Oil Leak Abolished

In previous posts (here and here) I talked about my oil leak problems.

Since I got the bus back from the first mechanic, it's been leaking oil like a sieve. Second mechanic said it was leaking from EVERYWHERE and I would most likely have to crack the case and replace all the gaskets.

Since then, I've been driving it, watching the oil, filling it and driving it more.

I've been calling around and trying to find a replacement engine because I really don't have a desire to rebuild an engine in this cold. I'll post my findings because I did find a great place to buy a rebuilt engine from.

Today, I was driving the kids over to my parents and noticed that my bus was smoking. Turned out it was oil on my exhaust.

So, although unplanned, my Dad and I attacked trying to find the leak. there was oil everywhere.

After wiping it all down and digging around, we determined it was most likely coming from the where the oil filler neck connected to the sump. on top of that is the tube that the dip stick slides through. The first mechanic had totally jerry-rigged a crappy solution. First we thought that maybe oil was coming from that. we were wrong.

Here's the jerry-rigged sleave:


Next we took the oil filler neck off. The weight of the box-wrench caused the nut to spin. This had to be it. We ended up having to loosen a piece of the engine tin that the Oil filler went through. We also had to remove the muffler and cross-over pipe.

By removeing the nuts as best we could and then twisting around the neck, we got it out.

Problems:

• The bolts were just shafts with nuts on them.
• Nuts were freaking Loose
• No lock washers.
• Doubled up gaskets.
• Installed by a Moron

We managed to get the bolts off. The hardest part was replacing the tube that connects the dip stick tube on the neck to the tube that went through the fan shroud.

My dad made a replacement gasket while I bought new hex head bolts with lock washers. They were 13mm heads, 8mm diameter with a 1.25 pitch.

Managed to finagle it back in and got the rubber tube over the dip stick shafts. Next was the gasket and then the bolts.

Writing that makes it seem easy but it was just an odd location, we didn't take the engine out and it was the first time we had done any of that. My arms are killing me.

Here's the finished Oil Filler Tube. To me it looks awesome. New Gasket and New Bolts:


During all this, we realized that my engine was missing a thermostat. The pully for it is just sitting there and the space where it should be is empty:


Here's the lone pully to control the shrouds:


Here's the thermostat that I'm missing (021119159A):


Apparently its hard to find and expensive.

Have to find one of those, but right now it just runs cold. It's not the end of the world and was probably too expensive or hard to find so it wasn't replaced before.

Casey

New LED Dome Lights Installed

So in a previous post I talked about ordering LED Replacement Lightbulbs for my dome lights.

I found it interesting to learn that these are called Festoon Bulbs. I don't know why I do, but I like that word.

Today, I took the 5 minutes needed and installed them. Here's what they looked like with the LED Bulb put in:


Here's what it looked like Hanging Loose:


BEFORE:


AFTER:


So, these are significantly brighter. The light is White light though not the soft yellow of a incandescent bulb. These use less energy (1 Watt as opposed to 10 Watts) and won't ever burn out or suffer from vibration.

Not sure if I like the White Light though. I have to think about that one.

That's about it.

Casey

New Antenna

So I had this antenna that I had installed a while ago. I went through a "Touch-Less" car wash. Turns out it DOES touch your car. It totally bent the antenna over. When I reported the damage to the manager, he said it was bad marketing... "Touch-Less" means "Touches the Car LESS".

Apparently I need a "Touch-Free"... unless that means they don't charge you for your car being touched.

Regardless, we settled up with some free car washes for my other car and called it even.

I ordered a replacement antenna from BusDepot. Here's what it looked like when it arrived.


Here are the holes from the outside on the Passenger side:


The antenna comes with a lock washer and a nut on each of the screws. I didn't think that this was sufficient. I added a simple washer to the smaller screw. I took a larger washer from some seatbelt hardware and drilled the hole just large enough to get around the larger screw. The goal here was to add some strength to the antenna. It seemed flimsy.

Here's what it looked like with the washers on:


I had my daughter help install it. She held it in place from the outside while I put the washer, lock washer and the nuts on from the inside. I found it easiest to reach up from underneath. The small nut was 8mm and the larger nut was 19mm.

Here's what it looked like with the nuts on and the antenna cable hooked up:


Here's what it looked like from the outside. Wish I could have gotten the Chrome one instead of the black:


That's it. Done. The hooking up of the antenna to the radio is pretty obvious.

Casey

New LED Dome Lights Arrived

As mentioned in a previous post, I ordered some replacement LED bulbs for my Dome Lights.

Here's a picture of what they look like:


Next step would be to install them... BUT it's freaking ridiculous cold outside so I'll wait until tomorrow morning when I HAVE to go out there.

You can buy the LED lights from SuperBrightLEDs.com. (direct link to the lights).

Casey

Received the Oil Pressure Gauge and Sender

Because of my oil leaking issues, I ordered an oil pressure gauge and the double pole sending unit.

I ordered from BusDepot.com so I had little faith in it showing up :). I got it, but it didn't have a packing receipt and was from reused boxes and newspaper. I don't mind this that much. In larger orders I find they screw up. Small ones like this seem to go pretty smooth.

Here's a picture of the dual sender unit, the gauge and a gauge panel.


Also, I had to order a replacement antenna due to a car-wash incident.


Casey

Received the Third Brake Light from CHINA

Following up on my Add a Third Brake Light post.

I received it today... only took 13 days. That's pretty good.

Here is a picture of what the light looked like in the package:


and here's one of it out and close up:


That's about it. I'll probably install it and a few other things this weekend.

Casey

Interior Lights Wiring with Door Switches

This weekend I tackled the dome and interior lighting inside the bus. These had worked previously but I had never hooked them back up after I got it back from paint.

Here are what my goals were:

• Lights are always able to be switched on regardless of key in the ignition
• Driver, Passenger and Slider will turn lights on upon open. 
• Manual switch to turn lights on from drivers seat. 
• Support each dome light being able to be turned off and on. 
• Add under dash lights. 
• Run off of auxiliary battery

I looked around and couldn't find a diagram of the Bus Dome lights. I created this diagram:



I bought door switches (306-169) and rubber surrounds  from Mid America Motorworks. I installed them on the Driver, Passenger and Slider door. They ground out when the door is opened, hence turning the light on.

Here is a picture of the door switch on the Driver side:


I had purchased the Dome Lights a while back. MAM has those too (383-877)

Basically this was all pretty easy. I guess the "A-Ha" moment was when I figured out in order to do multiple switches, you were switching the Ground and not the power. Once I figured out that, it became a matter of running wires through the channel. I got lucky a couple times and wire veered through the hole.

After I got the dome lights in place, I decided I wanted to put lights under the dash. I had some 12v small LEDs that I got from SuperBrightLEDs.com and hooked those up. There are two support braces that go from the front wall to the dash. They support the Emergency Brake Lever. I placed two of these LEDs on either bar. One points down and one points to the respective side. Wired them up and went from there.

Here's a Picture of the installed and ON lights.


The light is AWESOME. So happy with this. When I get in the car I can see the floor. It's awesome. Also, I'm planning on getting some under dash trays. This will help significantly when finding things at night.

Another thing I added was a little Pull switch on the dash next to the headlight switch.



My dad informed me that VW put pre-cut holes in the metal for additional switches. I found one, used a razor to cut out the fabric and wha-la!  Basically this makes it so you can turn on the lights when you're in and the doors are closed. The only thing I may do is put in an override switch for the lights under the dash. The overhead dome lights have a toggle to turn them off manually (say if the door is open and you're sleeping). Right now, I think a good addition would be a way that turned them on manually. Like if you're driving at night and needed to see a tray.


For my Dome lights, I just ordered one of these each from SuperBrightLEDs.com



I don't know why I'm all about the LEDs. I think because I'm trying to conserve Electricity and these are so efficient, they don't burn out AND they're not really affected by vibration.

That's about it. I have to get some more pics up here to finish out this post. I'll take them tonight on my way home.

Casey

Make Your Own Wire Loom

As part of installing Guages and the auxillary battery, I quickly saw that there was a need to be able to run wires from front to back. I posted on the samba and got a lot of awesome ideas. At the point of this post, I had already ran a single wire hap hazardly from back to front on the driver's side.

Here is how I ended up making an auxillary wire loom for the bus.

Tips I used in running the wire from front to back.

If you're going to run 1 wire, run 8 or 10. This is planning for the future. You might only need 1 or 2 now, but since I've put it in, I've already thought of other things I can do with it. Continuity Tests, Remote Starter, Lights, Temporary circuits... Endless and all right there.

Use wire made for Trailer harnesses. This wire is cheap and made for all weather. generally 14 gauge, and multi colored. They even have Brown in case you want an extra OG ground.

I bought a 40 foot trailer wire from eTrailer.



You also may want to 1 or 2 dedicated 10 gauge wires. I bought some about 30' of that too from eTrailer.


The Assembly:
Here is the wire unraveled... and my dad's feet. He was about to own the wire.


Get a friend or somewhere to tie one end to. Stretch it out and fold it in half.


What you'll end up with is 8 wires at 20'. This is awesome and plenty to go from the engine compartment to anywhere under the dash. I also added in the 30' of blue 10 gauge wire. This will leave about 5' of blue wire at each end. I'm going to use the blue wire for an accessory circuit so this works well for me. It's also at this point you could easily add more wires if you are so inclined. .In all I have 9.

Hindsight Advice: Label the ends of the wires at this point unless you have unique colors. I didn't do this and now have to do circuit testing to make sure I have them correct.

Next step was to wrap it every foot or so with electrical tape.


Here's a long shot of the harness now:


Hindsight Advice: Per Busman, it would be wise to wrap the whole think in electrical tape. I think this OR heatshrink tubing would be effective. This would stop wear and effects from the elements. I may pull this out in order to do that. I had wrapped it all in plastic cord wrap tubing so I'm not sure that it will make much difference, BUT wires that move have friction which causes wear which causes bad things. Anyway...

Next step is to pull it into the engine compartment and then up to the front. I followed the path of the main wire harness and just tie wrapped it above it where I could. There are plenty of holes in the frame to run it through. The main wire harness on my bus runs along the main beam on the passenger side of the bus. It is mostly covered with sheathing and runs through a metal tube at in the center.

I laid underneath and pushed it through one of the existing grommets on the passenger side of the engine compartment next to where the starter is. It helps to have a friend there to pull as you push. I also found that popping the grommet out completely, running it through the hole, then pushing the grommet back into place was much easier. The space up there is tight and I have big hands.

Once the wire was run, I took some of that plastic cord control and wrapped the wires with it. I then used zip ties to hold it to the chasis.



Here are the wires in the engine compartment:


From Radio Shack I bought an 8x Terminal Block and mounted it to the firewall above the engine.



I connected the 8 wires from the trailer harness to that Terminal block. For ease, it probably would be a good idea to label what you use and hook them the same order in the back as the front.



Up front I pulled the wires in through the same hole as the main wire harness.

Read more about it here.

What did I do with the blue wire? 
I have an auxiliary battery so I connected to that in the engine compartment. under the dash I put in a 6x blade fuse block I bought from a FLAPS. This is going to be for my radio and other accessories up near the front of the bus.

I plan to put an inline 30amp fuse in the rear of the bus on the blue wire.

I need a picture of this. 

So, besides more pictures, that's about it. Simple upgrade and a little work can be used for many things through the future.

Casey

Add a Third Brake Light

I've seen a couple threads on The Samba about people adding a Third Brake Light to their Bus.

It's a pretty simple project and it's electrical so I would like to give this one a shot.

Here's what it should look like when I'm done:


I ordered a third brake light through Ebay from China.

Should be here in a couple years. :)

Casey

Insulated Front Fresh Air Vents

Now that I've been driving the bus AND it's winter, I've started to learn about how the Heat and Cool operate. Pretty simple actually. The heat has dedicated separate venting from the fresh air. For some reason I had thought they were dependent and you just open/close flaps like you do in modern cars. Turns out you don't and this is good.

Well, all of the fresh air comes in through the front grill. The Fresh Air lever (blue one) in my bus open and closes the flaps. When they're open, air comes in while the car moves. It's kinda nice... except when it's 7 degrees outside and you're praying for the heat to work.

Did some research and took apart my front grill. The flaps were there and operated really well. Originally the flaps had this foam insulation that stuck inside the flap and, when closed, stopped air from leaking in. The foam in mine was gone.

Went to Home Depot and bough this:

It's weather stripping for automotive and marine applications. Has a glue that stands up to cold and weather. Figured it was a good buy.

Took my vents out and laid three strips each lengthwise across the inside of the vent. Here's a picture with the weather stripping installed:

Tested it out and it closes great. Theoretically, when I drive now, I should have the gush of cold air through these vents. If that still happens I'll have to open it back up and add some more insulation.

Took maybe 15 minutes cause I was moving slow.

Just checked it out and works really well. Barely any air coming through the vents! Woot!

casey

Installed New Front Floor Mat

If you remember back to one of my previous posts (Ordered A New Front Floor Mat), I had bought and received a new Front Floor Mat


Well, today I installed it. The floor had been repaired by Maaco and then I put a layer of Fat Mat down to take care of noise and insulate a little.


Here's a picture of the floor with the Fat Mat

You can see that with the Gene Berg Shifter (or any quick shift kit) that I had to modify the mat to fit. This wasn't really a problem, you just have to be patient.

Around the hole where the shifter is supposed to slip down, I cut 4 slits about an inch long (basically at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock).

I then slipped this over the shifter and was able to get it down to where it was as in place as possible. This mat was really flexible and easy to put in. I'd highly recommend it. It had pre-cut slits and holes for the pedals, steering column, heat duct and emergency brake.

When it was down, there was some buckling because it was caught on the shifter boot. I took a small pair of scissors and carefully and slowly cut around the shifter to fit the entire quick shift base.

Here's a picture of it in place:


Here's another picture. You can see the quick shift kit cuts I had to make.


All in all, this took about 10 minutes. I had been driving around with just the fatmat for a week so before I put it in I shop vac'd it and dried it out.

casey

Brakes Done and Bad News about Engine

Well, yesterday I got a call from the Garage. The Brakes are all done and they found the oil leak…

It leaks everywhere is what they said. It only really leaks after it's been at higher RPMs for a bit of time… so normal driving. The engine is not blowing smoke out of the exhaust or anything.

They also said they won't take that on as a project.

So, after some finagling of schedules, I made it over there to pick it up and drive it to my parents.

Looking at it now, it seems as though it's leaking oil between the fan shroud and the main block. I'm unsure where the oil is all coming from.

I started this thread on TheSamba.com to see if I could get some answers or ideas.

First Idea: Confirm that the crank case breather is not clogged. Theory is that if the crank case can't expel pressure, the internal pressure forces the oil out through the seals and gaskets.

I found the breather and checked that it wasn't clogged. Also checked that the hose going to the S housing was open.

Second Idea: The last mechanics mucked around with the Oil Pressure Relief valve. They said that it had been leaking from there and it was because the head of the oil pressure relief value (this monster screw) was bent slightly. They supposedly bent it back in place. I have to double check that. That involves changing the oil... not a problem but I'll have to pick some up.

What Now? Well right now, I was working in my dad's garage but have it back in mine now. I need to get it up on jack stands so I can get a better look at where the leaks might be coming from. I'll take pictures and add them here and to the thread.

Inevitably: Regardless of what is causing the pressure to increase such that the oil is leaking through the seals, I fear that the seals/gaskets are now bad and need to be replaced. So ultimately the damage may have been done.

The reason this all bums me out is that I've been working on this bus for a year and half. I keep getting this thing to the point where I'm sure it's going to work and the bus gods throw me a curve… more money, more time. The transmission was unexpected and huge. Now this could be huge as well and this is WAY more unexpected than the tranny was.

I'll tell you what though. This all came on suddenly so I'm thinking it's something that the garage did. If I can get it to where the oil leak just isn't as bad, then I'll live with that and plan a rebuild in the future.

More to come. Trying to remain positive.

Casey

Latest Picture of the Bus... in Snow!

Pictures were taken December 13, 2009


Driver Side of the Bus


Driver Side of the Bus


Rear of the Bus


Passenger Side of the Bus

Front of the Bus

Hopefully getting it back from the Mechanic this week. Brakes and Oil leak to be fixed.

Casey

Brakes Done... Now a Major Oil Leak

Alright, called the garage yesterday to get an update. They had finished the brakes and say they work great. They say the lights work, things are tight and basically it, well, stops.

Now, while they were out driving it they finally saw the oil leak that I had told them about. Apparently it's up high enough on the engine that it doesn't rear it's head unless the engine is revving.

So, they're looking at that. I'm thinking they are going to have to yank the engine to fix it because it's coming from behind the fan shroud. We'll see what happens next.

Casey

Awesome Sticker Job on a Bus

Check out http://www.myvwcamperblog.com/ and see this guy's awesome restore job on his bus. The laminate clouds that he puts on the outside is awesome.

Did I mention it was awesome?

Casey

Realization about Mechanics

So, today I realized why, sometimes, I should NOT bring my bus to a mechanic.

They don't work on holidays or weekends. They only work for 8 hours.

Here I am on vacation and my bus is in the shop. It's just sitting there and I can't touch it.

Anyway, the bus is still in the shop. I have days off and I can't do anything with it. This is agony.

That is all.

casey