Date:         Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:44:47 -0500
Reply-To:     Mike South <msouth@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Mike South <msouth@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      My project status update
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Not too exciting of an update, but a major milestone did happen on Saturday.

I'm working on a Bostig conversion for my 85 Westy AT.  I am also
converting it to a manual transmission as I go.  I have an AA
Transaxle rebuilt sitting in the back of the donor van waiting to do
its part.  The Zetec engine is on its palette in the passenger bay of
the donor van as well.  So the donor van has two engines and a
transmission and it still doesn't go.

Yesterday I took off the axels (when you do the auto-to-manual
conversion you have to get the axels because they are differently
sized between the two kinds of trannies), which was the last part I
knew of that I needed for the conversion, so I traded places between
the donor van (which had been in the garage) and the camper, which was
(sideways, facing the garage door) on the driveway.  Turned into an
all day affair, had to get a socket driven allen tip (thankfully
nothing stripped or anything, though--I followed the clean out-hammer
in-turn ritual with all of them and they all broke loose with little
difficulty (once I had the socket wrench on them, that is--the long
allen with the t-handle seemed to spend a lot of my energy flexing).

Then when it was time to maneuver the donor van into place at the top
of the driveway I learned that I had put the steering linkage together
wrong and it popped out and I had to spend quite a while getting the
light bulbs to slowly come off the dimmer switch I had apparently been
keeping them on.  Finally with my 10yo holding a flashlight on it and
eventually putting in the screw while I held the spring compressed, we
got it and were able to do the back-and-forth dance on the driveway
(with all four boys pushing and the wife steering and reaching over
and over again for the brake pedal that wasn't there (clutch pedal
needed for conversion so brake/clutch pedal assembly pulled).

Now the real work can begin.

mike