Archive for category syncro
Vanagon – front bumper build pretty well done
Posted by albell in syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on July 22, 2015
I’ll get better pics and notes when I wire up the auxiliary lights on that light bar.
Vanagon – hatch mounted spare tire carrier
Posted by albell in syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on July 12, 2015
Last spring I finally gave up on my swing away tire carrier project. I couldn’t get it stiff enough for my liking. I’ll post something about that fandango and my new front bumper later. The stock location for the spare was taken over by the big assed battery so I have been using a paulchen rack to carry my spare. I really didn’t like that and last week I made a quick and dirty aluminum ladder type rack to carry the spare. I’m going to give it a bit of testing before clean up and painting, then I will post more on construction details etc.
Trip – Cor, what a scorcher!
Headed out Saturday morning with thoughts of the high spot campsite to catch a breeze and maybe see the Fourth of July fireworks over on Neah Bay. It has been an incredibly dry and hot summer here and the forecast was for mid 30C in the area we were heading to.
Started looking for fireworks early
It was hot and for some reason there were a lot of horseflies and deer flies around. I have to get one of the those electric fly swatters. Nearby pond was so nice, warm, peat infused water. Left you feeling very clean and refreshed. We were back and forth to the lake for a dip a few times.
Still looking for fireworks. Well no, actually we could smell smoke when we arrived, we were wondering where the fire was.
There was, and I think still is, a complete fire and BBQ ban in the back country, so we had pre cooked the food for supper. Grilled meat, grilled and marinated porcini mushrooms, a simple salad, all on a store bought tortilla.
After dinner walk and then back for the fireworks. Yeah, you probably are expecting pictures of the fireworks, but Neah Bay is 20+km from where we were and while we could see them, and believe it or not we could hear them, I couldn’t get a picture.
So I put up some battery powered Xmas lights for a small attempt at acknowledging the southern neighbour’s celebration.
In the middle of the night we noticed the moon was hazy, was it fog or smoke?
Next morning about 6:30 am, eastern sky was reddish.
Nice shot of Jake.
The smoke haze was moving in form the east.
And got worse.
At times like this, toast is the answer.
We packed up and decided to go exploring. The smoke haze changed the light in a strange way. Some things took on a sepia tone, but the greenery really popped out. Explored along Braden Creek, Loup Creek, got tuned back at the gate on the road near the abandoned Gordon River logging camp, doubled back to Port Renfrew and stopped at the Gordon River a few km upstream of the marina. The point and shoot camera really exaggerated the sepia tone. The iPad Air II not so much.
Braden Creek
And the very low Gordon River
Canon PowerShot camera really made a meal of the tinted light.
On the way home we stopped at “Shirley Delicious” coffee shop in… Shirley. Good stuff. The new wheel and tire combo worked outs great. The tires have a much, much smoother and less jarring ride than the old ones. Traction was better although on some stretches of road it is like driving on ball bearings. I didn’t notice the slight gearing handicap with the larger (5 or so percent?) diameter tires on the rough roads, but did notice it a little on some steep paved grades.
Oh, and once home we found out where the smoke was coming from. Most of it was from Pemberton over on the mainland. Some might have been from the fire at Sproat Lake near Port Alberni here on the island. An inversion layer in the atmosphere kept the smoke contained. I found this, and I admit it looks a bit dubious, satellite pic taken yesterday, Sunday the fifth.
Vanagon – two syncros and a donkey
My rough 86 and good friend Simon’s 91 hightop. And an old donkey.
Vanagon – some notes on new wheel install
Posted by albell in syncro, syncro specific repairs, vanagon, vanagon mods on June 26, 2015
i bought the Mercedes alloy wheels last year. They weren’t my first choice, I wasn’t really sold on the flat face look. But the price was right ($100 for 4) and I thought the offset of 25 might work out for me. The ideal offset would have been 30mm, but folks have successfully used ( without wheel spacers) wheels with offset of 37mm on the syncro. Mind you I think those wheels were narrower than 7″.
The whole subject of wheel choice can be confusing. Chris at T3 Technique has good information (link) and there is a very lengthy Samba thread on the topic.
With the alloys having an offset of 25mm I wasn’t concerned about clearance issues with suspension components but I was a little nervous about how much space there would be between the sliding door and the passenger side rear tire. As it turned out there is a good 3/8″ – 1/2″ space between tire and door.
Some time after I bought the alloys, good friend Simon bought a set of Mercedes 15″ steel wheels. 6.5″ wide, offset of 37mm. He offered them to me, we thought that maybe the black steel wheel look would work on my van. If they did both of us would use one of the alloys as a spare, if not then the steelies would be out spare. Simon needs a better rin for his spare.
I had one of each type mounted with tire and compared them on the van. The alloys won. The clearance between the steel wheel and both the front and rear suspension components was tighter than the alloy.
As the alloy wheels have a thicker cross section where the wheel studs locate I had to get longer studs. Well on the rear wheels anyway. The studs are a tad longer on the front wheels so I left them stock. I measured and determined I had 8.75 turns on the lug nut on the stud as it tightens up to the wheel. The thread size is M14X1.5 so that gives 13.13mm of engagement which I think is sufficient . Replacing the front studs on the syncro is a pain. Note that various alloy wheels differ in thickness in this area, some are quite thick.
I got the longer studs from Chris at T3 Technique, hands down the best source for wheel hardware. I had a spare set of rear hubs so I had the studs pressed in, sitting around waiting until I got off my duff.
Also, the lug nut seats on the Mercedes alloys were the small ball type, the stock steel wheels on the Vanagon use large ball seats. So I had to buy some new lug nuts and yes I got them from T3 Technique. Here is a pic comparing the stock Vanagon lug nut to the lug stud that came with the alloy wheels.
And one more thing to do. The Mercedes alloys are drilled for 12mm studs. The Vanagon uses 14mm studs. I enlarged the holes with a 37/64″ drill.
I had a bit of fun getting the hubs off the van. I’ve done this job a few times but this time the big 46mm axle nuts were very, very reluctant to come off. What I normall use is a 1 13/16 socket, 3/4″ drive but for the life of me I couldn’t find the 3/4″ extension and T bar for the socket. So I thought I’d be clever and modify the 46mm slugging wrench I had. Btw, I have a hard time using the slugging wrench in the way it is supposed to be used. I find it hard to get a good swing at it with the heavy hammer without hitting the wheel.
I welded a bit of 7/8 hot rolled steel to the wrench, and that spud fit into the 5′ steel tube I use as my might extension. Well, the hot rolled bent immediately. Ok, I cut it off and welded on a found section of bar stock. I had the notion that this particular bar stock was perhaps a stronger steel.
Why the heck did I weld it on with the hole at that end? I can’t explain this bozo move.
Well that shifted the rig hand side axle nut, but it bent a little in the process.
And the hub swapped.
But Mr Wrench (and my weld at the end) was not up to going after the other side.
I nipped over to a friend’s shop and he easily loosened the nut with his Milwaukee battery powered impact gun ( has 1100 ft lbs of torque).
Mr Wrench was still strong enough to re-torque the nut to the 365 ft lbs the bugger needs. I added a bit more weld in the hope that I can use him again sometime, in his new cranked conformation.
I’ve yet to get some good shots of how the wheels and tires look on the van. In the meantime here are some quick snaps of my van and good friend Simon’s van. Simon has South African Carat (?) alloys and Nokian WRC 205/70-15.
Vanagon – tire and wheel comparison
I just installed, at last, some new wheels and tires. I dithered for so long and ended up with a compromise. The wheels are Mercedes alloys,15″ x 7″, ET of 25. The tires are Yokohama Geolander ATS 215/70-15.
The offset is a bit lower than perfect, the wheels stick out a little more but that gives a tad more clearance on the suspension side and the sliding door clears tire by a good 3/8″.
Simon left his van with me while he is on a trip to an un-namable place so I had a chance to do a visual comparison” his wheels are 15″, ET 30, and I think 6.5″ wide, South African carats. The tires are nokian WRC, 205/70-15.
I have only riven a short distance on my new tires but I lie, what I feel so far. Smoother over bumps, little tire noise. They change the feel of the van in a very good way.
Here is quick vid of the two vans, Simon’s van is the high top.
Trip – Much of the same
Another weekend trip to favourite places. A little different this time as there was little fog. I hope the residents of Neah Bay across the straits took the opportunity to hang laundry.
Obligatory clear cut shots.
And one of our favourite creeks.
Saw lots of shipping with the lack of fog. Cruise ships, oil tankers, and container ships. a few of this kind went past. I like how the containers are stacked in a subtle wedge shape.
Came across a doe and new born fawn. Fawn was very shaky and wouldn’t get out of the way.
“and my axe”
Mmm, chicken
ok, another cheesy vid, this time the creek
Trip – same old same old, but finally the first trip of the year
For various reasons we haven’t managed to get out using the van for its intended purpose until this last weekend. It was just an overnighter to familiar places, but still a fun outing.
Driest May on record here this year, and the Thursday and Friday before we left felt like August. It wasn’t quite August out on the west coast, the wind was coolish, but the sun was warm.
The syncro was a champ, hauling us up loose gravel and rock logging spurs, and the newly installed big assed auxilliary battery didn’t even blink about the amount of electricity we used. The battery truly is way bigger than we will ever need, its both daft and kinda fun to have it.
And yes, we camped beside clearcuts 🙂
On our way, we realized we had left the Thai themed marinated chicken thighs back at home, so we picked up some meat strips in Sooke.
Where’s Waldo?
Vanagon – kinda crazy sway bar mod to help install homemade drop links
Posted by albell in syncro, syncro specific repairs, vanagon, vanagon mods on April 25, 2015
This value of this modification to the sway bar is debatable. But hey, don’t let fear and good judgement hold you back from having a bit of fun. And god knows I’m not going to sit here and tell you this is an original idea, I’m old enough to know that someone somewhere has done this before.
I didn’t look forward to installing the sway bar drop links with Whiteline polyU bushing. It can be a bit of a struggle getting the drop link onto the sway bar. Mind you, Chris at T3 Techiniques makes it look easy in his video. By the way, T3 Technique is a place to buy polyurethane bushings and other suspension parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oXY68F8Uwo
I had thought about the notion of cutting the knob end off the sway bar then drill and tap a hole so a thick washer could be attached to replace the knob. But I didn’t like that idea for a few reasons.
So what I did do was this, I welded a 3/8″ stainless steel bolt to the end of the sway bar. Well I should say sploodge welded the bolt on, not pretty.
So what eh? Well now I made a bullet shaped tool, tapped for the 3/8″ bolt on the blunt end and tapped for 1/2 NC on the pointy end.
Some tubular spacers, lube, and a nut and the bushing ( already fully seated in the drop link by squeezing the two together in a vise) and hey presto, the bushing and link can be easily pushed on to the sway bar. Hey don’t rely on this pic for correct orientation of the sway bar bend to the sway bar, I was just doing a test run and didn’t take care. I did get it right in the final assembly… I think 🙂
i made a Delrin cap to fit over the exposed bolt. Tidies things up and may help to prevent the drop link coming off the end of the sway bar. This has happend with the softer urethane Powerflex bushings, maybe not as likely with the harder Whiteline bushings I have used, but hey, it’s another justification for this mod.
And of course I scraped the heck out of the paint on the sway bar installing it on the van.
I guess I should show hey finished drop links. I had machined them a while back, 3/4″ (19 mm) stainless rod and heavy walled ( sorry I forget the wall thickness) tubing which had ID of 1 1/2″ (38mm) very close to to the stock link. Threaded the end M12X1.5, and a section approximately 17mm in diameter where it passes through the drop link bushings. No spacer in this set up, we’ll see how that works out, but is not an original idea.
I bent them on a friend’s press using a quickly made set up that does leave some dimples in the bar. I think I took about 8 tons of force to bend them. I was shooting for 4 degree bend, but I went a degree or so more. I don’t think that will be a problem.
I cut them to length and ground a chisel point on the end. One root pass, then two straddling passes of weld, then I washed over with the torch. I got a bit of under cut on the rod, I could have done better but it will be strong enough. Notice the pattern on the ring portion, patented “Chattr-Mastr” finish on the bevel.
I used the cup washers I made a while back, but welded on a smaller diameter flat washer to the should of the drop link as I was worried that the enlarged hole of the cup washer would get pressed over the shoulder under hard use in the van. I think you might spot that washer in the pic of the sway bar install. I’m happy with these drop links, maybe not in the same league as Burley Motorsport’s, but ok for an amateur.
And another thing, with the bolt welded to the bar it is possible to make some little adapter so one could use a puller to remove the drop link from the bar easily. Ok, that’s a pretty weak advantage of this modification but I’m trying to find other reasons to account for the time and effort.
Vanagon – Simon feels small
Friend Simon traveling this last week, parked beside white van at Hood River Oregon.
Trip – turned out to be more of the same
We were planning on exploring some new areas when we left late Sunday afternoon but were thwarted by closed gate on the access road. Where there is active logging the contractor usually restricts access to the area by locking a hefty steel gate across the road or even just a steel cable with signage. I think they do that mainly to reduce chances of vandalism or theft of machinery or equipment left on site during non working days. So we headed up to one of our fall back view point spots while there was still heat in the day and we could sit back and enjoy the view and some beverages.
So there we were, again.
Bridging ladder used to level the van. My van is a rolling advertisement for my slowness in finishing things. Sliding door skin repair, rear bumper build (well it is getting closer), still no tires for the 15″ alloys I bought a while back.
Took a walk, into newly logged area. I was taken by this cloud on the hill.
And took a bunch of pics for a pano. If you click on image it comes up in new tab/window, at my default image size of 1500 pixel max dimension. You might be able to make out the beach at Port Renfrew.
Then suddenly it seemed like someone turned on the smoke machine to film some post apocalyptic movie.
And almost as quickly turned it off.
You know, i never get tired of the view looking over to Washington, summer sunset. You notice the orange haze? Could be from a forest fire somewhere. A couple of summers ago we had amazing sunsets when camping in same general area that were due to forest fires in Russia. Hard to believe eh?
Next morning I got up early and took some more pics to stitch.
We left at about 0930 and made a few exploratory trips up roads like this. But we didn’t find a good spot to camp.
So it was a fall back to Loup Creek. It is pretty isolated, I don’t think many would make the effort over the moderately rough and slightly overgrown road just to be able to sit on a bridge. No, I’m not picking my nose.
The creek is beautiful, but quite cold. We hiked around, exploring a few km upstream and a little ways downstream. Here are a couple of pics of a little feeder stream, posted to point out a couple of things. First is that I find it really hard to take a pic of theses streams during mid-day. The river rock reflects light, the shadows and greenery suck the light up. I think i would have to set the camera on a tripod and take a series of pics with varying exposures/aperture and sam them together for an HDR image.
Second is that these short steep streams on the west coast of the island vary in flow tremendously.
You’ll find debris high up on the rocks or the bank that was deposited during floods.
All that white rock would be underwater during winter spate.
Supper time on the bridge. Chairs now on south end to catch the sun.
Eco-Que being used. Marinated chicken on flat steel skewers. Still haven’t used the grill surface of the Eco-Que. Yeah, just nine briquets.
Lid on to finish cooking.
Had this canvas bucket for years, US Army issue, one of the most useful accessories.
Next day we explored more, sunbathed more, read more, drank more, ate more, dunked in the frigid creek more, and then drove home in the late afternoon, early evening. Van ran like a champ, fridge worked from when it was lit at leaving on trip to when we got home. Garmin Glo and iPad mini remain a superb navigation combo – I should do a post on the software I use.
Vanagon – syncro clutch slave cylinder replacement adventure
Posted by albell in syncro, syncro specific repairs, vanagon on June 21, 2014
Seems to be a real busy time of the year for me, just the time to put a new slave cylinder into the old syncro. It had been leaking for a few weeks, but it still worked the clutch. I procrastinated replacing it until I felt like hurting myself.
I’ve swapped in a slave cylinder a couple of times on a 2wd vanagon, I4 powered ones at that, and it was not that bad. But the stock motor in the syncro makes access to the bolts holding the slave to the bracket really painful. The rear most bolt is somewhat accessible front he engine compartment but the nut for that bolt is pretty well hidden by the bracket. A good fix for that is to weld that nut to the bracket so you only have to deal with the bolt and no need to hold the nut. The front bolt is somewhat easy to access, from under the van. I tried to get those bolts off, but I couldn’t. I even bent a wrench to get it in there, but no luck. I had heard that some folk take the bracket and cylinder off as a unit and that means taking the actuating arm off the shaft that goes in the bell housing (and moves the throwout bearing). There is a cir clip on the end of the shaft and theoretically, on a brand new van, when the clip is removed you can slide the arm off the shaft. I don’t see how you can do that easily on any van that has seen any kind of use. The arm is on there but good.
I had a spare arm (and shaft) so I decided to grind the arm off. I used a steel burr on a die grinder. Yes I chewed up the shaft, I got sloppy. But I didn’t do enough damage to make the replacement arm a poor fit, still went on tight.
I tagged the bracket too.
The arm.
Now it was just a case of removing the 13mm head bolt on the bracket support strut and the 17mm bolt holding the bracket to the bell housing. Then you can ease the assembly down and let it hang by the hydraulic line. Great thing here is that the syncro has a flexible nylon line to the slave (and banjo bolt) rather than the steel line of the 2wd.
I had the new, FTE brand, cylinder already to go, bolted to a spare bracket. A bracket from a diesel vanagon… yes, you know what’s coming.
I had welded the two nuts to the bracket, here is a pic of the front nut. Yes, you know what’s coming.
Quick with the swap over and now bleeding with the cylinder hanging.
And up it goes into position… except I forgot the support arm is held to the bracket by that front nut which I had welded on. Doh, what a bonehead, ok off it comes with the zip disk. Right, up again with support arm attached…except it didn’t fit. The support arm would not line up with the bolt hole in the transmission. Son of a bitch. Out it comes, let’s compare with the old bracket.
Gee, whaddya know? They are different. It takes a special kind of bonehead to assume a 2wd diesel vanagon bracket would be the same as a wax syncro bracket. I am that special bonehead.
And, to add insult to injury, after cleaning off the muck from the bracket I could see someone had brazed on the rear nut and had brazed on the nut to the support bracket. So i could have removed the slave by itself after all. Well, no, not really. The bolts were in there real tight. Even with the bracket held in a vise I had to grunt with the spanner to remove the bolts.
Righty oh then, back to the van to install new slave and old bracket combo. All went well, replacement arm on shaft, cir clip in place, slave bled. I tried the clutch pedal. The friggin pedal stopped hard about 2″ above where it should stop, no clutch activation. What the heck was going on?
The arm would move when the pedal was depressed, but only a little way before the pedal felt like it was hitting metal. I pulled the push rod from the slave and compared it with the one from the old slave, it had a longer effective length. New push rod at the bottom of the pic.
With the rod removed the clutch pedal would not move, with the shorter old rod the clutch pedal would move down a bit, with no rod and the bleed screw open on the slave the pedal would press down full range. Can you guess what was up? I couldn’t at that point. I talked to Dave the mechanic, we both were stumped but were leaning to an internal problem, perhaps the throwout bearing retaining springs had come adrift. Looked like a tranny pull. I was so desperate that I looked on the Samba and found something interesting, here is the thread. Now I had some hope, so I quickly made a bit of an extension using the old rod (I removed what remained of the plastic that was inside the metal cup end) and some polyethylene.
I made a hole, stepped hole, to mimic a socket to engage the ball on the lever arm. I installed it and yes, more pedal travel. Not quite enough so a made another using some Delrin rod. Here it is. BTW, it is a press fit into the metal socket.
And, yes, success. Clutch works just like it used to, perfectly. Man, I was relieved. The modified pushrod had overall length of 112mm, socket in the Delrin was 4-6mm deep giving an effective rod length of 106-108mm. That’s 18-20mm longer than the new FTE push rod.
So what the heck was going on with the new slave? As I didn’t want to take it out and measure I can only guess that the new slave had a shorter piston stroke than the old one. And even with a longer push rod it was not enough to fully activate the clutch. And before you ask, I did have the slave cylinder properly installed in the bracket. I wonder if the syncro bracket locates the slave higher from the arm than the 2wd bracket?
Vanagon – new wheels and tire fitment
Posted by albell in syncro, syncro specific repairs, vanagon, vanagon mods on May 10, 2014
Too long i have suffered the jibes from fellow syncro owners about the teeny stock wheels and tires I use. Finally I found some wheels that might let me join the real mens club. They aren’t my first choice but the size, price, and offset were all right. They are 15×7 Mercedes 15 hole alloys from an early ’90’s 380SL. The offset is 25 which I kinda like, I wanted good clearance from tire to suspension components. Another good thing about these particular wheels is the thickness of the casting where the lug stud goes through. In this case it is only 11mm, some can be as thick as 44mm. I would have to install longer studs for any wheel thicker than 11mm and that was something i did not want to do (its a pain to do the front studs on a syncro). This wheel thickness will come up later.
Anyhoo, I’m not going to go into all the tire choices in this post. Im just going to show you what I did today to see if one particular tire would fit. The tire in question is a Yokohama Geolander GL AT-S 225/70 15. They have I think a load rating of 100, which is my, probably flexible, lower limit.
Here’s one bolted up. I sanded this one a bit (they all need painting) to try out a primer. The wheels have to have the stud holes drilled out to fit on the 14mm Vanagon studs. They were originally drilled to accept 12mm studs. You also have to get new lug nuts, the small seat ball type as opposed th the conical Vanagon variety. I got the hardware from T3 Techniques, and I also have received a lot of great advice from the owner Chris over the years.
Here is the small ball seat lug nut from T3 Techniques.
The trial fit was done on the rear wheel for a few reasons. First, the rears have the shortest stud projection, just flush with the stock steel wheels. With the alloys I got about 6.5 turns of the nut to hand tight. Now with the thread pitch being 14X1.5 mm that means the nut goes on 9.75mm. I would have liked more, 14mm would be the same as with the steel wheels. I don’t know if this amount of thread engagement is not sufficient, anyone have any thoughts?
edit: 9.3 turns would give me 14mm of thread engagement. That would be grand, but there is a German notice of requiring 6.4 turns minimum. So what to do? I am leaning towards longer studs for the rear. The front studs might be ok, there is a couple of threads exposed with the stock steel wheel, unlike the flush situation on the rears.
The second reason to check fitment on the rear wheels is to determine if rim and tire combo clears the trailing arm. I made a rough template of the tire profile from published data. What I am not 100% sure about is the sidewall height. I initially made the template so that the sidewall height was measured from the lip of the rim. When i held the template up to the wheel it interfered quite a bit with the trial arm. I thought this strange as I am sure I have heard of this size tire fitting the stock trailing arm, even on rims with higher offset. So i trimmed the template so that the sidewall height includes the tire bead section.
Not a great picture but you can see the notches I cut and you can see there is not only about 1/4″ of clearance between template and the pinch weld seam on the trailing arm. My template does not have radiuses corners so that might exaggerate things a bit.
I don’t know if this close up illustrates the clearance any better.
I’m reconsidering this tire size based on this quick and dirty measurement.
The other worry is that with a wide tire and a 25 mm offset rim there might be interference with the sliding door. Well no worries there, it clears with about 10mm to spare (close to my paper calculation).
I’m going to have to pour over the tire choices once more. Please, don’t mention Nokians, I know, I know.
During all this my friend was giving me skeptical looks.
Vanagon – stock tire carrier replacement idea
Posted by albell in syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on May 10, 2014
I should have spent the time finishing the rear bumper build but over the last two days I grabbed a couple of hours alone in the shop and tried out an idea.
When I do get the rear tire carrier built, and I am almost there, I will be moving the spare from the front to the back. I guess I didn’t need to tell you that. The free space up front, what to use it for? Well I have that big assed AGM battery that I’m struggling to find a spot for. Why not put it up front? There are arguments pro and con for this idea, but I decided to have a go, at least a start.
There were three kinds of stock spare tire carriers. The tray type, in two sizes, and a cage type that you don’t see that often here in North America. Here’s a pic.
I like that carrier and i like Tigerbus’s take on it.
I can’t make anything as nice as that, but here goes with my attempt.
I’m using aluminum scraps again. Schedule 40 1 1/4″ 6061 pipe (OD about 1.66″, wall thickness 0.140″), some Shmoo shaped 1/2″ 6061 plate that were left overs from a water jet cut, a bit of 3/8″ plate that was cut out of a boat hull, and some 1″ x 2″ box section 6061.
The Shmoos were welded onto the ends of the pipe, attachment points to match up with the hinges on the van spore tire tray.
And at the other end the pipes notched and welded to the box section at a bit of an angle so it fits up against the back of the bumper where the stock tire tray bolts up.
Trial fitting.
More or less fits.
The rather skanky bit of hull.
Yeah, the other side is painted. That made welding a bit of a chore.
Tacked in place.
I did a full weld-out on the unpainted side. I welded it hard and fast so that the paint didn’t fume too much. I should have used the wire feed welder instead of TIG.
Now at the front, I will be adding more stuff there, coming up in front of the bumper similar to the Tigerbus version. Im also going to add some side pieces that will angle up to meet the frame rails on the van. These bits will add side protection and will be additional points of attachment to the van. I do worry about the thing falling off with that big battery.
Vanagon – bridging ladder
it’s been a while since i posted anything, busy at work and at home. I have some Vanagon stuff to post and I’ll get on it as I can.
This post is about a bit of fiberglas grating I picked up to use as a bridging ladder. I’ve been looking for off cuts of the is material for quite a while now and last week I finally found some. The source is interesting but I really can’t say where. This kind of bridging ladder is commonly used in the UK and Europe but I don’t see it being used much over here in Canada. Here is a link to a UK source.
What I found was slightly different as what you see on that link, it has extra webbing on one surface and a very coarse anti slip grit embedded on same surface. Also it had been partially cut, annoyingly so as it screwed up a neat division into two long usable pieces. And it is about 38mm thick, major grid size is about 1 1/4″ square. You have to love the mix of measurements.
I cut it it to get one good strip and gave it a test. You can see how it bends but doesn’t break.
They left over strip, still with the partial cut in it, was strong enough to make a ramp.
And the un cut section supports well.
I have to explain why i want something like this. On logging road spurs you often find water drainage trenches cut across the narrow road. Seems to be the norm nowadays instead of installing a culvert. The trenches can be deep and steep sloped, either by design or by the drainage water eroding the sides. Sometimes the shape of the trench makes a perfect tank, I mean, Vanagon trap. You only need a little help to get across and I think even one bridging ladder will do.
Vanagon – yet another bumper build update
Posted by albell in syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on April 1, 2014
I got something done today on this never ending project. I bought some C channel steel (1″x2″, 3/16″ thick) to replace the stock bumper mounts. I cut them long enough so a third bolt can be used to secure, just like the stock VW trailer hitch set up, and just like the RMW bumper system. With those channels rough cut and inserted I was able to offer up the bumper to the van, fitting it to pretty well its final position.
I attached the unfinished swing away tire carrier.
And popped on a spare. I was worried that I had screwed up my measurements and the tire would cover part of the left rear light. But It clears it ok.
The bumper was not attached to the rails so it did tilt back a little. The tire carrier upright should be closer to the hatch.
And swung out, the tire clears the van.
Vanagon – rear bumper build news
Posted by albell in syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on February 12, 2014
Man, with this damn bumper build, have I been dogging it or what? Here is a post showing just how little I have done over the last few months.
I have the actual bumper more or less in the shape I want it. So I went on to building the swing away tire carrier. I drilled a hole through the driver’s side corner and welded in a section of aluminum tubing.
On the top surface I ground things down flush. What I haven’t shown is the heavy duty bracing I did to the bumper in this area.
Skipping ahead (too lazy to rearrange how the pics were inserted), making Delrin bushings.
The shaft is a bit of 1″ stainless rod let into a bit of 1/2″ stainless plate, welded to rod on top surface.
End of rod drilled and tapped 1/2″ nc.
Bushing for top of tube.
Bottom bushing is similar to top bushing but has a smaller flange. Here is top bushing being inserted into tube. The fit on the stainless shaft was a nice sliding fit, but the fit into the tube was tight. This resulted in the shaft having a very tight fit into the installed bushings, too tight really, so I had to take shaft out and take off a couple of thousands (inch).
Oh here we have the bottom bushing being inserted.
Just to be clear, this shows how the bushings fit on the shaft.
Skipping ahead again… today I offered up the bumper to the van. Bear in mind the bumper is sitting on the stock bumper mounts. I will be making new mounts which will move the bumper closer to the van by about 1.5″. Please keep that in mind when you look at the pictures, it is important.
You can see the swing away arm installed. More on that arm further down. But right now see how the arm hits the bumper? I did machine things so that the mounting surface was parallel to the arm so either the bumper has a curve or the tube welded into the bumper was not 90 degrees to the bumper top surface. I think the latter is correct. I will mill the arm mounting surface to correct this.
I’m liking the shape of the bumper more and more. I wasn’t pleased at first, but I think it is ok. If i had to quibble I would say the end caps are too thick. That’s Lily, one of our two dogs, looking very bored with what is going on.
Ok, time to explain the arm. I had some water jet off-cuts, 1/4″ 6061 aluminum, that had curved ends. And the ends matched the radius of the stainless disk welded to the shaft in the bumper. I cut the off-cuts to fit inside the arm and ground down the ends to extend the radius around. I then stacked and inserted into the arm (2″ box, 1/4″ wall, 6061 aluminum) and welded them up. Then I drilled 3 holes for 12mm cap head bolts and threaded 3 holes on the stainless disk to match. I’ll try and remember to get some pics of the end for the next update.
Now to determine where the upright should be positioned on the arm. I used and old bike wheel (25″ diameter) to help me decide. Now remember the bumper is sitting further out than its final position. So if I welded things up as shown, the upright would hit the hatch.
Figuring out the lateral position. Have to avoid the tail light.
And have to make sure there is clearance when arm swung out to the side. Too close here.
So moved the upright inboard about an inch.
Better clearance when swung out.
But still too close to hatch.
That means relocating the upright to the rear face of the arm. Not as tidy hand will mean some re-thinking of my latch/arm securing set up.
All for now, I really have to make the bumper mounts and do final welding of the trailer hitch sub assembly (which is hidden inside the bumper). That sub assembly will provide more support to the bumper – I’ll be screwing the aluminum down hard to it.
Vanagon – measuring axle runout
Apologies for the dearth of postings over the last month or so. I have been doing a little Vanagon work but nothing that was ready to blog about (I’m looking at you, Mr Bumper Project). This post is an effort to get back on track.
I made up a spare axle (rear) with cv joints and boots some time ago and carried it around in the van thinking it would be a talisman against breaking an axle or cv joint during one of our logging road trips. Additionally, I had made some end caps for the cv joints so the joint could be all greased up and ready to go. Good friend Simon envied the idea so I gave him the assembly as a Xmas gift.
I ad another spare axle so the other day I dug it out and started to make up another spare assembly. I stripped it down, degreased the shaft, and took off the old paint and rust. I put the shaft on the lathe, tailstock and centre supporting the far end, to make painting easier. Yeah, I know, pretty sloppy habit to paint something on the lathe. But I covered the lathe to protect against overspray, put the lathe in back gear and had the shaft rotating as I sprayed the paint.
As I was doing that I noticed that the shaft had a bit of runout, i.e. it looked a little bent. Today the paint was hard enough to allow me to measure just how much runout the shaft has.
Shaft was supported at each end by V-blocks and the dial indicator positioned roughly between. I rotated the shaft by hand and watched the dial indicator. About a 0.013″ runout.
I did the same at both ends, one end it was around 0.003″ and the other end about 0.002″.
To be sure, this was a very quick and dirty way of measuring the runout, and to tell you the truth I have no idea if this is an acceptable amount of bent-ish-ness.
Vanagon – syncro – more underbody protection, pretty well finished
Posted by albell in syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on November 20, 2013
Finally got the plate done and installed. I made a change to it since the last update. The length of 1/4″ 6061 aluminum I welded more or less vertically on the outboard edge of the plate was cut off. It didn’t do what I wanted it to do, that is straighten out the warps formed by welding up the individual pieces of the plate, and it made attaching to the frame rail very awkward.
I welded on 2 lengths of 3/16″ 6061 at an angle that would allow me to attach the outboard edge to the bottom of the frame rail. The process of welding those bits (and yes, 2 pieces as I was using scrap again) on took a lot of the warpage out of the plate. I used those 1/4-20 riv-nut type inserts in the small oval holes that are on the rail bottom. The forward hole was larger than the rest so in that spot I used a 1/4″ 5/16″ riv-nut set into a small bit of 1/4″ plate and fed that plate inside the frame and forward to the hole. The bottom of the frame rail also has large oval openings with I guess you would call flanged edges. Those flanges stop the protection plate from pulling up tight to the frame rail, sits off about 1/8″.
A small cut out at the front edge to clear the front diff mount.
Still wavy, warpy. But much less than before.
It did take a little persuasion to get it lined up and in place. The curve of the plate seems to make it much more rigid than if it were flat.
Not a great job, but not awful. I need to get some of those lower profile machine screws that I used on the propshaft plate and replace the regular phillips head screws.
Now my coolant lines, heater lines, shift linkage, are all well protected against flying rocks, branches, slush etc.
Update 22/11/2013:
So I’m a little slow on the uptake. I only realized after I installed the side plate that I could eliminate those stainless connector pieces and weld both plates together. So I pulled the plates late yesterday afternoon and welded them together. I was worried about distortion during welding and subsequent mis-alignment of the mounting holes. So I tack welded the plates together with the connectors still in place.
Here are the plates held together by the connectors.
I made small tacks on the inside and larger tacks like this on the outside of the joint, in about 5 places.
I then stitched the inside, when I say stitched I mean 3″ welds on about 10 places on the seam. Then back to the outside and stitched in the same way, but only about 5 stitches. Then I welded in between the stitches on the outside. I filled the screw holes on the propshaft plate and opened up the screw holes on the side (curved) plate for drainage. I actually opened them up more than is show in this pic.
I was surprised and happy that the holes still lined up and the combined plates screwed right up with no bother
Yeah, still no drain holes on the propshaft protection section of the assembly. I haven’t decided what kind of holes to put in.
Vanagon – syncro – more underbody protection – another update
Posted by albell in syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on November 9, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 update on battery fitment. Not liking the way the thing sits under the van I though it might fit under the back seat. But no, the seat latch gets in the way of it sitting against the vertical face of the bench. Can’t see any other spot in the van for the bugger, looks like I will be mounting it under the van. Up front in the stock spare tire location would be workable. Ifonly I had a tire carrier on the rear, you know, attached to the bumper. But no, not me, I diddle around and haven’t finished the damned rear bumper build that is going to have a tire carrier on it!
I thought I would have buttoned up this damned project the past week, but work interfered and I was thrown an 128 lb curve ball.
A Northstar, NSB M12-210, 210 Ahr AGM battery. Yeah, sure, it is more battery than I need, but it was a gift and it is much, much bigger than Simon’s battery. The latter is the important thing.
It is approximately 13″ high, so on its side it might fit between the frame rail and the outer body box section. This space is occupied on the driver’s side by the propane tank (in a Westy), and is free and clear on the passenger’s side. The passenger’s side is where I have been buggering around with the protection plate and so before I finish attaching that I thought I should make sure the battery would fit.
What I’m trying to say is I didn’t want to add any fasteners that would interfere with fitting the battery. But… before I do the test fitting I had to replace the J pipe that connects the collector to the cat on the stock WBX exhaust. Yeah, yeah, I should have replaced it when I did the heads back in May/June. But I thought I could get the old one to work. No dice, the flares on both ends of the pipe had eroded away so much that the pipe was not making a seal. You can see the difference in this pic.
That done, back to the battery fitting. Well not quite, I got distracted by my old Simplicity walk behind, 2 wheeled tractor. Got mucking around with that and I think I might post something about it soon. Ok, now to the battery.
It is a tight fit. It sticks down about 1.5″ and I agree with you, it makes me think twice about this location. Sure, I would make a good stout plate to go underneath the battery, and come up the exposed side, but I dunno…
The almost forgotten protection plate is being held onto the frame rail by some 1/4-20 bolts for now. I’m going to make some more tabs, probably weld on, to secure it better. But I have to make up my mind about the battery location (I think it might fit under the rear seat) and if i do decide on an under the van position I have make sure the securing tabs for the plate won’t interfere with things.
Vanagon – syncro – more underbody protection update
Posted by albell in metal working, metalworking, syncro, vanagon, vanagon engine swaps on November 4, 2013
I’m trying to keep the momentum going, really I am. Over the last couple of days I got some work done on the side plate. The last post had me with the welded up, wavy and bent,skid plate. Now i had to mount it under the van. I didn’t think long and hard, but this is what I came up with.
A bit of 1″ X 0.25″ stainless flat bar cut up into 5 pieces, nominally 2″ long. Very nominally as I used a Zip disk in an angle grinder and I am notoriously bad at cutting a straight line.
As each bit was more or less 2″ i marked out hole locations from one end. I used a blue Sharpie as lay-out dye. You can barely see the scratches of location the hole positions.
I feel presumptuous to lecture on how to do this kind of thing. I really am a ham fisted metal worker. I say that with no false modesty because I have seen what real metal workers can do. But allow me to go through the steps I take and maybe some of you might find something I say useful.
I scratched out the hole locations using my digital callipers. Then I centre punched on location using a cheap optical centre punch purchased from Lee Valley, direct link here. Then I like to make the punch mark a little larger with a regular punch. After that I drill pilot holes using a small bit, something less than 1/8″. The reason for that is the thin bit catches and hangs on to the punch mark better than a larger sized bit. I have the workpiece on the drill press table held in my hand. Allows the workpiece to move around a bit to get aligned. With a small bit there is little chance the drill will spin the workpiece around and gash your hand. With the size of holes I am drilling here, the next drilling step is the full sized hole. I’m drilling for a 1/4″X20 tapped hole and so I would be using a #7 drill bit (or something like 5.01mm). I put the part in a drill press vice for this drilling.
Now I try, in this blog at least, to avoid absolutes. But I am telling you now something you should heed. When drilling in stainless steel your drill bits have to be sharp and of good quality. Really, any other bits are just the road to perdition. What ever country of origin you like your bits to be from, buy the best you can. I think at one time nothing could beat US made made twist drill bits. But there are excellent bits from Australia, the UK, and Europe. Price is the discriminating factor, buy the most expensive you can find. It really is false economy to buy cheap bits (unless all you drill is wood).
A good resource for basic and advanced metalworking is Mrpete222 on YouTube, here is the link. And learn to sharpen your bits, might take some time, and god knows it took a good time for me to learn, but you can freehand sharpen bit larger than 1/8″ with good results. When drilling stainless a sharp bit is mandatory. If you see the bit is not cutting stop immediately and change out bits or sharpen. I use cutting oil, the sulphated kind, when machining stainless, I’d say it was mandatory to use cutting oil unless your only going through thin stock and then heading right over to the TIG welder and don’t want any contaminants.
Enough of the lecture, back to the project. The holes drilled then on to tapping. Same advice for taps, buy the best you can, cheaper taps work ok in soft metal, but in stainless and the like you need the best quality.
Poor pic of tap starting in hole.
Then i held the parts in the vice and wailed on them with hammer to make a slight bend.
The threaded stainless tabs connect the new plate to the existing propshaft plate. I had to make the holes in both plates elongated to give me wiggle room to get things in place. And remember the new plate is curved and needed a bit of persuasion to get in place. I snapped this pic tonight, in the dark. The vertical part of the plate has not been fixed to the frame rail, it needs to be pushed up about an inch. but believe it or not, as is, it is quite secure and stiff.
I’ll get better pics tomorrow when i fix the outboard side to the frame rail.
Vanagon – more underbody protection
Posted by albell in metalworking, syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on October 31, 2013
What am I doing screwing around with another project when I have a couple of unfinished ones on my plate? Well it’s just that yesterday’s propshaft protection plate build got me all hot and bothered to add at least one extension to the side. To the right hand side of the propshaft, between the skid rail and the frame rail, the coolant lines, the heater lines, and most importantly the shift linkage are exposed. You all know, but I’ll repeat, the shift linkage is protected by a tube on 16″ syncros, regular syncros with the bad road package, and ’91 (maybe ’90 too?) syncros in North America at least. The tube protects a couple of the joints in the linkage and I think that is a very good thing. In the winter I have had slush and ice build up on the linkage such that the van becomes hard to shift. Rather than try and reproduce the stock protection tube I thought that a plate over that entire section would be the ticket.
I needed a bit of stock roughly 11″ X 53″. I couldn’t find anything in the scrap pile that size so I had to do it the long way. Got these cut offs, bent, 3/16″ 5052 aluminum.
I cut them up.
Then tacked them together. I welded a length of 1/4″ X 2″ 6061 along one side, welded out full on the concave side, then back gouged the convex side.
Welded out those grooves and ground the welds flush. The welded up assembly, and no points for guessing this, did take a curve. I laid a little beatin’ on it but accepted the wow. I think I can make it work for me and pull it out somewhat in the install. Is that my thumb in shot? I was using the iPad to take the pics, left my point and shoot camera at home.
Clamped it in place on the van, to see what’s what. BTW, my welding was shit today. I had a lot of oxides bubbling up, never did get in my groove. Maybe it was the old stock I was using or maybe I was not on the ball.
The outboard edge will sit a little higher on the frame rail, I just couldn’t clamp it that way. You know, the curves in the beast makes it stiffer than you’d expect. Now I have to make a few tabs to mount the inside edge to the propshaft protection plate, and I’ll bolt the outside vertical section to the frame rail (there are holes already in the frame that I can use).
Vanagon – egg on my face – hall sender connector
I swear, yes swear, that the connector looked fine when I pulled the engine for the head job at the beginning of this summer. Yes, I knew it had no boot, but I am sure the wires did not look like this.
I had a spare connector, from an inline 4 Digifant engine, and I spliced it on. Butt connectors, dielectric grease, heat shrink, you know the drill.
And to boot, the “new” connector has a boot!
Vanagon – wow! a coil cooler
Posted by albell in metal working, syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on October 30, 2013
File this under “D” for daft.
Once, after driving the van for a while on one of our summer trips, I had occasion (don’t ask) to feel the ignition coil. Crikey it was hot. Do coils normally run as hot as the dickens? Oh this can’t be good, something has to be done. Some action needs to be taken.
The result of this feverish worry.
Yeah, I agree, get a life 🙂
Vanagon – propshaft skid plate of sorts
Posted by albell in syncro, syncro specific repairs, vanagon mods on October 30, 2013
Edit: I wrote that I used 10-24 insets and screws. I made a mistake, they are actually 1/4-20.
It seems like an age since I have posted on the blog, I guess I’ve been in the doldrums. No major van projects completed, the bumper build has been on a bit of a hiatus as I don’t want to be doing the steel fabrication part (trailer hitch) at work when we are doing aluminum work. But i have to get back on that horse soon or else I never will. I have done a little work on it however, I cut off the end caps and slimmed them down some. A trial fit of the originals showed that they were a bit clunky.
Even being in the doldrums, or maybe it was the horse latitudes, I have managed to do a couple of little things and this post is about something I did this afternoon. I had a bit of 3/16″ aluminum plate (5052 alloy) earmarked for propshaft protection. Oh I know what you are thinking, that’s not beefy enough is it? Perhaps not, if you want rock crawling type protection. But I’m just looking for something to protect the propshaft from flying sticks and stones and the occasional scrape over gravel.
I cut the plate to size (and by the way the two propshaft rails are not parallel, they taper in about 3/4″ towards the front) so that there would be a 3/4″ projection on each side of the stock skid rails. I want that projection so that I can attach (later) some more plate to enclose the space between the skid rails and the frame rails. I drilled 1/8″ pilot holes, 10 places, locations for machine screws to attach the plate to the skid rails.
Then I clamped the plate to the rails and drilled 1/8″ holes in the rails using the previously drilled holes as a guide.
I removed the plate then enlarged the 1/8″ holes to accept threaded inserts. I bought this cheap insert tool at Princess Auto, back in the hazy days of summer. It came with a selection of inserts. I’m using the 10-24 inserts here. You screw the insert onto a threaded boss on the tool, insert the insert (!) into the hole and squeeze the handle. A couple of broken blood vessels later the insert is secured. Tool with insert in hole and an insert itself shown in this pic.
How it looks after insertion.
After a few more ruptured blood vessels all the inserts were installed. Oh I did spray some high zinc paint in the drilled holes before insertion of the inserts. Originally I had thought of counter sunk machine screws to attach the plate, but you know how it is with counter sunk screws, you have to get things perfectly aligned. I opted instead for these rather nice large (almost a truss head) headed stainless screws.
I have a notion to weld some braces on the back side of the plate just to beef it up a bit more. But then again I’m only using 10-24 1/4-20 screws to hold the darned thing on.
I’m happy with the result, and happy to be back blogging about the arcane things I do for fun.
Trip – Klanawa river again
Update: fixed access problem with the alder road video.
Last Friday we took off for a 4 day exploration of the Klanawa watershed here on Vancouver Island. Was a repeat of a trip we made last year, same people, same dogs, same van. One difference was we did not stop at Nitinat Falls, we drove on and camped west of Blue Lake, about 2.5 km from the ocean.
Long exposure makes the fire look larger than it really was.
And the next morning, weather was good. We were hoping the weather was going to be good – after a month of dry warm weather the rain had started a week before. Pretty heavy rain at times and we hoped that the forecast of a fair weekend was accurate. The recent rain had filled the rivers, we noticed that as we drove in. Our plan for this day, Saturday, was to head down to the Klanawa river and we were a little concerned that the river might be to high to wade across.
Got down through the alder choked trail around noon. There is bear poop everywhere, the bears are gorging on red huckleberries and salal berries.
Down at the river and it is higher than on last year’s trip.
My son had convinced me that we should bring along a little inflatable dinghy. That was a good idea.
You might think it would be foolhardy to mess around in these little rapids with no PFDs or helmets. Maybe you’d be right. But the guys had fun.
(I stupidly left the GoPro back in the van, movie shot with the little Canon Powershot with a dirty lens)
We managed to wade across the river to get to an area that is old growth, untouched, river bottom forest. The trees in this spot are Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, Red Cedar, and a few Bigleaf Maples. More info here. Impressive place, the pics do not come anywhere close to how it looks in reality.
Then back to the van and up the alder choked road which was a bit less choked after the van’s trip down it. For some reason I had a heck of a time processing this vid shot with the GoPro. Must have been slightly corrupted or something. The vid is sped up, but try selecting the 720p option to reduce the blockiness.
This kind of road is one of the reasons I don’t worry too much about the condition of the van’s paint.
All four of us agreed that we wanted this evening’s campsite to have a view, and we got one.
We’re looking down the edge of the island, Washington State way in the distance.
For a little perspective, here is the picture of previous night’s spot and arrow points to approximate location of viewpoint campsite. Why didn’t we try for the higher ground? Access was more difficult and would have taken more time. We really wanted to set up camp before the sun disappeared so we could enjoy the spot.
We wanted to explore more around Blue Lake, we had this idea we could get closer to it. So that is what we did the next day. No luck getting closer than about 300 metres to the lake. We did run into a bear when we were walking an old road – the dogs took off after it. When we caught up to them they were barking at the bear from the edge of the road. The bear was against a tree. Got the dogs under control and tried to get a video of the bear. Not very exciting vid, par for the course for this type of thing.
We camped that night at the little gem of a lake that we camped at last year. I’m not saying the name.
Next day was our last day. We stopped for lunch and afternoon exploring at a spot further upstream on the Klanawa. It is the nature of these short freestone west coast rivers – they go from a stream to a full grown river in a short distance. And you can judge by the gravel bars just how much the water level changes.
We did some exploring, sans camera, doh! Big Sitka spruce, Western Hemlock and moss covered Bigleaf Maple. At one point, the boys went off upstream with the dogs and ran into a large male elk. Much excitement ensued, but thankfully no creature was hurt.
The westy table mod was used throughout this trip. We came up with a name for it- “Swelegent”
It was one of the best trips ever.
vanagon – bumper build – starting the hitch
Posted by albell in metal working, metalworking, syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on August 27, 2013
I’ll blame good friend Simon for the recent dearth of posts, you might understand why at the end of this post. The bumper is pretty well roughed out and before I can finish the aluminum I need to make a trailer hitch to fit behind. I do have one of those tow loop mounted hitches but I want something stronger.
So the idea is a receiver style hitch with a crossmember behind the bumper welded to the stock bumper mounts (which I will modify and extend further I the frame rails), and the receiver part of the hitch coming through the lower part of the bumper. I’m not being very clear, sorry, it all make sense as I post my progress.
And what progress have I made? I’m going to pad out the little work I have done.
Well, here is my existing hitch and the bits for the 2″ receiver.
I cut the bits off.
I want to have this bar sit as close to the inside rear face of the bumper as possible, To do that I need to make a couple of bends. Pretty sloppy work cutting “V” notches to make a 7 degree bend, I could have done better. Oh I did cut the tube in half before I did the notches.
Up it bends, leaving a big gap, grrr.
Get the idea of what I am aiming for?
It might come as a surprise that I can’t stick weld very well. The MIG welder is set up for aluminum and stainless and very likely will never see steel. So until my welding teacher comes by to give me some stick welding pointers I TIG tacked the bends and other parts onto the tube. I used some rod to help me jump the gap with my tacks.
All tacked up and ready to start trial fitting to van and new bumper. Oh, btw, I will add some reinforcing plates between the receiver and the main tube.
So why is Simon partly responsible for me not posting more often? He gave me an Ipad mini. Yup, what a guy. I’ve been playing with navigation/map apps and I think I might post some stuff on that. Also started mocking up a mount to install it in the van. It’s a start, by no mean the final thing, but gives me some ideas.
Thanks again M&S.
Trip – quick look at Loup Creek
Just back from a short overnight trip. Our goal was to see if we could find a camping spot on Loup Creek (a tributary of the Gordon River). I’ll leave it up to the reader to discover just exactly where we ended up.
July set records here for the lack of rain (it did shower for a couple of days at the end of the month) and we were worried that gates would be closed on some logging roads. Turned out many gates were closed and that stopped us from exploring some other spots before we got to Loup Creek. We drove up some fairly steep and rough roads, but at the end of them there was neither a good view or a creek or lake. For some reason I didn’t take any pics of the steep roads, I guess I was distracted by the search and the road conditions. I have to say that the little mods to add some more ground clearance on the van really paid off. No more scraping the spare tire carrier or the trailer hitch when going over the ditches cut across some of the minor logging roads. Those roads can be fairly steep (+20%) and the road surface is loose sharp rock.
The only pic I took of this part of the trip (not steep and not rough)
So off we went northwest alongside the Gordon until we found the old, abandoned Forest Service road. Moderately steep climb, loose rock, few over hanging alders. Toodled along until we came to the first bridge over the Loup. This was a bridge built to last – large concrete abutments, 2 giant I-beams spanning, and precast concrete sections as deck. Deck about 30 feet above creek. Other side of the bridge was pretty well alder choked, and the roads led to nowhere interesting so we decided to continue upstream to find the second bridge. There was this sign just up the road.
Then there was a steep section and the surface of the road was made up of larger than normal loose rock. At this point the van started to miss and buck, just the same thing it did at the end of our last trip. We barely made it up the steep section, van bouncing, tires slipping. Not that much fun with a ditch on one side and a very steep drop down to Loup Creek on the other side. We had to drive on a kilometre or so before we could find a level spot to stop. I won’t go into any thoughts about why the van was missing and bucking in this post, but we let the engine cool down (it was a hot day and we had been working it hard) to see if that made any difference. Well it didn’t and even thought I really wanted to go on to find the second bridge we decided to turn back and camp at the first bridge.
It really wasn’t a bad place to camp. Secluded, beside a creek, bugs not *that* bad.
So here I am sitting and thinking. Am I marvelling at how good the classic Thule Combibox 250 looks on the van? (that’s for you Phil Z.). Am I enjoying using the table mod? Am I enjoying a drink and some potato chips? Or am I wondering why the van engine is acting up?
All of the above 🙂
As the creek runs pretty well north – south at this section, and as the sun was in the west, I couldn’t get very good pics of the creek from the bridge. I did get a pic of the van lit up by all the led strips later that evening, for Jerome.
About 11 am next morning, sun made it down into the creek. Still hard to get a shot, the river rocks reflect a lot of light
Looking upstream (north).
And downstream.
We packed some food and drink and clambered down to the creek and walked up stream a short distance. My wife and Jake found the way down.
There are some small trout, and perhaps salmon fry?
You might be able to make out the bridge.
And about 6pm we packed up and drove home. Van bucking came and went, no rhyme or reason. Ah well, that’s something to figure out later. It didn’t spoil a nice little trip.
Vanagon – kludgy roof rack rail
Posted by albell in syncro, vanagon, vanagon mods on July 27, 2013
A while back I made some artificial rain gutter things to quickly get some roof racks on the van so I could carry my son’s kayaks. They worked even if they were ugly. But then this year I found a good deal on an old school Thule ski box. I think it is a Combibox 250, you know the kind, seemed to be on every Volvo station wagon around here during the ’80’s.
Anyhoo, the distance between the mounting points on is greater than the distance between the mounting points in my quick and dirty solution done for the kayaks. I didn’t want to drill more holes in the pop top to add another pair of mounting brackets so I came up with an another kludge.
I took some 1/4″ thick, 2″ deep 6061 aluminum flat and drilled some holes in it (for looks mostly). The rear end of the strip attaches to the top two bolts of the pop top hinge. Up front I screwed up and drilled holes in the centre line of the strip which did not line up with the holes in thhe pop top that I drilled for the old bracket.
So I drilled a bit of 1/2″ aluminum plate, and pressed in some nuts (M6). The plates then screw into the old holes and the pressed in nuts take bolts from the strip. I beveled the lower edge of the strip to fit the hooked arm of the roof rack. The strip got some rattle can bedliner as a finish.
I have some spacer blocks to go between the front end of the strip and the pop top. Just to prevent branches from snagging. But i ran out of double sided tape so they are not installed yet.
Well it works, no points for aesthetics, but it works.
Now I need to make a ladder to access the damn box!
shooftie 