Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 23:37:54 -0500
Reply-To: chris smith <chris.smith@AQUILA.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: chris smith <chris.smith@AQUILA.COM>
Subject: The return of the Turd <really long>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
As many of you may know getting the TURD (Technically Un-Reliable Device)
to any event this year has been a true challenge, but now the fight is
over. I wanted to post a quick update, but I felt that since this story is
so long, it would get boring having to retell it every 2 minutes at Busses
nowhere near the arch.
The 1st problem cropped up after last years MoFoCo camp out. On the way
home from work it snapped the fan carrier bolt. Since it was close to
German Motor Works in Naperville I had it towed there to have the bolt
replaced. It took them 2 months to get it done, and cost over $800 for all
the work.
Then on the way up to turtle springs camp-out, the fuel injection died.
Since it was a total system failure, we had it towed to a friends house
(well really it was his brothers house, but the point is still the same).
The ride back involved me driving Ben's 61 single cab back home, but that
is another story altogether. I bought the replacement carb kit from The
Parts Place in Michigan, and installed it the next weekend. I made it to
the camp out, but was forced to drive a Jeep there (at least it made it up
the hill).
While driving the van home from the friends brothers house, the van made a
back-fire kind of noise, and the exhaust got real loud real quick. I was
sure that there was a hole in one of the heat exchangers.
About a week later, when driving around town, the fan carrier bolt snapped
a 2nd time. I decided to repair the bolt myself, since a really didn't
want to drop another $800 bucks on having a shop do it again. When I found
the old bolt, it was already 1/2 way rusted through, and stunk of
antifreeze. Since my van is air-cooled it was obvious that the shop had
put in a used bolt. About 3 weeks and a new bolt later the van was running
again. But buy then the weather was cold, and there was only 1 camp out
left for the year.
TURD ran well up to the holoween camp out/party, but the lights were
getting dimmer and dimmer the entire drive. I enjoyed the camp out and
kept the batteries on the charger until I left for home. On the way home I
didn'y run the lights, so there was no apparent power drop. The one
problem was an unusually high oil leak.
The next time I tried to take the van out it was very cold. TURD has had a
spongy clutch when it was cold out, and I thought that was just part of the
cars weird hydraulic system. That cold snap caused the clutch not to
disengage at all. It was time for a new slave cylinder. 3 months of way
too cold winter, 2 days of crawling under the van, and one ruined dremmel
later, the new slave was in. Also at that time we found the problem with
the charging. Ben noticed that the wires connected to the starter were
never tightened down. a quick turn of the wrench and the system was good
as new (too bad that I replaced the alternator over the winter thinking
that it was the problem).
The next trip was to Busses doing nothing. On the trip down oil
consumption shot up to 10 miles to a quart. After 2 quarts, it was time to
turn around ad drive the jeep to another camp out. I replaced the rear
main seal, since that was the only spot the oil could have been coming
from, and tried to drive it again. By now it is time for Mofoco, and the
van is needing work before I can drive it again. I replaced the seal, but
that didn't cure the problem.
Being stumped, I decided to take the van to a shop that I trust, but rarely
have time to wait for a vehicle to get done. Spencers Battered Bugs is
know for doing decent work, but the guy who runs it is a little flighty.
He is often working at 100mph on 3 cars at the same time. Since TURD
wasn't going to get work done on her at home, it made sense to drop it off
at Spencers for a few weeks.
The first diagnosis was that it might have a stuck pressure relief valve.
That would explain why the oil leak was really bad at high speeds. But
when he dug into the motor, the noise was coming from a cylinder that was
only producing 55 pounds, while 2 others were at 140 pounds. The problem
was traced to a cracked head. Then the motor was pulled and the heads
removed. Not only was the head shot, but the piston a cylinder was burnt
as well. This was now going from a minor oil job to a major rebuild. The
kicker is when we saw the damage that had occurred to the cam shaft from
all the piston chunks floating around the motor.
Luckily 2 weeks ago (yes, the episode at spencers has been going on for
about a month at that point) I found an ad on the vanagon list for a recent
rebuilt 2l type 4 long block cheap. I was able to arrange to have the
motor shipped to spencers, and have it arrive last monday, the 23rd. On
saturday, there was a message on my answering machine. The van is ready.
After all the problems, it looks like I'm going to be able to go down to
busses no where near the arch this year. knock on wood, I'll be there with
TURD and the rest of the family. If all the mechanicals are working right,
it will be time to start working on the interior. I only hope that I can
remember what is supposed to be in the westy when camping with the family.
I guess I'll know this weekend.
Chris Smith
'74 Thing
'82 westy
