100,000 miles - another lap of the country

[airschooled]

May 2nd, 2012, Santa Monica, California at 179,530 miles:

September 7th, 2018, Portland, Oregon at 279,535 miles:

So to celebrate, we've kicked off another lap of the country. Total repair bill has already skyrocketed to $35 for a ball joint boot. That's already ten times more than last lap's bill, and we've only covered 1,102 miles…

I took the SECOND compression test ever on the engine last week… As when it was new in 2015, #1 is the lowest (down from 120 to 110 psi) and #2 is the highest (down from 140 to 125psi) though cranking over you wouldn't know it. Oil consumption is at an all-time low, with one quart eaten between San Diego and Eugene, OR. The used generator brushes from Rosemount, MN are working nicely, powering my fridge, laptop charger, camera charger, phone charger, monster stereo, and interior lighting. The engine has 67,032 miles on it, except the used cam and lifters which have something around 40k… The JB-Weld seems to be holding the cam bearings in nicely. What's the life expectancy of a stock Type 1 bus engine again? It should have over 80,000 by the time I get home.

Driving a stock bus around the country really is an experience… I'm not saying it's the best, or the only experience to have, but it's nice when my to-do list includes "grease the front beam maybe" and "water the plants."

Same bus. New shants.
Robbie
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[Wasted youth]

Absolute tragedy that you burned up an entire quart of oil between San Diego and the Willamette Valley. What the hell is wrong with you?!

[Tram]

You were in Eugene and snubbed me? Chicken.
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Немає виправдання для війни! Я з Україною.

[airschooled]

[Tram]

[71whitewesty]

It’s been a good relationship, you and Buddy. Here’s to many more miles behind the wheel of a Bus.
If you run out of things to do in Portland, come on out. Summer is still in full swing out here.

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71 Westy 1600 DP, all stock Bus 1
1970's Snow Trac 1600 SP (sold 12/2016)
1968 Tucker sno cat, sold 2021
1969 Tucker Sno cat 542
2017 VW Alltrac
71 tin top stock 1600 DP (project but runs)
Twin 71 White Westy, Bus 2, that I pulled from a 15 year slumber in a dry eastern WA field in 2015.
1966 Sundial Camper "Boomer"

[wcfvw69]

What would be interesting to know is this-

How many other Americans have a 45-50 year old, classic vehicle that they put 100k miles on over the past 5 years? It has to be a small club for sure.

Maybe you should contact VW of America Robbie. You could propose using you and your bus for their next nostalgic advertising campaign. VW could brag that 50 years after being built, this VW is still touring America, driving revenue into it's hard working owners pocket.
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Decades of VW and VW parts restoration experience.
The Samba member since 2004.

**Now rebuilding throttle bodies for VW's and Porsche's**
**Restored German Bosch distributors for sale or I can restore yours**
**Restored German Pierburg fuel pumps for sale or I can restore yours**
**Restored Porsche fuel pumps or I can restore yours**
**Restored Porsche distributors or I can restore yours**

[70Crew]

[bigbore]

Its not proper to keep Alaska out of the loop dump another quart in that thing and me and my 71 will meet you at the boarder oh better put on snow tires I just did I was up by the boarder yesterday in my air cooled vanagon 350 mile from here at my house and the snow is close.
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where its cold and snowy

[andrewtf]

[tristessa]

[airschooled]

[tristessa]

I'd give you my extra card reader if you weren't already done with Portland. Woulda come over for a beer and a hangout if I'd known you were here, even if it would have meant yet another day of a dashless Vanagon in my driveway. Did finally get the heater core into Kubler's rig so there's that...

[Spike0180]

[airschooled]

The car was just puttering along in central Wisconsin last week when I realized “I should change my oil.” Sorry car, 4,300 was a bit long on that service...

Last week, after eight years and dozens of full discharges, my Costco Wonder Battery finally went to the great smelter in the sky.

That was on lunch in Livingston, Montana, on a one-day from from Kellog, ID to Spearfish, SD.

I kinda like these Maxxis 751 Radials for finding volunteer sunflowers.

..visited some tourist traps on my one-day drive from Hot Springs, SD, to Minneapolis, MN.

Got to drive my Favorive Type 3 Ever in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Got to play “stranded on a back road with no service, tools, or parts,” in my Favorite Type 3 Ever.

Hit a bump in a ‘68 bus.......

And fixed them all before dinner time.

Even got some behind the scenes footage of that last one....

Arrived at Buddy’s Girlfriend’s Garage after suffering much tribulations over factory dual carbs with a brilliant distributor (thanks Bill! ) and even more brilliant vaccine advance (thanks Walker/Royze! ) in Wautoma, WI. Even ran a few hundred feet of wires in Wild Rose, WI, but took exactly zero pictures.

Spent a full day doing Projects on Buddy, as I rewired the interior lights to be dimmable, added a Fog Knob to my rear rock lights, cleaned out my reverse lenses because I found some dust (gasp!) in them after a few years of trail camping, added a diode to the coil end of the tach wire to reduce radio noise, (Brian, the Bluetooth Buzz is GONE!,) wired in my Silver Socket, polished all my fuse tabs, (again,) changed my oil, and installed a cabinet in the rear. Good day for commas and bus work, I’d say.

Robbie

_________________
Learn how your vintage VW works. And why it doesn't!
One-on-one tech help for your Volkswagen:
www.airschooled.com

[Wasted youth]

Love the countryside photography. A bit surprised at how long your battery lasted.

I always like the static and buzz. It's like the first part of Wish You Were Here.

[udidwht]

[advCo]

Awesome. If you come around through Houston, TX hit me up for a beer!
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"He pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac ‘cause he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back"
'68/'70 Ghia Coupe Project
'70 Westy Project - Champagne I Wannabe
A bunch of vintage Japanese motorcycles
"Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity." -A. Bennett

[bigbore]

I have a interstate battery in my 71 its 8 years old and one in my vanagon its over 10 and both working great I just got a new one this week for my 70 westy Iam preparing it for a grand tour of the states for next fall I need to get out of the cold here in Alaska for awhile.
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where its cold and snowy

[airschooled]

Yeah, that battery was run DEAD so many times… I have a huge stereo I run when wrenching, a fridge keeping my crispy boys cold, engine compartment lights, a reading light, under dash lights, a large cargo area light, and ambulance fans… The battery spends most of its time halfway discharged before it is even asked to start the car. I'm 100% sure it would still be going strong if I didn't instal the fridge without a voltage cutoff switch this year.

A marine battery would be perfect for my application, but I was given a five-year-old Optima yellow top (true deep cycle) so I'm not complaining. The interior 'cabinet' I built last month has a battery charge controller hidden in the back wired into the stock Westy inlet, so I can plug in anywhere I go to avoid unsightly solar panels on my roof.

Anybody know what the side post thread size/pitch is on this battery? I am having convulsions over how messy my wiring is now…

Robbie

_________________
Learn how your vintage VW works. And why it doesn't!
One-on-one tech help for your Volkswagen:
www.airschooled.com