Two Carbs in a Pod

Hooray, we have our first Penny restoration deadline!  We just reserved our camp spot in June for a week of exploring Yellowstone (on foot and in our yellow friend).  We will be putting in a lot of elbow grease over the next few months to get her ready for the 8 hour road trip.  We are pretty excited for our first real outing as bus parents!  Hope you readers are enjoying our journey...

It has seemed like forever that every time we'd start up Penny, Jason would assure me that when we got the second carburetor rebuilt she'd purr like a kitten.  Well, after all that assurance it's finally happened!  We were excited to receive our first box of parts for 2014 last week, complete with a carb rebuild kit, sway bar clamps and a new service manual to guide us through the tricky syncing process (plus a myriad of other future processes, I'm sure).

This weekend it was over to the shop we went, of course puppies and box of goodies in tow.   The right carburetor had been rebuilt in the fall, so lefty was the one on our agenda.  After we unscrewed, detached and got greasy, Penny found herself down one part and we got to work.  Jason, Van and I were clearly pretty excited to be back in the shop...

We busted out the new pieces and carefully disassembled the carburetor, Jason all the while being an amazing teacher and schooling me step-by-step.

After it was all apart and the pieces in what looked like organized chaos, we cleaned the metal parts and replaced the ones that needed replacing.  

After everything was bathed and replaced, Jason championed the effort to put the puzzle back together correctly while I cheered him on from the sidelines.  All the while learning that my virgin auto-shop lungs need a bit of fresh air from time to time to avoid feeling like my head is going to explode.  (I'll toughen up if it's the last thing I do!)

We placed that small, unassuming part back in Penny's hindquarters and sure enough...purred like the beautiful kitten she is.  Unfortunately, we ran out of time for the sway bar clamp installation and the carb syncing, but that will be first up when we return from vacation next week.  It was great to drive her home sans the subtle backfiring that had become her theme song.  After diving into our new manual and some successful syncing she might be ready for her first mini winter road trip!

A First Time for Everything

It's a fact that I like fro-yo...a lot.  Love might even describe my affair with frozen yogurt better.  Me begging Jason to get some of the frozen fabulousness on a random Wednesday night after dinner isn't an unusual occurrence in our house.  Last night was pretty par for the course.

Long story short (minus all the amazing ice cream creation details) we were driving back in Penny from our impromptu fro-yo date and I hear from the drivers seat next to me, Uh oh, she's going to go.  Sure enough, 30 seconds later she sputters to a stop.  Luckily we were able to turn off into a side street to escape the busy main road we were on, but it was unsettling nonetheless.  Jason got out to investigate and I started to dig in my wallet for my trusty AAA card.  He gets back in, turns her on and surprisingly she was good to go.

But only until 5 minutes later when the same thing happened.  We were under the impression that the carburetors (which are due next for a rebuild) were getting flooded because after letting her sit for a minute or two she kept turning back on fine.  Finally, we were about three blocks from our house and she failed for the third and final time with a failed attempt at resuscitation.  We had to abandon ship.


Luckily we were within walking distance, so we unloaded the puppies and set out for the house.  I felt bad leaving her behind!

About an hour later Jason went back to see if he could facilitate a rescue and discovered that the fuse that was connected to the fuel pump wasn't connecting correctly.  He was able to nurse her home and we will be in the market for a new, better fitting fuse in the next few days.

Maybe this will be the worst that we see from old Penny, but I will have my shiny gold AAA handy card just in case!

Our Girl & Her New Kicks!

Penny, along with the new tires, rims, lug nuts, hub caps and beauty rings, had been waiting patiently for Saturday to come.  (I was pretty excited too!)  We loaded the whole family (daughter and dogs included) and all of the new parts into the bus and headed over to Jason's Dad's house for the big install.  We usually try to do all of the sizable restoration projects over there, as a huge shop that houses every tool imaginable tends to come in handy.

Just as a reminder, here is the before shot:

I was assigned the task of cleaning up the rims and making sure all of the old break dust and gunk no more. Ever the tidy child, Sadie was pumped to sit down and help me with this first task..

I got them all shined up and we tested out all the new accessories to make sure they would fit.  It was like Cinderella and her glass slipper...perfect!

Meanwhile, Sadie had lost interest in shining up the tires (par for the course of a 2 year old attention span) and she wandered over to help Jason hoist Penny up in the air.  After a furious arm workout the bus was high enough that she was ready for the tire swap!

Me and my helper then used our new found knowledge of power tools and took all the old wheels off.  (Our combined girly arm strength wasn't quite enough to actually pull the wheels of, but we tried!)  She was a pro at helping Jason wheel them away though, all the while singing "rolling, rolling, rolling!"

You could sense Fat Penny's excitement as she hung there, shoe-less, in anticipation.  Perhaps I'm personifying the bus just a bit too much, but I swear she was excited. 

                        

A few lug nuts, hub caps and beauty rings later she was ready to go to the ball with her Prince Charming!

Fat Penny on Gilligan's Island

As I've mentioned before, we promised Fat Penny new shiny shoes and break lines upon our safe return from the camping trip.  A myriad of incompetent people, horrible customer service, six visits to a ghetto motel/bus station and a wheel-stealing Greyhound bus made procuring both of these things quite the process.

Pull the Gilligan's Island Theme Song tune out from the back of your head and hum along with our tale...

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, 
A tale of a frustrated pair 
That started from this capitol city 
Aboard this vintage bus. 

The guy was a handsome one, 
The lady blonde and tall. 
They wanted to make Penny shine
But they were the only ones, they were the only ones. 

The brakes were a bit rough, 
Without new ones she was doomed, 
To O'Riley Auto Parts the couple went 
They got three lines but the fourth was lost, the fourth was lost.

They kept returning to the site of this uncharted store 
With Grumpy Pat
The Sad Lady too, 
The Lug Nut Guy and his pal, 
Finally got our fourth break line 
After three weeks and six trips
Here on O'Riley's Isle. 

So this is the tale of the bus restorers, 
They're waiting for a long, long time, 
All they want is some old stock rims, 
It's was an uphill climb. 

They bought the wheels from theSamba.com 
They were put on a big Greyhound, 
The girl was a tid bit nervous, 
But was sure they would make it just fine.

Her first trip to the Rodeway Inn 
there was only one box there, 
Two wheels for a bus of four, 
Where could the other half be? 

They put those two back on the bus,
Denver bound they were. 
Our guy and girl were sad,
Six visits later the wheels were there 
Here on Fat Penny's Isle.

I'm proud you made the the whole way through, and now will have that tune stuck in your head the rest of the day!  You're welcome :)

We were pretty convinced that we were never going to see the second half of the wheels after they had been sent back to wherever they came from by some wonderful motel employees, but bright and early Saturday morning we received the call saying our precious cargo had arrived...again.  I told the lady to watch the box until we arrived and we rushed over to grab them so they didn't disappear again.

They now have a new set of tires on them and we're just patiently waiting for our lug nuts, hub caps and beauty rings to arrive.  Stay tuned for the unveiling of Penny's new shoes in the next week or so!

Damn the Vacuum! (no torpedoes here)

Consider this post the official preface to our camping trip (if only time travel were really possible)...

Working on Fat Penny (she doesn't have a waistline so her name has been amended) is a bit of a hassle at the moment as we currently don't have room in the garage to work on her. Our weekends since we picked her up have consisted of gathering the parts we have accumulated during the week and driving her over to my dads house where Fat Penny can be properly attended to. In addition to this being a pain, we were making the trip illegally. Wyoming state statues clearly state that the bus must have at a minimum working headlights, brake lights, and turn signals (they also state that any vehicle whose maximum speed is 25 mph must have a slow moving vehicle sticker... Fat Penny might meet this requirement). None of those things worked and we were without wipers too.

Aside from illegally operating a motor vehicle, getting the bus to my dads was no easy task. She had to be nursed over because the previous owner thought that screws shoved in the ends of cracked vacuum hoses was a suitable replacement for vacuum plugs. Any vacuum hoses that were lucky enough to survive uncut were too brittle to maintain vacuum. This didn't always make for easy idling at stoplights. 

With a huge list of to-do's, I headed over to my dads house in hopes that it would be my last illegal trip.

First on the agenda was to replace all the vacuum hoses plugged with screws with real vacuum plugs. This wasn't a monumental task which makes it even more confusing why someone would cut corners. I guess sometimes spending $1.59 for vacuum plugs is to much!? The biggest issue causing loss of vacuum was the line that runs from the firewall to the brake booster. It looked as though it was original and nearly turned to dust in my hands. The ends of the hose were frozen to the metal lines but with a carpenters knife and some four-letter words, they came right off.

With all the vacuum hoses replaced it was time to turn my attention to the rats nest wiring. The brake lights and turn signals were an easy fix. There were missing and burned out bulbs to be replaced and a ground wire that needed to be plugged in. 

Tracking down the problem with the headlights was a bit harder. At first it appeared as though it was going to be as simple as changing some fuses. When brand new fuses didn't solve the problem I resorted to shaking the fuse box. This didn't seem to help either so, I tracked down the fuse box layout on ratwell.com and discovered that the headlight wires were not correctly plugged into the fuse box. Problem solved.

Last on the list was the wipers. We had been caught in a rain storm the week before while driving the bus and we had to pull over and wait for the rain to stop. Luckily for us Penny is a camper and we could wait out the storm in relative comfort. Unlucky for us, Penny is a bit disgusting on the inside and we relaxed in filth. OK, back on track now. The wiper motor wouldn't even turn on so I began the process of tracking down the power supply. I didn't even have to climb under the dash thanks to the gaping hole where the stereo is supposed to go (makes for a decent cup holder). The power supply had been unplugged. There are only two reasons I can come up with for why this was the case. 1) the previous owner/s were not that bright (see: plugging vacuum hoses with screws), or 2) there was an undiagnosed wiring problem and by plugging in and turning on the wipers I was going to start a fire. With my fingers crossed that the previous owners were knuckle-draggers, I plugged in the power to the wiper and hit the switch. No fire!

I had a little bit of time left in the day so I decided to take care of one issue that has been bugging me since we got the bus. That issue?...the spare tire on the nose of the bus! WHY!? Yes, I get that its a camper but that doesn't mean it has to look like one. That spare tire completely ruins the lines of the toaster...eh, I mean bus. It consumes valuable real estate that is better suited for the VW logo. It also wreaks havoc on the nose sheet metal. For all those reasons, I cut the mount off and the spare will be moving back to where it belongs.

It doesn't take much time to do things the right way. I guess luckily for us the previous owners didn't realize what they had in Fat Penny otherwise we would have never found her. We have been extremely lucky thus far that the problems with our bus are the result of operator error and not fatal flaws, and for that we are thankful.

A Budding Mechanic

So, I'm a girl.  Most people assume I'm a really girly, girl.  I must admit that I do obsess over my hair, outfits and refuse to leave the house without makeup, but I also have a pretty mean tomboy streak.  I grew up loving cars, sports and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  That being said, I was really excited to get greasy and learn some new manly skills when this bus came into our life.

This weekend I learned things!  We're waiting on a few parts to be delivered, so we figured that it would be a good time to make some small diagnostic efforts and see how the engine is really running.  Before tackling the engine Jason and his dad took a giant pry bar to the tie rods, which were quite bent.  (Never fear...this is a temporary fix, as we are planning on ordering new ones in the very near future).  This served to quiet the squealing of the tires that was present whenever we drove it anywhere...who knew having two front tires that faced in the same direction was so important!  (Hopefully the dumbfounded looks from other drivers that clearly said, what is that god-awful noise coming from that beautiful piece of yellow machinery will cease to exist.)

I was instructed on how to use the ratchet & socket to extract the spark plugs from the engine and after a quick Google search we figured out that our particular plugs needed to be gapped to a measurement of .028".  I ratcheted, gapped, applied some thread lubricant (since they are aluminum heads) and put them back in.

Next, it was time to check the compression on the pistons.  We were shooting for between 85-90 psi on each piston for a ship-shape diagnosis.  I was optimistic (it has potential!) but readings between 75-120 made us less hopeful that the engine was not in need of a complete rebuild. 

On top of needing new spark plugs (we realized that a good set of Bosch plugs instead of the montage of different ones in there might do us some good) there are a few other diagnostic checks that we need to make before tearing the whole thing apart.  Nonetheless, it was fun to get my hands dirty and learn a little bit more about how to make this baby run!