'66 Deluxe

[Dual Port]

Roecker and I went to Jim's Custom this morning, the weather was perfect. It's a freebie day for me because my wife has a bridal shower today. (Yahoo!)

Time for a little maintenance and repair. The bus has about 1000 miles on the motor and trans so I wanted to do a health inspection on the tranny by pulling all 4 of the magnetic drain plugs out. They all looked like this.

I addressed a few other minor issues. The brakes pull to the right when cold for a few stops and squeak loud on a panic stop when hot so off with the drums for inspection. All looks perfect, the front cyl pistons are nice and free, pulling on the pedal (while underneath) I can operate the whl cyls and hold each piston in/out to verify it's partner is working freely on the fronts where you have two cyls per side. They are. I sanded the shoes and drums to remove any glazing and put it back together, I was glad to see no leaks of any type and all is well. Pulling drum brakes is not an uncommon complaint on a classic car.

I "cheated" when I did the resto- the front end checked out as tight, so I cleaned it, painted it and figured I'd address any problems later. Well, later is here, and 3k miles proved the center pin to have a slight bit of slop in it along with one slightly sloppy tie rod end. Well, it's time to do the center pin. The Samba gang has a huge thread on this so I'll just post the details.

Undo the bolt lock, wrench the pinch bolt from the swing arm, remove it, and slide the arm off the top. Push it out of the way, tie rods and all, taking everything off of it is not needed. The shift tube is right overhead and looks like it will be in the way but it doesn't.

Slide that nasty ass pin out the bottom, mine came apart like greased whaleshit.

Pull the seal, washer, and wave washer from the top.

Definitely had moisture in there which rotted the surface of the pin where it rides in the lower bushing

Probably original with the VW logo, the bushings and everything looked like OEM and it had less than 30 thou wear. This adds to the thought that this is the original mileage on this bus and the odo hasn't been around once. The front end was tight and the brake drums had never been cut until I cut them, I really think it's original 89K. And, besides, the title says 89K so it must be original, right?

Pull the grease fitting out because it blocks the bushings, and knock the bushings out using my trusty HF bushing driver kit and HF brass hammer. I have lots of Snappy stuff but my DDs are HF.

Get the WW kit that I ordered a while back when I saw the slop.

Knock the new upper bushing in, making sure to get the lube groove's pointing the right way. Get the proper protrusion on the upper bushing, .050".

I have a set of adjustable reamers that go from about 3/8" to 1 1/16" inch. Luckily, 24mm is just under an inch.

I set an old bushing in place in the lower part of the tube to keep the reamer centered and gently/carefully reamed out the upper bushing until the new pin would just sneak through. Turning the upper and lower collars on the reamer moves the blades up and down angled ramps which makes the reamer larger or smaller in diameter.

Knock the lower bushing into place with the grooves pointing up and forward. Ream it gently to the right size, which went really fast. Even being careful with the adjustment I didn't have 10 minutes in fitting/reaming.


The pin slides in with finger pressure and doesn't fall out. It turns with very minimal force but has zero side play in any direction. Success!

Heat the upper seal with a heat gun to soften it and


Stretch it over the tube.

Put the lower thrust washer on the pin and slide it into the bushings. Put the wave washer, o-ring, and steering lever into place. To align the groove on the pin to the steering arm I used a tapered punch. This works great not only to align the holes but also to compress the wave washer, which preloads the pin to prevent end play.


Now for the bolt- the Samba gang doesn't like the new bolt because the shank is shorter and I agree. I used the old bolt.

But if you pull the tapered punch out the arm pops up and closes the hole. No problem, a beat up C-clamp holds the wave washer compressed while I thread the bolt into place. Put the lock tab on the bolt and install it, mine threaded in the whole way by hand.

Torque to 50.

Put the fitting back in, grease it and the rest of the zerks. Yes, I did wipe them off.

Napa got the short tie rod ends quickly for $50, you know the drill here- glow the tube,

Clean the hole with a wire brush,
Clean the spindle holes,

Assemble to the length I had marked by using pencil marks on the bench, and install. I couldn't find a torque spec in the Bentley so I hand tightened them to about 20ish.


I didn't get to drive it today because it was raining.

Maybe tomorrow.

[Dual Port]

The brakes pull to the right when cold for a few stops and squeak loud on a panic stop when hot so off with the drums for inspection. They are. I sanded the shoes and drums to remove any glazing and put it back together. Pulling drum brakes is not an uncommon complaint on a classic car.
I didn't get to drive it today because it was raining.

Time for an update. The brake pull is no longer present since sanding the shoes, but they still squeak loud in a hard stop when hot. No big deal, I can live with that. The steering feels MUCH tighter since replacing the center pin and short tie rods, I can stay straight on the highway by moving the rim of the steering wheel about an inch. I put a long right side tie rod on my wish list and will change it when I get time. It's tight, but not as tight as the new left side assy.

Now on to my stupid gas gauge, which has been giving me fits since I completed the bus. I've already replaced several (Chinese) fuel senders and all have sticking floats, eventually ending up with a sunk float. I'm starting a collection of junk bus/Ghia senders, and this isn't even all of them:


The same PN sender is in my Ghia, and I've put several senders in it also. Currently the float sunk in it, too. While at Volksfest I saw a VDO (Brasilia) sender in one of the vendor's booths and thought I'd give it a try.


I know my sender is junk, but I thought I'd walk you through the diag process, this is a very simple circuit- nothing fancy at all. First, fill the tank. With the tank full, the sender should read only a few ohms, like under 5. Here it is reading 30 ohms with the tank full with the Chinese sender.



I guess I could have a ground loop, so better check it at the sender itself. Knowing this sender was likely going to be a repeat issue, I cut a BFH in the parcel tray and made a cover for it. Otherwise, it's out with the engine and the tank to replace the sender. Ugh!


Pull the cover and check the resistance. Duh, it's the same.

Pull the stupid thing out and verify it's junk (like I don't already know that). I'm not much of a beer drinker, so the beer stein sitting on my toolbox doesn't get used often. Here's a new use for it- fill it with gas and check the sender. The stein is full so the sender should read low.


If I test it using gravity, it works fine:

I took the tube off and had a look, there's nothing I can really do to help this. I've tried messing with these before and that stupid .003" wire is as delicate as it looks. I've broken several trying to fix them.

Now let's test the new VDO sender.

The fuel is not quite to the top of the glass here, it's reading 10.6 ohms.


The important thing is this- if I move the sender 1/4" in the fuel the ohmmeter immediately reacts.

I think my fuel gauge problems are behind me.



Not much on the list to fix right now.

[Rob]

Great write up on testing the fuel sender. Having a similar problem in my bus.

[Dual Port]

I forgot to mention- Santa Claus brought me a set of new WW trim rings for my wheels.

[heyed67]

Sweet.

[Dual Port]

Well, the 1600 SP and 3.88 R&P combination doesn't work well that Rancho recommended. Option one: pull the fing tranny, strip the axles, send it back to Rancho and have them put a 4.12 in it. Then argue about the $300 I paid extra for the 3.88 and shipping costs for the trans, not to mention down time. Option two: build a stroker motor to pull the taller gear.

Guess which one I went with?




















90.5 A&A, CB 74mm forged counterweighted crank, A&A forged rods, mild CB cam (Engle doesn't make anything mild enough for this app), 1904cc that will have stock DP heads and a 34PICT (cough cough). Can't have a girl beating me up a hill.

[TRL]

Nice!! Are you going to do a t4 cooler?

[Ken]

90.5 A&A, CB 74mm forged counterweighted crank, A&A forged rods, mild CB cam (Engle doesn't make anything mild enough for this app), 1904cc that will have stock DP heads and a 34PICT (cough cough). Can't have a girl beating me up a hill. [/quote]

It's been said that the best thing to with a 34PICT is throw it at your enemies!

Edit: However, there is a 34PICT on the 67 Westy that Reg drives that runs pretty darn sweet!

[Dual Port]

Yes, T4 cooler and I'll modify the shroud myself. I did the last one (my 2180 in the Ghia) using an aftermarket tin kit that welds on, but after doing that it's obvious that a donor shroud and 2 minutes with a whizzer wheel gets you the same thing and saves you $100 on the mod kit. I know T4 cooler/T1 shrouds are available aftermarket but I'd prefer an OEG shroud with internal deflectors. I'll document it when I get there, or if you're curious I could post up more pics from the 2180. T4 cooler has 7 plates vs 5 for the T1, a 40% increase in cooling. It dropped my 2180 oil temps from 260ish to 230ish at 80+mph. (Mobil 1 10W-50)

[wwebner]

good move on the CB crank. I believe they are forged. the Scat ones are (at least used to be) cast) .The Scat ones also required some clearancing of the main bearing saddles even on the 69mm ones if used in a reused magnesium case.