A friend gave me an extra long-block engine so I can try my hand at rebuilding without messing up the engine already in my bus. This is really cool because I have always wanted to try a rebuild but never had the courage to potentially ruin an already-running vehicle. The engine came out of a [...]
July 1, 2011
Finally, after much preparation, we made our road trip from California to visit my wife’s family in Indiana. We stopped in Salt Lake and camped on an island, and also camped in the Grand Tetons, and a campground in Nebraska. The van held up well on the long trip here, with a few minor haps: [...]
April 15, 2011
A friend gave me a small solar panel for my van, but it was just the panel without any sort of frame. I wanted it to ride on the roof of the van, so I made a simple frame out of a piece of ply-wood and some aluminum strips, and lined the edge with rubber [...]
April 15, 2011
Recently I had to remove a bolt I broke underneath the van (the steering damper bolt). It was quite the bear to remove. Not only was the bolt firmly rusted in place, but it was in a very inconvenient location and did not provide much in the way of arm-room. I tried soaking it with [...]
April 5, 2011
By working late a few nights I was able to wrestle the engine back in and get the van running. My prayer was that the engine would just start right up, and sure enough it did but was running badly; however, I realized that I had the spark plug wires on wrong. A quick adjustment [...]
March 27, 2011
Whew! After a full day I was able to wrestle the new transmission in. It was quite the job re-greasing the axles and trying to get them to stay together while I maneuvered the tranny in. This was probably a job I should have had a friend help me with, but I wanted to get [...]
March 21, 2011
On a rainy Sunday my wife and I finished putting primer on my crude paneling job inside the VW. It is far from perfection, but I managed to panel over everything with masonite and some plywood. It is much better than the old panels that were starting to fall apart and had vinyl on them. [...]
August 28, 2011
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