akciddento

squirrels and curtain rails

the new t shirts are ready, with luck i might sell more than i give away at big bang... more rain, so i got down to serious race preparation on the samba. i spent most of the day fitting some silentgliss curtain rail. although it's aluminium i know it still adds weight but i reckon that the additional weight is offset by the half kilo of hazelnuts i removed from the headlining.
squirrels, you just loves 'em doesn't ya ?

i wasn't kidding about the hazelnuts!

sunshine !

sunshine, dropped the engine in double quick time, looking at the clock o made a mental note to have the oil cooler seals changed and the engine back in by 11am. HA! stripped back the tinware & fan housing and checked over the oil cooler, it looks ok, after a quick conversation with Andy at typethreedetectives i decide to check all the other gaskets and replace the generator pedestal and attack the fuel pump. oh dear, on close inspection the base of the fuel pump appears to be slightly bowed, allowing it to rock on the mounting bolts. ah well, not to worry gives me an excuse to fit an electric fuel pump and the breather blockoff i got from wolfsberg performance last year. a quick trip to G&S yields the relevant gaskets and a shiny Bugpak pump.

HOWEVER,

on closer inspection the pump has no adapters to attach the fuel pipe to, just threaded holes. the instructions helpfully suggest purchasing 5/16 inch threaded adapters. 'oh great' thinks i. for the sake of 5 cents worth of parts i have to run around sourcing bits for another hour.

however,

after visiting four separate places it turns out that the fitment is a peculiarly US only style thread size and pitch and even if i could find something close it won't fit. the best suggestion i get is to try calor gas. i've also got to get the artwork to the printers to get stickers and flyers printed for this weekend. in a rush i get the artwork in at the printers, after much ringing around and encountering answerphones I get through to Ian at wolfburg performance parts who comiserates with my predicament. I bash the credit card again and i have a new COMPLETE facet pump & fitting kit on the way to me. my new nomex gloves arrive by courier. very swank. best of all the new manfrotto camera mounts i ordered last week have arrived now i can set up stills & video cameras inside the cab and stuck to the outside of the windscreen !

more rain...

rain. grey, all day. i schlepp round town and pick up new oil cooler seals and some other bits and bobs. i visit Screen One screenprinters and get the order for new design T shirts sorted out and deliver the artwork. i drop into the local motorcycle dealers and get a new helmet for racing and order up some nomex gloves from Demon Tweeks. I have a chat with Out Of Hand printers and fix prices for colour flyers and more bumper stickers. i finally get some time to sort and work on new artwork ideas and some recent photographs. i

sunday

its sunday.

reassembly, again....

finally i get all the bits together, do an oil change and finish putting the engine back together. it looks great. runs lovely - though i think the timing's a little too advanced. I'll get the strobe gun on it as soon as possible.i go for a quick zip up the m32. predictably there's oil pouring out from under the left hand cylinder head tinware. oh happy day.

'i went to the shops and i bought...'

. puppy from typethreedetectives called over in the morning, on his way to pick up a car. coffee and an excellent breakfast set me up to tool around town on the akciddento parts chaser and do some shopping. picked up some gaskets & bits from german & swedish and arthur at the dub depot supplied me another oil cooler pedestal. andy at t3d put one in the post for me too.
ordered a new kennedy stage 1 clutch from VolkswagenSpeedShop in manchester and my lovely gene berg shifter arrived in a plain brown wrapper from bernie newbury. MMMMMMM bus porn! pottered around for the day, did a gearbox oil change. this has to be the most noxious job ever! also used my new goggles and felt just like safety squirrel. nearly got hit in the eye by grinding flash yesterday past the edge of my sunglasses so felt most sensible.degreased everything in sight, including the drive...

a bigger dishwasher is needed here!

dropped the engine from the bus in a leisurely fashion, no problems, had fun with the grinder cutting the exhaust bolts off through. stripped off the tinware and got to the oil cooler. there's a nick in the base of it that i'm hoping will be the problem. had fun cleaning the velocity stacks and tinware in the sink. was going to put the fan housing in the dishwasher but it wouldn't fit... need a bigger dishwasher methinks.

hungover wiring

monster hangover. i spend a vague morning sipping coffee and staring at wiring diagrams for the bus. for some reason it MAKES SENSE ! this is very disturbing. i have difficulty focusing on objects but the wiring diagram makes sense ?
i track it all back and test and check and twiddle. the immobiliser has fried part of itself. the cutout for the starter motor works fine but it's not engaging the portion for the coil... and the pertronix ignition module isn't working.... i track this down to the distributor spindle having worn through the wires! the main battery is flat as a pancake, part of the split charge system the AA guy cut into has shorted... i tidy lots of stuff up and rewire it, clean, sweep up and even scrape up the old tapecassettes glued to the dashboard tray with congealed tomato ketchup. tidy it all down and mop the chequer floor. it works. I AM THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE. i buy a new toolbox to celebrate then truck down to the jet wash to give the bus some kharmic maintainance. as i arrive there's a horrible noise, looks and sounds like the bearings in the alternator and giving up. i wash it all anyway. it starts fine, rumbles, grumbles, squeals and dies. there's that lovely flinty burned wiring type smell. it doesn't start again. jake comes over and tows the bus home.

wiring, knitting and rats nests...

start digging into the electrical problems in the bus. looks like half a dozen things have died at once, i start tracking them down but just end up sitting with my head in my hands. i can't understand what's been done with the immobiliser and the hotwiring the AA guy did doesn't make sense.... my friend hubbs comes over in the beige-wedge-monster and shakes his head. we go to the pub and i practice getting drunk.

back home on a low loader, again...

back from the alps, sunburned and exhausted, all very good. didn't kill any of the other munters on the package holiday. get in the bus, starts first time, runs lovely. off onto the m23 heading home, then it dies. completely. it won't fire, won't turn over, gauges are going mad. big time electrical problems..... AA time again. spend a pleasant few hours in the AA truck chatting about politics, the state of the country, drag racing, how to jump start chieftain tanks and why the AA guy should get back into volkswagens. after much mucking about we arrive back home at midnight on a trailer. again....
i give the AA guy an akciddento baseball cap and some bumper stickers. he says he might come say hello at big bang

off to the airport

after a day of frantic packing we're off to gatwick in the bus to go snowboarding. I call over to Teoh's to get takeaway noodles for supper. as i pull out of Teoh's the bus dies, electrical failure ! i check eveything over and it looks like the immobiliser i had fitted last year has shorted out and isn't disarming properly. meaning that the ignition system is now locked out and protected by a 27million variation combination code.... doh.... need to set off to the airport in 2 hours and i have a dead bus. eventually the verynice man from the AA arrives and confirms my suspicion. we spend a pleasant half hour hotwiring the bus to bypass the immobiliser... and we're off to the airport and a week of snow. DOH! big panic. we're 10 miles from the airport and it's 2.30am the bus has started misfiring and sounds like its running on 3 cylinders. i ignore it, thinking that if i pretend i can't hear it we'll get to the airport on faith alone and all will be fine after it's had a week to sulk in the longstay parking. we made it. just!

shopping and spannering

got a box of bits from justKampers, next day service, lovely packaging. how cool is that? proper silent gliss curtain runners and curtain hooks AND the battery cut off switch i have to fit for MSA regs... plus other impulse purchase junk, i love web shopping and credit cards! the folding devon cooker hood also arrived from slackdub, thanks michael! fixed some stuff on the samba, serviced it & some oither stuff, ollie slammedbay came over & we did his 69 dormobile & fitted a new pertronix ignition unit. took some pictures.... even got a few hours climbing at the climbing wall in. good day!

officialdom beckons!

www.akciddento.com is all registered and online, getting there....

merchandise !

had a mail from the merchandise printers saying the hats, stickers, shirts etc would be shipping and arrive within 4 weeks. half an hour later a courier delivered a huge box will all the printed gear in it, including my very own akciddento aluminium lunchbox! it's the bomb! get 'em while they're hot!

more forms to fill in...

sent off the sprc and the vwdrc membership forms, lookd like i will be snowboarding with emily and lucian over easter so won't be able to make thunderball... great start to the racing year...