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.
Ecoque portable grill
Posted by albell in other, vanagon mods on January 1, 2014
Quick review of a Christmas present.
Over the years I have tried making various portable grills to use on van camping trips. I wanted to have something that would burn both wood and charcoal briquets. The dual fuel requirement is for the times when there is a campfire ban or when there ain’t any wood around to burn. The gizmos I made did work, more or less, but there was a lot of room for improvement. Mind you, I never found a commercially made grill that I thought would work any better. But there was a charcoal only grill that really intrigued me, the Pyromid grill.
Clever design that folds up into a small package, made of stainless steel, used little charcoal. But production ended some years ago. Then last year I noticed that Mountain Equipment Coop were selling something that looked exactly like the Pyromid called the “Ecoque stainless steel 12″ portable grill“. Turns out it is exactly like the Pyromid, the patent had been sold and the grill is reborn. I wasn’t subtle in my hints and my wife gave me one for Xmas.
A couple of days ago I gave it a try out, a dry run so to speak, no food cooked.
Bag containing grill and a package of foil liners (more about those liners later). Bag is about 12″ square, 2” thick (just spit balling those numbers).
Out of the bag.
Everything nests into the base nicely.
Base with legs unfolded.
Bottom section unfolded and positioned on base.
Next section unfolded and positioned. Note: this section should have been placed 90 degrees (rotation) from how I have shown it. More on that later.
Lower grate dropped in. The instructions say you can place briquets here for a low heat setting. Otherwise this is where you put the firestarter cubes/sticks. Yes, you need to use some sort of firestarter.
And here is the main briquet grate.
Then the cooking grill.
And finally, a hood. Makes it into a little oven, the top is made up from two hinged parts, can be closed or open.
Lifter fits the hood and the internal grates and grill.
A package of foil liners. Just made from heavy gauge alluvium foil, you don’t have to use them it just makes clean up easier.
I’m going to try the high heat set up. Nine briquets set on edge in slots on the grate.
I didn’t have any starter sticks/cubes so I used a small bit of Varsol soaked paper towel on the lower grate, then the charcoal grate put back into place. After about 5 minutes the briquets looked like this.
And after 15 minutes.
I mentioned back at the start that I had the 2 main sections placed incorrectly. This picture shows how the hinge on the upper part is now correctly aligned with a notch in the lower section.
Around 25-30 minutes after lighting.
I can hold my hand 1″ above the grill for about 2-3 seconds before I yelp.
Hood on with one door open.
I stopped the experiment at this point, grabbed the briquets with tongs and doused them in water. I’ll probably with until we go on a camping trip before I cook anything on it. So far I like it, very well made and it gets hot the way I like it. I suppose I am not 100% pleased just because you need to use some sort of firestarter to get the coals going. Not a big issue, I’ll make some fire cubes.
Oh one other thing, I have heard (Al K.) that the original Pyromid could be modified to burn small bits of wood. I’ll be looking into that.
2013 in review (WordPress production)
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 82,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.
It’s a Vanagon (pagan) Christmas!
Posted by albell in vanagon, vanagon mods on December 19, 2013
Addendum: found a pic from happier days 🙂
Vanagon – The “Swellegant” subwoofer
Posted by albell in metal working, metalworking, vanagon, vanagon mods on December 10, 2013
If your are sipping your coffee or any other beverage as you read this, please swallow what you have in your mouth and put the cup down. I’m not taking responsibility for any spit takes that might happen when you see what I made.
It started a couple of months ago when I was fooling around with some scrap aluminum and the TIG torch. I was adjusting the welding machine settings and rod size seeing what effect various changes had on welding outside corners. As I welded bits together I realized I could make a box of sorts and that would provide good practice on the seams. Well, i made the box, enclosed on 5 sides and I looked at it… what if I make it into a subwoofer enclosure?
3/16″ thick aluminum is not what springs to mind to use to make a speaker box, but what the heck eh? I had a pair of 12″ speakers in the garage, no idea what make, and I decided to use one as a sub. I added the 5th side to the box, actually pieced together from 4 bits, and cut a hole for the speaker. And why not four bits of tubing for legs? This was going to be a down firing sub. Oh and it was going to be a sub that paid very little attention to volumes, Q factors, etc, etc.
I drilled and tapped holes to screw the speaker to the box, than I made a grill from some 1/4″ square section material. The grill pleased me, stiffer than I expected. And just because I worried about how to secure the beast in the van, I welded on a couple of half moon bits to have something to attach a strap or something.
Ok, so it looked kinda bare. But I was recently given some leather so I thinks to myself “a leather pad thing on top would gussy it up some”. I cut a square of leather, a round of sleeping pad type foam, and some canvas as backing. I sewed it all together (and I found that difficult, only sewn a little bit of leather before and never saddle stitched) and attached it to the box with a leather thong.
And now it looks like some sort of industrial ottoman or commode. Go on, look at the pictures and laugh, I’m used to it now.
(Looking inside you might be able to see some dampening pads stuck on the walls)
Ta-da!
Yes, the sides are curved. Same scrap material that I made the underbody protection plate with.
Paper cone and still in one piece.
So how to power this thing? My head unit has 2 channel sub out jacks and I knew I had a spare amplifier in the workshop. An amp that was bridgeable so I could lead 2 channels in and have one channel (mono) out. I couldn’t find the damned amp, I searched high and low. Found all kinds of things (previous posts) but no amp. Good friend Stephen took pity on me and gave me an amp he had lying around. Nice old amp, a Blaupunkt 4 channel unit.
It was not bridgeable, but it excited me. The existing stereo set up in the van consisted of a Pioneer DEH-P5000 head unit feeding an Alphasonik PMA-2030 amp (not bad vintage amp) under the driver’s seat. That amp powered the front door speakers, Boston Acoustics Rally (model number forgotten) 6″ mid in lower part of door and tweeter up behind stock speaker grill. Oh and those are fed via some separate BA crossovers. Back in the rear overhead cabinet are a pair of 4″ pioneer speakers, powered directly from head unit.
I decided to pull the Alphasonik amp (not bridgeable) and use the Blaupunkt to power the front and the rear speakers. Was a little bit of a pain to do that, but I did manage to reduce the tangle of wires behind the dash (I can’t really fault the previous owners of the van, stereo installs seem to bring out the slipshod in all of us) and I squeezed the amp up on the crossmember behind the glove compartment.
That all worked well. When I say well I mean the stereo system still worked. But I don’t have my sub installed! Where the heck is that lost amp?
I found it the other day, not far from where it was supposed to be. It had fallen, or was placed (yeah, by me) in a box of fibreglass cloth and was covered by same. Callooh callay! I cried (no, I didn’t) when I found it. Some futzing and farting around and it was installed under the driver’s seat and finally my sub made noise. And what kind of noise? Well, a kind of thumping booming noise. It does pump out the bass, it does make things rattle, and once I fiddled with the sub woofer settings on the head unit (low pass and high pass filter adjustment) it sounded rather ok. I don’t think it is as tight or as controlled as a subwoofer should be, but considering everything about it, it is acceptable.
I have it connected to the amp via an RCA jack so it is easily disconnected and removed from the van. Right now it sits behind the passenger seat, but I can extend the cord and I might try other placements.
Oops, forgot, I made a quick sketch of the stereo system layout. Note the connections between head unit and both amps are via RCA jacked lines.
Around another Airport – vintage Beaver edition
Posted by albell in aircraft, around the airport on December 9, 2013
My northern correspondent (Phil Z.) sent me this today.
“Walking the Campbell River Spit this afternoon gave up this photo op. The
1950’s Chevy Coupe is actually older than the Beaver by a few
years.. C-FCDT Serial# 390 delivered, 1952 to the US AirForce”
Edit: So can anyone nail the age of the Chevy? Could it be, judging by the pics in the brochures here,a Styleline Coupe, ’49-’52?
Felder Industries – lighter, lantern, canoe motor mount, ’37 Evinrude
J. Felder sent me some pictures. First up is a lighter made from a shell casing.
“WWI era trench lighter lost its flint wheel axle screw back when it was in heavy use (I’ll say no more about that) in the early 80s. It sat in a parts bin until last weekend when I finally admitted to myself that locating a replacement wasn’t going to happen in the time I have left, either, so I used some alien hardware for the job. It now is the official lighter of my Westy parcel shelf.
Very we’ll made, I’m sure it’s a reproduction, though. Nice the way you slide the outer case up which pulls the cap back and aligns the flint with the wick while recessing the wick into the windscreen.”
Collapsable candle lantern.
“The one on the right is my old late 60s camping lantern. The one on the left is my late-70s replacement, which has never seen much use as flashlights were invented by then. The second picture shows how they fold out from flat. Reconditioning the old lantern which was curved in a way that Steve Jobs should have lived to see too a lot of hinge straightening and gentle bending. It’s burned candles for so many hours that the springs have lost temper so it doesn’t pop open by itself. New mica windows for the old one should arrive Monday.
Both take standard “pink lady” candles.”
(note: I have an Indian reproduction of this kind of lantern, bought from Lee Valley. I just checked their website and it doesn’t seem to be listed anymore)
Canoe motor mount and vintage outboard.
“Top you see the mount with the Maple pad for the motor clamp. The bracket is magnesium and is drilled for the heavy gunwales which are tapped for the thumbscrews you see. The are in their storage holes, not where they will be used. The drilled center hole is used to secure a toolkit for complete disassembly and rebuild and for spare brass shear pins and cotters, stored in a Volvo 940 tool bag
the Elton (evinrude light twin outboard) motor weighs 13 pounds and makes 1 hp. It is serial number
30 and thus was likely made before lunch on day 1.
Once primed it starts on the first pull.
the cable lanyard connects boat, motor and bracket so that nothing can end up at the bottom of the river.”
A video of the motor running.
Inside the Felder Industries Estate
Exclusive spy shot of the private service station in the beleaguered Felder Industries estate.
Megalomaniac industrialist J. “Feltzy” Felder having tire pressure checked by child attendant
Outboard motor mount for canoe
Posted by albell in greenwood canoe on November 29, 2013
Success! I finally found the motor mount for my canoe. Eat your heart out Felder Industries! First, some old shots of my canoe. It’s an 18′ cedar canvas canoe made by Bill Greenwood in the early ’70’s. (I snagged the pics from my long neglected website. I really should move the stuff over to this blog).
And now the mount. I suspect it was made by Greenwood. 
Update: I climbed up and took a pic of the mount on the canoe, the dusty canoe. Hope this helps Paul, you can see the mount pinches the inwhales and is pushed as far back as the angles on the mount allow.
You never know what will be next
Pulling stuff out of my workshop, left right and centre. And now, may I present my Onager. I made it one afternoon, oh must heave been 10 8 years or so ago. Throws a golf ball a fair distance, but crikey it is a little nerve wracking to cock. Maybe someday I’ll take a vid of it in action.
More finds during my hunt
Still looking for the car amp and canoe motor mount, uncovering more forgotten things. This time, would you believe, Polish theatre and opera posters from the ’70s. I had to take some quick pics of some of them.
Trenching tools – East meets West
So I’m searching high and low in the workshop for a couple of things, things I recall putting away but now can’t find. Driving me batty, but there was a silver lining – I found the W.German trenching tool that had gone awol for the last few years. It was a necessary bit of kit for the van and during it’s absence I was forced to use my back-up, an E. German trenching tool.
BTW, the pair are on my old sliding crosscut table on the table saw. It’s what I use when cutting aluminum on the saw.
OK, West on the left, East on the right. West uses a spring loaded push button mechanism to adjust/lock blade angle. East uses a threaded collar.
1965? Almost as old as me.
Western tool has an independently adjustable pick.
Only markings on the Eastern tool “Made in GDR”. This is strange, why would it be in English? An export model?
The wooden handle on the GDR tool looks like it is Beech. A more pronounced grain on the W. German model, perhaps Ash.
Addendum: for those out there questioning the “MADE IN GDR” stamp, here is a rubbing.
I’m thinking the shovel is an export item, made for the military surplus market.
Mercedes Benz L 319D
Posted by albell in other cars on November 27, 2013
This last summer my neighbour bought this MB L319D from the son of the original owners. There are many stories attached to this van, obviously, if you read the back doors.
Vanagon – look what the cat dragged home
Posted by albell in vanagon, vanagon engine swaps, vanagon mods on November 24, 2013
It’s a bit of a mess, a 2.0 litre ABA engine from, I think, a ’96 Jetta. I can’t confirm date yet, but what looks like a throttle position sensor on the throttle body makes me think it is an OBDII engine. Young guy, keen on cars, was selling it and I gave $70 to him to have the pleasure of taking it home and finding out just how nasty it is.
He had it stored outside and I think rain got in one spark plug hole and filled a cylinder with water. It was water, not coolant. I started taking it apart right out beside the van mainly to make moving it easier.
No chips or gouges but definite wear. Engine has I think around 200k km on it.
Head off and there you go, water.
Sheesh!
Close up of water damaged cylinder.
one of the “dry” cylinders.
You might ask why would I buy such an engine? The explanation makes good friend Simon sigh and shake his head. Well it’s like this, I like I4 VW engines. The 1800 8V Digifant I had in my ’82 westy worked like a champ from ’94 until 2009 when the van got T-boned. I liked the simplicity and reliability of the engine, loved how it could run all day pushing a heavy van. I still have that engine and all the mounting gear and I am thinking of making some sort of attempt at building a new version for the syncro. The 2.0 block has the appeal of a bit more power and I think is a little smoother running.
Of course, some machining, bearing replacement, etc, etc, will need to be done. And the question of whether to put the counterflow Digifant head on the 2.0 block or keep the cross flow head is still up in the air. This is a long term project, no quick answers.
I hear you, I know. A stronger more powerful motor with good low end torque would be more suited to the syncro. There is the possibility of a low boost turbo option…
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.
Surprising toolbox find
Found this little bugger in a toolbox. I won’t bore you with where I got the toolbox but it did take me aback when I saw this under some other stuff. I’m guessing it is from a 20mm Oerlikon cannon round. It is 20mm in diameter and the copper band near the base is, I think, characteristic of the type.
I was worried that it might be live. You know, tracer, incendiary, or high explosive. The insert in the base and the brass tip made me think it was not a solid ball round. But as i was handling it I felt the brass nose piece move and so I unscrewed it. It was empty. The stamping on the nose reads “6-1 Y.A.”
I’m not 100% certain it is an Oerlikon 20mm bullet, anyone tell me for sure?
Addendum: found this page on 20mm round identification. BTW, what I have is 82mm long.
Vanagon – power distribution at the alternator mod
Posted by albell in vanagon, vanagon mods on November 14, 2013
I’m still in a funk about all my unfinished van projects. I seem to be easily daunted these days. I can’t find things in my workshop (a key component for a swanky audio accessory and a canoe thingy I promised to take pics of for James F.), the rear bumper project is still halted, and locating that new big-assed battery has me scratching my head.
I’ve come to the realization that if I don’t make something each day I feel unsettled. I suppose this is a personal issue I have to deal with.
What to do, how do I get back in the game? I know, why not make something simple. Ok then, I’ll do something I have been thinking about for years. In the Vanagon electrical system, and this holds true for all years, the power leads from the alternator are not fused at the source. Seems suspect perhaps. I agree that the vans with the battery up front under the passenger seat complicates matters, i.e. having an unfused power lead from alternator to starter then a big assed unfused cable from starter to battery. But even if you set aside the issue of fuses, what if you are like me and add more wires to the alternator, don’t it all begin to look untidy?
For years I have been using one of those fuse boxes found in 2000 and up Golfs and Jettas (maybe others too) as a handy little fuse box/distribution panel. First in my old ’82 Westy where it was located back in the engine compartment, and latterly in my ’86 syncro up under the drivers seat to distribute and fuse accessories.
Here it is in my I4 ’82 Westy, on the battery.
And here it it under the driver’s seat of my ’86 syncro.
Same old box. But the other day I bought another from the wreckers, and this one will go back to sit by the the alternator. Now, how to mount it?
Some scrap aluminum again, you should know by now that the scrap aluminum pile is my go to place. First some 1/8″ plate cut to this shape.
See how the plate fits into the tabs on either side of the fuse box?
Holds fast.
Then, more bits and bobs of scrap and a bit of tubing are welded on to the plate. I have to apologize for the picture quality in this post, I couldn’t find my little Canon point-and-shoot and used my iPad mini instead. Maybe hard to see, but some tubing and 3 tabs added to plate
Better view, the tabs with the holes in them will fix to an unused hole in the alternator body. the other tab will rest against the inboard end of the alternator.
Now you can see what I was up to, the paired tabs fitted around the unused hole in the alternator body (will be secured by a 5/16′ stainless nut and bolt).
And here with the distribution/fuse box attached.
Another view sans box.
But, there is always a but, I think I made the mounting bracket too long. So I cut it up and trimmed it down.
Re-welded the tube to the plate.
Much better.
I haven’t shown what’s in the box. Originally there was a thick wire coming into the box at the top right hand side. This was connected to the positive battery connection in the donor car. That wire supplies power to the bus in the box. My box had that wire cut short, so I trimmed it right back flush. To compensate, I used the first lead on the right, the black wire at the base of an 150A fusible link. On the other end of that black wire I crimped on a ring terminal to attach to the positive stud on the alternator. Next left is a wire connected to to a 110A fusible link, then two 50A fusible links. Three 30A spade fuses protect the smaller wires in the connector on the left.
I just swapped over the wires I had connected to the alternator stud, I do need to clean things up a bit, perhaps combine the two 8 gauge wires I have added into one, didn’t have time to do that tonight.
Looks much neater than before and I think it is better than stock having the power leads fused at the alternator. I know, there is more to it, but thats for another post.
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 – iPad mini mount update
Posted by albell in vanagon, vanagon mods on October 30, 2013
Things are never finished eh? I decided to cut down the length of the arm on the iPad mount (previous post about it here) and to glues some leather onto the mounting plate. Looks better I think, but it is still not finished, the cup washers I used are not large enough…
And yes, the heads of the machine screws are a bit awry. I’m not by any means OCD, but those screw heads really bug me.
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.
AAA – around another airport – Campbell River reports
Posted by albell in aircraft, around the airport on September 8, 2013
Over the summer Phil Z., my man in Campbell River, has been sending some plane pics in…
Gull on turbo Otter.
Engine cowling off turbo Otter.
“A few interesting developments at the Sealand Aviation skunkworks out on the CR Spit.Surrounded by tourists, Tyee fishers and 100’s of Canada Geese; no one expects cutting edge experimental work on the DeHavilland Beaver Aircraft..”
“flight consisted of ground loops (actually water loops cuz of the floats) The mechanic felt they should have the looping problem solved soon. The radial engine tractor-power remains top-secret-crypto. No info available, even at the pub.”
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 – iPad mount – MkII
Posted by albell in metal working, metalworking, vanagon, vanagon mods on August 29, 2013
At the end of my last post, the beginnings of a trailer hitch, I showed 2 pics of my iPad Mini mounted on the dash. It was a start, a Mk I if you like, to see if I liked the position. I used some found coaxial wire, about 0.6″ diameter, aluminum wire core, polyethylene, aluminum sheath then vinyl cover. Or something like that, the point is the stuff bends and holds. It doesn’t bend back and forth forever though. Anyhoo, that and a swivel mount I made (aluminum and teflon on the moving parts), some plumbing fittings, and a pretty crudely made plate on the ashtray hole.
I did try mounting to the inside of the ashtray, and I managed to do it. But the ashtray wouldn’t stay in place with all the weight and I broke the damn thing trying to solve that problem.
I didn’t like the high position of this mount so back to the bench. More bits of scrap aluminum, some 0.5″ stainless tubing, and further dicking around ended up with something that looks more surgical than automotive. Man, I need some sense.
The swivel mount has some Velcro on it. I’m using that to connect to the Otterbox Defender case (the cover part that doubles as a back and a stand). Velcro is not great for this, but was all I could come up with for now.
Crude tabs to hook into dash. USB extension cable for connection to stereo head unit.
I made the arm a bit too long, I’ll trim it back. I like this position better and yes, you can still shift gears.
Swivels to landscape.
I agree, it is a bit clunky. And what to do with the cable? I don’t want to run it inside the tubing. Maybe I can figure something out to make it less untidy looking.
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.
Vanagon – bumper build – other end cap done
Posted by albell in metal working, metalworking, vanagon, vanagon mods on August 9, 2013
Update: I weighed the bumper as you see it below, it’s 9.2 kg (20.3 lbs). For comparison, the stock chromed steel bumper, minus plastic end caps, weighs in at a svelte 5.6 kg (12.3 lbs)
A little progress made on this project. Made up a more or less matching end cap and also did some preliminary grinding out of the welds. What a chore this way of making a bumper this is. You understand don’t you, that this is me making it up as I go along, modelling (I can hardly say sculpting can I?) a bumper out of aluminum plate. Once I get a shape that I like and that works then I can take measurements and think about how you could make one easier and faster.
shooftie 
