Sanchius and Tuna ride again...

[sanchius]

Our favorite summer activity, find an unused service road to park on, open the hatch & slider and stretch out in the back to read papers in prep for next week's ASCE meeting while Tuna stalks mice in the tall grass.

Yeah, it's one of my goto reading spots, the same place as this post.

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The Syncro years (2005-16) - The 2WD years (2017-23) - Westy & WBX rebuild spreadsheet - Sanchius & Tuna: The Video
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[bobbyblack]

Took a look at the pictures of that spot (or nearly so) and it brought back some good memories! Funny how things go in circles. I couldn't help feeling proud of my own daughter taking my Flossie to prom last year, pix included a few away from yours, on that same page you referenced.

Good to see how things keep rolling along. I hope to be out to CO to visit a friend in Golden, hope to look you up on that roll!
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'87 Westy 'Flossie','86 Westy 'R1','86 tintop GL - Subi2.2 'J2','83.5 stock tintop L 'ZoomBus','74 Karmann Ghia, '63 Notch

[Destructo]

[sanchius]

If you don't have the tires mounted, then I recommend taking them to a machinist to be bored out.

Since I already have the tires mounted, I am boring them out myself. For my old syncro, only a little material needed to be removed to clear the inner front hub. I did that with a hole saw and a plywood template.

For the 2WD, a lot more material needs to be removed to clear the front axle protrusion. I was afraid I was going to break my arm using the hole saw with a high torque drill when the hole saw would grab on the soft aluminum and wrench the drill out of my grip. So I did it with a router and a small bearing bit. There's some good YouTube videos on how to do it. It makes a real mess with chips flying everywhere, but it works better than the hole saw method.

I had to use longer rear studs and wheel spacers fore and aft to clear stuff like the tire rod ends. I'll also be converting the front to studs because putting the wheel on with bolts is such a PITA.
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[Destructo]

[xoo00oox]

[Destructo]

[xoo00oox]

[Abscate]

Is Tuna that big, beautiful fur machine in the passenger seat??
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.ssS!

[sanchius]

[sanchius]

A nice Saturday.

In the morning, Tunes and I went to Cars-n-Coffee with my son, then I went down and wrenched on my friend Bob's Jag race car for a couple hours.
Once it became clear that we'd been sent the wrong size replacement fuel cell, we downwrenched and headed over to the Toad microbrewery in Golden for Amber ales and lamb fajitas from the tacowagon there.

Since I was already in Golden and I had my tool bag with me, I concluded this would be a good opportunity to stretch the legs on the new bus with a drive in the mountains.

So Tuna and I headed Clear Creek canyon out of Golden with the goal of getting to the ghost town of Nevadaville.

Everything went well until the big climb out of Central City up to Nevadaville, where the temp gauge pegged and I got an oil buzzer.
I've never heard the main radiator fan run, so it looks like I have some debugging to do there.
I turned it back around downhill to let it cool down and headed north on the gentler Peak-to-Peak highway to Nederland, watching the temp gauge closely.

Things were fine and we soaked up the high mountain scenery until we arrived at Ned where we stopped for some provisions,

Then we went along Barker Reservoir towards Boulder Canyon...

On the way down Boulder Canyon, we pulled off onto one of the side roads to park and read/nap for a couple hours next to the babbling mountain stream.

Then we packed up and headed home.

All in all, it was a wonderful day and it was nice to start to return to normalcy after a couple years of intense eldercare.
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[sanchius]

It was time for a new 3-window tent for the 2WD.

Since I preferred the white poptop on the '87 4WD wreck over the light tan one on the '86 2WD, we swapped pop-tops between the two while we were at it.

It was a lot of work.

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[macjack]

Glad you are getting some vanagon normalcy, Sanchius. I went through a version of the elder care parent cycle a few years ago and it can be consuming and rewarding.
It was a little toasty today in the front range to be out in the sun working with a top. The new tent will be nice, I bet. Hope you can get a cooler day to put in the 22374 screws for the canvas if you didn't already..
And I do like the look of those wheels!
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87 TDI Syncro Westy
81 Westy (sold)
80 Rabbit Wolfsburg (rolled)
Bike as primary transportation

[jimf909]

Love this thread! It's great to again see pics of Tuna, your van and the places y'all go!
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- Jim

[sanchius]

Drove up to the NCAR Mesa Lab this morning to catch a seminar on future exa/zettascale supercomputing, networks and data.

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[Farfrumwork]

Great to see you back in action! I'll keep an eye out for you around town.

-Chad
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sold -> '85 Wolfsburg Syncro / 'Built' DOHC EJ25 (a great machine!)
'07 Legacy spec.B, road tuned stgII
'17 4x4 Sprinter, stone grey, SMB pop-top, on 33"s

"Blood stains, speed kills - Fast cars, cheap thrills - Rich girls, fine wine - I've lost my sense, I've lost control, I've lost my mind"

[sanchius]

It was a beautiful, still, cool, early summer Saturday morning.

So we took the day off, loaded up the bikes, drove into Boulder, parked in the shade, and biked around the quiet neighborhoods before going downtown for brunch.

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[sanchius]

It was a good weekend to work on the Westy.

Saturday I picked up a spare rear hub to start the process of renewing the rear wheel bearings & CV's with a minimum of down time.

Later, I carried out some rust stabilization before fitting some new exterior bits I got for Fathers Day, then treated it to a well deserved bath.

Sunday afternoon we spent a couple relaxing hours tuning up the cruiser bikes at Boulder's wonderful Community Bikes co-op.

The new van is starting to come together, but I'm running out of easy things to upgrade. The next bits are going to be more difficult.

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[sanchius]

After work, we grabbed a pizza and drove out to an overlook to enjoy the sunset.

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[bobbyblack]

I love this thread, it's great to see all the action going on out there!

I'd like to ask a couple questions, based on what I am seeing in your photos:

1: Your images suggest you have a knack for photography; Are you professionally trained, or otherwise a professional photographer? I'd love to shoot like you can!

2: The color of your van, is that LP7Y Flash Silver? And if so, what have you found as your touchup paint solution?

Keep the great thread alive, thanks!

-bobby
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'87 Westy 'Flossie','86 Westy 'R1','86 tintop GL - Subi2.2 'J2','83.5 stock tintop L 'ZoomBus','74 Karmann Ghia, '63 Notch