10 posts tagged “burt”

Albany and back.

A few more.

Crazy busy William Bay just outside of Albany. Couldn't understand why so many cars were parked nearby. Until of course I saw this and jumped in the exceptionally warm water here. Thats the roarin Southern Ocean just outside those rocks.
Unreal.

Now this is camping. Free camp kitchen at Fenhook Falls. Camp spots were pretty good but the fresh water in the river and natural pool was worth the drive in anyway.

Burt resting at the Fenhook Falls campground.

Oh bugger it, I think ill just wait in the car.

Lets Roll

So as is the usual thing you do at the christmas hols we went for a drive.
Now cos its summer you gotta head south for the cool. There is a total fire ban so camp fires are generally out of the question, so logically the coast is the place to travel anywhere by.
We decided on  the old south coastal town of Albany as the destination but we still werent sure which road to travel down to get there. The inland road is short, but its hot and can be a little boring even for us west ozzies. The other two roads are longer but do dip into the coast a fair bit so can be cooler.
Sometimes its a dilema when theres plenty of choice if your not too confident in your equipment or your ability to get where you want to go, you may have trouble taking the first tentative steps, indeed you may end up so confused you end up going nowhere, its a bit like those clowns in Canberra at the moment.
But alas im a confident sorta bloke when it comes to drivin my VW's around. My equipment is sound and my aim is good.
So it was to be the quick route straight down the inland road of the Albany Highway, through some magically barron land.
A road I havent travelled down since the 80's. The forcast said it would be pretty cool for those couple days so it was actually a no brainer to go the inland. I was keen to get rollin.
I pushed the Outlaw Barndoor outa my shed and rolled Burt inside to give him a tune and run a spanner over his old bolts. All looked good as usual so we grabed the pooch and headed out.

No siesta for this old fool. He can sleep at the wheel.

Mmmm  Lunch.

And into Albany.

Well its happened again. This week end we got daylight saving and on Sunday morning we had to put our clocks forward 1 hour. Damnit my curtains have already started to faid. But hey thats not the weirdest thing.
This year I tried another method to out smart my Imac. So what I did was I turned my browser off disconnected the WiFi and on Saturday night as I went to bed I put it to sleep. So Sunday morning I got up to check the inbuilt clock and guess what? Yeah, somehow the computer had wound its clock forward 1 hour on its own. I tell you im just astounded by this. Im definately no geek, but I just dont get it, how does this happen. How can Mac's be that smart. Do PC's do this as well, its a mystery to me.
Oh well, ill wait and try again next year and see if I can catch the little bugger out then, cos next year the 3 year trial is up and maybe we wont get day light slaving.

So the weekend before, we went for a drive up to the monkry (?) at New Norcia had a beer at the pub and walk around the property.

Then we went up the road a bit and found a pretty decent camp spot

Exhausted

And with all the runnin of logging trails and traversing the dreaded "sleeping policemen" of our suburban Perth, Burt was in need of bit of a tune up.
While I have, had good success with the 30 pict and 009  induction/ignition system ,  he just seemed like he could give more in the performance stakes.

Indeed a mate who runs a similar bus has a 34 pict and that bus seems to hook along a fair bit better than ol Burty.
So the plan was to source and find a 34 and the proper vac/mechanical dizzy to suit. Normally youd think this wouldnt be a problem. But these bits are a bit thin on the ground in my neck of the woods, so I waited for the bits to miraculously arrive in my possession, I waited and I waited some more, but nothing.
Then one day my little bro mentioned that he had an old 34 in his pile. Great we are on our way. I dragged a correct dizzy outa my pile and the resto began, yes it began, because this pore old carb had probably spent 30 or more years screwed to the top of a hot and stinky VW engine then probably another 10 or so years kickin around the floor of someones shed. So yes the resto began with a long swim in a shallow bucket of Kero. When I dragged that sorry piece of cast alloy outa that bucket a day latter, some of the problems with it could be seen. Mostly all the linkages were worn to the extent of droppin off and back into the slimy bucket.........Mmmm a little welding then sir.
Both mount studs were pulled so I fashioned repairs as I could. I put a gasket kit through it and bolted it to Burts awaiting inlet manifold, a story in itself, you see a 34 has need for a bigger manifold and  bigger end castings than you run on a 30 dual port, so it was a dive back in to the parts pile  and a quick clean of the correct parts and with the addition of new manifold gaskets bolted to the awaiting engine that is Volkswagen's venerable 1600cc dual port lump in the stern of  old Burty.
A quick tune and after a quick run around the block it was obvious more tickling would be needed. Flat spots! damn! and that idle, I couldnt get it to idle lower than 1200rpm.   But  by far the biggest problem was the hole that now appeared in the exhaust muffler, oh dear!  Well it was a cheapo Krapron exhaust so now was a perfect time to fit and upgrade (well somewhat) to a elcheapo extracter exhaust I had lined up for just such an auspicious occasion as this and give Burt a birthday all at the same time. As to the idle, I pulled the carb and put a blind rivet through the machined hole in the burtterfly, that seemed to cure that, but the old fella seemed to still have little to give in the mid range and top end. So back in the garage I realized I had not got full throttle, well theres a trap for young players, well younger ones than me youd think, so i pulled a bit more of the cable through the linkage and now ive found the throttle wont close, so im back up to a 1200 idle,,,,sheesh!!
After a clean and oil of all the cable and linkage back to the pedal in the cab, the problem persisted, so the only recourse, was a bigger spring and viola! , we are idling again. But now the throttle is sticking and it feels like the butterfly in the throttle bore, so off with the carb again and a quick sand and debur. Now that seems to have fixed that, but its right about now im ready to chuck the whole thing in the bin. But for some reason, the old dog in me persists with this dried up old bone of a carburetor.
Another test drive and its still feeling flat in the mid and top end, certainly feels less pirky than when I had the 30Pict on it, so thats not really progress. I upped the advance to 10 degrees and still nothing and the off idle hesitation seemed to be getting worse and then the damn thing stalled at a stop sign. Oh dear! Again I was thinking of hurling the whole lot in the bin, but i decided to add another 2 degrees to the advance. I went for a test drive and truely amazed myself, he now goes like a train.
I can now feel the extra power, it feels like its got at least 20% more mid range than the 30 and plenty more top end, its still got a bit of a stumble off idle but those extra 2 degrees have definitely helped, later ill try adding a bit to the accel pump or maybe even add another degree to the advance, but im still amazed, I have never run 12 degrees initial on any engine before, i wonder if anyone else has, I even wonder if its common practice somewhere. I know and I vaguely remember now that this engine always liked alot of advance when I had the 009 on it. Back then with the 30 pict I always ran it with 10 degrees initial, I never tried more, but it always seemed happy up there. Maybe one day ill put the 009 in with the 34Pict and a pile of advance and see what happens.
But for now he seems pretty happy, hes got new plugs, new points and a new exhaust. All this, but now with a high power coil a resto'd 34Pict and a somewhat modern vac/mech dizzy.
I bet, the old fella feels like hes got a proper rocket up his arse.

Campin

The other weekend was a lunar eclipse. Well thats what I was told.
So we drove up to Dwellingup to camp out and take it all in.
Damn it was cold that night, so I didnt really bother to take a look.
Oh well the wine was good and theres always next time.

My first week back has been pretty hectic. Frankly im still a bit lazy from our holiday, you know how it is.
So the best solution is, to go on another holiday,,,,,  Ripper!
But maybe this time , not so epic.
It was beautiful weather so we thought, just go for a morning coffee, drive down the coast a bit, pick up a sanga and lie on the beach somewhere for a snooze. Sweet!

First, a little tickle under Burt to help him outa hibernation.

Then down to Falcon Beach.

And so, if this is what weve got to look forward to with global warming, lets chop down some more trees.

Goldfields 2

Oh yes it was epic.
But you do look back on il conceived ideas in retrospect and sometimes have a little giggle "what was I thinking".
Or indeed was I thinking at all. With me, the later is often the case.
And so it goes,  our trip up to Lake Ballard , just a short cruise of 50 K's up a dirt track out the back of the historical town of Menzies West Australia. Little did we know that Lake Ballard was not only past Kalgoorlie but it was on a gravel track past Menzies, which was past Kalgoorlie. Can this trip actually be done in a lowered 45 year old bus? And in one casual week end.
In hind sight i think not.
And as we found the road outa Menzies and the subsequent dirt track was actually a well traffiked through road for road trains ! Sheesks!
But Burt is a tough old boy and he struggled on through the whole trip with out one hiccup.
Actually I think he reveled in it.
Every chilly desert morning he would roar into life almost before I hit the start button.
What a trooper !

Goldfield's 1

Well as promised earlier, here is some pics of our trip up the country last week end.
Out past Coolgardie

Then next stop was up to the old gold rush town of Kalgoorlie. The joints still pretty jumpin these days thanks to the minerals boom and  the spiraling  gold prices.

And then on to the old Two up school thats just north of Kal. Just near the old Broad Arrow Tavern.

How the Diggers did  it in the trenches.

"On Track"

So for just about 8 years now, since the day I purchased Burt, he has been a bit of a wanderer.
Not in a good way though. Well yes he does get around a bit, but its the getting there that has always concerned me with this ol fella.
Ya see, along with the many usual problems i inherited with him from the PO, the one thing I have put off is fixing his steering. Everything else was sorted to an acceptable degree. But I hadn't tackled his Steering box. And recently that clunking in the front end had become quite anoying to me and I could even notice It may be starting to concern some close pedestrians.
As we were planing a long trip away, of which I will get to later, I decided to bite the bullet and pull it!
The output shaft bushes were the obvious main offender . I new this cos they were so loose that, as soon as I have pored oil in the top of the box, it would leak almost as quickly out the bottom! O dear !

So into it.

First thing was to make a puller for the steering wheel. I decided this cos I have seen the remnants of other methods of removal of this offten stubborn and a little fragile but cool looking all the same piece.
Yes its a bit ott, but hey its steel I had lying around.

So next a bit of a clean and strip so we can see what's what. And of course everything is worn.
I decided to lynish the output shaft as smooth as I dare and then make some bronze bushes to fit.
A little massaging of the worm was next, lovely!
I decided to repack with the original worm shims cos there seemed to be no end play there, few !!
A bit of sealing compound on the cover and a lick of black enamel, viola!
Back in she goes.

Man im getting lazy

This past week end was a long weekend (Man I love this country)

We had big plans to jump in Burt and drive far and wide over the South West.
But shit I must be a lazy bastard or just maybe im getting old.
We didnt get very far, Binningup actually. We camped that night and decided to head home slowly taking in a few beaches while heading back up north.
The whole trip was about 250ks which is pretty lame, but hey I dont care.  I realized you dont have to drive a marathon on a long weekend. Just find a good spot, throw in some good weather and maybe a nice beach. Sprinkle some good company with alcohol and let the fun begin.
We stopped at Myalup on the way back for pre lunch snacks and then decided a nice drive along the Mandurah estuary and a stop for sangas and a paddle.