Sanchius and Tuna ride again...

[sanchius]

Thanks! The part number matched the cheaper yellow Monroe 34971 Gas-Magnum shock absorber.
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[sanchius]

The highway to Boulder was blocked by multiple rush hour accidents this morning, so I took the slow scenic route in, cranked the heater up and pulled off for a bit at one of my usual spots...

... to quiet a scratchy horn ring with some dielectric grease and reload the handy emergency gas cache...

...and to lounge in the back to get started on The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (thanks for the recommendation, IdahoDoug) until the route in was clear.

All the recent drivetrain/suspension work is paying off and I'm really getting to like this van. But the rear end has always seemed to be a bit saggy. I'm going to try throwing the syncro springs off the wreck under there this weekend to see if it levels things off without overdoing it.

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[sanchius]

It was time for a spousal focus and appreciation day.
I'd spent way too many nice Fall Saturdays down at the shop recently, stripping parts off the wreck before the cold weather hits.
No wrenching today, just a relaxed Saturday putt'ing around town, just taking some slow time to be together and chat after a long week.

Once we finished the usual morning errands, we took Tunes for a hike up Fowler trail in the south Boulder Open Space at the mouth of Eldorado Canyon.
This is one of our favorite local tails because of the awesome Easter Egg at the end: it drops you right across from the midpoint of one of Eldo's big climbing walls, where you can watch the rock climbers across the canyon doing very scary things

It was a warm & sunny day and the hike was thirsty work, so afterwards we celebrated our initiative at the dog-friendly Sanitas Brewing, sharing some tasty Black IPAs and green-chili & chicken wraps from the taco wagon there.

After a couple more errands and some back country road driving, the day ended at one of our usual overlooks,
quiet and warm in the back of the bus, reading books and munching on chocolate chip cookies, while a cold November evening wind blew outside,
Tuna happily mousing in the tall grass next to the bus and the sun slowly setting over the golden prairie.

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[dobryan]

Schweet. Thanks for sharing your wonderful day. 👍
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Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[Abscate]

Thanks for sharing your day and your big beautiful cat.

Tunes would love where I am this weekend Tug Hill area of NY with bear and coyotes yowling all night.
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[Bicycle019]

Cool thread, thanks for sharing. I just went through a similar "project creep" on our van when I wanted to replace some torn CV boots, which turned into all new front and rear brakes (calipers, rotors, wheel cylinders, shoes, and drums), wheel bearings, stainless brake lines, upper front ball joints, oh and yeah rebuilding the axles with those new CV boots. Nothing terribly hard, just a few evenings worth of work in the garage with a few beers.

Are you taking a lot of those pics near Rt 128 in Broomfield near McCaslin? That view looks really familiar as I work in Louisville and go on lunch rides in that area frequently.
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'89 Vanagon Whitestar
'84 Jetta GLI - built 2.0 ABA
'16 GTI Performance Pack
'17 Golf AllTrack (wife)

[sanchius]

Yes, that's the area.
I really love having this huge scenic expanse, which is so wide open and little used, just minutes from our house in a metro area with almost 3m people in it.

I'm going to end up upgrading almost every mechanical system on this new van.
I never got my old Syncro into good enough shape to where I'd trust it on a long journey.
After reading all the inspiring extended trip stories here (Thanks, joetiger!), I want to get this new bus up to that level.

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[sanchius]

This afternoon's job was upper ball joints.

The steering had become vague and wandering, I could see some play in the ball joint and the other day I heard tok-tok-tok going around the corner from the wheel weight contacting the front brake caliper.
This couldn't wait.

The tapered joint required some real persuasion, first simultaneous hits on two sides with big hammers to try to release the taper, then lots of heat, then the pickle fork and the hand sledge and they finally came loose.

Fortunately, I had a supervisor, though all the banging woke her from a sound sleep and she found the mapp gas torch scary.

It's nice that she's happy to sit quietly for hours in the van while I work on it, staring out the window or sleeping in the back

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[Abscate]

Purr.....
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[sanchius]

This afternoon's job was to swap in the nice dash and the upgraded heater box (new heater core, new blower motor, relays for the high speeds) that I'd pulled from the wreck a few weeks ago.

The original heater box was in bad shape, the blower motor noisy and giving a whiff of maple syrup, a sure sign of a leaking heater core.
While I was in there I cleaned everything up, lubed the wipers and threw in some sound dampener. It's all back together now.
All I can say is that, while there's nothing particularly hard about this job, it's hours of fiddly work that simply isn't much fun.
The cold weather arrives Monday, this couldn't wait

Other recent upgrades include installing the e-code H4 main lights I brought back from Germany a few years ago.
The brittle old plastic aiming bits all shattered, so I created a new system using $3 worth of metric nuts & bolts.
I also fitted the LED bulbs that ragnarhairybreeks has been experimenting with in both the high & main positions.
They're relatively cheap and plenty bright, but the light pattern is less even and concentrated than I was hoping.
I have some aiming to do; for the first time ever someone flashed their lights because my lights were too bright.

I'm looking forward to when I have this van to the point where I'm driving it more than I'm wrenching on it.
But there's still a complete front suspension renewal, a gas tank reseal, an engine conversion and a repaint in my future.

Also, Tunes was supervising again, displaying her cat-like demeanor: "I'll look at you, but not AT you."
That said, sometimes when she's looking AT you, it can feel like she's sizing you up for her next meal.
For some reason I like that dent in the window frame, so I'm leaving it be for now.
It serves as a constant reminder of the condition of this van when I first got it.

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[sanchius]

Saturday afternoon's job was renewing the front wheel bearings.
They were noisy, loose, unadjustable and exhibited a slight high frequency vibration at speed; this couldn't wait.
This job was easy, very straight forward and well documented here on thesamba.

Overall it was easy, the only difficult bit was loosening the 115 ft/lb 22mm brake bolts in the confined space.
The yellow extension from the jack handle combined with the long 1/2" breaker bar did the job.

But I did encountered an unexpected snafu with the rotors.
The pair of new rotors I ordered months ago were wrong, so I called our local NAPA machine shop to see if they could machine the old rotors quickly.
"Sure, if you get them here fast. Someone else is bringing a set in and if you get here first, it'll be 1.5 hours, otherwise it'll be Monday"
My son bailed me out by racing the first rotor over to NAPA while I removed the other, which he took over as well.
20 minutes later I got the expected call from NAPA; the old rotors were at minimum and couldn't be machined.
They had a new set at the Denver warehouse and could have them in on Monday.
When asked, they did say there was a pair of rotors on the shelf at another NAPA 30 minutes away.
My son bailed me out again by making the parts run to pick them up.

Once he returned with the new rotors, it was very straight forward installing them.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the bearing races were already machined into the rotors, I didn't need to press the races in.
I used the nice Mercedes adjustable clamps that djkeev documented to adjust the bearing tightness just right.
There was plenty of meat left on the old brake pads, so I didn't need to replace them.

Ob.supervisor.hard.at.work picture: This shows how much room opens up when the squeaky back cabinets & headbanger are removed.

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[Sodo]

[sanchius]

On mine, the hub and rotor are a single unit, which I was calling "the rotor." It would have been clearer if I called it the "1-piece hub and rotor unit."

And yes, the outer bearing races for both the inner and outer front wheel bearings were machined into the hub portion of the rotor/hub.

It really simplified the job.

And the dash is easy, just long.
The big clue for the first-timer is don't touch the big phillips head screws below the windshield, they attach the wiper unit and can stay put.

[Abscate]

Probably left over races from past, if the rotors were remanufactured.

If the surfaces look clean and not blued, run them.
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[Sodo]

[Abscate]

Mixing bearing races used to be frowned upon, but enlightenment and tolerance has changed that.



I’ve played mix and match withGerman parts and gotten 50,000 plus miles of service but good practices say they should be a matched set,agreed
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[sanchius]

The hub/rotors are brand new NAPA part #4885981 and the description says: Includes Inner Bearing Cup: Yes, Includes Outer Bearing Cup: Yes.
They are installed, working well and I won't have time over the next couple weeks to change them out.
I'm going to run them as a working experiment until they give me a compelling reason to change them out.
But I'll definitely keep the receipt in a safe place.

Suprisingly, thesamba has only encountered these hubs+rotors once before.
It looks like this poor guy received a pair of these and unsuccessfully tried to install the outer races.
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[Sodo]

[Abscate]

Reading that thread it seemed like those races were removable. I can't imagine it's cost effective to machine in bearing races and then harden them in place.

Still, if they adjust in nicely, and run cool and aren't noisy, then good function is confirmed, and I would shift focus to more important things like giant, furry, cats.
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[E1]