Date:         Mon, 3 Mar 97 14:02:50 EST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Sean Bartnik <sbart7kb@www.mwc.edu>
Subject:      Dead Bus Report

Hey all,
I don't think either Steve or John are too interested in posting a trip
report about this weekend, so I'll do my best.  

John Anderson had bought a '73 Bus from, coincidentally, the brother of
the PO of my '81.  He paid $350 and knew the Bus was pretty much junk
but was hoping to recover his investment by scavenging parts before
sending the Bus to the crusher.  John and Steven Dolan got together and
planned to do the deed on Steve's father's property in Springfield, VA.
John then drafted me on Transporter Talk and a few days before, we also
drafted Tom Draffen, a new listmember and also new to VWs.  We found him
on Transporter Talk and he was eager to learn about his new '78 (which,
BTW, is VERY VERY nice and he got for $50 -- does need an engine seal
like RIGHT NOW tho).  

So, the van was purchased by John, sight unseen, as John lives in WV and
the van was in Baltimore MD.  On Saturday morning, he and Steve drove up
to Baltimore in John's '81 (every panel hit except the driver's door)
Westy :-) .  They got a towtruck driver to pick up the Bus and tow it to
Springfield and called me before they left Baltimore.  I then called Tom
and hit the road.  Tom met me at a rest stop and then we convoyed to
Steve's place and waited.  We were only there for about 10-15 minutes
when John drove up in his '81 and a couple minutes later, the flatbed
tow truck drove up with a very very very decrepit '73 on the back.  We
got the van unloaded and pushed it into position (thank God it rolled --
in fact the brakes were very scary) with the ass-end in the garage so we
could drop the engine.  

Steve is interested in the '73 transmission because he has a '73 Westy
which has a transmission from a later Bus in it.  The later trans is an
inch longer than the '73 trans, and so causes all kinds of shifting
problems for Steve.  He was also interested in the heads and possibly
the engine if it was any good.  John pretty much claimed everything else
and Tom got some misc. stuff.  I didn't get anything because I don't
have a bay window Bus.  I did take home the single Beetle-engine valve
that was sitting in the Bus, why it was there I don't know, but it will
make a nice paperweight.  

Anyway, I started taking things off the front of the Bus while the
others began disassembling the rear for engine/tranny removal.  I
removed the wiper arms, headlight buckets, turn signal lenses, bumper,
etc off the front while in back they removed the rear engine lid (which
was hanging on by one hinge -- Tom employed the "brute force" method to
remove the other one by twisting the door until the other hinge broke).
We were not too concerned with body damage :-) .  Then Steve got some
surprisingly nice rear light housings and lenses from the back while I
took most of the switches out of the dashboard.  The rear interior of
the Bus was inexplicably missing, so that was less work to do.  

Then, John, Steve and Tom began engine disassembly while I continued my
front work.  They took off the baby Dellorto carbs and linkage and most
of the other things holding the engine to the body.

The idea here was to take the engine and transmission out together and
then split them later.  It came time to lower the engine so out came the
floor jacks.  We lowered the engine and tranny only to find that we left
the backup light fuse holder and the shift rod connected.  Whoops!
Raised the engine back up and tried again, only to find that we had to
go back up for such things as the tranny ground strap, clutch cable, and
accelerator cable.  You'll notice we did not use the manual :-) . Then
we lowered the engine once more only to find that it would not clear the
bumper.  Steve then informed us that the first thing to do for engien
removal is take off the bumper.  Thanks Steve! ;-)  With the bumper
finally removed, the engine slid right out, at which point we pushed the
Bus out of the garage so we could close the door and go get some dinner!
We went to Generous George's and had some goooooood stuff.

Tom went home, John went to visit some friends and I camped out in the
Westy behind Steve's place (gotta prepare for the Kiptopeke trip).  We
stayed up late going through the Bentley and Haynes manuals and
discussing vacuum advance, transmission gear ratios, and radio DJ-ing.
We did find some weirdness on the Bus which was explained by the
Bentley.  Under the Bus, someone noted that it had "two back-up light
switches."  We all thought that was odd.  We also noticed a strange
canister mounted near the roof of the engine compartment by the heater
blower fan.  We didn't know what it was, except that it had electrical
and vacuum connections.

Studying the Bentley that night, Steve and I came upon a very strange
presumably emissions-related bit of weirdness.  Apparently, the dual
carb Type 4 engines on Buses have a rather weird timing advance system.
Vacuum advance is shut off UNLESS the ambient temperature is above 54
degrees F AND the Bus is in 4th gear.  SO, the "extra back-up light
switch" was really the 4th gear sensor for this goofy system and that
strange canister was the vacuum advance cut-off valve.  We also noticed
that the thing was supposed to be timed at 10 degrees ATDC at idle, so
we imagined that this was one SLOW Bus.

Anyway, Sunday morning we started at about 9:00 and the first order of
business was to elevate the engine to drain the oil.  We used jack
stands under the bearer bar and an old tire and a couple blocks of wood
under the tranny.  Then I proceeded to drain the "oil."  I say "oil"
because this stuff was oil in color only.  When I opened the drain plug,
the stuff that ran out had the viscosity of water and reeked STRONGLY of
gasoline, which it basically was.  Apparently the PO had some problem
where a lot of gas got into the engine.  YEAH, I GUESS!  There was a LOT
of gas in there.  It was really horrible.  At that point, we figured
that this engine was probably nothing more than a core.

So, we decided to strip the engien a bit and see just how worthless it
really was.  First we wanted to crank it, so John and Steve went and
bought some el-cheapo oil and brought a battery so we could use the
starter.  The solenoid, however, didn't want to engage, so we shorted
the starter and the motor ran fine.  We removed the solenoid and tried
to work it manually, but that didnt' work too well.  After a bit of
jerking around with this, Steve got out the big wrench and attempted to
turn the engine using the alternator pulley nut.  Well, it wasn't much
of a surprise to learn that this engine was SEIZED.  

So, now it was engine-stripping time.  Off came the tin, exhaust,
alternator, and fan housing.  When opening the valve covers we were
confronted with rust on the INSIDE of the valve covers.  Uh-oh.  There
were also some rusty valve springs, presumably due to the gas in the
engine.  But when the heads were pulled, they were in surprisingly good
shape and will make nice cores for Steve.  The Ps&Cs however were not as
pretty.  The pistons were rusted to the cylinder walls and no amount of
tapping/banging would set them free, so we left it at that.  We then
split the engine and tranny and hopefully the tranny will be serviceable
for Steve.  We then set on the interior of the Bus like vultures and
removed EVERYTHING.  Front seats, all the glass, the entire dashboard,
all the electrics, John got a nice Hurst shifter, turn signal reflector
buckets, doors, John even took the plastic parts from the ends of the
fresh air box.  This Bus was COMPLETELY empty when we were done.  Steve
had wanted the front beam but inspection showed it to be rusty and
unsafe for installation on a Bus.  Steve and John did go after the
steering box however, and finally got it after a LONG time :-) .

While Steve and John were working on the steering box, two
teenager-filled Hondas pulled up to watch our progress.  These were your
typical high-school alterna-hippie-wannabes.  Most insightful quote of
the day:  "We saw you working on the Buses and we thought that was cool.
Heh heh."

Anyway, they came and looked around but thankfully left before too long,
putting away in their Hondas.  

After the steering box removal, the rest of the time was spent cleaning
up and separating the good parts from the junk.  I took lots of photos
of our work, especially some of the nasty terminal rust on this Bus.  As
soon is the roll is finished I will get them developed and hopefully
scanned.  Tom left us soon after the clean-up but Steve and John and I
went to Generous George's again (this is good stuff, folks) and then I
headed home.  I was TIRED and slept very well last night.

A productive weekend.  

Sean
--
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Sean Bartnik                           "Life is tough, 
sbart7kb@www.mwc.edu          but it's tougher if you're stupid."
'81 Vanagon Westy                      --John Wayne             

Fahrvergnugen really means "push harder."

http://www.mwc.edu/~sbart7kb/myvan.htm
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