April 28, 2005
so who needs heating anyhow!
so, out comes the dashboard!
and then, after some deliberation and realising that the samba never had any heating in and that wasn't so bad, was it ?
out comes the heater matrix and fans etc
still got more plumbing to get out but we had the front bumper off and the inertial reel seatbelts (in preparation for the harnesses) out..
probably 30kg already, only 220kg to go....
April 27, 2005
guess my weight,,,
i trucked up to RACESHACK to deliver croissants and blag mugs of tea and also to checkout how progress is going for bigbang show at santapod this weekend..
conor and kevo had the rail together and had just finished breaking in the cam on the new engine...
conor also had a seablau and blauweiss 15 window split bus on the ramp, the same colour as my old samba...
and guess what conor was installing in it ? yep ! the old 2332 efi engine from the samba... apparently the guy (ben) is going to try and run it at santa pod at the weekend... i left a few stickers wedged under the windscreen and left i at that...
new fish to fry etc etc ...
the panel van behaved itself quite well on the journey up to tewkesbury, about an hour on the motorway.. the furthest i've ever driven it. it made it there and back and whilst it makes a few wierd noises and is burning some water it got home...
while i was there conor insisted on getting it on the scales and the results were a little disheartening...
without pilot
2850 lb
753 fl 756 fr
687 rl 653 rr
with pilot
3030 lbs
825 871
650 686
quite a bit heavier than i was hoping. the van was completely empty with the bulkhead removed and only the drivers seat in it. for comparison the street weight of the samba (with all that glass and the bed, stereo, leisure battery etc was 2964lb)
we're going to have to go a long way to get to the target weight of 2400lb. basicvally 250kg or more to remove. Kevo was helpful with suggestions of how to skin the doors etc but there's not a lot that can be chopped out until a roll cage is in to stiffen it all up.
when i got back i started to make a spreadsheet of weight loss. guessing the totals and summing them still only got me about 140kg weight loss and that started getting pretty radical. removing the floors and replacing with aluminium plate etc!
we'll see how it all goes.
April 19, 2005
April 18, 2005
928s
got the tyres onto the 928s. the fronts don't fit, they foul on the upper wishbone of the wedge...
i need to get some 10mm spacers, like these care of michael at machine-7 in nuneaton
April 14, 2005
mick done good !
DHL turned up with this
courtesy of mick at kinky micks happy wheel shack inside is a pair of porshce 928s2 wheels, 4 tyres and a box of bolts and adapters....
and they look something like this ...
this is on the hightop, which is an early t25 and apparently has a slightly narrower trackl than the later buses so sadly, the front wheels foul the upper wishbones...
like this, i'm on the lookout for a set of 10mm wheel spacer and then all will be chocolatey!
the 928s were destined for the race bus but after weighing them and the other wheels i think it's not such a good idea.
15inch centerline copies weighed in at 7kg each
16 inch t5 standard steel wheels at 10kg each
16 inch 928 porsche alloys at 10kg each PLUS another 1.5 kg for each adapter...
bearing in mind that this is rotational weight the savings are important....
louie and i also got on with the last bits of stuff for the MOT, welding up the holes in the b posts where i chopped out the old bulkgead/cabdivider... not a very neat job ...
April 12, 2005
oops, done it again,
it seems that, after discussion with spencer tramm at VWDRC and with fellow akciddento bus racer ollie-slammedbay-twobuses-dyer, i'm racing at bigbang...
i'm not ready, the bus is not ready and i've got a very busy month with several important projects on...
sounds ideal...
don't think there will be time to get the turbo system sorted out. there's time to build and install it all but probably not time to dyno & tune it and get it all bedded in...
we'll see what happens...
April 11, 2005
paint it all brunt ornage...
a pleasant days spannering ensued..
after checkingh thing sover and buying biuts n bobs for MOT, new wiperblade, new flexibrake hose etc i got on with the dull jobs....
foglamp - not working because there;s no bulb in it..
change wiper,
clean gunky green corroded contacts on numberplate lights. the one that was working now stops working and the other one starts working. the multimeter says 4.65volts, methinks this may have something to do with it....
twiddle on other bits n pieces. then check alternator output. 0.00volts. not too good.
decide to swap for the other alternator so pull it out and strip the fan and pulley etc and swap them onto the other alternator and go to mount it it only to find that it has the wrong mounting lugs...
of course it doesn't fit... and of course i'll only check after i've taken the other one apart...
so. strip the fan and pullet etc but get side tracked by idle cleaning of the bits (it's a kharmic maintenance thing....) and decide they need to be painted. so the pulley gets gloss black and for some reason (because it was there in the box if truth be told) the fan gets a couple of coats of Volkswagen Brilliant Orange.
now the engine bay is starting to look the a little silly but for some reason (i told you ! kharmic maintenance) it now outputs a steady 13.6volts, like it used to originally.
after leavign the battery on charge all day (and getting distracted by painting all the gloss paint in the hall, finally...) i fired it all up and got the strobe gun on it.
it was hugely over advanced so i rectified that but it the distributor does not seem to be advancing more than about 2 degrees. it's a dual diaphragm vacuum advance unit that it kinda temporary but i think it has seen better days.
I need to inverstigate what to swap into it's place. with luck a 009 and a pertronix electronic module. ultimately i'd like to rip it all out and go back the DTA EFI & coilpack system i was using on the samba but that's £££££ so i've been chatting with people about trying the DIY megasquirt EFI system but i have a sneaky suspicion it may be false economy. Conor at Raceshack has been telling me about so of the MOTEC systems on cars he's had in for tuning recently and he's v impressed. ah well. we'll see what happens. the challenge now is to see if i can get it done before big bang... three weeks away and it's not looking good.
wish me luck.
April 07, 2005
rain stops play....
was going to head to the beach in the hitop but the forecast last night mentioned snow....
decided to get the minor jobs on the panel van done and get it back for MOT. Ollie was kind enough to leave the strobe gun for me on his way to work so all was set. after twenty minutes looking at the opne engine hatch i realised that there was one thing missing. motivation.
back inside and on with websites... finally got a site up for paul botch at the fabulous botcheinvolks (the people who did the rollcage in the samba and who will also do the cage in the wedge)..
then idle potatoshopping... :)
April 06, 2005
guess what ?
leaking a bit of water...
now from both jacket heads...
the bus trundles over to arthur at MAD workshop (formerly dubdepot)
and then, quite unexpectedly ends up here
at shiners garage for an mot
:)
it failed, but on stupid things like windscreenwiper, rear fog lamp and the little holes where i took out the cab divider...
it did refuse to start halfway through the MOT, but that seems to be because it's too far advanced... need to get the strobe gun back off from ollie for a day and get it sorted out...
things are looking up, and it looks like the headstud is not snhapped but (hopefully) its the head jacket gaskets that have gone brittle and started leaking. this does however beg the question of what will happen when i lift the heads...
i've priced up new barrels, pistons and rings, gasket kits and new head studs and it all looks do-able..... depending on what horrors are found when the heads get lifted...
:)
onward and upward.
April 05, 2005
better news...
spannering and half hearted twiddling,
looks like there might not be a broken stud, they all seem ok....
it's leaking a bit when it warms up, both sides now but maybe it's just gaskets.
now i have to sit and calculate cost and effort.
rebuild this ?
another 2nd hand 2.1 ?
get marco to build me a custom block ?
doh! i feel like i've been here before....
