Front Seats and Exhausts
So i decided to go back to a sprung base in the front seat cos the foam base I was usin was way to soft and was givin me a sore arse.
Also I was sick of the noisy twin muffler arrangement and that it hung out the back of the bumper, so I bought a short 2 1/4" single muffler and some bends and proceeded to fit it. Unfortunately it was a resonator and made the exhaust possibly louder, so I jumped into my pile of old mufflers, found a crappy old 2 inch hotdog. Cut the new muffler off and welded the hotdog on. The old fella is still pretty loud so ill have to buy yet another muff, but at least it doesnt hang out in the breeze anymore.
Oil Leaks
Well youd think after rollin around on top of air cooled Volkswagens for several decades now. Id know how to fix a problem or two,,,, well you'd think!
So it was no surprise to me and probably a bit of a comedy for the viewers out there that I still have some oil leaks.
ACVW's are wierd things, just because there is pressurized air and unpressurized air flying around everywhere all the time at various velocities and at varying temperatures. All this can actuall play havok with anyones ability to problem solve an ailing engine.
Huh! I hear you ask, well ill explain. Just supose the engine fan is forcing air past a bolt somewhere on the engine thats a little loose. Behind this bolt, inside the engine is oil under preasure. Heat this oil up and presurize it and it wants to squeeze past that bolt and when it does, it gets hit by a blast of hot air travelling at high speed. This hot air is also on its way out to get as far away from that hot engine as soon as it can, so it goes anywhich way that it can, taking that bit of oil with it, splattering it on every surface it can on its way, so you cant tell where its headed or actually where its come from, add to this a bit of pindan or bull dust and you can just about forget it.
And so it goes with the Outlaws oil leaks. Im confident its coming from the front core plugs behind the flywheel. But I cant be sure cos its now all over the sump, so logically im asking, is the sump leaking? Is the flywheel seal leaking? Are the dowels leaking? Does Kevin Rudd have any clues?
Who knows! And probably by now, who really cares!
So it was out with the engine again and off with the flywheel. I managed to score some NPT die nuts. My plan is to reduce the outside tapered diameters of the plugs that are only screwed in 1 to 2 turns and hopefully get them in 3 or 4 turns.
And you know what it worked. But damn that blue anodize was tough.
Who'd of thunk that.
Out with the locktight, and lets hope thats put that problem to bed.
Screwin Zee Locks.
So its time to add a shift lock, took about a day cos i didnt want to crawl underneath any more and decided to fit the mechanism from above. Probably would have got the job done in a couple hours if i didnt try and do it by feel but hey, id just been to church and had my best on. So a good day wasted there!
Latter i refitted all the screws to the belt trim and the spears which required drilling many more holes.
Then i re did the cavitys with Penetrol for rust prev, nice product, if a little exy!
Found some nice carpet and underlay on the chuckout, so that will all go in the floor.
Got an insulation offcut from the local roofie for the cab roof. Its called airlite I think and is like heavy bubble wrap sandwiched in ally foil, tough and lite. Now when I fire the old fella up in the evenings I look like Liberace doin the fandango,, or what ever.
Ha ha
Grease Up
Cant remember when I last did a complete grease job on the old bus.
So I ran a spanner over all the bolts for good measure while I was under there.
Also importantly, I needed to be able to lock the old beast up, if only to keep the honest from steeling my hard work.
