akciddento

in the snow !

after nineteen hours of driving from calais, with a stop over night in dijon and a variety of twiddling we've arrived in Morzine in the french alps, about 70km outside geneva and sitting at about 1500m we're sat drinking coffee in a snowy wonderland.

the journey was generally uneventful, the first day was almost completely driven in the rain but day two of the drive, Dijon to Morzine via some of the most fantatsic tunnels was much better with warm sunshine and amazing viustas over valleys and mountain ranges.
the samba generally behaved itself, the only real problems being the lack of clearance between the fonrt arches and the huge snowtyres meaning that unless the road were perefectly smooth paul had to sit in the back and entertain himslef with the huge array of stills cameras, video cameras, digital gear, camera clamps, lasers and computers we seem to havre brough t with us.

the oher problem is a bit of a leak from the flywheel oil seal, about a litre every 2-300 km, it's not a problem so far, it just means that there's a bity of oil contamination in the clutch causing clutch slip in higher gears.

all in all it was a fairly easy journey, we even had heating for the journey!

the last section of the journey after we turned off the autoroute, (about 20kms short of the MOnt blanc tunnel - signposted for TURIN!!!(how tempting is that ??)) ran through the lower sections of the tourist industry and little villages looking very cute in the snow, then higher in LesGets and getting into really snowy territory and rather vertical. i bought snow chains on the way down at one of the service stations but they werent neccessary, the road was generally clear and as the sun was still high the risk of ice was minimal.

rolling into morzine was an unbelievable feeling. I came here in the summer and to see it again covered in snow rather than all green is wonderful. the feeling of parking up and looking back at VWSP97, my race car ! is hilarious....

wth some runnign around to find accomodation we weresettled in and the bus parked, awaiting the first covering of snow.

roll on new year !

:)

and off to the snow....

well, the snow tyres are on, and the fronts have about a rizla papers worth of clearaqnce nderthe front arches....

aftera quick trip down to devon itlooks like i mighthave to change overthe tyres to the old porsche cups because they ground out every timei brake or corner hard....

however aftera quick check it turns outthat there's 45 psi in the fornt rtyres, let off a bit of gas and itseems much betterand it's off to **zwitter** and carol's in kent.

afterarruiving i'm showing paul zwitterhow little clearance there is and it appears that the wheels have bent and rounded the front arches outrathernicely now so thatit's all hunky dory...

relaxing at e-c&p's and planning the route all looks good. we're planning on up fpr th 6am train throughthe tunnel and then off to catch butterflys in bavaria.

e-carol has already made up a packed lunch for tomorrow,

zwitter estimatesthe driuve atabout 8 hours... ha ha....

i did the drive twoyars ago in a new beetle and started atcalais at 10 am and drove until 9pm then carrie don the next day at 9.30 am and arrived at 9.30 pm....

the bus is currently chugging happily at about 60 mph so it mightbe a long journey.

it's kinda novel having heating through !

if i can get aqccess while i'm away i'lll keep yopu [osted,

heres to stickering the restof france !

:)

snow tyres on my racecar!

after MUCH sweating and swearing VWSP97 is now sat resplendent on it's winter tyres!....

... got the tyres swapped onto smlla 5 lug hubs yesterday and started to fit up the back ones...
doh...

lowered slambasaurus...

wont' fit in the arches..

bus falls off the jackl and axle stands...

need to jack the bus up to get the jack out that's stuck under it to get the jack to jack it up to get the jack out....

1920's bottl;e jack to the rescue, cranked up with an old pair of pliers...

brainwave! let the air out the snow tyres..

doh! the sidewall is so hard they're the same shape uninflated!

brainwave! bottlejakc to the rescue, wedge it in against the bringplate and crank the suspension down !!!!
wheel just fits, bolt it up...

doh! how to get the bottle jack out ?

EVENTUALLY, got the back wheels done,

front wheels,

DOH! lost the key for the locking wheel nuts,

Brainwave! drift on a 14mm socket with a BIG hammer,

eventually get the fronts done!

snowtyres all the way round...

man it looks UGLY

the sound of freedom

with an early start i got stuck into drinking tea in earnest..

then eventually got out into the cold wityh all the tools and started on the job or getting the bus ready to receive its new donor engine.

first off, get the piping in for the heat exchangers

then make sure that i remember to remove the clutch plate thingy here as i have a later style 1303 gearbox in the bus...

then after isolating the fuel pump for the fuel injection and zip tying the fuel injevction wiring harness out of the way and rem,oving the race engines breather system and catch can it's onto bypassing the regulator. the 1600 donor engine has an alternator and the race engine has a dynamo so the regulator is now surplus to requirements...

so in goes the engine

all straightforward ? after a chat in the morning with Martin at taylor machine about how the computer for the injection was wired and a chat with paul at type three detectives about bypassing the regulator all is well....

all wired in but the whole bus is dead!

after about two hours with a test meter and spare batteries and on the verge of tears it all fires up !

just a darkness is falling (about 3.30 PM!!!!) i get out the strobe gun and check the timing then off round town for a ride, with heat !@!@!

christmas approaches...

after staying up too late last night working on version three of the Akciddento website (it's looking cool, all automated stuff with a huge PHP backend system (millions of lines of code to keep in order!!!!) that allows a full gallery system and user uploads and downloads, member logins and webmail, messaging etc etc etc including a proper ecommerce system to flog all the cool new ak gear !)

so what is my life coming to?

this afternoon i rolled up to see ollie slammedbay and ripped the engine out of his bay window. ollie has a new two litre warmed up engine being delivered just before new year so i now have a 1600 twin carb type one engine sat on the drive waiting to load itself up into the samba tomorrow morning..

with a lot of luck and some planning the engine will be in tomorrow (providing i can work out how to bypass all the installed electronic gear from the fuel injection) and the fuel system. then i need to fire up the fugly and truck down to protyre and get the snow tyres swapped off the old large 5 hubs and onto the small 5 pattern hubs i got in the summer...

then ! monsta samba!

maybe...

:)

oh dear...

after checking the new eberspacher heater over all looked good. the fancy digital 7 day timer works fine. the little pump chugs away, the relays click and clack back and forth...

.. but the fan doesn't spin...

after lots of twiddling and testing it appears that the bushes or similar are broken in the motor powering the fan...
after stripping and cleaniing (and to be honest, hitting it with a hammer and flooding it with releasing fluid) it doesn't seem to work...
§it looks like someone has already taken it apart and found that it's broken, which is probably why it was for sale.
the seller sent me the original purchase documents so it seems fairly clear that he's pulled a fast one. the phrase 'it was working when i took it out of thecar' translating into 'i tried to get it fixed and i know it's kippered'

doh... maybe i'll see if i can get a replacement motor..

it still lights up though!

wahey! maybe heating (again)

parcelforce (bless 'em) turned up at the door with a parcel from germany for me... and guess what it contained ?

this....

it's an eberspacher B1L petrol air heater.

it's got a fancy 7 day digital timer and other stuff and after connecting to a 12v battery pack it all seems to work but the safety cutoff seems to stop it going through full cycle... i've been searching the web for relevant manuals but to no avail. though i have figured out the incerdibly complex bit of wiring that means i can connect it up toi the lighting dimmer circuit in the bus so it illuminates at night...

no heat yet but it does light up.

i reckon that's a fair trade...

all i need to do now is workout how to change the internal bulb for a blue LED and it'll be rockin'

PS i have the other BA2 eberspacher that came from a T25 bus. all the bits work it just needs to be installed and cabled up.

now if i can just get hold of a working engine and fit the snow tyres then i might be off for lunch in the french alps over new year.....

:)

the verdict on the engine!

got the verdict from Martin Taylor at taylor machine services onthe damage to the engine...

martin mailed me some pictures from his phone showing more detail...

luckily the damage is not too bad, the big end bearing on number one cylinder let go and disintegrated, the extra 'slop' on the con rod meant that the piston crown had a good go at battering the head off the end of the barrel on number one cylinder but it has all survived...
the verdict, one set of new H-Beam connecting rods, skim heads & pistons, polish crank and balance all. new bearing set and reassembly. i've decided to change the cooling for a porsche style fan shroud (as i originally intended) that will help the cooling, give more amps out from the alternator and sap much less power than the original type one cooling. apparently an upright beetle style fan & shroud 'stalls' areodynamically at about 5,500rpm and saps about 15hp at high revs! the porsche fan is efficient all the way through the rev range and apparently only saps 3hp... no contetst.

here you can see how well the combustion has been. considering that this is a fairly laery engine this is lovely. I heart fuel injection ! makes me laugh to see the size of the valves.... compare this with a picture of a standard beetle head... :) you can also see how well it's all been sealing... pity i broke it really

here you can see the leaking where the piston on number one has tried to batter the head off as the bearing disintegrated...

and here are some of the bearings. the middle and left are form my engine, the right hand side one is a new one. they should all be the same size. somehow the ones from the engine have become a LOT wider and somewhat thinner....

akciddento v3.0....

work continues apace on the ak website v3.0...

jake from fireboxmultimedia is working through all the backend stuff at the moment, installing and configuring a full CMS (content management system dontchaknow) with a proper ecommerce module. once it's all done and the interface and flow sorted it'll give a lot more flexibility and make access easier as well as reducing the amount of time i need to spend administering it...

all being well there'll be a new automated gallery system for stills and movies with the ability for people top upload thgeir own images and to be able to sort through and vote and see most popular and most viewed as well as buy prints of their favourite images. the forum will be properly integrated into the site. there'll be the facility to upload news and info for publishing on the site as well as longer stories and reviews. there'll be the ability to sign up and log in to get extras for registered users inculding webmail at an akciddento mail address. downloads including desktop pictures, diagrams, info and audio. events calendar and events submission forms. all this and possibly integrated live chat...

well, we'll see what makes it into the initial launch of the site.... watch this space and if there's anything you think ought to be in (or out) mail us and let us know or just add a comment to this post...

righto.. i'm off to get sparkplugs and an aircleaner for the fugly 412... it needs some tlc as it's being a bit temperamental.

i'm also hoping that the new eberspacher heater i bought over ebay from germany will arriove today, if it does and it works and i can get it fitted in time then all i need to do is find and fit a working engine in the bus and find the money and i'll be off the day aftyer boxing day to the channel tunnel and driving south to the french alps to see hubbs, who is working there over the winter....

wishlist... (deathwishlist?)

the engine is now out and i'll be shipping it up to wellingborough on sunday to hand over to martin taylor from taylor machine services. martin is going to strip it all down and give me an assesment of the damage then i'll plan a course of action.
nominally the list is like this

porsche fan conversion - more cooling, more alternator amps and less sapping of HP to turn the fan

install turbo grind cam

garrett T3 turbo

boost pressure sensor installation & mapping to ECU

dash adjustable boost controller

new racestrength gearbox, cv joints & driveshafts

let's see what the budget allows !

The AGM of the VWDRC is on sunday and many of the drivers and crew are meeting up in northampton area on saturday to drink beer and talk nonsense. apparently last year it got quite messy so i think the committee may be a bit subdued on sunday...

top gear magazine, pg 37

what more can i say...

...nearly wet myself laughing!

thanks to Pc **zwitter** for the nomination !

your sump should not contain this...

doing this...

and found this

on closer inspection it looks like this..

....

not the sort of thing you want to find in the sump...

it appears to be the remains of a big end bearing...