shooftie

The jar has been sitting undisturbed for over a month and a half now. During that time it was frozen solid for about 2 days (the barn is un-heated). The original set up and explanation can be found here.

The photos clearly show the amount of “fluffy” material formed. I have to guess its something like aluminium hydroxide. You can also see in the photo where the strip was wiped off, that there is a bit of erosion on one spot which corresponded to a location with the white deposit. Its funny how localised these areas are, open to conjecture.

The stainless steel sample was unchanged.

My next step is to make a series of metal pairs and immerse them in a range of liquids. I’ll do that after Christmas.

Took a picture of fluffy deposits on the aluminium sample (after 2 days). See the original post here

There has been quite a lot of activity in the Samba Vanagon forum on the subject of stainless steel cooling lines causing dissimilar metal corrosion in the aluminum alloy engine. About a week ago I decided to do a little experiment to see if I could detect any visible corrosion on a bit of aluminum connected to stainless steel, both in shared electrolyte of engine coolant.

The stainless is 304, the aluminum is 6061. Both samples are 0.125″ X 0.750″ and immersed in the coolant to approx 2″.

The coolant in a 50/50 mix of OAT based coolant and distilled water.

I did a casual buffing of both samples with tripoli, and then degreased. The buffing was to allow any corrosion to be more visible. In the picture, the aluminum is on the right.

The samples are connected by tinned copper wire.

Ambient temp in the lab, I mean the barn, ranges from 7 C to 10 C.

Initial measurements between the unconnected samples in the coolant was, 150 microAmps and 540 milliVolts.

Experiment started at 6:30 pm, pacific time, October 26 2010.

I’ll leave it undisturbed for a week or so, then take pics of the metals.

It will be interesting to see if anything happens

Nov. 2 1220 hrs – I pulled the metals out of the jar and rinsed off coolant. The aluminum looks pretty good. I don’t know if the pic shows it but there is a very slight haze on the surface.

I replaced the coolant with tap water (well water, pretty hard), and set the expt. up again, same conditions as before. Initial readings are:
326 mV and 195 microAmps between the 2 samples.
(I don’t know why wordpress is sticking the “I” up there to the right of the image… I have tried to get it back down, the html looks right to me, but…)

Update, Nov. 4, 2010.

There are a few spots on the aluminium (none on the stainless) that look like a white “fluffy” deposit.

Any chance they can get, they are in there. Funny thing is I never seem to able to get a good shot of them.

I had a look at the assembly, and sure enough it shows the same wear as others have noted – David and Neil, (and Neil’s Vanagon Wiki article on assembly worth a look).

And a good Samba thread on subject here.

So what to do? A copper bushing as Neil did or a bronze shaft as David did? Or both?

Will report back.

July 2016, reporting back. Did a fix of the problem, post is here

Pulled the pop top roof and “luggage rack” from the old ’82 Westy. Boy oh boy it had grown a lot of lichen and dirt in the last year and a half. I pressure washed them, scrubbed with a Scotch-Brite pad and Simple Green, then sanded the outside. The time consuming part was getting the old caulk off, where the roof and skylight seals were. Next step will to be filling the 2 holes at the back or the pop top where I had eye bolts installed (lashing points for canoe) and checking for any cracks that need repair. The “Wurstfalia” sticker was a practical joke played on me by a friend. I didn’t have a Westy sticker back there ( I suspect the roof had been repainted before I got the van) and my friend snuck by the house and put that sticker on. It got comments.

Not much progress in the last couple of days. A new rear windscreen washer pump was bought from dealer (best price, 20 bucks, had the option of $120 original from dealer, or a rather suspicious “trico” brand one from local parts supplier). I removed the old sink drain bulkhead fitting, you can see how I repaired it years ago with some red plastic. I looked for a stainless fitting to replace it with, but could not find one.

Also, I pulled all the cabinets and drilled holes for the rear most 2 attachment points for propane tank. The forward 2 points use the existing welded nuts for the seat tracks, but new ones had to be drilled, metal “washers” installed and the bolt held in place by nylock nut underneath. Silicon caulk applied liberally, and all 4 bolts stainless steel. The fridge vent hole was cut. I used paper to make a “rubbing” of the shape and location of hole on my Westy, and taped the paper to the syncro and first drilled the screw holes, then used punches to make the “ear” shaped curves and finally a saw for the rest. I taped the base of the saw to insure no scratches on van’s side.

I also put in a second battery and automatic charge relay. The install is preliminary, nowhere near picture worthy yet.

Finally, today I installed my “Shady Boy” awning. I really like this awning, lightweight, simple, and it works. Picture show it deployed without guy lines or down draught poles.

Jim writes:

Replacing power window motors and regulators in a Vanagon

Once you’ve done this job once or twice, you can get in an out in less than an hour. It’s really not all that hard a job, just that when you don’t know how to twist the motor on the cables to get the assembly to slip out, you end up doing a lot of unneccessary tugging and pulling and scraping. The longer you keep a vanagon, the faster you get at this.

Instead of using a clamp to hold the window up, you might try cutting a couple of small wooden wedges to jam the window to the rubber so it won’t drop.

Here’s the sequence of events, best I can remember, The only tools you’ll need besides the wedges are a phillips head screwdriver, a small knife to pry with, a 10mm socket and a 10mm combination wrench. Maybe something else, but basically that’s it. When you get the motor out, you’ll need a good sized soldering iron to remove the short harness and connectors from the old motor and put them on the new motor. Make a sketch of how the wires connect to the weird little terminals on the motor or the window might work in reverse. Ask me how I know.

First, take the small bladed knife and pop the end covers out of the pull handle. You’ll see what I mean if you look closely. Pry out the molded-in end covers, working on the “inside” end closer to the center of the handle, as the outside edge (adjacent to the upholstered panel) is a plastic hinge. When pried open, the screws are revealed. Remove them and keep them organized, they are of two different sizes.

Next go after the door latch plate. Pull up the handle and pry out the plastic insert from the little slot at the front. This will reveal a phillips head screw, remove this and lay the parts aside.

Next comes the vent in the lower rear corner of the panel. There are two screws facing you when you look at the panel.

Now the panel will pop off with a tape-covered screwdriver. Try to find a fastener and pry near it rather than in the middle between two fasteners. When you can get your hand in, continue around until the panel is loose.

Carefully remove the plastic wind seal, you will either need to reattach or replace it with contact cement or tape.

If you have speakers, make a note of how they are connected and disconnect them.

Unplug the window switch from the main harness and the motor. Cut any cable ties you find fastening the motor.

The window needs to be all the way up to do the next steps easily. Now is the time to take a look as to how they will be accomplished.

The window glass sits in a metal rail that is bolted to a mechanism that is part of the window raiser. This part is the same for crank-up or electric windows. The trouble is that you will need to get to the two 10mm bolts that fasten the window to the raiser. If the window is not all the way up, this may be your biggest challenge but since mine isn’t apart, I cant’ describe the situtation further. But this is what you have to do next.

Following that, raise the now-loose window to the top and jam or clamp it to keep it out of the way. You will see a vertical galvanized metal track that the raiser slides in. If I recall correctly, a bolt in the side near the top and a bolt in the bottom of the door–yes, you have to look underneath the edge of the door–hold this track in. Remove these, don’t confuse the bolts with the two shorter ones that hold the window to the raiser.

The vertical track is loose, but it is connected to the motor by two cables in housings. If the housings are broken, bent or rusted, go ahead and order them too right now.

Now all that needs to be done is to remove the three 10mm bolts that hold the motor in.

Once that is done, the motor can be twisted with one hand about 90 degrees to make the cables align together as the other hand moves the vertical track, bottom first, toward the motor.

If you’ve done your twisting right, the whole thing will slide out the motor hole. When the motor is released, the whole thing will spring back to its arrangement in the car.

Two 13mm bolts hold the motor on to the mechanism. As I said, you may have to transfer a plastic mounting collar and a short piece of harness to the new motor, but other than that, it all twists up and slides right back in the way it came out.