msinabottle
Samba Member
Joined: September 20, 2005
Posts: 3492
Location: Denver Area, Colorado
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 Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:11 pm Post subject: In Which Winston Mulls Things Over |
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I rejoice in my girl friend, for many reasons, not the least being that those who have known me longest would doubt her existence! For her part, she has become quite fond of Winston and has always liked Volkswagens, witness her winsome modeling with the VW Bug Jack I won some years back at VW's on the Green:
It was not the first time I got jack.
We were both invited to a Medieval Masque--I as a guest, my lady as a guest who would also be catering Medieval food... for 15... No, 25! Would you believe 50? How about 18... 22?
But I get ahead of the story. And as my lady worked her fingers to the bone, then to the gravy, then to the salad, the number of expected guests fluctuated--which is really quite an awful thing, for someone trying to prepare food. She got a bit desperate. She was NOT going to have access to a kitchen at the Legion Hall in which the event was taking place. She had an electric steam table, an electric roasting pan, and a lot to do without much time in which to do it as a cold and wet storm front moved toward the Rocky Mountains.
She does have, however, a boyfriend, who was willing, with trepidation, to deploy a proven asset with a microwave, a refrigerator (sort of) and a two-burner propane stove. In other words...
Winston!
The trepidation came from two sources. The first was that I had run Winston's propane from a single fill all the way through my eight weekends on the job site and the Rocky Mountain Westy camp-out, I wasn't sure (are we ever?) how much was left. Admittedly, I'd been able to plug in and run the fridge off AC power... My other worry came from Winston's Agilis tires. They are GREAT on pavement, good on dirt, adequate on mud, fine in rain and... on ice... horrible beyond words.
There was a possibility in the forecast of freezing rain.
But... It was going to be cold. She had a lot to move. She would need things heated or kept refrigerated. This looked like a job for...
SuperVan!
I wished I'd been able to have Winston's wheels balanced. He was otherwise in pretty good shape and ready to go, so I got him ready for sea and set out at high noon last Saturday and gassed him up with his usual four ounces of Marvel Mystery Oil. Had to back him into the gas pumps, he did well. 22 mpg. I attribute that to alcohol in our gas and going down the Poudre River Canyon in 3rd. And running at high speed* just because I felt like it.
He DOES have a lot of wind noise. All seals are due to be replaced when I get him de-dented, de-rusted, and re-painted over what I hope will be this winter. He and I have one more camping event planned, then I'll top off his fuel tank and give him his usual winter's dose of Sea Foam. That trick of holding the gas nozzle up slightly so that it touches the filler tube DOES work, just one little spritz of gas before it shuts off and I DO NOT TOP HIM OFF! Washed the bugs off his windows, too.
From the Official Oil Thread (TM) I have learned that it is perhaps better to let new oil sit in the engine over the Winter than have old dirty oil there those long cold months. A big concern of mine was Winston's 20W50 in 40 degree weather, but he started, without so much as lifter noise, and ran beautifully at either end of the trip. I did give him some time to warm up before putting any load on him. There is a new ZDDP-high Castrol 'Synthetic with Edge Technology' 5W50 that is intriguing as a year-round oil. And, after all, what could happen from merely changing Winston's oil from his usual?
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6106495#6106495
Off to my lovely lady's, some 35 miles distant, then a rather long lading of bottles and bottles of mulled apple cider, bag after bag of roasted pork shoulder and chicken, appliances, utensils, we forgot her electric hot plate. Finally my lady and her costume were on board (Winston stood ready to be, among his other tasks, our changing room, my shirt and draw-string pants were in Winston's closet) and then a delightful jaunt to Broomfield. With errors of navigation due to a remarkably obtuse navigation app on her IPhone.
Cold sleet! Cold rain! Fog! Gratitude for Winston's functional heaters! Finally figuring it out and pulling up at the Legion Hall! Admiring of the Jane Fonda targets in the urinals! Finding a back door in a little unpaved area behind the Hall, into which Winston tucked easily and conveniently. Hurray!
There were shielded outdoor outlets, so Winston had shore power thanks to an extension cord I always keep in him. Thanks to a short extension cord I also always keep in him, I was able to run the Microwave off the shore power, instead of off the battery. We were ready to, as they said in Merrie England, 'rocketh.'
The title of this VERBOSE post comes from my own activity, once we'd unloaded Winston, put the salad greens into his refrigerator and donned our garb, my lady choosing to change indoors because there it wasn't 45 degrees and getting colder.
After that it became Winston's and my duty to mull apple cider and boil water for tea. We had jugs of good spring water, I hadn't bothered to fill the onboard system, we had my little Primus utterly-conventional 1 quart tea kettle, and, fortunately, we had the old white-and-blue enameled coffee pot I keep in Winston for the occasional large batch of tea. It worked superbly to reheat jug after jug of cider and thank goodness the propane held out! I did have my backup system ready:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=353952
What we put out, they ate. Jousters jousted, poets poe'ed, very weird and interesting things went on, and my lady's marvelous food and drink disappeared, heated or chilled as required by my faithful Westfalia camper.
All that went on for eight hours. I put the top up to make it easier to work within him. As it grew darker, foggier, and colder, Winston's internal lights were most welcome. A little girl had a bad reaction to a latex glove, I keep artificial tears in Winston that helped her, we needed utensils, I had them in Winston... He just kept helping along what proved, in the course of the day and evening, to be quite a success.
There was rather less to load back into him. After that came getting him ready for sea and remembering to unplug him from the Legion's outlet, interrupted by a nasty fall on an asphalt ramp in the darkness (ouch!) then a long cold drive (down to the 30's!) back over mercifully DRY roads to my Lady's, where we arrived at... 12:30 A.M.
Winston's various heating and defrosting apparatus all had worked superbly as the night grew colder still. I unloaded my faithful van, bid farewell to my beautiful lady, and Winston and I faced a long journey home on fairly empty interstates, during which drive I repeatedly rejoiced in his Hella H4's and the lack of ice on the roads.
It is MUCH easier to back Winston into the garage at night--the house faces north and you get a really horrific glare at the wrong times of the day trying to get him up and in. Up and in, though, he duly got, charger plugged into our house current once again, and both my faithful van and I could go to sleep (at 3 A.M.) in the knowledge that we had helped a gracious and beautiful lady in a job well done.
And I was very tired.
Best!
*High speed was about 67 MPH at slightly over 4200 RPM. WHAT WERE YOU EXPECTING?
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'Winston,' '84 1.9 WBX Westy
Vanagon Poet Laureate: "I have suffered in
many ways, but never, never, never in silence." |
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