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Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy
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KentABQ Premium Member
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 8:40 pm    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Bleyseng wrote:
Keep the FI as it is much more drivable than dual carbs

Having just swapped out dual carbs for fuel injection, I wholeheartedly agree with Bleyseng. Once you take the time to understand the FI components' functions, you'll appreciate the beauty of the system. And troubleshooting can all be done with simple tools.

My feeling is the people who stick with carbs haven't taken the time to learn about FI...
Imagine going back to using a slide rule... Oh crap! Did I just date myself?!? Embarassed
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Cars of today are so bland in comparison. It's like driving a celebration!"
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yellowCOwesty
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:38 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Very cool!

Not surprising we share the same passion for Grateful Dead as do a lot of folks on here.

You may have seen my yellow and white Westy in Boulder for the shows.....
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A few other air cooled VW and Porsches over the years
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:42 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

That is an awesome bus! Solid, clean base for a wonderful cruiser and weekend warrior.
Looks as if you all are giving it the treatment, keep it up!
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 5:38 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

yellowCOwesty wrote:
Not surprising we share the same passion for Grateful Dead as do a lot of folks on here.


Yep, me too. I was immediately drawn to these vehicles when I attended my first GD show at Alpine Valley in 1985 and saw so many. Got my first bus in 1986 and have not been without an air cooled Westy ever since.

Good looking bus WildIdea, and I too am a big fan of the stock fuel injection. Well worth the effort to source the parts and dial it in.

"The bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began..."
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WildIdea
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 9:08 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Thanks for the comments guys! I hear you FI guys loud and clear. Ive watched some of you here rebuild yours and it looks doable. The few buddies I'm talking to def possess the knowledge to help put that set up together, so well see. Im not getting hasty about what to do. Heck, some here don't even put type 4s back in these busses. Its getting heavy thinking about it, but I'm reading my ass off. As a recommendation, I get my hands on a copy of Tom Wilson's How to Rebuild Your VW Air Cooled Engine and carry it around. I still have to see whats wrong with my motor first and get to knowing the overall condition of the vehicle to decide.

Ive finally been in phone contact with Brian for the first time and our conversations are starting off great. We know a lot of the same people and laugh thats its taken us this long to finally meet. A few guys I've spoken to that have one of his motors all say its worth waiting for if you can get him interested. G3 rods were great to talk to, they said Brian does a great job for their projects, if anything is slow. This project to me isn't set in a time bubble, so a relative term. He sounds just as busy as I am with a business and kids and although Brian is a master machinist, building VW motors is not his day job. We set a time for him to come over and see this bus for the first time and I want the rear clean as possible in anticipation of his arrival.

Now that were at least rolling smoother, with my wife in the front seat and my neighbor to help push we spin this baby around in the street and get some daylight in the rear. The front end was pretty fun to wipe down although I haven't touched the seats. I'm dreading this engine compartment. Still, I know its gotta happen.

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Also a fuel sender access hole cut really crudely. But as I've read here, they found it the first cut, Laughing .

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I pretty much just fish out the crusty headliner then blast out compartment with my power washer and dry it with my compressor. I see I have some surface rust in the battery trays and under the rear corners.

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At least a guy can get his head in there without getting filthy.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:11 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Get rid of that red negative battery cable as someone might think that goes to the + side of the battery. Get the correct length positive red cable with molded battery terminal from the starter to battery. It will help with cold starting.
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77 Westy 2.0L w/Ljet, Camper Special engine-95hp and with LSD!(sold)
76 Porsche 914 2.1L L20c, 120hp Djet (sold)
87 Syncro Westy Titan Red 2.1L 2 knob 100k miles
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Earl 78 westy
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:21 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

This bus is great man....far from Hell in a Bucket!

Congrats and keep us posted Green Bay Bus
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WildIdea
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:46 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Earl 78 westy wrote:
This bus is great man....far from Hell in a Bucket!

Congrats and keep us posted Green Bay Bus


Thanks! This bus has taken over my free time and bullied its way into other dedicated spaces in a lot of great ways, so more like ‘least I’m Enjoying The Ride’ !!!
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WildIdea
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:48 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Bleyseng wrote:
Get rid of that red negative battery cable as someone might think that goes to the + side of the battery. Get the correct length positive red cable with molded battery terminal from the starter to battery. It will help with cold starting.


You bet! Thanks
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WildIdea
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:38 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Brian stops over the other night, late. I hear him pulling up in classic hot rod VW fashion in the cool evening air. He arrives in a black bug that makes me walk out to stop and just talk about that car not my bus! Nothing special he says, just a rig he has around that he puts his builds in for break-ins before he delivers the motors to their owners. It helps with tuning and chasing down leaks or any surprises, which sounds perfectly logical to me...."lets see this cream puff bus I've been hearing about" he says and we head in to see her.

There are several take aways from that night that I remember, but mostly Brian's shock at how clean the bus is. He said something like 'Kevin said it was nice, but I had no idea, they just don't come like this anymore'. Yeah, I'm realizing that and I really love it, but it needs a motor so its not much without that, what do you say man?

Something Special, this bus deserves it, he says. I ask, do you feel like getting involved? Absolutely, Heck Yeah.

Rebuild this type 4. Being we have to crack this case and see whats up and see whats usable you can basically build it back up however you want. What do you want this bus to do, was an early question. Well, I'd say be able to have reliable consistent power that can pull the hills around here and maybe drive to neighboring states, but nothing so radical that engine life suffers or gets too hot.

Sure, thats realistic, lots of ways to approach that without making a total stoker, but it's a big brick your pushing around and a Westy full of gear is even worse. Brian explains that if Im willing, crack the case and see what happened, but likely get some new innerds that that can handle worked heads. The FI issue doesn't concern him much, but he's looking at my heater boxes, frowning, and we sort or argue and go back and forth about those the most. I want everything working stock-ish and he says they're horsepower robbers. Do you want mediocre heat at the front or power? I sad, you know, lets not decide that tonight.

A little ernest money goes home but he's not eager for that. I just like to pay for my stuff as I go. I just don't want him to think I'm a cheap dude. He says you have a lot to do to the engine bay and while you get into all that he'll be building up the engine and machining heads. Well should both be done simultaneously and have a runner on our hands, at least thats how it looks on paper.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 1:06 pm    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

If the stock system is properly sealed and insulated, it can throw quite a bit of heat, much more than just mediocre. Heater boxes do not rob horsepower because they are designed to have air flowing through them all the time. Granted, the Aux Fan uses electricity so can rob horsepower by making the alternator work a bit harder.

Check out the FLIR videos on this thread:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...p;start=40
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WildIdea
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 8:51 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Depending on who I speak about it, non car folks think she's roached and don't understand the appeal and classic car lovers and VW people think its pretty great and being the second category I'm felling pretty good about what basic shape this bus is in and feeling better all the time about my luck in owning it.

The night I bought it from Kevin I think if he had any reluctance to sell it to me was for his concern in placing it local. He surly could have sold it for a prize anywhere but said he'd like to see more busses cruising local and would love to see it stay around. I think he wanted to feel me out and make sure I was capable and planning on working her over myself and not blow up his phone every time I got a little stuck. Now that there is something happening with the motor and I'm in a waiting que thats a relief. If Brian wants to put a ton of hours in the heads and use performance parts including performance exhaust I'm gonna go with that. This has always served me well in my motorcycle builds and dog stock Harleys are a bore and when you open them up and get them to breath, well I'm more into that.

I'm still fact finding and reading and ordering catalogs and immersing myself in Bay research everyday. Im getting obsessed and its fun and I tend to make more time for enjoyment, naturally. I'm thinking Ill order some basic stuff from Bus Depot soon and spend some money.

Before I do that I'm looking for my first win. Ill say here, one of my professional backgrounds is painting, not commercial automotive painting but graphic airbrushing and decking out Harleys. Either classic stock color schemes to full blown flame jobs. Again, the Black Hills are awash in Hogs and from the very beginning I just had to have one and set out right away to get a bike and start coloring everyone else to pay for it. Ill say my first exposure to the Rally at 14 had me starry eyed and mostly hypnotized by the tattoo art happening and under its spell instantly, but I was way too young to get into that adult activity, but not airbrushing!! I had gear going early painting everyones jackets and years later doing legit paint jobs on all the bikes I could get sprits on. Tattooing was still a distant dream and still "dangerous" in the late 80s-early 90s. My first legit art job was as a painter at a huge sign factory that made indoor signs for casinos. They had huge budgets and zero turnarounds and gorgeous mixed media results. I had my own paint booth where I painted 3D widgets galore to match casino decor and really cut my teeth, faking it mostly but getting the craft perfected and the bike side jobs kept getting better. You know, I met my wife there and a buddy I tattoo with to this day, but I when I got my shot at tattooing I set my spray guns down for the sovereign art form and rarely pick them up.

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remember this dash? Im gonna tackle it.

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A vist to our local renowned body shop supply house I have the ear of a master painter who is stoked to help a hobbyist like me get this right. Hey, Im so used to bad service at stores Im shocked when I finally get excellent attention and this guy Al pours it on. Says this guy Kevin comes in all the time who has busses, yeah!!!

He lines me out with the goods and all the instructions he can holler after me as I sprint out his door. I sand for a few nights and get things taped off. I would have liked to take out the dash and paint it on a table but I figure its exposed enough and not worth the hassle and risk of breaking stuff of taking it out.

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I bust out my old friend here. She's looking crusty but I have confidence in her. Ive painted many a tank and fender with this gun.

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Al and I did as much homework as we could for a color match and I feel we found an acceptable color match to the original here.

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I get some primer on that was a small amount in an rattle can. This a new thing for an outdated former painter, but I'm not afraid to try it. Meh, it was ok but I get a little run and sand it out in about an hour and I'm ready to shoot some paint.

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You know, I found this skull earning in the bus when I was cleaning her. Is this from some halloween costume or maybe a Dead bus I wonder, Hmmmmm. I hang it up, Im thinking it a cool talisman.

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I get some paint on the dash and it was OK I guess. Bits of dust, flakes and weird dry spots, but I sort of expected a little being I was painting it in my garage. I keep walking by overnight and starring at it and seeing if I can live with it.

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Im starting to remember all the "joys" of painting. Nothing comes easy when your a gearhead. My mind gets zeroed in on the result and like a curse plays over and over in my mind if I should go with it or do it again. My wife says it looks good, ha! she's awesome, but I know I'm gonna be looking at it forever and longer than getting it right now. Im thinking my touch up gun didn't throw enough material down at once and the paint sort of fell half dry. I said to her, if you can give me anything right now, cover me on the kids and give me some uninterrupted time cause Im gonna shoot the dash again!

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This time I bust out another famous character, my $40 Walmart special from the day. Don't laugh, this tool is credited to doing jobs at the sign shop $400 HVLPs couldn't do, especially when painting with static on large plexiglass faces. Anyway, I was gonna use it on here, crossing my fingers and another visit from my Dad out of curiosity, I go for it.

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That was it! that gun really blew the paint around shattering the particles and laying them down nice and wet. Im stoked!

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The tape came off great and hardly a millimeter of dry in the wee corners of the A pilar.

This was full of homework, time, a little money, and anxiety, but this really feels good now to have something happening and the wheels of time turning backwards for my bus. Hopefully this job sets the tone for things to come.


Last edited by WildIdea on Fri Feb 02, 2018 8:45 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 9:32 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Wow. Really nice bus. This reminds me of a fairly recent thread- eche_bus: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper . If you haven't seen it yet, he does a really good job of preservation. Good photos, no photo bucket and addresses everything.
Nice looking windshield frame. Good luck & thanks for sharing. Now, where is that popcorn eating emoticon.... ah, here it is Popcorn
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 9:39 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

WildIdea wrote:
Brian stops over the other night, late. I hear him pulling up in classic hot rod VW fashion in the cool evening air. He arrives in a black bug that makes me walk out to stop and just talk about that car not my bus! Nothing special he says, just a rig he has around that he puts his builds in for break-ins before he delivers the motors to their owners. It helps with tuning and chasing down leaks or any surprises, which sounds perfectly logical to me...."lets see this cream puff bus I've been hearing about" he says and we head in to see her.

There are several take aways from that night that I remember, but mostly Brian's shock at how clean the bus is. He said something like 'Kevin said it was nice, but I had no idea, they just don't come like this anymore'. Yeah, I'm realizing that and I really love it, but it needs a motor so its not much without that, what do you say man?

Something Special, this bus deserves it, he says. I ask, do you feel like getting involved? Absolutely, Heck Yeah.

Rebuild this type 4. Being we have to crack this case and see whats up and see whats usable you can basically build it back up however you want. What do you want this bus to do, was an early question. Well, I'd say be able to have reliable consistent power that can pull the hills around here and maybe drive to neighboring states, but nothing so radical that engine life suffers or gets too hot.

Sure, thats realistic, lots of ways to approach that without making a total stoker, but it's a big brick your pushing around and a Westy full of gear is even worse. Brian explains that if Im willing, crack the case and see what happened, but likely get some new innerds that that can handle worked heads. The FI issue doesn't concern him much, but he's looking at my heater boxes, frowning, and we sort or argue and go back and forth about those the most. I want everything working stock-ish and he says they're horsepower robbers. Do you want mediocre heat at the front or power? I sad, you know, lets not decide that tonight.

A little ernest money goes home but he's not eager for that. I just like to pay for my stuff as I go. I just don't want him to think I'm a cheap dude. He says you have a lot to do to the engine bay and while you get into all that he'll be building up the engine and machining heads. Well should both be done simultaneously and have a runner on our hands, at least thats how it looks on paper.


The later 75-79 Heat exchangers are kinda of horsepower robbers but the early 72-74 ones are and coupled to a 4into1 extractor exhaust make power. Heads should be sourced from HAM as they are brand new reworked AMC castings and will last plus produce power. Forget all that porting and polishing if you use the FI as its not needed with these HAM heads with larger than stock valves (ala 914 2.0L). A Web142 (again 914 spec) cam will help keeping the solid lifters.
_________________
70 Ghia Black convert-9/69 build date-stock w/133k 1600 SP-barn find now with a rebuilt tranny and engine
77 Westy 2.0L w/Ljet, Camper Special engine-95hp and with LSD!(sold)
76 Porsche 914 2.1L L20c, 120hp Djet (sold)
87 Syncro Westy Titan Red 2.1L 2 knob 100k miles
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WildIdea
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 8:50 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

I can't remember entirely what was in my first Bus Depot order. Lots of stuff I asked for. Some I received, some backordered. I'm not gonna give a huge review here other than to say I have huge gratitude a company like this exists at all and I can't imagine sourcing what they have on hand and getting it all out to folks. Seems like a monumental propositions and ordering is 'so far so good' and I always say 'How it begins is how it goes' so this is encouraging.

One of the things I was hoping to see was the front interior door cards in green. Seems they are pretty easy to source in almost any color but this Westy green, but alas they're back ordered.....but Hey, I did get these new seat covers and a few other things so I figure no problem, lets get after those!

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I figured I needed new as mine were all sun faded and so inpregnated with dog hair it looked like it was deposited by a legit tornado, yuck, I mean yuck unless you know the dog, then cool, but if mystery dog, then yuck!

Im pausing in that cause these seat pedestals need some attention first.... A little lifting of debris and going for it scrubbing. This get old quick and I spray Gel Goo Gone and let sit then the old seat mat glue seems to soften and wipe up, but still the fine cleaning cases slight tennis elbow.

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I develop a technique for final cleaning where I get a wet rag and squeeze out some drips onto the seams in the seat rails and blow it out with my fine air compressor nozzle. Satisfying runs of muddy water just run and run on for what seams like forever but eventually brown water stops coming out. The drivers side took all day.

The next day I zero in on the passenger seat pedestal and turntable. Few more coins but mostly just toxic waste.

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I work on that well past dark with a headlight on. Pretty neat mechanism. I get some lithium grease in the sliding parts and call it a night. At first light in the quiet of the morning I'm out front blowing up the front seats.

Never having done this before, I get a little stumped and have to take a break but I finally get it. Looks like they've been recovered before, so someone figured it out, why not me?

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I don't have pictures, but my frames have surface rust on the springs. I filled my wheel barrel up with soapy water and just scrubbed my heart out and checking when dry and light sanding what I could till I'm jus sick of it. A few spots of neutralizer and after drying in the hot summer sun, I give them a light dusting of Rustolium.

The head rests look to be NLA and I realize I had better look after what I have until I stumble across a better OG set. Until then, a liberal bathing in Back to Black conditioner really cleans and hydrates them. One spot I have in the drivers window side is a little hole the sun made exposing some inner foam. I decide to stabilize this with some rather thin super glue that just spreads out inside about an inch deep. The hobby shop down town sell bottles of high grade superglue in about 6 viscosities and I have them all for just around the house and this turns out to be just the trick, although it gets a bit hot and a vapor of smoke rises a second. Our Sun today won't be adding to this hole very fast now.

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Just looking at this picture makes my hands hurt. Upholstery is a trade full of tricks for sure, but this amateur had to really tug and pull on the backs and even Cat jumped in and we wrestled and cussed and got them on finally getting the little skewer pins all on right and tight once we employed a few wood clamps. Those backs were a real fight but dow that there on the backs are like a drum head and look great.

So I will say the seat pads on the backs needed a little key trimming around the headrest holes with an exacto blade and another key trick I used was to literally sew with my Kleins, coated tie wire to anchor the pads to the frames. Something that comes in handy from my early concrete rebar tying days. This was key in having pads solidly stable for getting those covers on.

The bottoms easier, I sewed the wire ties in the corners pads to frame and I just flipped those over and hopped on them using my body weight to compress and bingo! Gong back together was a cinch and again, more Back to Black for the plastic seat belt cover, I just love that stuff.....
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 10:57 am    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Just get some fat white tape and label the battery connections in 128 point sharpie...POs NEG

No need to waste money replacing good functioning stuff, spend it where it counts
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:42 pm    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Abscate wrote:
Just get some fat white tape and label the battery connections in 128 point sharpie...POs NEG

No need to waste money replacing good functioning stuff, spend it where it counts
or just use good quality electrical tape in black and red to wrap them in the correct colors. Scotch super 33+ brand comes to mind....
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SamboSamba22
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 2:14 pm    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Seats look great. I read in two minutes what I’ve been neglecting to do for two years. Making strong strides, awesome stuff.
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wcfvw69 Premium Member
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Joined: June 10, 2004
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 7:08 pm    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

Your seats look like a pro did them! Nice work. I also love your attention to detail to REALLY clean all the crap, old glue, etc from under them. I hate looking at threads like this and people do a half ass job. You clearly didn't and it looks great.
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WildIdea
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 7:31 pm    Post subject: Re: Hell In A Bucket! WildIdea's 1977 Sage Green Westy Reply with quote

SamboSamba22 wrote:
Seats look great. I read in two minutes what I’ve been neglecting to do for two years. Making strong strides, awesome stuff.


Thanks Man, you know, yours was one of the first threads I read on here when I joined. Watching you pull your orange bus out of those bushes and watching you go through all the systems. It’s an interesting to read. Thanks for posting it.
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