Bavarian Syncro fire truck

[RainierSyncro]

Time to open the can of worms. Taking off the interior side panels off to see what's lurking behind and to do some sound deadening. I've been dreading it for a while mostly based on finding scary rust behind the front grill (see page 5). The panels don't come off easy after popping off the plastic fasteners. Some genius at the shop that converted the van for government service decided to put the side panels in first and then the floor panels. In doing that, they ended up overlapping the side panels. To get them off, you have to remove the floor, but the floor is glued down. The top of the panel fits up in a spot welded channel, so to remove you have to slide the bottom out which is blocked by the floor panel. The solution was to use a oscillating multi tool to cut about 3mm off the bottom of the panel and pop it out. Took a long time to get the proper depth and not cut into the body. The panel came out and bullet dodged! No rust nightmare. Good paint and the bottom of the rear section had some POR-15 like paint slathered on. Cleaned out the bottom, Added some sound deadening, sprayed the sh!t out of it with Fluid Film and put the panel back. Since this side was surprisingly good, I skipped the driver's rear side panel to avoid wasting another afternoon on that.

The middle panel was next. Again, it was overlapped by the floor panel. I was able to avoid cutting the bottom by bowing out the middle and sliding out the bottom. No rust to be found here. There was a big bracket installed to support the cheap table that I removed. Found out an interesting thing with the panel out. There was a large hole in the panel that had me wondering what it was for. Well at the bottom, there was a loose phone socket that someone cut the wires off of. So there was another phone installed near the rear table I guess. I'll just put the socket back in the hole and leave it at that. No need to get another phone.

That's it for now. Next month, it's front brake work (got a warped front rotor) and switching out the weak Bosch foglights for some bigger Hella 4000's.

[RainierSyncro]

Did some hiking around Mt. Rainier in August & September. On the East side of the park, the Norse Peak fire was raging. They had closed off the highway at Cayuse Pass eastward. Heading south was not a problem. The first 2 times I drove in the area, you could smell smoke in the darkness on the way into the park and see the smoke on the way out. The last time I went up there, the fire had made it's way to the highway and you could see a bunch of hot spots glowing away in the early morning. A little disconcerting but nowhere near what's going on in CA right now.

[RainierSyncro]

More stuff has been done, but before I get into that, near disaster! A couple of weeks ago, I hopped in the van heading out towards downtown Seattle. Motor sounded loud like a lifter clacking. No problem, just get it on the freeway and the lifter will get pumped back up. Not the case this time. The motor was getting louder and louder like ALL the lifters were clacking. Uh oh, doesn't sound good. Decided to bag the Seattle trip and reverse it down the street and back to the driveway. Hugh puddle of oil at the top of the street with a trail of oil back to the house. Checked the oil. Nothing there. The whole back of the van had a sheen of oil plastered over it. Put in 2 quarts of oil and started it. Oil was pouring out of the oil pressure sensor at furious pace. Turned out it was a cracked pipe to the sensor that decided to snap off after leaking for who knows how long. Motor was ok and sensor fixed.

Added a Van Cafe big brake kit to replace the slightly warped ones on the van. There has been a problem with chirping and the front wheels becoming very hot to the touch after a long run. Still have problems with out of round rear drums creating a pulsating pedal. These are the GW finned drums that I bought a while back. Will have to get them turned. The new fronts are making the pulsating more noticeable. Had the shop rewire the dashcam so it will come on when the van is started and new rollers added to the slider to quiet it down. Nice and smooth now.

New lights added. The previous Bosch lights were good in lighting up the shoulders on both sides, but I decided to go really big. Hella Rallye 4000 big. These are the foglight version of the 4000. It took some time to find the right version. Most for sale are the spotlight kind. Finding amber lights was impossible, but I did locate a company in Australia making color covers for rally lights. The place is called Australian Spotlight Protection (ASP). Contacting this place got no reply back. Had to e-mail a friend down under to help. Even he had problems getting the covers from the company. They sent them to him and he sent them to me. I think he told me they mostly do wholesale orders. Anyway, here's a link to their website and they have a ton of different colors and tints. https://www.spotlightprotection.com.au/ These covers are thick and look pretty good. They sort of snap on the light but they are not on the glass. There is a small air gap between the lens and the cover. Well that's it for now. See you guys at the Marymoor meet up in a few weeks.

The lights are too close to the body to be able to use the lower grill without modifying it. Another project using the Dremel tool. Notice the air gap between the lens and the cover.

[Alaskaberrys]

[RainierSyncro]

Nine months have gone by without a problem. I think I might have worked enough bugs out of the system that it's finally becoming a reliable daily driver. I've noticed more people coming up to me and asking about the van. A guy who was stationed in Germany in his army days, tracked me down at work to ask about it. One older woman saw the door decals and wanted to know if I knew a certain family that lived near Syrgenstein. I explained that I imported the van from Germany. Her response was "so you don't know (family name)?" I said no and she said "oh, thank you" and walked away.

Picked up a new toy yesterday. A Fiat Campagnola, sort of a MB G-Wagen contemporary. It was built for the Italian military and government use. Not many made it out of its home market. There's just a handful in the states. I really didn't intend to get the Fiat, it just kinda happened. I was doing some research on it and found a guy on the east coast that was looking for one also, so we were brainstorming ideas on how to get one. I contacted Busman for help and found out that Switzerland and Italy are the only two countries he will not pick up vehicles from. I think he said that Swiss paperwork is hard to deal with and he kinda had some deals gone sour in Italy. Anyway, found a business near Florence, Italy called NetClassic. The owner(?) Emanuel was super helpful. If I found something on the web (www.subito.it), he'll go out and inspect it (for a fee). I sent him out to inspect 2 Camps that were "restored" and he came back with definite thumbs down on both (but...but...they were restored!). I couldn't afford more inspections, so I had him look at one more Camp that was 3k Euro cheaper than the other two. Emanuel came back to report this one was the one to get. Little rust and mechanically solid but with just a crummy paint job. If everything pans out like it should, I'll be into this 4x4 for under $10k with the shipping. It has a 2 liter gas engine and I think 60mph is about as fast as it will go comfortably.

The Camp is surprisingly bigger than I thought. It is the same height as the Syncro and the height from the ground to the door sill is 17". It's a cool little 4x4, but it drives like a tractor, it generates a ton of heat off the exhaust and no sound deadeding. I'll play around with it for a while before deciding to keep it.

[RainierSyncro]

Hey, remember this build thread? I just thought I'd come back to it for a three year update. Bought the Syncro way back in 2014 from Germany with the help of Busman. Spent 4 long frustrating years getting it to daily driver status. It's been towed 7 times during the whack-a-mole updating process. The light at the end of the tunnel was reached in 2018 when nothing happened all year. No break downs and no tows. There was a super annoying wocka wocka wocka wocka noise when riding the brake at low speeds. One shop tried to fix it twice and it came roaring back a week later. Took it to Eion's in Seattle and his crew somehow got it to shut up for good. They also managed to take care of a steering wheel shake at 60 mph which nobody could fix for years. They did say that the steering rack was loose and was tightened down. That may have been it.

Still needs a headliner for above the front seats. The rest of the ceiling is some sort of thick fiberboard. I can't put the headliner in until I fix the drippy rubber grommets from when the fire department mounted their roof equipment. The dash lights went out and the shop told me it's a cracked blue plastic circuit board behind the cluster. I think GoWesty has a updated work around for this(?) Those are the only problems in the last 3 years. I do take the van to the shop yearly to fix minor problems and have them do an inspection for any future problems.

The other project is a 1983 Fiat Camapgnola 4x4 which has been slightly less frustrating than the Syncro build was. The Syncro was an ex-fire department support vehicle and this Fiat was also a fire department 4x4 for the northern Italian town of Castelfondo. New paint, tires, seals and a tune-up was done. It runs and drives like a tractor. It doesn't accelerate, but slowly builds momentum like loaded down semi truck. 60mph is the maximum comfortable speed. I might have to mount on back one of those reflective triangles for slow moving farm equipment. I don't think it was meant for driving in today's traffic at all, but it sure looks cool. The Syncro can kick its ass performance wise, but the Fiat gets most of the waves and questions.

[Steve M.]

Nah...the Syncro outshines the Fiat by far!
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