Fixing Up My Bus - 1978 Kombi!

[Daverham]

Where will this road/boat take us, right? The future is wide open...

[Daverham]

Got a bus hat today. Looking forward to crabbing tomorrow!

[Ross123]

Hi Daverham

I am in need of some assistance, My kombi/bus wont start up, The engine swings when i turn the ignition BUT, It doesnt sound like the engine is igniting I have already replaced - Battery and coil, after this still no spark coming off the coil lead. There is quite a potent petrol smell when I try to start her up, Am i wrong to assume that the petrol pump IS working?

Can you please help

Ross Cape Town
1978 Kombi

[Stuartzickefoose]

[Daverham]

Ross, sorry I missed your note. PM me next time if you have an immediate need.


Now for tonight's little update. This is the last externally visible body repair. We're getting there!

Crunched vent ear:

p

Out with the old!

Nice fit:

The fun part:

My best welding yet:

Much better now!

[Stuartzickefoose]

saved the best for last eh? nice job!

are ya comin over to help on my battery trays next?



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Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[Kirk]

Nice! That looks hard, but you made it look super easy. I was wondering what happened to you, and if there were updates. Nice work!
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[Stuartzickefoose]

[hoagy86]

Any update on this is it still driving around getting used?

[Daverham]

I just checking in on my ol' "resto" thread here and saw this question. We moved twice - out of state then out of town - bought a house, had a baby... I started a business and started working from home so not commuting anymore (and just busy as all getout). But yeah - we still have the bus and still take him out for good times. Thanks for asking!

These pics are all from the past couple weeks:

[Stuartzickefoose]

Your alive!?!!! Yes!!!

Where’d you end up?

Still my favorite blue bus...
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Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[SGKent]

most late bays (1973 and later) have a donut at the front of the shift rod that sits inside a metal plate that hangs down. That buffers the front of the steering shaft. If it is missing it will cause a rattle and an extended shift movement. To replace the pan comes off and the front section of the shift rod removed. Then the part gets put in, the front rod goes back, the grub nut tightened and safety wired. Sometimes things are rusty and don't like to come apart. Usually it is a 20 minute job unless the front section is rusted to the rear section.

The shuttle cocks rarely wear so thet us usually not the source of the rattle. Folks pull that section when the engine and trans are out to clean things and add new rubber boots.

The coupler at the back buffers some noise from the trans. It can be replaced while on the car. If you find a good genuine VW one you can often just replace the side pucks from the new one to the old one without pulling the coupler. If you replace the whole coupler try for find a genuine VW one and weld the snout to the cafe so the pinch never comes loose. There is a photo in the other thread. To do any more you have to pull the trans.
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[Daverham]

Awesome. Thanks for the info & expertise. Pop the pan sounds like best case scenario. I will find the donut...


Edit:

I think I found it (VWC-211-711-182):
http://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=VWC%2D211%2D711%2D182

I'll go take a peek under the bus and see what's going on up in there. Maybe tomorrow. Thanks again.

Edit again... Found it on Bus Depot too:
http://www.busdepot.com/211711182

[Daverham]

My bus sits a lot nowadays. Not that she isn't working or anything, but I don't commute anymore and she's usually blocked in behind the Subaru, so I only take her out for special trips like camping, mountain biking or to eat some tacos at sunset time.

I was watching Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" and getting all inspired about project cars. I started shopping Craigslist for Porsches and Ghias and such nonsense when it occurred to me that I should put any extra time and money into the sweet old bus that I already have. Great thought.

Then I realized out of nowhere that this August will be our TEN YEAR anniversary together!

So I've decided - in honor of our decade of faithful friendship - to quit being lazy and knock a few things off the ol' to-do list. I think I'll get those rear slider windows and while they are out I might just do some paint and a few other things. I'm 10 years older now. I have way more budget than I used to. And I work for myself now, at home. So I have all the flexibility and time and tools (and patience) that I always lacked as a younger VW owner. This is going to be good.



Here's my wife and myself on the day we picked her up, in 2009. Here she sits in the field next to the PO's house. I didn't know it yet, when this picture was taken, but there was a large rat living in there

Ten years later, we have a kid now and she loves the bus too:

To kick things off, I removed my old home-made cabinet and jump seat and re-covered them. I should have taken a BEFORE picture with them in the bus, but I forgot. I built these probably 9-10 years ago. Put vinyl wood grain on them and called it good. I don’t know what happened, but over the years it has turned really wrinkly.

And that damn blue curtain. Too long and too blue.

Out with the old!

So I re-covered both the cabinet and the jumpseat with new, padded, basketweave vinyl, $40 at the fabric store.

Removed and re-painted all the brown wood trim. Touched everything up. $4 can of paint.

Re-assembled everything with my new pin-nailer for 100% invisible fasteners, no more little trim nail heads on everything. Also, much easier to do than hammering all those damn little nails.

I made a new brown curtain too - shorter than the last one so it won’t always be flipping inside or outside over the lip. It’s a little stiff right now, but it should shake out and learn to hang flat.

I also shortened the whole jumpseat (front-to-back) by 3 inches for a little more critical interior legroom at the table and cooler space on the floor when cruising.

In with the new!

For the record, I still LOVE this home-brewed "camper/weekender" layout. There's lots of space. I always remove the cooler and do all my cooking at the campground picnic table or on my own little pop-up outdoor table. I love being able to take all that stuff outside and have all that space inside. At this point I'm sure I could re-design and re-build it all from the ground up, but I just love it too much just the way it is.

Oh, I finally vacuumed and spot-cleaned the carpet too. I think it had been like 2 years

Before all this - last year - the only work I think I did to her recently was to replace the windshield with a new one that doesn't have the blue-tint strip at the top. That was a GOOD move. Very happy about that. Now I can tell what color stoplights are!

[Clementine79]

Looks really nice, we are debating putting normal carpet like that in ours or hardwood.

[hoagy86]

Nice glad to see you still have the ol bus and use it from time to time always loved the 78 Kombi I used to have! Keep up with the great work

[Daverham]

We took her out for an almost-sunset, family taco dinner by the marina a few nights ago.

I got myself a new GoPro recently. I love the look of the bus pics with the wide-angle lens.

[Daverham]

I've been reading and posting in the lowering FAQ and the off-road FAQ and I finally got it all figured out. So here are the results, amongst a few other things.

For our 10-year anniversary (the bus & me), I gave her a suspension makeover:

• Return the front to factory height with stock spindles (re-pack bearings, new seals, etc).
• Return the rear to factory height (plus saggy-butt correction) with torsion bar adjustment.
• Koni shocks all around!
• HD sway bar up front.
• And one fixed ball joint boot.

EDIT TO ADD:
• Oil change & Filter
• Rear Brake Adjust
• New all-terrain tires!
• Fixed the rattly missing shifter bushing

After a recent camp trip with the whole family in the car (and a canoe on the roof), I was fully freaked out by bottoming out on some dips and divots on the highway. When the bus slams down onto one tire and jerks the steering wheel to that side, you can't imagine the stress and adrenaline... so that had to go.

I just buttoned it all up and went out for a test drive. Wahoo! I love the way she corners! I no longer feel like I have to lean like I'm driving a motorcycle. I was whipping around corners way faster than I was ever comfortable before. You can really feel that sway bar activate and lower the inside. It's incredible. I highly recommend this upgrade.

And now I'm 100% confident that I won't be bottoming out anymore. It never happened before I installed drop spindles seven years ago, so I have no reason to ever expect that insanity again.

Finally, raising the rear...

Let me just tell you that all this crap about 1 inner spline or 1 outer spline is all smoke and mirrors. None of it matters. Just save yourself some time and measure the spring plate angle. You don't even need to mark the bars/plate if you're measuring. Who cares where it used to be?? Just measure, rotate, measure, rotate until it's in the right place. Done. Easy. I re-did both sides in about an hour and a half this morning. It's no big deal. Did you know that your iPhone comes with an app called "Measure" and it displays angles like a protractor. So easy.

As of last night, I had it all buttoned up. I had raised the rear 1 inner spline (to un-do the lowering that I did seven years ago). Then I raised it one more inner spline to compensate for the ol’ saggy-drawers, which I absolutely hate. Well, I can tell you that 1 spline is too much. The back was jacked and visibly higher than the front, even with no one sitting in the bus. Yikes. At plus-one inner spline, the spring plate was at 30˚(unloaded). And that put the CV shafts at 17˚ (loaded), which is the maximum a late bay CV shaft is supposed to flex (I looked this up on some off-road sites as well as found the same info on the Samba). Yes, you can get Porsche 924 and 944 shafts which will bolt right up and they have a wider range of angles. If you are really “lifting” your bus, do that. But for me, I just wanted to correct the goofy-ass, saggy-butt syndrome which is what inspired me to lower the front in the first place.

So this morning, I took it all part again and just rotated the bars and the plates all willy nilly until I got 25˚. That’s just a TAD higher than the 22˚ recommended by Bentley. Good. Perfect. I re-measured my CV shafts (loaded) and they are sitting chill at 10˚. Great. And now the bus is sitting ALMOST level, just a little high in the front, with no driver. Done. For the record (I was actually paying attention), I think that was 3 clicks down on the inner and 3 clicks up on the outer. Something like that. I think that’s starting from the stock 22˚. But like I said, screw counting the splines. Just measure the spring plate angle and you're golden.


Finally… some photos!


Her new (proper) stance. Pretty much factory, with a *hint* less sag in the rear end:

I know this looks like a camp/trip photo, but it's just a park down the road from my house. This is from this morning's test drive.

Here are a few favorite pics from that camp trip, a few weeks ago. She’s still lowered in these photos:

And this one is also from a few weeks ago, after I finished my new trailer hitch:

All about that here:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=723050&highlight=

[airschooled]

Fantastic story and photos!

From the side shot, I really doubt you’re stressing the CVs much. Plus, a bus out and about on family trips seems to function better than a bus that sits in the garage, but I can’t find that in the Bentley to prove it.

Robbie
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[stevespeirs]

Good stuff - I remember reading this thread 10 years ago. How time flies!!

I really need to tackle the "raising the rear" project one of these days. PO lowered the front with a Wagenswest adjustable beam, and the rear by adjusting the spring plates/torsion bars. Bus doesn't ride great and although it looks pretty cool, I'm leaning towards going back to stock height.

Keep up the great work and thanks for the posts!
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1979 Microbus