LEAKOIL Forum

My service manual was at home, fuk it, I'll fix them later.

......

Back in the shop after a bunch of weeks teaching. I'm working toward prepping and painting the bottom of the bus which means the tranny has to come out. I figured I'd pull the drums and see what horror lies inside...

WTF? Are these things always this tight?

Damn, there goes the budget. Maybe I can save that wheel cylinder...



I drained the tranny and both RGBs and strained the drippings through a paint strainer, nothing in there to get upset about. The RGB fill plugs were a bitch to get out needing torching to come loose. None of this has been touched in several decades by the looks of it.

Can I put magnetic plugs in the RGB drains? I don't see why not.


Got some cleanup and blasting to do before this sees paint.

Tranny's out, I'll replace the boots, clean it and paint it to look nice. How do you attach/reattach the axle snubbers? Both virtually fell off when touched. The stores sell them but without the bracket, and it looks like the bracket is welded to the tube.


The dingaling that put this together put the bearing retainers on upside down, the drain ports are up, blocked by the backing plate.


It's not clearanced for a 12v flywheel, so I'll do that too. All four brake drums have never been cut and none of the door hinges were worn out, which makes me wonder if the 87K on the odometer is original.

Next- shit job. Grind, blast and paint the bottom center of the bus. Yech, I'll look like an alien creature after that.

I like the roll cart and wood idea for a tranny puller.

If the snubbers fell off you'll probably have to replace the axle tubes if you want to retain them because they are pressed onto a mushroomed shaped plug in the center of the stand that's welded to the axle tube. If you want to keep it OEM your going to have to find some nicer ones that still have that part remaining. I think this thread is a good example why its better to spend a little more money on a less rusty bus, its the small stuff such as this that will eat up your budget and your time when doing a truly OEM correct resto. Buy something more complete and less molested not something that's been passed around like a prostitute.

This link on how to repair the stop mount is in the split window sticky section:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=481976

It seems like you should be able to fab up something following this vein of thinking pretty quick without having to waste time sourcing "better" axle tubes. One person even says a lug nut welded in place works.


Rubber stop part number is: 211.501.191

Looking good.

Stupid question, but did you remember to release P brake before pulling drum? Seems like with all that grease, and as shiny as the friction surface is on the shoes, drums woulda just fell off. (I have done this more times than I can count).

I checked out that link that Nick posted, seems like a straight forward fix, and still retain that OEM look.

I'm getting close to the sandblasting under side portion myself... I am not looking forward to it.

Keep up the good work

Bruce, I am sure you already know someone, but if not... napa in Berea is the only place around that I could find to turn my split bus drums. Very convenient for you! Two drums were like $20

Mike- Yes, the pk brake was off, the cables were actually unhooked from the front a while back and hanging loose. The drums were hung on the spline more than anything, but the shoes did catch on one side and trash the holddowns. I'm also used to them sliding on and off on my T1s.

Brad- I looked at a lot of buses both locally and around the country when I travel for about 2 years before buying this one. Clean buses are big bucks- usually $10K+ for Deluxe projects if rust is light/nonexistent. One sold within hours on Samba last year advertised as a no rust project right near 10K. Even the buses on the west coast are rusty, just not as bad, but you have to take in to account the big PIA it is to go look at it, arrange temporary storage, and have it shipped back. Figure $2k if you fly out and have it shipped back, and the $7k project in Cal doesn't look that much different than what I have. And that's if it IS what the photos look like. I'd never buy a project sight unseen as photos can be manipulated. I knew what I was getting into and am not surprised at the time and money I'm investing, I'm actually quite happy with where I am in both hours and dollars and the progress I've made. Would I have liked to buy a bus with less rust? Of course, if one was available at a reasonable price within a day's drive.

Josh- Thanks for the tip, I think my old shop can cut them, but I have contacts at that Napa (owned by Bill Clark, the same guy as the Strongsville/Brunswick stores that I've been dealing at for 35 years).

Nick- Thanks for the link, that's exactly what I needed, and doesn't look hard at all.

I spent the afternoon today cleaning and grinding the bottom of the floor and it will look really good with a coat of paint on it. I was only able to spend about 3 hrs on it and got about 1/3 of it done. I'm grinding the welds and scale off right now, and I'll tent it and blast the bottom when I'm done grinding. It's dirty, nasty, noisy work. Somehow this project is quite therapeutic for me. I haven't used many of these skills in years and I enjoy doing it again.

Still cleaning underneath, it's dirty rotten filthy work that makes me envy Kirk's rotisserie. I figured I better do something with my heater cable tubes while I'm down there because the left one was broken off 2' from the tip.


I found the reason is because the other one is also plugged solid with rust, locking the heater cable in where it couldn't be removed from the control by the driver.



I tried the drill bit thing to clean the tube, it's plugged farther than the drill will go. I also tried the cable-in-the-drill thing, but there was no way in hell it was going to clear out.

I decided to cut the end off to find it clogged solid with rust. There was no way it was going to clean out.....



Which released the control allowing it to be removed.


I did ream both tubes with the drill cable, blew them out, and ran some brakeclean through them.


I used some 5/16" brake line to replace the 8mm tubing.

By chance 3/8" flare tube has exactly 5/16" ID which means it "sleeves" the tube perfectly for a splice.
Using a taper reamer removes the edge so the heater cable will slide through nicely.


I brazed the joints and tested them with a piece of heater cable which slides right through the splices.


Here they are done.




I also cable reamed the shift tube which had a bunch of yech in it.



The crossmember under the tranny was pushed in from a zillion floor jacks so I heated both lower edges and straightened them. I may reinforce this as it will likely see a few more jacks.....



Man, this is some filthy work, I have 12+ hours cleaning the bottom. If this is what the floor looks like after a couple of hours you know what I look like.



I've currently tarped the bus and am sandblasting the bottom. I like this cool weather we're having as it suits this perfectly.