Meet Greta, a 1976 Westy. Let's make her beautiful again!

[RONIN10]

I know the restoration threads are a dime a dozen and can get a little tedious, but I often find the best information and insight buried in these threads. Following them can be an inspiration as well as give you a sympathetic ear when motivation and frustration are the order of the day. I've gleaned a ton of information from this site and hopefully this thread can provide a bit of all that to someone else.

So onto Greta. Named by my wife, she's a 1976 2.0L Westfalia in pretty rough shape. I purchased her 2 years ago knowing she needed an engine rebuild among other things, but driveable. I managed to get a year of driving out of her before the cam shaft had worn too much and last winter and spring undertook rebuilding the engine. She currently has dual Weber IDF 44s though I'm switching back to fuel injection now that the FI components are all back in decent order. I've also already gone through the brakes, heaters, and other miscellaneous tasks, but those all went undocumented here. I hope to change that going forward.

This bus is my daily driver so any projects will need to limit the amount of time off the road. That said, I can easily have her off the road for a couple days with little fuss.

Off to get some photos of her in her current state so we can all witness the progression.

Please help me be diligent! If you find this thread interesting and too much time passes without an update, feel free to prod me with a PM or comment in this thread. My son's bug rebuild may compete, but I'm always doing a bit of something on Greta so should be able to give news regularly.
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[RONIN10]

Here's how she looks at the moment:

_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[cliveawn]

nice bus!
how far into restoring are you going to go?
Full down to metal respray or just a once over filler job?
if you go full out and properly restore her you will get alot of interest here and help.
All depends on how much you are willing to spend on her.
In my opinion these busses will only increase in value and will end up being as costly to purchase as a splitty.
If you are going to restore her i would go full on and use the best painter and welder possible,get them to use as little filler as possible.
keep her garaged and highly polished and you should have very slight problems with rust.
Next winter i am going to restore my westy full on regarding painting but motor is ok at the moment so that will come later.
Im glad you are taking the time to save another westy,well done!
good luck and looking forward to seeing the progress.
_________________
---------------------------------------------------------



Green 78 Westfalia Helsinki,

2056 with 41 x 34 valves,ported heads
Fully balanced
8,5:1CR
JPM Custom made cam
JPM 7075 dual taper pushrods
IDF 40's with 28mm venturi's
Python CSP 42mm exhaust.
115 HP

Daily driver 2017 Volvo V60 D5 hybrid
Rica stage 2 tune 345hp.

''Funny thing about common sense is that its not very common''

Seismic gun mechanic

[eche_bus]

It's great to see another '76 build thread! I can imagine mine being tedious (it is for me ), but there can be a lot learned from watching others go through the trials and travails.

Will look forward to reading your posts!

[RONIN10]

I'll eventually take her down to pure metal. With the rear impact damage, she definitely needs some new sheet metal welded in on those rear corners. Anyway, she's already been oversprayed once or twice (in areas) so it's time to get the metal right and give her a proper paint job again.

Regardless, that work is at least a year or more off. In the interim, I'll be doing a lot of smaller jobs here and there. Some of them will be done to a level to just keep the rust at bay or to get her closer to original condition so when the time comes to gut her for body and paint, reassembly is simply reassembly and not an achingly slow process of put something in, realize something's not correct and then a week or more of research and ordering parts to get that step completed.

Eche, your thread has been tremendously helpful and one of the motivational ones. In order to get my wife to ride in the bus, I need to be able to keep it warm so the priority at the moment, when I'm not distracted by other little jobs, is to get it all sealed up well. That starts with the front doors. I've got some of those door panels from BusOK and am working on getting all the components in order before reinstalling.
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[RONIN10]

For those of you following the door panels thread, I'm the guy that swung by BusOK's Amsterdam location to pick up their fine door panels:

My originals were trashed due the complete absence of a vapor barrier. It's time to get these things installed. I must admit, I'm a little nervous about cutting into the vinyl to complete the door release lever, window winder, and fresh air vent openings. Any technique suggestions?

Now, just arrived yesterday from Wolfsburg West - among other Bug and Bus goodies - was the door panel clips and seals for this project. I picked up some 4 mil plastic sheeting from the local Ace Hardware and used the BusOK panels as templates for the vapor barrier. I'm waiting for dry and reasonably warm weather (hopefully this weekend) to see how the rough cut vapor barriers line up with the actual door. I will be using this 3M spray adhesive, leftover from a prior project:

I'm going to try eche_bus' WD40 trick to get the remaining adhesive residue off the doors. To this point, I've been using some ancient Mother's polish which, with a little elbow grease, cut well through most of the adhesive. I'll post photos next time, it's dark out.

What I really wanted to show with this post is the repainted slider vents:

Like the smart guy that I am, I didn't take any before pictures. These vents were taken from a scrapyard bus which had caught fire (Arlington Pick-n-Pull if anyone else wants to try and salvage some other parts). There was some significant discoloration, but they were otherwise in good order. I cleaned them thoroughly with mineral spirits, then further with Duplicolor Prep-Spray, used some left over primer, and then painted them with Wolfsburg West Grey-Black (L43) I had ordered to do my dash. I think they turned out great!

The L43 paint from WW seems really durable. So much so that I decided to do the finger cup and door pull frames. Having learned something, I took before photos:

After primer:

And after paint and clear coat:

Not so impressive on these parts, but better anyway.

As an aside, one of the things I had gotten with my latest WW package was two cans of the L581 cloud white paint. This is the color I'll be doing my bumpers and poptop (next summer) and I wanted to test it out on something, so I decided to use a salvaged sink drain outlet. I actually started this at the same time I did the vents above so no before photo, but I did get a photo in primer, since I was waiting for the cans of white to arrive:

Same prep process as before and here's what it looks like now with a few coats of clear coat added:

Last item to refurb, the sliders:

I'm heading out to Wesco tomorrow morning to see if they have a decent match. Anyone know the color code?

Cheers!
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[RONIN10]

Before I run off to the hardware store and Wesco, I thought I'd replace my cruddy turn signal lens seals:

Drill the two rivets out.

Housing out:

One thing I learned is that the original seals wrapped around the housing whereas the new seals from Wolfsburg West are separated into two pieces, one for the front and one for the rear. Here's the rear installed on the housing:

And the housing pop riveted into place:

I'm going to have to go back and replace these housings at some point down the line as I discovered the passenger side had cracks running threaded sections of the plastic where the lens bolts screw in. There were other fatigue cracks on the driver side. And on both sides, while drilling out the lower rivet, I found that drilling the rivet would also spin loose a section of the plastic housing, hence the washer under the rivet in the picture above.

Outer seal installed:

And lens back on:

Another issue with the driver side was that at some point, it appears that someone had tried to pry the turn signal housing loose and bent the surrounding flange in a couple of spots. This reduced the integrity of the already degraded seal though they had tried to remedy it was some kind of putty to seal the gap. Upon replacing it, I used some of the extra foam from the seal kit I got from WW and then trimmed it off after installing the lens. It' doesn't look great; you can see the line of black foam across the top, but it should keep the rain out:

Cheers.

Edit
Tcash
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[RONIN10]

So I took a hiatus from the door panels to reinstall the fuel injection system. Originally, when I bought the bus about two years ago, it came with the fuel injection system installed, but last winter when I rebuilt the engine due to a failing cam shaft, I found the FI system to be in a serious state of neglect. So I went ahead and installed a set of dual Weber IDF carbs which I already had on hand. In the intervening time, I found replacements for the some of the missing fuel injection parts and learned myself up on the overall FI system operation. So yesterday morning it looked like this:

Boo!

Tonight, it looks like this:

Yay!

But it won't start. Boo!

Turns over fine, almost lit a few times, but never quite caught. Let the troubleshooting begin.

I will miss the easy access and cleaner look of dual carbs though.
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[curtis4085]

Keep up the good work. Before you no it you will have a clean a tight dear friend that you can make many memories in for years to come.

I look forward to seeing your progress.
_________________
Special Thanks to:
Headflow Masters - Vista, CA
www.headflowmasters.com

[kkjellquist]

Greta is my daughter's name. You better treat this bus right!
_________________
1977 Sage Green Deluxe Campmobile - "Turtel"
(1978 2L FI, Pertronix, Hydraulic Lifters)

Turtel - http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=561195

Pisgah Bus Rally - New Year's Day
http://pisgahbusrally.blogspot.com/

[eche_bus]

Congrats on gathering and installing all that FI stuff. Sorry to read it won't start, but hopefully (likely) it's something simple. The Bentley book is pretty good as a FI guide and there's a lot of info here so at least you're not going it alone!

[RONIN10]

So I spent a couple hours working on Greta today, trouble shooting the FI no start condition. I went through the Bentley double relay check out procedure and all came out fine. As I was looking over the engine, puzzling on what I should be checking next, I noticed wetness on the wire harnesses leading to the aux air valve and thermo time switch, conveniently located directly below the cold start valve. An aha! moment. Fortunately, I had another cold start valve on hand and swapped it out. No more leaks. Climbed into the driver seat and turn the key...damn!

So I decided to go back to another bit of info that stuck in my memory. I wasn't certain that I reset the air bypass screw on the throttle body to it's original position. Honestly, I hadn't even noted the original number of turns out it was. So I swept through the full spectrum of screw positions 1/4 turn at a time and found that I could get it to run with the screw set to 1 1/2 turns out while giving it gas. 1 1/2 turns seems like it's pretty close in. *shrugs* I dunno. What's everyone else running?

Anyway, that's where I stand at the moment. Needed to stop so I could wrap gifts and head over to my in-laws. Probably won't be back to work on Greta until the 26th, but I'd happily entertain comments, questions, and/or suggestions in the meantime.
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[RONIN10]

Still working the FI conversion. Here's what's new:

I throughly check for vacuum leaks all over the engine and did not find any leaks. Not unexpected as whatever wasn't new was check for leaks before hand.

Having found that I could get the RPMs up at 1 1/2 turns out of the air bypass screw in the throttle body, I decided to find the range for which I couldn't do this. Turns out no more than 5 turns out before I couldn't finesse the RPMs upward. Settled on 3 turns out as it was the middle of the range, figuring what was causing issues was elsewhere.

While playing the RPM game, I checked the full advance. It's set to 24 degrees BTDC. Not the usual 28 degrees you see recommended all over the Samba, but I wasn't yet ready to adjust that since I'm trying to find a stable idle. Yes, hydraulic valves are adjusted correctly; I haven't touched them since removing the dual carbs.

More pondering, head scratching and such and it occurred to me to double check the Temp II sensor. Resistance came out 660 ohms so well below the required ~2500 ohms per Bentley so that will need replacing and also per Bentley, drives the fuel delivery on startup and during warmup. The hunt begins for a local vendor that has this in stock. I missed checking out this component before hand. Doh!

As always, ideas, suggestions, and questions welcome.
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[RONIN10]

Well, I'm virtually out of ideas which might be described as "conventional" and my wife now thinks I'm spawn of the devil because 1 car amongst 3 drivers is quite unpleasant.

Recapping my troubleshooting process for my own benefit and anyone that wants to help me out...

* Fuel injectors were cleaned and tested by Cruzin' Performance and left in a sealed baggy until installation using new seals.
* Thermo Time Switch checked out for temperature and resistance prior to installation.
* Aux Air Regulator (AAR) checked out for temperature and resistance prior to installation.
* All connectors on wiring harness checked out for continuity prior to installation.
* New hoses used for all vacuum and fuel lines except for the large diameter hooked hose between the decel valve and the s-boot.
* After installation, I electrically verified the fuel pump was working correctly.
* After installation, I electrically verified that the double relay was working correctly, per the Bentley procedure.
* I suspected the Air Bypass Screw on the throttle body was incorrectly set so I experimented, adjusting the screw from all the way in to 6 turns out, incrementing 1/4 turn at a time.
* Discovered that from 1 1/2 turns out to 4 3/4 turns out, I could use the throttle to overcome rough start/idle at low RPMs and then run up the RPMs to something greater than 2,000 RPMs and hold them there without the engine stalling. Set the throttle bypass screw to 3 turns, in the middle of the prior range.
* Fuel pump must be working correctly since RPM run up wouldn't work otherwise.
* No vacuum leaks found after multiple passes trying to find one. Checked brake booster hose tee and booster one-way valve. Checked all hoses at decel valve, the vacuum lines between the distributor, air cleaner, fuel pressure regulator, and throttle body. Checked all over the s-boot, around the PCV valve/oil breather chimney, and at the connections for the AAR. Checked where the injection and manifold meet the cylinder head.
* Temp Sensor II (TS2) was found to have unexpectedly high resistance after installation. Replaced to no effect.
* Multiple reads through Bentley, AFC manaul, Bosch FI manual, and countless Samba threads on FI idle issues.
* I'm sure there are other things I've done and forgotten to mention.

What makes sense to check out next? Frustration is interfering with a rational methodology so I guessing at things now. If you couldn't tell, I am trying to avoid at all costs, adjusting the Air Flow Meter mixture screw. It was unchanged, but it's getting to where that's seems to be all that's left, particularly with the canon shots periodically coming out of my tailpipe.

I wouldn't say no to a Seattle-Area-Savior out there with a better handle of FI swinging by my house to help me out.

Much love all,

Desperately-Seeking-A-Running-Bus
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[eche_bus]

I'm unclear here - is this a problem only with the idle speed or does it not run right at higher RPMs? Have your brought the engine up to normal running temperature? Does it run, does it idle OK at that point or not?

[RONIN10]

Sorry for the confusion. Seems to run right at high RPM, but won't idle at any condition. Family holiday get togethers have taken up most of my time the last day or so, but I have manage to go through the whole system and check each of the FI components and each functions properly.

So this leaves me looking at the engine as somehow incorrect. I already checked the timing at full advance and while at 24 (correct for my distributor) it's not at 28 as recommended around the Samba. Still not ready to fuss with that just yet as I should be able to sustain an idle and I want to research the 28 BTDC reasoning first.

So onto the valves. These became a major suspect when I was testing the cold start valve spraying into a baggie as I had a few finger hairs singed due to a burst of flame in the plenum, i.e. intake opening too early or exhaust too late. So that's where I am at the moment.
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[RONIN10]

Interesting developments today. I went ahead and adjusted my valves (1 1/2 turns from contact with the engine warm), reset the timing to 7.5 BTDC, then fiddled with the Air Bypass screw on the Throttle housing. Finally, finally, was able to get to idle, albeit roughly. Yay, right? Not really.

Went to test drive it and found that I as soon as I put load a on it (i.e. 1st gear), the RPMs collapsed. Didn't even make it out of my driveway. I went back and with the engine idling its ugly idle, starting pulling plugs. Turns out I was only running on cylinder #4, which explains why the idle was so rough and adjusting the Air Bypass screw did next to nothing.
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle

[tootype2crazy]

Well you are at least getting somewhere. I love that bus! Keep up the good work.
_________________
air-cooled or nothing for me
1978 Sunroof Deluxe Bus (daily driver)
1978 Transporter (mom's, making into a camper)
1970 Single Cab 2.1 turbo/EFI 6 Rib, 78 front beam, vanagon backing plates on rear (project)
2001 GTI VR6 (wife's)

[old DKP driver]

You have done ALOT of nice work on 'Greta' so, keep up the great work !

Nice to see that you went back to the Simple F.I. system too!
_________________
V.W.owner since 1967

[RONIN10]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. Here's what's new this evening:

Noting that engine only dies when I pull the wire from plug #4, I checked the other wires for spark. #1 and #2 had consistent spark and #3 was inconsistent to the point where I almost overlooked it.

Since it was quick and I had it on hand, I tried swapping the distributor cap, no change. Then tried another rotor, no change. Swapped the #3 wire (the weak, intermittent one), no change. Current was getting to the series resistor, but I tried a new one anyway (desperation), no change. Checked the fuel injectors for continuity, all good.

I did notice when connecting the wires from the #1 and #3 cylinders that I would get an intermittent, short lived smoothing out of the idle.

So what's left to consider...the coil (definitely old), the Pertronix (only 6 months old), what else?

I've got another coil which I can try, but unless someone has a stunning breakthrough, I may just have to tow in down to the shop. I know I'm just going to end up paying them to go through 90% of what I've done, but I figure they'll have the equipment and insight to get there faster.
_________________
Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle