Tailgate Time, and Betty Remains Undefeated

Betty came home to stay (from the mechanic's) on Friday, Sept. 2nd, just in time for the first home game of the season.  The mechanical work needed was a little more than I expected, but at this point I'm pretty much done working on her for a while so I let him fix what needed to be fixed, handed him a box of parts I had bought a while back, and told him to go to town.  I don't remember everything that was done, but he replaced the alternator, steering dampner, cv boots, and gave the engine a good going-through.  He gave it the thumbs up and she's been crawling down the streets nicely ever since.  I would never try it, but at this point I think I could venture down the road a bit and leave my tools at home.

Not much to report other than that, we are two tailgates into the season already and Betty has improved her overall win loss record to 5 wins, 0 losses.  However, based on what I'm seeing on the field this year it will not be too long before she posts one in the loss column.

The first tailgate was fun - It was a 6 o'clock evening game against a powder puff opponent, our friend Boomer was in town for the festivities, we had good food and cold beer, won the game, and of course Betty ran flawlessly.  After we got home we sat around in the bus, hanging out and partying in the street until late at night.  Good times.

The second tailgate, not so much.  It was cold and drizzling, the on-field display was less than spectacular, and we left at halftime.  The only good thing was I didn't notice any water dripping on my feet during the ride home despite the rain, so maybe the new window seals have finally seated themselves properly.

A few pictures...


Beer.  Wings.  Standard.

Ready to Roll.

Sweet Flag.



Betty doing what I bought her to do.  And with class.



Cards and beers and whatnot.

Boomer's getting old, and now needs "nappy time" mid-tailgate.



New World Record - Biggest bong hit ever recorded at a tailgate.

The morning after.  Seems someone (I won't name names) needs to go back to parking school.

That's it for now.  The hard work is over, hopefully for a while at least, and now I plan on just enjoying the bus for a few thousand miles.  Or until the next part falls off, whichever comes first.




























3 or 4 Months Behind Schedule, but Betty's Back...

Note - I forgot to publish this post but this was written 8/29/11...

I really don't want to try and remember everything I've done since my last post, but everything on my last list is finally done  That list was -

-- Install fan housing, fan, fan housing flaps, and oil filler tube
-- Reconnect thermostat wire and try and make sense of my cooling flaps
-- Install engine tin
-- Install fuel injection/EGR components
-- Install fan belt, oil filler boot, and engine carrier
-- Clean/Re-wire all ground wires
-- Move starter relay to engine compartment
-- Re-wire and install side marker light
-- Paint and install exhaust and muffler
-- Install the engine

If I had known how time consuming this was all going to be I probably would not have tackled so much at once.  But the engine work is done and Betty is purring like a kitten, the only ongoing issue I have is that the alternator is not charging the battery.  I'm pretty spent on working on her so I have carted her off to my mechanic to have a look at that and to give her a general go-through to make sure I didn't do anything really stupid.  I should have her back this week, just in time for the 'Pack's opening day Sept. 3rd.  I'll slowly work on the interior stuff I have planned throughout the season, game days are a pretty good time to get some of it done.

A couple before/after pics of the engine.  I can't believe these are the best ones I have, but it is what it is.

It looks pretty good to me, and I can tell by the sound that Betty prefers a cleaned up engine.  It sounds and runs very very smooth.  It's tailgate time!

"Winter" Refresh Update

What started as a Winter repair and refresh project looks like it's going to carry me well into Spring  Summer  Fall.  And I have been working on the bus from 9:30 to 11-ish at night 5 or 6 nights a week for what feels like months.  Here's my to-do list from my last post, a status update, and maybe some pictures of the progress.  I haven't even begun the interior work yet so I'll save that for a future update.  The general game plan has been to drop the engine, repair the leaking fuel filler pipe and replace the fuel filler neck, do the engine work, and finally to repair the battery tray. 

Engine Area

--Replace battery tray -- I just finished this in the past few days.  I was saving this for the end because I was dreading it the most.  I had bought a replacement tray and the plan was to cut out the old and weld in the new, but I ended up going a different route.  My new "real" mechanic (the one I keep on retainer to fix my goof-ups) told me that if there was enough of the old tray remaining that he's always just fiberglassed them in.  I searched on TheSamba.com and found plenty of others that had done the same and it has lasted them a long time.  So I had a go at.  I figured I could do it in a couple of nights and wouldn't put my new paint at risk with sloppy welding.  I cleaned and POR-15'd what was left of my old tray, put down a thin board to hold the fiberglass in place while it set, fiberglassed in the top and the bottom, added a layer of body filler to even things out, then painted it.  The end result seems rock solid and looks pretty good too.  I had never worked with fiberglass before, and I hope I never have to again.  It's nasty, sticky stuff and I pretty much got it everywhere.

This is what I started with

I'm pretty sure my respirator is not OSHA approved

After the fiberglass install

Sanded, primed, painted, and ready for action

--Replace the two injector to rail fuel lines on the right side -- Still to do.


--Repair the fuel filler tube -- This was pretty straight-forward.  A clamp was loose where the filler tube meets the tank.  It took some serious body contortions but I *think* I got it put back together correctly.  I replaced the fuel filler neck too as it basically crumbled apart when I touched it.


--Clean and paint the engine compartment -- Done.  It took me three nights of scrubbing though.


--Clean and paint the engine and tin --  Pretty much done with this but it took me weeks of work.  I had to figure out how to get all the engine tin off first, then days and days of scrubbing to remove the baked on oil, dirt, and blood (mostly my own, I hope).  More days and days of work to clean up the heater boxes, exhaust and the engine itself.  I had to give up on cleaning the heater boxes by hand, after a couple days of scraping and scrubbing I still had several layers of gunk remaining.  So I soaked them both in oven cleaner and let them sit overnight.  3 nights in a row of that and they were shiny and ready to be painted.  I have tons of before and after pics but I won't bore you with them.  Let's just say everything started off real nasty and ended up real shiny.  The list of things I cleaned, primed, and/or painted are the heater control boxes, the EGR components, deflector plates, all of the engine tin, heat shield, mustache bar, air plenum, firewall, intake runners, throttle body, fan shroud, fan, oil breather, exhaust and elbows, and the heater boxes.  And a few days w/ engine degreaser and a toothbrush to clean up the stripped down engine.  Speaking of, here she is as stripped down as I'm brave enough to take her.  Hopefully I can put her back together again.

--Paint the exhaust -- I'm using high temp. paint on the exhaust that has to be baked on.  I'm not sure how I'm going to do that but my plan right now is the do the paint right before I install the engine and then follow the directions to let the exhaust heat do the baking for me.


--Replace all the FI vacuum lines and hoses -- Still to do.


--Install 2nd battery and isolator -- Still to do.


--Install CHT guage -- Still to do.

Here's some mid-post entertainment for anyone that might read this that does not care about bus maintenance.  I found this little guy, and what I think might have been his last few meals, while I was cleaning out my heater boxes.  It's lovely to think about how I've been breathing in the stink from his (I assume it's a him since he decided to live in such a sweet ride) rotting corpse for the last couple of months, or years.  In lieu of a proper funeral and burial, I arranged his oil soaked carcass in this timeless, classic pose.  Then I tipped my 40 to my dead homey and flushed him down the toilet.  A burial at sea, of sorts.

There's a seemingly never ending list of things still to do.  On top of everything I already listed, while doing a compression test right before I dropped the engine I found that one of my spark plug holes was stripped.  To speed things up a bit I decided to send my engine off to my mechanic and let him fix that and install the front and rear main seals, pushrod tube seals, etc...  I have it back now so it's time to start putting the jigsaw puzzle that is the engine components back together.  So now I have a new list...

-- Install fan housing, fan, fan housing flaps, and oil filler tube
-- Reconnect thermostat wire and try and make sense of my cooling flaps
-- Install engine tin
-- Install fuel injection/EGR components
-- Install fan belt, oil filler boot, and engine carrier
-- Clean/Re-wire all ground wires
-- Move starter relay to engine compartment
-- Re-wire and install side marker light
-- Paint and install exhaust and muffler
-- Install the engine

Then on to the interior work.  Ugh.

Road Trip!

The time had come to give Betty a real road test, so when I heard State would be bowling in Orlando I decided to roll the dice and see if she could make it.  Long story short, I upped my AAA membership to platinum, talked a friend and my brother into going with me (I would need 2 pushers, Betty is heavy), packed up the camping gear, and hit the road.

This was Betty the day before we left.  We got 7 or 8 inches of snow, which is pretty rare for our neck of the woods.

Ready to head out.  The plan was to leave Monday, camp near the GA/FL border Monday night, then drive the rest of the way Tuesday.  Gametime was 6:30 Tuesday night.  We were then going to camp in Orlando Tuesday night and drive back Wednesday.  In the following pictures are me and my friend Chad, my brother Wes lives in Charlotte and met us in South Carolina on the way down.

Picked up Wes in St. George, SC and kept rolling.  Fairly uneventful drive, Betty ran good and the only issue we had was taking 2 hours to go 30 miles during one bad stretch of traffic on I-95.  Arrived at the good old KOA to camp, a bit behind schedule but so far so good.  You would think heading south during the winter would be a good way to escape the cold, but you would be wrong.  The first thing the KOA lady said to us when we walked in was "you boys are gonna freeze your backsides off!"  We bought some firewood from them, set up camp, then headed to Applebee's for all-you-can-eat ribettes, cocktails, and warmth (not necessarily in that order).

The debate over stink vs. steam is still on-going...



My sleeping arrangement.  I also had a tent heater, my travel companions had tents and blankets.  The low that night was 28 or 29 degrees, I woke up in the morning outside of my sleeping bag and was still pretty toasty.

Woke up to a chilly Tuesday morning, packed up, and headed out.  We made it to Orlando without issue and pulled into a Home Depot to stock up on propane tanks.  I should mention that my bus puts out very little in terms of heat, and also that a leaky fuel filler neck causes gas to drip on the heat exchangers.  If you do opt to run the heat the gas fumes are at near lethal levels.  So for most of the trip we just ran my Little Buddy tent heater up front and the person in the back had to bundle up.  So, grabbed some propane and a hot dog (I find it nearly impossible to not buy a hot dog while at Home Depot or Lowes, regardless of the time of day), went to fire up the bus, and nothing.  This used to be a regular occurrence for me until I installed a hot start relay, so I was well versed in crawling under the bus and manually jumping the starter.  That trick worked so I figured something was just screwy w/ my relay install and we rode on to the stadium.

Now it was tailgate time, and I love to tailgate.  The parking attendants in our lot did a good job of grouping together fans so pretty much everyone on our row were State fans.  It was a fairly typical tailgate complete with buffalo wings, beer, and girls in boots.  Those are a few of my favorite things.

My brother and I and my super sweet Busch Light cowboy hat.  Found that beauty on Ebay.  OK, it's not for everyone but I dig it.  As a brief aside - when asked over and over why I continue to drink Busch Light despite the fact that I am no longer broke and no longer 18, my answer is always the same.  It got me through college and I never turn my back on a good friend.  And I like it.

I'm going to start carrying this picture around in my back pocket whenever I sport the Busch Light hat.  That way when my wife points out how ridiculous I look I can whip it out and say "Look, it could be worse.  I could be this guy."

About a half hour before game-time our friend Chad decided to morph into his alter-ego.  Chad has gone by a lot of nicknames throughout the years (Capt. Stubing, Capt. Pegleg, Chief CancerBack, and The Hobo just to name a few), but today it was time for something new and improved.  Let me introduce you to Capt. EXTREME!!!.  Capt. EXTREME!!! was so named because whenever anyone asked why he was wearing ski goggles in the middle of Florida his answer was always "because I'm EXTREME!!!".  Let's take a closer look at this not-so-super Hero in his natural habitat.

The Man.  The Myth.  The Legend.

This is Capt. EXTREME!!!'s version of bluetooth.  "Technology is fo suckas!"

One of Capt. EXTREME!!!'s lesser known super powers - The ability to avoid long port-o-john lines.

And finally off to the game.  Despite the fact that our receivers couldn't catch a cold and WV played like a mediocre high school team, the game was pretty fun to watch.  We had great seats, especially in the 2nd half after Wes "upgraded" our seats to the 50 yard line.  A few pics...



Final score NC State 23 - WVU 7.  Betty improved her record to 3-0, let's hope that trend continues next year.

We scrapped the plan to camp out another night due to the cold and decided to head back towards home and stop at a motel.  We drove about an hour east and ended up at a Day's Inn.  It was delightfully cozy, with few frills and an aroma that can best be described as a mixture of homeless person socks, stewed cabbage, and bottom-of-dumpster juice.  But the fridge, TV, and, most importantly, the heat worked so it was OK.  Chad and Wes needed to get their grease on so they ran off to the Waffle House while I watched a few episodes of True Blood then called it a night.

Up the next morning staring 8 or 9 hours of driving in the face.  As with all road trips, I was amazed at how quickly the time flew by on the way down and how freakishly slow time moved while on the way home.  We made it to Savannah, GA, stopped for lunch, and then the fun began.  Finished up lunch, back out to the bus, crawl up under her to fire her up, and nothing happens.  Jumping the starter is no longer getting it done, and since I have an automatic transmission there is no option to roll and jumpstart it.  So the next four hours were spent troubleshooting, acquiring parts, and spending a lot of time in this position...

Final diagnosis, the starter solenoid had gone belly up.  Which sucked because I literally have dozens of spare parts on board, but a back-up starter was not one of them.  Live and learn I guess, it won't happen to me again.  Wes found a local parts store that had the part, caught a ride to the store in a chicken truck (a long story that I don't feel like typing out), we swapped out the part and were back on the road.  I understand that a 4 hour delay is part of bus life, but it still sucks and we still had 5 hours to go.

We made it home with no further issues, so all's well that ends well I guess.  Overall I give the trip a B+, and I will definitely be going to more bowl games in the future.  They have a cooler vibe than a normal home game.

So now Betty is heading into hibernation for a month or two.  I'm gonna get it back in the warehouse, drop the engine, and finish up the things I either didn't know to do or didn't want to do the first time around.  Here's a partial list off the top of my head, more for my benefit than yours.

Engine Area

--Replace battery tray

--Replace the two injector to rail fuel lines on the right side

--Repair the fuel filler tube

--Clean and paint the engine compartment

--Clean and paint the engine and tin

--Paint the exhaust

--Replace all the FI vacuum lines and hoses

--Install 2nd battery and isolator

--Install CHT guage

Interior

--Work out the table/bed dilemma

--Remove, cover, and properly install the rear wall panels

--Paint interior trim

--Install new radio

--Replace glove box