thirst for knowledge, as evidenced by that pursuit of education and his extensive travel. Also it is apparent he was able to provide his family with at least an above average income. I figured him for a member of academe, chair of a physics department, maybe a State Department official, or in the intelligence community. It's perfectly fine that he was a minister, it's just not what the gears and levers in my brain calculated. Proof that we all need to keep an open mind and not pre judge. At any rate..he had exquisite taste in his selection of transportation, and by all accounts was a parent any of us would be proud of. Great thread!!
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 5:06 am    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

I lost my Dad in 2018, but this 8 year old thread always makes me smile and remember him warmly. I’ve even forgiven him fir nit buying a Westie in the 60s.

He was busy building Concorde, Saturn V, Lem, and Space Shuttle.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 6:30 am    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Abscate wrote:
I lost my Dad in 2018, but this 8 year old thread always makes me smile and remember him warmly. I’ve even forgiven him fir nit buying a Westie in the 60s.

He was busy building Concorde, Saturn V, Lem, and Space Shuttle.


All you had to say was the Concorde Smile
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sunnydog
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2021 9:21 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

AS350driver wrote:
the story of the bus brought me along, but as the pages passed, one realizes it is the story of a bus....

O how I love selectively editing quotes to make them look foolish! Laughing
But seriously, AS350driver, thanks for your kind comments about the bus and my family. This thread is filled with rambling and slowness. Ups, downs, slow lane diversions, etc.

Last summer when I was replacing the canvas (which did not take 20 minutes, BTW, that was a lie) I was envisioning hosting a big multi-bus get together in September 2020... particularly Thursday September 3rd. Why? Well according to my M-plate, that was this old bus's planned production date, back in Sept of 1970. So September 3rd 2020 was this bus's 50th birthday!

I was thinking I could invite a bunch of people over, barbecue, campout... Wait, there's a global pandemic going on.

I was thinking that a bunch of VW bus drivers could meet up in park and socially distance... wait, work is going crazy, reports and budgets and field trips and presentations.

I can just take it out for a drive around town and celebrate, in my own particular idiom! I can get some balloons that say "over the hill", and then add "can't get" in front!

What actually happened: I forgot about it. Sad Ugh.
And then, no Christmas lights, no New Year's eve drive, Daughter #1 moved over to Portland OR in January, no snow trips to the cafe for omelets and coffee, no pubs, no restaurants, no stories, no people. What a weird year. We did get a pandemic dog. The last bus rollout was November 8th of 2020 for the fall color and sunset action posted on the previous page.

So we had one sunny February day on the 9th and I decided to bust out the bus for an afternoon drive! Ugh, dead battery. Jumpstarts fine, I check everything out and it all seems fine otherwise. I have to wait a bit for Mrs Sunnydog to finish up a business call so I wash the windows in the driveway while I wait.
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We head down to the old steamboat landing on the Columbia River: beautiful!
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We wander off to the east at 3400RPM
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Mrs Sunnydog always says take me somewhere new, and I cant ever think of any place new. I turn left and we head up to the top of Mount Pleasant. I've been here a hundred times. She says, accusingly: "you've never taken me here! This is beautiful!" Indeed it is! We are looking due south with Vista House and Crown Point directly ahead on the Oregon side. The side lighting is fantastic and the February wind is whipping down from the east. look at that narrow old backroad that serves only one lonesome house.
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On our way out, the colors get even better so I stop for another shot out the baywindow, with just a light touch of snow on the highest point of Larch Mountain...
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To highly selectively quote AS350driver a second time,
AS350driver wrote:
You have to start in the beginning.

This is the beginning of bus's sixth decade, we are still essentially beginning 2021, the first sunny day of Feb was the beginning of bus driving season.
No one starts off excellent, encourage yourself to be a beginner.

A happy belated 50th birthday post to this old bus! Think of all the people it has brought joy to... Very Happy
sunnydog
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:13 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Howdy Baywindow drivers!
It was February 19th when I last logged on! Sure I lurk here, but create content? Dang that's hard work. This has been a weird and busy Spring and I've been writing in a bunch of other venues, so updates here in the very best of the Samba forums have been muted. Unfortunately, bus driving has also been muted this Spring -- more about that in a bit.

I drove the bus down to the Columbia River in March, but it was kind of a gloomy day for popping the top.
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A rainy day in March, with a late afternoon trip to the hardware store to buy seeds for my second summer of having a pandemic garden. How's my wax job? Is the water beading up okay?
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At the end of May the sun started peeking out and smiling on the bus at the parking lot of my favorite pub. Have you figured out yet they are all my favorite pub? Very Happy
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Another evening of parking down by the River and watching the sun set -- this was in July, not too long ago. Mrs. sunnydog and I were sitting in the bus when a father and son walked by holding hands. The son, who was about 5, stared at the bus and turned to his dad and said "When I grow up, I want a van like that!" I decided not to jump out and pedantically say "It's not a van, It's a bus!" because nobody needs that...
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On the way home at dusk, we pulled over for a second in another spot and watched the crescent moon reflect off the lake and the fog line stretch out ahead in the glow of the headlights.
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I don't know if you can feel it, but this post is a bit melancholy. Truth is, the bus was shifting like crap all spring long, and it just got less and less fun to drive. The clutch was all over the place, the shift arm was ridiculously hard to move and it would randomly grind gears sometimes but not others, which did not seem to be related to temperature or any other patterns. It got to the point where I was so frustrated I didn't even want to back it out of the garage and mess with it...

BUT I'm happy to report that the whole debacle is fixed, and the bus is running in the best shape it has ever been in since it exited the barn way back at the beginning of this very very old thread. I will share the details across the next few days, over a couple of posts. Hang in there for some more old pictures and new updates! This bus is still rolling!
sunnydog
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:23 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

An entirely wonderful read sunnydog, start to finish.
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:17 am    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Fantastic and good to hear it's out and about again. I just had the same Bus whisperer come by here and mine are back in tip top running shape again too (other than I need a new brake line). Hope to see you out this way soon. Very Happy
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 12:26 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Problem #1 I'd been chasing around for a while if you recall: difficulty shifting and clutch point. I'd diagnosed a pilot bearing failure a while back and pulled the engine for a refresh of the bearing and the end of the transmission shaft, which resulted in an immediate improvement, but not 100% trouble free operation, because shortly after the clutch felt wonky and the clutch bite point got wider on the the pedal. I had to tighten the clutch down to get things back to operate, but the clutch was way too stiff. That turned out to be a cracked bowden tube bracket. I replaced that, but the clutch operation was still wonky. I had grinding in some gears, particularly going into reverse, and finally I could see that when I dropped it into reverse when it was cold, to back it out of the garage, it would want to creep just a the tiniest eight of an inch then stop. Clutch adjustments did not really make this any better, it also even slipped once or twice on some hills.

I played shifter bingo a bunch of times (https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=710999), and suspected a collapsed pressure plate, but as I said before, was just generally frustrated with the whole business.

I got invited to the Lucky Lab for Airschooled Robbie's 2021 tour through the Portland OR area, but could not attend on Monday because I had a bunch of other stuff going on that night. However, he kindly had an open slot a few days later (even though he was ostensibly on vacation) and was willing to take on the project.

So! He showed up in my driveway at 9AM and began diagnosing and dispensing sage advice: "Dude this is terrible." "How long has it been like this?" And then the moralizing began "If we aren't gonna fix ALL of this, so this bus is drivable, then why would we bother to fix only one piece?"

My shamed response, "Okay, okay, let's do it. Can we get it all done by the end of the day?

"Yes we can." He replied.

So we tore into it, deeper than I ever have before.

Problem 1 Solved: Sure enough, a collapsed pressure plate, highside on the left, low side on the right:
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During the time that cracked bowden tube bracket was flexing all over and I was tightening up the clutch to get a bite point that would work, I had it so tight the ends of the clutch fingers were even dragging on the clutch disk spline sleeve and wearing it conical, but asymmetrically off-axis.
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I had bought a NOS Sachs pressure plate from a buddy but did not verify the parts in advance and found it was not the right one after all. I also had an Amortex, but it was also not in good shape. We dashed over to Halsey Automotive and got a new Sachs kit (made in South Korea) to install. Might as well put in a new clutch disk at the same time! Pilot bearing and throwout bearings all good. Here is the whippersnapper himself with a selection of pressure plates and a flywheel wrench next to the milk crate engine extraction, posing like a big game hunter next to his kill.
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Always be sure to wear closed-toe shoes for safety when working in the shop, kids!

More problems to go...
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 4:56 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

…and eye protection from flying Legos.

Don’t let him talk you into the Schwimmwagen conversion either.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 04, 2021 11:32 am    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Margaret "Emily's Owner" and 71whitewesty and Abscate thanks for your kind words! Margaret you are beating me for the most infrequent poster award: member since 2004, 608 posts total... I love it!
...Everett probably doesn't...

Problem #2: gummed up shift rod and tube.

As I said, ever since I got the bus back, circa 1996, shifting has been terrible. The shift rod has been bound up in the shift rod tube with goo. My immediate solution before each drive was to spray some deagreaser OR some lube into the tube to loosen it up and get it moving and shiftable for the day. My boots were gone, so that was easy enough to do... But clearly that's no actual solution.

So! Under tutelage of Airschooled Robbie, we dropped the transmission, which I have never done before. We pushed it out of the way, then proceeded to pull the shift rod out. It took quite bit of persuading to extract it. We ended up taking turns pulling on a tiedown strap rowing machine style...
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Again let me stress the importance of closed-toe shoes for shop work. Very Happy

There was about 2 pounds of OLD grease that had degraded into wax. It was all gummed up around the bushings...
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It was a 95 degree day, and I put the shift rod out in the sun while we spent an hour scraping out the inside of the shift rod tube to get all that nasty stuff out. We pushed big chunks out using the shift rod to push a rag through the tube and we used an old broken bushing to scrape more out, eventually we pulled several solvent rags back and forth through the tube using a clothesline rope. We really could have used a bottle brush, but I did not have one.

I went to the clean the shift rod, which was now at least 120 degrees. Even at that amount of hot, the old grease would not wipe off with a paper towel, I still had to use a scraper. Look at this waxy gunk:
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Some new bushings, some new grease, some new boots for the ends of the shift rod and we re-installed the whole business.

I sent this repair info to my friend T, who was the interim owner of this bus before me (there's an earlier post about a road trip we took), and he replied, "Goddammit I shot so much WD-40 and other toxic shit down that tube trying to clean it out. I have no idea who the bonehead was that jammed that thing with grease in the first place."

For 25 years, this gummed up tube has been terrible. I probably could have fixed it, I could have dug in, but I'm still mostly a simple backyard mechanic and worried about messing stuff up so I deferred and deferred. A little schooling, expert advice and goading into action finally got it done.

Am I kicking myself for waiting so damn long? Maybe a little. But there's a saying I like: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." Meaning: don't worry about that thing that happened or didn't happen back then... Worry about the now. And that day, we fixed it. Maybe now I won't wait 25 years for the next shift rod maintenance...

Still more to come!
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EZ Gruv wrote:
I appreciate the effort, but this could be the worst video in the history of videos.


Last edited by sunnydog on Fri Aug 06, 2021 2:50 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 04, 2021 11:45 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Bus colonoscopy….

Laughing

I missed Robbie this year but I know he had fun with the cool kids
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:36 am    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Abscate wrote:
Bus colonoscopy….

Laughing

I missed Robbie this year but I know he had fun with the cool kids


I wonder if this works on buses as well as it does on humans...

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:15 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Not sure; I try not to soil my shants on shifter sessions.

Sunnydog has posted some kind of compromising picture of me every time we’ve hung out for the last few years. Can’t wait to see what the 2022 Air-Schooled crotch picture is going to be.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:25 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

You can often find a place to wash up on the road.

Just make sure you use those rubbers …. Gloves
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2021 2:43 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Get your minds out of the gutter! Don't soil my thread, this is wholesome family material here, verging occasionally into PG territory.

So anyhow, Robbie and I both grabbed my rod, and with all four hands we guided it into the well-lubricated... WAIT! You are doing it again. Rolling Eyes

I'll start over:
I'll just say that when we were done, my nuts were torqued in a way that they won't come undone for a long time... WAIT! Stop that. It's silly! The whole premise is silly and it's very badly written.

Road Trip Interlude:
Circa 1997, an old girlfriend and I decided to go to Utah on her spring break from college. She was interested in rock climbing and wanted to go to Zion National Park to see the place. Fine. We decided to also visit Bryce Canyon National Park since we would be close by. Many bad decisions and poor planning later we decided to take the old VW bus on the trip, because that's what they are for, right? Except we had (in retrospect) differing opinions about how the road trip would work. She had friends that had made the drive from Portland OR to Arches National Park in 14 hours... in their Jetta. I think she suspected the trip would be quick and easy.

Anyhow, we packed stuff up, I did a bunch of last minute stuff and Friday night we attended a family reunion campout for her folks, so we got a late start on Saturday eastbound out of Albany OR over Santiam Pass into eastern OR. Some where around Bend, OR the sun went down and it started getting eastern OR desert cold. "Hey, turn on the heat!" she said. "There isn't any." I replied. Conversation followed. She broke out jackets and heavier socks, but the bus was drafty and eventually she wrapped up in a sleeping bag. By the time we got to Burns, OR, It was about 28 degrees. We stopped and got a hotel room because it was cold and dark and late.

The next morning we took off east again through Vale OR and finally on to I-84 around Nampa ID. We stayed on I-84 into Utah and south past SLC and followed 15 to 70 to 89 and finally pulled over to sleep sometime around 2 AM Monday morning near what I recall was Marysvale UT. We parked and went to sleep. In the morning we woke up very early because I had pulled off the road in a way that the rising sun blazed through the baywindow and immediately caused the interior of bus to go from 30* to 90*. We made some coffee and some breakfast, figured we had only about an hour and a half more to go to get to Bryce and we would have all day there. Jump in the bus to start it and it does not start -- turns out I left the lights on all night and the battery was dead. Fortunately we were at the top of a grade so we pushed the bus over to the hill, jumped in and roll-started it. Onwards! As we got close to Bryce we passed through Red Canyon and stopped to take a photo: Look at that awesome lens flare!
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We got to Bryce! Did you know Bryce Canyon is at 8000 feet elevation? We got to Bryce very slowly... Should I have re-adjusted my carb for elevation? Yes, I should have. Did I? Look at that sign!
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We hiked and took photos, had lunch, drove all the way out to Rainbow Point and it was a great time. But the visitor center had a sign on the outside that said something like "Last night's low temperature: 18 degrees." And we did not want to sleep in the bus in that cold. I don't think we got another hotel room. I think we just drove away to drop in elevation. I do know we ended up stopping in at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes, and we might have camped somewhere around there. It was not a very busy day in that parking lot...
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So, that was ~1240 miles so far and it was Monday evening, the end of day 3 of the 7 we had...
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2021 10:52 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

sunnydog wrote:
Margaret you are beating me for the most infrequent poster award: member since 2004, 608 posts total... I love it!
...Everett probably doesn't...


I use my little yellow star to help Everett so he'll absolve me from not being so chatty (many of my posts were in the old R*nts weirdly enough, and we had an amazing joke thread going for years...) - I read more than I post, which is probably not a bad thing.
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2021 12:14 am    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

This obviously calls for a haiku…


Yellow star on sig
Means EB is getting Vig
You’re a cool kid, dig?

Keep your tanka filled.
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 12:55 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

Did I say I was going to finish this story over the next couple of days? I suuuuure did... but, eh. whatever.

Problem/Maintenance #3

While the transmission was out, we (mostly Robbie) replaced the nosecone bushing and the gear selector ball joint. Turns out they were not in terrible shape, but why not refresh while working in the area? As we dropped the transmission away from the bus, Robbie noted, "Somebody has done this before. They put the wrong bolts here. These bolts for the transmission ears and those on the mustache bar got swapped by somebody, whenever they did this."

I would never have known that...

Only one picture here, but it s a big vertical one
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I appreciate the effort, but this could be the worst video in the history of videos.
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sunnydog
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 7:51 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

And to return to the 1997 Utah trip...
After proceeding ahead from the Coral Pink Sand dunes we arrived into Zion National Park. I really can't recall by which route we got there. Google maps shows we could have come west on 9 to the East Entrance Ranger station, but the picture below shows the main park entrance sign and toll booths north of Springdale. Maybe we took some other long roundabout way? Maybe we stopped into town to buy groceries and ice? I dunno.
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After securing a campground spot, we spent two glorious days in Zion NP. We hiked the Angels Landing trail and up the Narrows a way, went up the Hidden Canyon trail, Emerald Pools, etc. Good stuff!

Then after those 2 days (Tuesday! Wednesday!), we set off home... This is where the trip starts to go poorly. Let me stress here that there were plenty of bad decisions made on my part, so I'm not blaming anybody else...

I like driving in loops. I always have. I rarely come home via the same route I use to go out. Why? Who knows. So I looked at the battered old Rand McNally road atlas, circa 1990 that was our guide to adventure and I thought "Lets go home via a route on the west!" We have 2 days, and I thought it would be fun to maybe swing by some family (if we made good time) and maybe drop back into less cold weather. So we headed west out of St George on 15, towards Las Vegas about midday. We passed by the outskirts of that city but kept on rolling NW up 95 past Amargosa Valley. We drove and drove and drove, and I noticed the back window got grittier with dust. When we stopped for gas, I realized there was a thin film of oil coating the back of the bus, and all the road dust was sticking to it. HMMM. Well, the main seal decided that it was gonna start dripping. Was the oil thinning out, just east of Death Valley? It was plenty hot, no worries about it getting cold. We bought several extra quarts of oil, kept on rolling, and eventually took a left turn at Tonopah that I think isn't there anymore.

We drove and drove and drove and it felt like Nevada took forever. Why did crossing Utah take so little time, when Nevada took SO LONG. I finally looked back at the road atlas and did the math and realized my mistake: each state takes a page, so they are all shown the same size, but OH NO they are not actually the same size and Nevada is big when you drive the long way across it. I re-learned a valuable lesson about map scales that day.

We finally hit I-80 and rolled into Reno about 10PM Thursday in pretty good shape. Recall we were rushing home with a Friday night arrival time because my girlfriend had an unskippable work day scheduled for Saturday AM. We'd done about 580 miles from Zion NP. Oh but hey, what? There is a snowstorm blowing in? We fill the gas tank, fill the oil and jump in the bus and head up the Truckee pass to try and cross it and drop into the Sacramento before they close it... and it was too late it went from open to chains required (we had none) to closed in a very short amount of time. We returned to Reno to strategize. How long is that pass gonna be closed? what if it doesn't open until midday tomorrow (Friday)? We did not want to get stuck, so we decided to continue rolling north on the east side of the mountains, as far as we could.

We headed northerly on 395, through Milford, Buntingville, Standish and Litchfield, but the wind was blowing hard from the west, and snow was blowing across the road. It was freezing cold. We had jackets and gloves and stocking caps, hiking boots. The girlfriend was driving the bus, but because of the weather we could not go very fast at all. Then, during a shift (remember that waxy old grease binding up the shift rod in the tube) she leaned so hard on the shifter arm that one of the captive nuts on the floor gave way and broke through. The shift arm was leaning all awry and it was un-shiftable. We were stuck in second gear. After some particularly choice curse words, we continued on, lumbering through the blowing snow at 10mph toward a distant few lights, just to see if there was a good place to stop. We eventually turned slightly off 395 and came to a stop in Madeline CA about 3AM. Here's the view about 7AM Friday morning:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

So just after taking that picture, we waked across the street to the cafe full of ranchers and truckers and as we entered and everyone stared, the cook/waitress/manager yelled out, "Oh you must be the couple from the Volkswagen bus across the street! Y'all come on back here behind the counter and get warm by the grill!"

Which we did! We ordered some breakfast, and talked to some folks. I told them we broke the shifter and needed a dry place to fix it. They said there's nothing here in town (population ~55? Rolling Eyes ), but up in Likely, just a ways up the road, there's a truck repair place.

So we finish up, and get rolling up the road -- still in second gear at 10 mph. Likely is 13 miles up the road, so it took us well over an hour... Laughing

In Likely (population ~200!), we find Walter Sphar Trucking. I go inside and ask the office manager if there is any possible way I can borrow a workspace for a bit, the bus is broken, but I've got my own tools, I can fix it and be on my way, I just need a place where I can roll around under it and not be in 2-3 inches of snow. She sighs but says, "Okay, you can use that bay right there." We roll open the door, tuck the bus inside, then get to work. It's all still pretty wet as the fenderbergs melting are onto the concrete floor, and it might not be warm, but at least it is not freezing and windy, and we were thankful for everything at that point. We were able to reset the shifter arm ball into the socket and I broke the floor nut all the way off and backed it up with a big fender washer to get the assembly back together, then shot a whole can of carb cleaner down the shift rod tube to try and loosen up the gummed up works. Success! Don't forget to fill the oil!
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

There was another little roadside cafe in that town and once we were getting everything lined up, my girlfriend stopped in there asked there if the workers at the trucking shop ever came in for lunch. "Only every single day," was the reply. We left a $50 there to cover their lunches as thanks for helping us out. That Walter Sphar Trucking work bay is still there: you can see it in this link:https://goo.gl/maps/hALgkHmJn8fiwkH26

We left Likely around noon and got back on the road to Alturas, then West through the Modoc National Forest towards Klamath Falls on 139. I'd had about 8 hours of sleep in three days, so with the bus purring along and the sun out and the interior getting warm and cozy... something whacked the front of the bus hard and I suddenly wake up and see I am way over the fog line and onto the shoulder and I've just smacked a fiberglass reflector post! I whip the wheel hard to the left, but in the gravel the back end of the bus swings wide and I am in a full 50mph slide! I steer it out and pop back up onto the road, but then come to a stop and decide it would be most wise for me to stop driving. We swap off again and she starts driving while I sleep in the back. We continued on past Klamath Falls and Chemult OR, then hit I-5 in Eugene and stop in at her family's place in Albany, where her father and I spent another hour and some working on the shifter and getting the floor under the assembly backed up with stronger material. In early evening, we rolled the last little bit home to southwest Washington state , where I dropped her off at her apartment and after I left, we did not speak for nearly two weeks. Laughing

Google maps says 2417 miles so likely more than that in the seven day trip, adventures and breakdowns and weather and enough for a long list of stories... But here's my takeaway: If you go on a road trip with somebody and it doesn't bring you closer together -- if in fact it pushes you apart, then don't worry, it just means you likely don't have the right partner! I learned that lesson in Likely, California. A place that I remember fondly, even if I am not likely to ever go there again. If you do roll by, wave hey to the fine folks at Walter's truck shop!
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'71 Westy w/ a 1776 singleport, 34P3 & 205Q. Points.
EZ Gruv wrote:
I appreciate the effort, but this could be the worst video in the history of videos.
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Cap10323
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2021 9:07 pm    Post subject: Re: 71 Westy -- bought new in London by my father, rolls again! Reply with quote

This is the best thread in the bay forum, hands down. Every time I see a new post I can't wait to read it.
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