'79 Canadian Camper

[bigbore]

apparently Iam not charging enough for my work.
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where its cold and snowy

[oh didn't he ramble]

Took off the rockers to see if there really was a problem with the valve:

Days are getting shorter and it got caught in the dark so apologies for the phot quality but it looks like all four stems are equal in height, no wobble when pushing the ruler against the stems.

I did notice that when adjusting this valve I had movement in the rocker even when I reached zero lash. I had thought maybe the lifter wasn't fully pumped up before and had ran the engine with a little clearance to see if that would help but got no results. Pushing down on the push rod when properly seated in the socket I still feel a slight give, guessing I should set the last to .15mm on this valve and run it again and see if it pumps up? Anything here I'm missing?
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d.

[oh didn't he ramble]

Spent some more time drinking whiskey and reading stories researching and determined the best thing to do for now is to try to set the preload as best I can and run the bus around for a while to see if the lifter would pump itself up on its own. I purchased a new hydraulic lifter from bus depot to use either as a potential replacement for a lifter that was beyond repair or as a reference
for disassembly, cleaning and bleeding of the primary suspect.

In the meantime I took on two new tasks, hunting down vacuum leaks and new shocks.

The former is certainly no where as exciting as the latter, but I did find out that a foam, non-collapsable coozie works well to mate my air compressor hose to the s-boot.

Misting some soapy water around I found a few leaks and decided I was in need of new y fittings for the brake booster as well as the fitting at the s boot. I needed to replace some of the braided hose at the smaller vacuum lines too. Ordered.

Replacing the rear shocks with the Konis was simple. The front was not so easy. I removed the existing shocks and noticed the lower bushings did not have a sleeve. I also noticed the lower shock mount was a larger diameter that what I had seen when I researched. Odd, was this some sort of canadian bus anomoly? I probably spent over an hour looking at custom bushing solutions before it dawned on me:

Looking for the metal sleeve? it's right there dummy.

What an idiot.

A pipe wrench made short work of the driver side. The passenger side took a bunch of pb blaster, contortionism, endurance and sheer will but it eventually freed.

PSA: cans of liquid wrench contain gasses that are heavier than air the kind of gasses which, even in an open environment, with leave you feeling like you've been hanging out with h.s. thompson too long.--"take the ticket". If your going to be lying on the ground when your wrenching spray that stuff the day before and come back to it in the morning.
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d.

[oh didn't he ramble]

On a lighter note, learned to stop worrying about the tapping and love the bus.

Took the girls camping. 230 mile round trip to P-town for one night as a test run. Was expecting to scuttle the whole outing and turn home in the first thirty minutes but all the girls loved it.

Smiles on every face all around. The campsite (dune's edge) doesn't allow campfires but i did find out that you can pull a permit to have a bonfire at Herring Cove beach (a 5 minute drive) for free as long as you call 3 days ahead.

Stacked some wood on the roof, rolled onto the beach just after noon and hung out all day walking along the water, grilling hot dogs and spotting seals (and a whale!) in the bay. Pleasant sunset with the girls before tucking them into bed. Spent the rest of the night drinking beers by a fire all night. Awesome. Rock solid maiden voyage, here's hoping every trip is like this one.
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d.

[busdaddy]

[oh didn't he ramble]

Thanks bd. I've read through your posts on a multitude of subjects now and have a handful of canadian bus questions for you when the time comes. Step by step.

~300 miles since putting the valve cover back on but the tapping doesn't go away no matter how long the bus has been running. Decided it is time to go after that hydraulic lifter.

Taking the valve cover off and pushing down on the bottom of the rocker (over the pushrod) with my thumb I can feel some give on the #2 intake. This lifter just wont pump up. I went to a lighter weight oil w/ some MMO before out trip to p-town hoping it would settle in, oh well. Took off the rockers and popped out the push rod tube to get out the lifter.

Troublesome lifter on the left, new bus depot lifter on the right:

I see some scuffing around the outside of the lifter and some wear along the bottom. Pushing down on the piston I feel the same give I could feel when pushing down on the rocker, about 1/16" to 1/8" springiness.

Based on the receipts I have from the PO this lifter is pretty new too.
Not much difference between the two except the existing lifter looks like it has a heftier retaining clip and a bevel above the weep hole.

Pulled the lifter apart to clean if up and bleed it but when I compared it to the new lifter I saw that little ball for the valve at the bottom of the plunger was pretty stuck. Too late to be fussing around with that, installed the new one instead.

The little flat oil metering disc surprised me. It looks like it is stamped with a inner ring and then stamped the other way with an outer ring. I couldn't get a good photo but my guess was that the raised ridge of the inner ring should face up to meet the socket and the outer ring should face down to settle into the top of the plunger. Filled with oil and used my woodworking bench to press the lifter together. Pressing together slowly and waiting for the oil to seep out caused the least stress.

Cam lobe looks like it has some scratches. Couldn't ascertain any heavy wear pattern or whether any work was done to the cam.

Back together with new seals for the push rod tube. Some tapping still present at start up but disappeared after a valve adjustment in the morning.

Took the girls out for a second trip, just a day trip this time. ~80 miles round trip to Davies Farm, and over-the-top petting zoo that burns right through your wallet. Whatever. They were as happy as can be and so was I.
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d.

[oh didn't he ramble]

Back at it.

Drained the tank and replaced the last two fuel hoses connected at the bottom of the tank, using the opportunity to send out my injectors for cleaning by Cruzin' Performance. I sent my cold start valve along hoping a good cleaning might get it working again, but no such luck, the corrosion was simply too much. Injectors look great though! Rich is quite the professional.

While I waited for my injectors' return I swapped out all the vapor lines. The lines on the engine side of the firewall went quickly - I find myself blessed with what must be the perfect wrist-to-elbow proportions to replace the line behind the left tail light. Feeling pleased with myself and scoffing at all the warnings I had read I went after the lines on the far side of the wall.

After removing everything from the air filter to the s-boot I was able to pull out the firewall and lay it down on the engine bay. I had read that if the engine was not lowered the firewall would need to be bent for removal but I didn't seem to have a problem. Maybe it was already bent from a previous removal....

These lines were a bit fiddly to get to but pretty straightforward. I then went after the fuel filler neck and the hose connecting the rigid fuel filler pipe to the tank. The hose clamps connecting the filler neck to the rigid pipe is out of reach even with the pie plate removed. The cartridge containing the control unit for the fuel ignition needs to be pulled out for better access. It was a trying endeavor but I had success by folding up and pushing the fuel filler neck back in through the gas inlet on the side of the bus, loosening the hose clamp at the tank and giving the rigid fuel pipe a solid heave away from the tank. I was then able to jostle the pipe around to get to each the hose clamp and remove the rubber.

Reinstalled by pulling a new MB hose onto the tank, then slipping the new fuel filler neck onto the end of the rigid pipe and fishing it up back through the inlet hole. I was then able to grab the rigid pipe with both hands and pull it back towards me and onto the other end of the MB hose. This was the only order of operations that gave me enough leverage.

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d.

[oh didn't he ramble]

whelp. it's time. Rocker panels need replacing and they're not going to fix themselves. I promised my inspection guy I'd get these sorted but found myself staring at the task at hand wondering if I should just go buy some orange duct tape instead. I'm anxious about this task and I want to be on the road by the end of June. I'd like to take on the rust issues in bite sized pieces so I've decided to take on one side at a time starting with the driver's side. I'll save the sliding door side for next year. I'm also hoping to limit the scope of this project from pillar to pillar, leaving rust beyond for another day.

The outriggers look pretty beat, the jacking points are almost non-existent, and the sills have expanded into infinite layers of rust.

I wasn't sure how best to tackle the sills, particularly the inner, as I wasn't sure what exactly is going on. Guess I can't make it worse.

Saw that getting the cabinets and sink out to get at the sills from above was going to take some cutting, so I figured I would just go straight at the outriggers and cut them out. Something to help build my confidence I guess.

Quick, like a band-aid:

There's still some grinding to do. This is the result of about 45 minutes of work and a couple hours of navel gazing. While I was under there I was thinking I could cut off the outer sill and side panel right up to the floor and then cut away the inner sill from outside the bus right up to the flange. I could then cut away the rusted out ends of each top hat, weld new ones back in, and then weld up a new inner sill to the frame leaving the spot welding of the inner sill flange to the floor for a later day. I'm now losing confidence in that approach. Not sure how much good floor I have to work with and I should probably just do it the right way and drill out the spot welds from inside the bus. Opinions appreciated....
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d.

[Spike0180]

Do it right. And you need essentially that whole side of the bus. A little floor, Inner Rocker, outer rocker, outriggers, jack supports, end of your top hats, and likely part of your side panel. It's easier to cut it all out so you have room to work. That looks pretty gone. And with that much rust you don't have anything to weld to until you remove it all and go up quite a way
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Brutis Patches Izabich: 1970 VW Transporter - 1776cc DP
Current State: Projects never truly end...
Location: Grosse Pointe, Michigan
Other cars: 2003 F150, 2003 Jetta GLI vr6-6sp

Sambastic: adj; the quality of being nit picky, elitist, expecting everyone to do things the way they believe is best with no regard to situation, "sambastic"

[cmonSTART]

I feel your pain - I've owned a Boston area bus since 2014 and have done this repair. Spike is right, you will have to cut a lot out of the side of the bus to do it properly. Personally I think if you want to drive it this June you should work some Bondo magic and enjoy it this year, then tackle this the proper way during the off season.

You have a lot of work ahead of you there, possibly getting into the top hat sections, wheel tubs, and floors. Once thing seems to lead to another and you always find more rust that you have to replace while you're in there.

Have fun, I'll look for you out there if you drive North.

It's dangerous to go alone! Take this.

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'78 Bus 2.0FI
de K1IGS

[JaimeH]

There's a good chance it's going to look like this before you start putting it back together.
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1978 Transporter 2.0 FI, BA6
Special Thanks to Razor's Customs, Boscawen, NH

[oh didn't he ramble]

[cmonSTART]

Well... don't quite your job - you'll need the income to pay for the bus repairs!
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'78 Bus 2.0FI
de K1IGS

[oh didn't he ramble]

Outriggers in, drivers side:

Plenty of opportunity for improvement in my welding technique.

I've done some TIG before but that was always at a bench in a clean, controlled environment, not on my side on a dirty cold garage floor with a mouthful of rust from banging my helmet off these damned rocker panels. Automated wire takes some getting used to.

What do you think? Leave it like this until inspection day? I don't want to put in the jack points until i take out about 6 inches of floor and top hat first.....
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d.

[cmonSTART]

I would hold it on with a couple of very small cold tack welds and paint over it - the less questions asked by the inspector the better.
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'78 Bus 2.0FI
de K1IGS