Due to arrive soon

[Jims5543]

Does it rock a lot when parked?

Asking for a friend who might want to buy one.

[cstudep]

LMAO ..... Fairly narrow track width, and a little bit higher center of gravity..... It probably won't tip over at least.

[MiniDave]

You just need to orient activities to north south rather than east west?   77.gif

[94touring]

Does it rock a lot when parked?

Asking for a friend who might want to buy one.

Why do you think I upgraded the shocks and put a sway bar on?  ;D

[gr8kornholio]

Does it rock a lot when parked?

Asking for a friend who might want to buy one.

Why do you think I upgraded the shocks and put a sway bar on?  ;D

Cornering..... duh.  Your other cars are a mini and an FD RX7.

[94touring]

Does it rock a lot when parked?

Asking for a friend who might want to buy one.

Why do you think I upgraded the shocks and put a sway bar on?  ;D

Cornering..... duh.  Your other cars are a mini and an FD RX7.

So naturally I needed to buy the most unstable and slowest vehicle money can buy!

[Jims5543]

I guess once parked you could jack it and put some blocks under it to stabilize it.

I have a friend in Quebec (no really) he just purchased a Mercedes Sprinter converted into a camper. 

Mrs5543 found a place that rents more modern VW Campers out, she wanted to rent one to try out on a short weekend to see if we would like it.

I like your all in approach better.   ;D

[94touring]

I have a side tent on the way for it too.  Measures 9.5x10.5 feet and can be opened up on all 4 sides and has awnings that extend.  Plus can be zipped up on the bus side to drive away. 

[94touring]

I finally figured out what the details on the transmission are since the serial numbers don't match anything stateside.  Explains my screwy 4th gearing.  Probably a 5.14 final drive with 1.04 4th.  The 5.14 would actually work great, but with a 0.82 4th. Well, it's from this Brazilian truck...

Another factoid today was discovering my suspension is a early bus from a 55-67.  I was trying to replace the steering lever arm bushings to further improve steering response when I ran into an issue of my replacement bushings being 1.5mm too small in outer diameter.  So off the road till the new bushings arrive.

[tsumini]

On Tyler marketplace.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/838716570036090

[cstudep]

I finally figured out what the details on the transmission are since the serial numbers don't match anything stateside.  Explains my screwy 4th gearing.  Probably a 5.14 final drive with 1.04 4th.  The 5.14 would actually work great, but with a 0.82 4th. Well, it's from this Brazilian truck...

Another factoid today was discovering my suspension is a early bus from a 55-67.  I was trying to replace the steering lever arm bushings to further improve steering response when I ran into an issue of my replacement bushings being 1.5mm too small in outer diameter.  So off the road till the new bushings arrive.

Got to love mix and match vehicles. You just never know what you are going to find or what you really need to fix something. That is an interesting truck, I wonder what the little black things are on the front corners of the cab. Some sort of attempt to provide some sort of beneficial "aerodynamics" to that brick of a front end?

[94touring]

Yeah not sure  8.gif.  Given it's aerodynamics, it might explain the gearing too.

[BruceK]

That blue cab over pick up truck is from Mexico, right? I've seen it before and it's got a regular flat four air cooled Volkswagen engine but it's front wheel drive!   I forget the model name but it's something that begins with an H I think.

[MiniDave]

On Tyler marketplace.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/838716570036090

507,000 miles!!!!!!

[MPlayle]

That blue cab over pick up truck is from Mexico, right? I've seen it before and it's got a regular flat four air cooled Volkswagen engine but it's front wheel drive!   I forget the model name but it's something that begins with an H I think.

It is a VW Hormiga.  Brazil and Mexico had them.  Wiki says they were built in Mexico.  Top speed rated at 58 mph.

[94touring]

That blue cab over pick up truck is from Mexico, right? I've seen it before and it's got a regular flat four air cooled Volkswagen engine but it's front wheel drive!   I forget the model name but it's something that begins with an H I think.

It is a VW Hormiga.  Brazil and Mexico had them.  Wiki says they were built in Mexico.  Top speed rated at 58 mph.

That is correct!  Also used on some late model Brazilian kombis till end of production in 2013. 

[94touring]

Talked with the transaxle guy today about redoing my gears and freshening up this one.  Looking at pulling it out after new years and sending it out.  I'm curious what he finds inside as far as gears go.  He seems to think a 3.88 or 4.12 will work good, but I'm not so sure with mountain driving I intend to do in a heavy bus.  Maybe I'll split the difference and do a 4.57 as the late bays came with that had bigger engines.

[MiniDave]

One thing great bout VW's, LOTS of aftermarket support in both parts and guys who know their stuff about them!

One more thing to consider, the new motor will have a lot of torque, that's what pushes you up the hills..... plus, if you need more....you  can always add the turbo!

[94touring]

Yeah that turbo kit just keeps getting more tempting lol.  I'll have to wait and see how the bus does in hills and pulling the blue mini.  Can't remember if I posted it already but VW says a bus can pull a 1300lb trailer with no brakes or 2600lbs with brakes.  Seeing how the mini is less than 1300 I should be good there. 

[94touring]

I've been sitting in a hotel room in Baltimore all week on call.  Gives me lots of time to research gears and buy car parts!  Going to do the 4.12 ring and pinion.  Keeping 1st through 3rd gear ratios the same.  4th gear he wanted me to do a bus 0.82, which is rather tall on an already tall 4.12.  Great for bugs but I just don't see it happening in a bus.  Using some online ratio calculators, factoring in tire diameters, knowing I have a brazilan 5.14 already, I've concluded I have a 0.93 bug 4th.  Giving me 65mph on a 185/75/R14 tire at 4200 rpms as I've verified with my tach and GPS.  Optimal fan speed is 3800rpms, more on that later.  Anyways, the lowered split bus guys that do away with reduction gear boxes pretty much all run 3.88 or 4.12, and on much smaller motors than what I have.  Some even do the 4th 0.82, why is beyond me...well they like doing 85mph in an unstable box I guess.  0.89 4th is recommended on a bus to keep 3rd and 4th closer than the 0.82 for hills, but these aren't the heavier camper buses either.  The engine builder says I'll be at optimal power between 3200-3700rpms with a redline of 5k.  It will actually go up to about 5500 but it's built for lower end power.  Transaxle guy wanted to put my normal driving speeds of 60-70mph in the 2800rpm range. That sounds really dumb to me.  I might do 75 on a calm day with wide pavement.  Running the numbers with the 4.12 and just keeping the 0.93 4th gives me 60-70 between 3100 and 3600rpms.  Perfect I say.  75mph I'm at about 3850rpms, coincidently at peak fan performance.  Not only that but I can shift in 3rd at 4200rpms (4300 rpms is factory recommended on a slow stock motor) and it puts me in 4th at 3200rpms, right in the torque spot.  So I feel happy about all that.  Now, since fan speed is best slightly higher up the rpm band for most of my driving I have a porsche 356 alternator pulley which turns the fan at a higher speed.  This offsets me driving at a lower rpm.  But, stock fans are prone to exploding and taking out a lot of metal in it's path if you really wind up the motor with these 356 alternator pulleys.  Taking advantage of some black friday sales I went ahead and ordered the new fan which is welded.  My old fan as I pointed out earlier in this thread has bent fins and has seen better days.  While I was at it I ordered some new engine tins to clean things up for the new engine and since I won't have heat risers, heater boxes, or the need for heater ducting.  The new tins won't have all the unnecessary ducting and some fresh new paint to go with it.

[MiniDave]

You're really gearing up on your air cooled VW knowledge!  77.gif

[94touring]

I swear if I had a gear set and tools in my hotel room I could build one right now  ;D

[jeff10049]

I swear if I had a gear set and tools in my hotel room I could build one right now  ;D

Hummm, how much stuff can you pack for yourself?  What no, of course, I didn't get gear oil on the hotel carpet how would I do that?  >:D

[94touring]

Back to a few things on the bus.  I managed to screw up one of my swing arm pin bushings that "didn't need reamed" but I won't go into that fiasco.  Turns out Tulsa has a VW shop that carries a large supply of bus and bug parts, and it's about 5 minutes from my house. They had the bushings I needed and I'll probably be making other trips there in the future for random bits.  They even had a couple old buses on their showroom floor.  Made myself a press from rod and away I went.  I should have the required reamer here tomorrow by lunch.  Ordered that through a machinery company in town.  While I was under the bus doing these bushings the shift linkage arms has to come off to do the work.  I've had sloppy shifting which was somewhat remedied by redoing the shift pin as earlier posted. What was left were a couple plastic bushings on each end of the linkage.  5 dollars later in bushings and some cleaning and regreasing, I've got really nice shifting. Whoever owned it in Brazil had some fabbed up metal tube on the front end which wasn't doing me any favors.

[jedduh01]

LOOKS Very Clean underneath  - kind of a joy to work on when they are that way!