So, this is the story of my mostly stock, Automatic 1978 FI VW Bus, codename "Betty".
Note - there is a lot of talk of bus parts, bus people, and bus jargon on these pages. That stuff is mainly for the people on thesamba.com, the rest of you can skip it if you so choose.
My particular journey into bushood started because I wanted a bus to use for tailgating. My wife and I, and some friends and family, have been tailgating at N.C. State football games for several years now. If any of you know anything about N.C. State football then you know that tailgating is really the only enjoyment you can get out there. I should state early on that going into this venture what I knew about cars was where to put the gas and where the closest Jiffy Lube was. I had never so much as changed the oil in one of my own cars. So of course I knew next to nothing about busses or their air-cooled engines. I should also state that my wife was not real keen on the idea of me parking “some POS van” out front of our house. But a wise man once told me “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission” so that didn’t deter me too much. And one other thing about me, I don’t do anything quick, hence the long timeline on this one. It is not uncommon for a 2 hour task to take me 2 days to complete. Not because I’m methodical, mind you, but because I am inherently lazy and find joy in not doing today what can be done tomorrow.
So in early 2006 I started looking around the usual places. I found and won a ’78 Bay on Ebay for the sum of $446.00 (no title, bill of sale only) from a very nice man who lived about 45 minutes away. He even delivered it to me the same day and only charged me $20 in gas money. Awesome dude, awesome deal. If I knew then what I know now I would have been even happier, it was probably worth $2000 at the time. Interior and headliner were in near perfect shape, 95% of the electrical work was intact and working, it had a complete overhead A/C unit, underbody was good and straight, and there was very little rust. ‘Twas a good start. Here's how she looked when I got her...
So the story went that he had traded a couple of motorcycles for the bus, he couldn’t get it running and his thought was that it had sat so long (the inspection sticker on it read 1986) that the gas tank had gummed up. So I stared at the bus for a couple of weeks, moved it into the warehouse portion of my office, and started reading. I found thesamba.com, ratwell.com, and got on the type2.com mailing list. Bought the Bentley and Muir books, some starter tools, and got to work dropping the engine to clean and reseal the gas tank. To prove my procrastinating ways (and to show just how mechanically incompetent I was), the whole process from bus purchase to dropped engine to resealed tank to everything reinstalled took 9 months. Yes months, not days or even weeks. That could have been shortened up by a couple of days had Richard Atwell’s engine removal write-up mentioned that a bus engine will not come out with the A/C compressor still installed, but I digress. And FWIW, the tank was not gummed up but was full of rust, and I think the only reason the bus wasn’t running was because the return line on the gas tank was crimped nearly closed. Not sure why or how but it didn’t take a lot of effort to return it to a near normal state.
OK, everything’s back together, time to figure out the state of the engine. Keep in mind that this whole time I have spent probably at least an hour a day, and sometimes 3 or 4, reading and learning all I could about the bus and the engine. I actually still do that today but unfortunately I don't learn very well by reading about things, I have to do them. Anyway, I made some purchases (new battery, new starter, new plugs and cables, etc…), the bus would turn over all day long but never run for more that a second or two. I tinkered for a couple of weeks trying various things but never could get it going. I finally gave up and called in a “mobile mechanic” I found on Craigslist, him and a buddy came by and had the thing running in about 30 minutes. And that included a trip to the parts store. I think I paid them $40 total, I wish I had given up and called in someone sooner. Seemed my problem all along was just timing and a missing injector seal, and all my tinkering had probably made it worse not better. After they left I sat in old Ugly Betty (that was her original name) for half an hour just listening to her purr, it was a good day.
So now she was running, the transmission and brakes seemed ok as I could go backwards, forwards, and stop. She was still untitled so I started the process of getting a title through indemnity bond. I was told it would be a major PITA, but in reality it’s not that difficult once you jump through all the hoops, at least here in NC. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another bus w/out a title, in fact I already have but I’ll probably just use it for parts. Now that I know the drill I could probably get a title in a week or two. One thing I did learn, quite by accident, is to bring all your paperwork to the DMV about 4:00 in the afternoon on a Friday. A bit of a line but those people were ready to go home and rubberstamped my paperwork and handed me a tag and title in no time flat.
I drove her around back and forth to work (10 minutes round trip) for a couple of weeks and really started to fall in love. It became apparent pretty quick that I wanted this to be my daily driver and not just a tailgater special. That dream didn’t last long, though, after a couple of weeks it got to the point where I couldn’t get it past 20 mph (just a stuck brake caliper but I didn’t know that at the time), it had a horrible oil leak, and the lifter clatter never did mellow out like I had hoped it would. So I decided to take it to a bus mechanic here in town and get it all done up right, he’s someone I know through another friend of mine and have hung out with a few times. By all accounts he has a solid reputation of doing good work so I knew she would be in good hands. I had it towed over there around April of ’07, told him it was a back burner project and to work on it when he could.
Back burner turned into back, back, way back burner and I finally got her back around Sept. of ’08, along with a $1500 bill. That got me 4 new tires, new lifters, new push rod seals, new engine seal, the engine tin piece where my a/c compressor had been (I never reinstalled it but do plan on putting a Sanden in there at some point), and all new fuel lines. I had used up all my Christmas and Birthday presents for the past couple of years either asking for cash or bus parts so I had the bread, but it was still a bit of a shock. And it still didn’t roll because the brakes needed re-done. I had decided to get her back to my office and work on the interior while I saved up the money to get the brakes done, or to build up the nerve to tackle the brakes myself.
So she sat around for another year while I toyed around with interior options and generally fell in and out of interest. Then one of our employees was getting ready to retire, apparently he is an old school wrencher and generally pretty handy, so I asked him if he would take a look at the brakes once he had some free time on his hands. I had done enough research to know pretty well what I needed, parts wise, for the job so I hit up Chris at BustedBus for some used brake calipers and got some new shoes for the rear locally. The lines passed my inspection test although they are on the list to replace at some point soon. So after a few hit and miss attempts I had decent working brakes and a decent running engine, my enthusiasm was renewed and things started happening quickly. This was early Oct. ’09 and I had a discgolf tournament I really wanted old Betty to attend around Halloween.
So in that month I did the following –
--Had new glass installed in my old side mirrors. I bought some cheap aftermarket mirrors from Bus Depot not long after I bought the bus, before I knew any better, and they were complete junk. I have bought from Ron many times since and everything has been real good, but these were real bad.
--Got keys made by removing the rear hatch lock. One day I’ll get around to having one key for the locks and the ignition.
--Fixed my no turn signal problem by just zip-tying the whateveryoucallit behind the hazard switch.
--Installed a new rear sidelight and various inside bulbs. The sidelight on the other side needs replacing too but my makeshift wooden battery tray is in the way.
--As this was to be a camping trip, and I’m too old and too lazy to set up and break down a tent, I pulled out the rear interior and threw in an inflatable mattress.
--And finally off to get it inspected, which it passed first try to my amazement.
Made it to the tournament and back with no issues, 1 hour each way, and I couldn’t have been happier. It was the longest trip old Betty had made in close to 25 years.
The five months following that trip can generally be summed up as a love/hate relationship between Betty and I. She ran good until it got cold, then she started acting her age. Parts started falling off, things were breaking every other day, things stopped working, then started then stopped again, and I was on the brink of saying the hell with it on more than one occasion. I'm pretty sure in those 5 months I never went a week without the need to fix something or other. In retrospect I think she was just shaking off the cobwebs, and most of the issues turned out to be simple once I took the time to figure them out. For instance, the whole erratic engine issue I was having once the weather turned cold was fixed in an instant when I read a post on the type2.com list saying to make sure your temp. sensor at the #3 cylinder was screwed in tightly. Mine was stripped and hanging on by a thread, once replaced she has run good as gold. It’s little things like that makes bus ownership both frustrating and fun, at least to me. Between re-doing the interior and all the little fixes the bus has taken up a lot of my free time, but I’m learning new things everyday and am enjoying the journey now. Bring on the camping season, then football...
