LEAKOIL Forum

Sean, you now live up to your forum avatar

Bruce: “You know, there’s probably a reason why a guy who would normally hook something up doesn’t”

Sean: “Let’s hook it up anyway!”

ohiowesty wrote: Mon Jul 23, 2018 8:10 pm Sean, you now live up to your forum avatar

That avatar is probably 110 or 220 volts! Ha Ha!

This bus won't be 6 volts forever.

My six volt identity is tied to my appreciation of the early stock VW's. Appreciation aside, I don't hold this single door panel in the esteem of a SO-23. I'll keep the oval six volt, but if I can afford the big picture this bus will have a 12 volt battery, CSP disc brakes up front, a 1500 or 1600 single port, big nut RGB's and a revamped trans.

Looks great Sean. I like the color. Throw a full width zbed in it and carpet and a cooler and your rolling.

CraigOnTheBoat wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 8:13 pm Looks great Sean. I like the color. Throw a full width zbed in it and carpet and a cooler and your rolling.

Josh may have some shag carpet laying aroind

Sean's harness was whipped so I'm putting in a new one.

I use a house style fish tape to string the new harness, starting in the middle and working both forward and backward. Here I'm fishing the old harness out from the rear. Tape up all the loose ends on the new harness so they slide through easily. Here the new harness is going in towards the back. Here's a shot of the old harness with all of the recent repairs to get the starter working properly. The starter worked great, but everything else was intermittent. Tape the old and new harnesses together and feed them through into the cab area. Old ugly junk on the HL switch and one nice new terminal.

Ugly old speedo with a funky odometer, screw terminals are going away.
Here's one of my major upgrades, instead of the power feed going to the fusebox, then the HL switch, then the ignition switch (all using jumper wires!) I solder 3 10/12ga wires together and feed each individually. This avoids the dreaded voltage drop of multiple jumper wires. Each of these heavy wires now feeds the FB, HLS, and ig sw. 2 layers of heat shrink tubing to seal it up. Sean's having me wire this as a '63 to take advantage of spade terminals (yea!) and a bigger fusebox, which means I have to build a fusebox mount. Fugly used speedo head that's going in, gotta clean this up. Gels are missing (colored things for the dummy lights) so we'll take care of that. Disassemble and fix 'em up, bead blast the can.

Here it is all cleaned up and assembled. I test everything thoroughly before installation, and oddly enough there's no continuity on this crimp, which means his turn signal indicator wouldn't work. A bit of solder takes care of that. I have to bead blast everything, for obvious reasons. You would not have reliable continuity on this stuff.

Putting the harness in place isn't hard, only a couple hours, but there's DAYS involved hooking everything up. I'm anal about detail which means every frigging light socket has to come out and be blasted and detailed. It's not done yet but getting there.


Once it's done we'll be putting a big nut in.

I didn't think I'd be getting into all this so soon after buying the bus, but I'm glad Bruce is taking it on.

At my age, I'm not keen on chasing electrical problems every time I want to go for a spin. I remember all the problems I had with my old '59 with an old harness and screw on terminals. Sure it was original, but original ain't fun when you have no blinkers one day or one or the other brake light is out the next day, or the horn doesn't work or the headlights suddently go out. Begining with the starter, the same pattern was emerging with this bus. While I realize for most folks the wiring in these old buses isn't that complicted, but for me, I decided to have Bruce handle it and I knew it would be done right.

When thinking about a new harness, of course it was going to be a Wiring Works, but I didn't just want a screw on terminal '59 replacement. I wanted to upgrade it so when the time comes to move to 12V, I'll be ready. I also wanted to go for the bigger fuse box with spade terminals. Wiring it as a '63 made the most sense from the commonality with the '59 layout and diagram and the possibility of future options including, dare I say, a fuel gauge!

Speaking of diagrams, as I was going through this, I decided to download and blow up both the '59 and '63 diagrams. In part, I wanted to help Bruce (as if he needs it), but also as a learning tool for myself going forward. I had these done at Office Depot/Office Max and they're 16" X 20" and heavily laminated. You just email them the file and in an hour or two they send you a text and tell you to come get them. Very handy.

Anyway, everyone knows how super detailed Bruce is with his work, so I'm spoiling myself with his quality.

Since this will likely be the last bus I buy, I also ordered the CSP front disc brake kit. That will be here Thursday, but I'll probably wait for a while to get that installed. The big nut is probably next on my list.