'Let's Go! Scotland-Croatia and onwards in our Kombi!'

[Slip356]

I’m guessing you know this but be sure to anneal the oval copper washers between the manifold and the heads and use the correct copper, one time only special lock nuts. Good idea to check tourque on them annually. If not familiar with annealing, use a propane or map gas tourch here, get them red hot & dip in cold water. They come out much softer so they seal really well. Did this two years ago and re tourked nuts last year, all tightened ever so slightly.

[mcdonaldneal]

I dropped off bumpers, mounts, support bar and engine tin for blasting and powder coating today.
I was going to get them to bLast the HExs and heat shield above the exhaust, so that I could paint, but it turns out they do high temp ceramic coating, so I’m going to get them to do that instead of me painting them by hand. Result!
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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

The underbody cleaning/rust treatment/paint is a strictly limited area this time. Just a strip either side of the engine bay and the underside of some tin that is in situ.
First stage is the needle gun, which gets rid of rust, paint, scale and the remains of sticky underseal.
The photos are ‘before’!

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[Abscate]

I know you don’t like the weight if those Roo bars but the first time you come down to England and some plonker bashes in your coachworks and breaks your lights…. I’m going to cry.
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.ssS!

[mcdonaldneal]

[mcdonaldneal]

Stage 2 of the new, streamlined underbody stripping process: wire brushes in a power drill. Dusty, but not too bad. I’ll save pictures for when it’s actually stripped and ready for rust treatment.

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Low key preparation for painting underneath continues…
I thought is was worth cleaning the engine before paint, so a toothbrush and paraffin, followed by a plastic scourer and isopropyl alcohol has spruced things up a bit. The two sides of underbody are nearly ready now.

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

I have painted the bodywork underneath now. I decided to go with brushing on POR15 black, as I had a small tin and because I was also doing some tinware pieces in situ and the oil filler tube the masking up would have been too fiddly. No pictures yet though, wet paint!

Next job is upgrading the valve adjusting screws to Swivel feet. I have 8mm screws and 1700 rocker arms, so I will install those first with solid spacers. At a later date I can grind down the stock 10mm rocker arms and refit them.

I wasn’t sure how easily I could remove the 1.5mm needed from the rockers, but using the grinding wheel and cooling in water as I go it was pretty easy. I locked an old adjusting screw at a depth of 1.5mm so I would know when to stop. It gives better geometry with a shim under the rocker stands, but I need to see if the studs are long enough.
Plan to make progress and take more pictures tomorrow!

The cork is to keep the oil hole clean, and I polished all the edges smooth after these pics.

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Well, I kept the day clear today and spent it altering rocker arms to accept the swivel foot adjusters. The Kombi has 10mm adjusters but I am fitting the rocker assembly from a 1700. Eventually I will do the same work on the original rockers and refit them. One step at a time!

I’ll talk you through what I did with one pair of rockers.

First, I discarded the central springs and old thrust washers and took out the adjuster screws. I have solid spacers and new adjusters.

Then, cleaned all the parts with kerosene and IPA, and a scotch brite pad. The shaft was rotated smooth in oiled emery paper.

The ideal is to grind off 1.5mm from the bottom of the rocker. What I did was used an old adjuster screw to find a ‘zero’ point and then back out the screw 1.5 turns (it is a 1mm thread pitch). Then, blacken the end of the adjuster with a sharpie and grind with a bench grinder, alternating the two rockers and cooling in a tub of cold water in between. 10 seconds grinding makes them too hot to hold and start to steam! When the grinder reaches the screw you see it as fresh metal.

Once the screw comes out I protected the oil hole internally with a pipe cleaner (there is a cork in the central hole for the same reason). Then, clamped into a vice, protected with a strip of leather…

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

With the rocker arm clamped, I used a carbide ball burr in a pillar drill to countersink the hole, then a grinding stone to smooth the edges and three grades of fine abrasive paper to smooth off all the edges.

Blew out all the passages with compressed air and cleaned again with IPA.

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Eventually got all eight arms done. The swivel foot is given extra clearance by the countersink, although it’s hard to see in the pics! Reading the various Samba threads, it is probably best to use a rocker stand shim, so actually the adjuster will be really well clear of the rocker arm. Annoyingly, my solid spacers are stock size and so there is about 3mm of lateral play when the shaft is installed (you can see it on the left, between the stand and the rocker arm). So, I think I need the spring washers to take up the slack. I’ve ordered some and they will fill the gap perfectly but there’ll be a delay before everything is fully fitted.
The adjusters look as though they line up very well.

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

I think I’ve finally got my head around the concept of shim blocks under the rocker stand.
Because the base of the swivel foot stays flat against the valve tip, the ‘joint’ has moved towards the rocker arm a little (the internal depth of the foot).
To keep the same geometry there has to be a shim to raise the rocker stand by a similar amount. Like if you add a lash cap, as several people have pointed out.

The grinding etc of the rocker arm has very little to do with this. It just makes extra room for the swivelling foot if a) the adjuster is screwed very close to the arm, or b) the angle of the foot at ‘no valve lift’ is too great.
What I have realised is that BOTH of these things happen if you have no shim or only a small shim under the rocker stand. I now see why it is suggested to have about 0.005”-0.006” of shim.

I know this is obvious to some people, but it took me a while! I took pictures today that might help to show the differences.

First, an easy way to find the half lift point of the valves. Turning the pulley I made marks where the valve started and stopped moving (it’s easy to see). The half way point always seems to be TDC or BDC, as it happens.

My solid spacer is a bit short. I am waiting for spring washers, but you can see that three x1mm washers will fit on the shaft with room to spare. This explains why in some of my pics the adjusters are out of line. Ignore it!

With the valves adjusted to 0.006” you can see on the 1/2 cylinder side, which has 0.06” shims there is still room for adjustment on the locknuts.

On the 3/4 cylinder side the left rockers have 0.03” of shim and the right rockers have no shim at all. The adjusters needed to be backed further out, bringing the swivel foot closer to the rockers. I’ll show that in the next post.

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

I’ll show what the adjusters look like. These rockers are all cut back 0.06” (1.5mm) First, if there is no shim.

The first two pics are at ‘no valve lift’. You can see the swivel foot is very close to the rocker and at a big angle.

Then, at half lift and full lift:

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Then with 0.06” shims. The adjuster has much more room and at half lift is much straighter.

The pics are ‘full lift’ and no lift (2 pics). You can see the adjuster is really free to swivel.

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Collected a huge pile of parts from the blaster/coated today. They’re looking great and I’m really pleased.

The bumpers and brackets are powder coated a very good match to original, slightly off-white and he managed to coat the bumper bolt heads too.

The heat exchangers and the heat shield are coated in high temperature ceramic coating, so should have a good chance of lasting as long as the rest of the bus! Not the stock colour, but he had some of the ceramic powder left over from another job!

Engine tin is a very dark shade of satin grey and looks great. He’s even preserved the factory painted lettering ‘IO’. Nice.

Annoyingly, the new nuts, bolts and hardware I ordered a couple of weeks ago haven’t arrived and so I might be delayed getting everything fitted.

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[1970fun]

Nice work Phill always a pleasure to read!
It seems Australia opens up so i see a roadtrip in Olive comming up soon?

[mcdonaldneal]

[RalphWiggam]

Looks great. The ceramic coating is the absolute best thing you can do for the exhaust pieces.

[mcdonaldneal]

I had a long wait for new hardware that got lost in the post but now I’m able to start fitting things back together.
Engine support bar (before I forget to put it on). New, stainless bolts.
Heat exchangers are a challenge single handed (especially the copper sealing rings) but got those on too. I was short a couple of locking nuts, but I’ll swap them when I get more. The marks on the HExs are just exhaust sealing clay paste.
It’s hovering around freezing here which limits my time on the cold garage floor!

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[Jalabert]

Great stuff, loving your work - giving me ideas!
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http://thickrubber.blogspot.com/ Writing, Surfing, and Exploring NZ's deep south by VW...

'73 westy, 1700 type 4 with 34icts