Chapter 28 - There's No Stopping us....

By now, Busfest was but a distant memory, and all eye's were on Christmas, and and the Joys that the season brings, meaning in the short term, my funds were limited to non bus items.....

Still....... it didn't stop me making a shopping list,

A list for Santa, if you like....
Over the next 3-4 months, I saved my pennies, and started stock piling the parts, for when the weather would break and let me work our magic. 

Things like, a new suspension kit, -50mm, fully adjustable dampers

New polyurethane bushes,

Gonna need some new disc's, with more stopping power........

With mine being a early model, the disc and hub come as one complete unit, so it looks like i'll need some new bearings too

Unfortunately the stone guard on the back, were in a right state, one had two holes rusted through.

In for a penny, in for a pound, so ...........

 

Note the new extended wheel studs

Meanwhile, some more goodies arrived from Bickwerks!
Note the new drop links, I managed to snap one stripping the front suspension, so i poly bushed, the anti roll bar, end to end

Now for the fun part, getting the bugger back on the anti roll bar

We clamped the antiroll bar down, and i lubed up the yellow poly bush with the included grease (copper grease) and forced it on with a lot of effort!

(make sure you put them back on right, or i imagine you'll have even more fun removing them!)

We took the liberty of, grinding and sanding the antiroll bar, then cleaning before a coat of plastic coated matt black paint,

Got me some for the toe in bars too!

Chapter 27 - Busfest or Bust

I realise its been a while since i wrote anything regarding my bus, seeing as my last post was written in August last year, But I'll do my best to fill in the missing blanks in this timeline.

Busfest is the first week in September for those that don't know about possibly the worlds biggest VW Bus show, held in Malvern, in Worcester, in the UK

My original plan was to have my bus ready for the show, however i wanted at least 2 weeks to give the van a shakedown run, just to find all the little niggles you get when building a project like this.
The van has been sat for months without being moved and the consequently the brakes had seized, and during the strip down of the fronts, it was discovered that the drivers side calliper had seized solid.

 Originally i figured on just replacing the pair of callipers, but when we discovered one of the brake lines was corroded to excess, and the steering universal joint had perished, I said that we would put the project on hold to allow us the time to overhaul the entire braking system, and steering.



So we packed up our camping gear, and travelled to the show in my company work van (A VW T5 no less)
The weather was fabulous, the company was too, all 5 of us had a good weekend, much beer was consumed, many many BBQ's were devoured, and whilst sat around the table with full bellies, a plan was hatched.........

Looking at all the various vans, we noticed one or two with Porsche brake upgrades, so we thought, instead of spending the money on new stock brakes, why not do the whole front end in Porsche's finest, we even managed to find a stall selling adapters allowing fitment of these awesome brakes.

Problem was, by the time you factored in a set of adaptors, and a set of second hand callipers, you could be looking at a bill of £800 plus.

I decided to shelve the idea, for now, and pick up one or two other spares for the van while i was there,

A used, but rust free late model tailgate was haggled upon and purchased, along with a used rear bumper - as ours was a bit of a mess........

And so we left Busfest, we had taken in a lot, and left recharged, with a new sense of focus.....

Chapter 26 - The Wheels on the bus go round and round

A bit cheesy, i know, but what the hell

Ever since i decided on a T25, i accepted that given the wheel options that would work on a van of this size, that i was going for Mercedes rims, as they are designed to fit on friggen big cars, some nearly 2 ton, and they had a few tasty styles that i liked.

Anyway, keeping a eye on flea bay, i never seemed to own any of the wheels i was bidding on, perhaps due to me being tight, and not wanting to give a lot for them, or too many people with too much spare wedge giving silly dough for them

Anyway, one of the guys in the Liverpool VW club was selling a set of seriously scuffed rims, but the price was right, and he was local, so a deal was struck, and the rims were mine.
But you know how these things start, originally, i figured, the rubber on my steel wheels all needed replacing, and i figured i'd buy a set of alloys and tires, then these came up. I though, bang some part worn tires on them, and they'll do this season till i find some beauty's , or pay to have them professionally refurbed when finances allowed.

So i get talking to one of the local lads, Kieran,  where im working, down in Birmingham, and he tells me of this place round the corner who refurbs the wheels, and the prices seem keen, so i pop over in my dinner time, drop the wheels off, and ask for them to be powder coated, in this shiny gloss black, seeing as im going to paint the van orange, i think black wheels will work really well

I really like the AMG styled wheels, similar to these, i even photo shopped them onto the background picture i created for this blog,

They look quite good on the van too! just need the suspension to settle down a bit ;)

Chapter 25 - It's not a f*cking race car Dave!

Sometimes, late at night, when the other half sleeps, and my son swears at French people on call of duty, I gaze upon items on flea bay, into the early hours of the morning, and sometimes due to the long hours I'm doing at work to pay for my shiny goodies, i accidentally  stumble across something on the web, that catches my eye, and i hatch yet another evil plan.

One such weekend evening while savouring a large glass of Jack, i was reading  www.scoobynet.com, trying hopefully to learn about my new engine, and learn some of the trick's the lads use to keep they're cars running it tip top form, i stumbled across a article about F.M.I.C.'s or Front Mounted Inter Coolers.

The thing is this, the guys running big power scooby's, tend to follow several steps to make the most out these wonderful sushi specials, in they're quest for power, and one of those steps involve FMIC's

I quickly realised this might be the answer for my inter-cooler problem, as I'd toyed with the idea of using the factory inter cooler, and moving it to a new location, but this would require a lot of pipework, and hoses, and clamps,

But all these bits of pipework, hoses, and relevant clamps, totalled up to a lot of £££'s, so while searching ebay for the bits, i had a look at the various kits on offer,

so after a few late night bids, and a bit of luck, i got my hands on a complete kit, however this kit was designed to be fitted to the front of a impreza, and i might add, holes would have to be cut out of its inner wings, just so the intercooler would sit inside the front bumper, but actually outside of the car!

Wally's words, and please bear in mind he's a man of very few words, are more like insane mutterings of a possessed soul, soo, on seeing the kit in all its glory? "It's not a fucking race car Dave!", however, even he had to admit seeing it mocked up in situ (another wards me holding in place while he starred at it like a buxom babe in a bikini on the beach), Yep, that'll work!

Did i mention I'm a electrician, and not a plumber?

Whilst mounting the intercooler (and moving lots of things i thought i'd found a place for) I discovered i now had a perfect place to mount the cooling pipework, Result!

A bit of slicing and dicing of the pipework was required, but, i think I've found a good solution to the heat problems associated with having the inter cooler basically above the turbocharger 

 Eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed two pipes joined but without a hose, its on my desk as i speak, having just arrived today, as i needed a reducer hose, and it wasnt included in the kit
 The original pipe had to be cut down by about 18 -20 inches, to make the turn in my engine bay, so this is a good fix.

Next installment will have the dumpvalve, if i manage to figure that one out!

Chapter 24 - Have you got it in yet?

Ok, well it seems i have a few days on my hands due to some prat rear ending me in my works van, so while I'm off work for a few days, I'll try and catch up on the blog, and get you people back up to speed.


So i took all my shiney goodies from RJES, and stuck them together with the engine, and fitted a brand new clutch to save any headaches along the way (and given i figured there was less then 4-5k left in that clutch I might as well get it out the way)

 

If you look closely between the turbo, and the bell housing you may notice a arm missing, VW Heritage are in the process of making this part availabledue to several request for  them, including mine.

at this point, they weren't available, so i moved on, and figured i'd fit it later.

However, if you decide to tackle this swap yourself, please note, the studs on the turbo, fowl the shaft, meaning either the turbo has to come off, or the box has to be split from the engine (you could try to remove the stud, but i wouldn't recommend risking breaking it, and they are very difficult to obtain here in the UK, and have to be sourced direct from Japan (some scooby dealer will no doubt email me to tell me they do stock them, but at this time I'm unable to find any!)

 

Here you can see we have offered the motor and box into the engine bay, some of you may notice also, that i've cut away the left hand side of the bulkhead - but haven't done the right (even though we marked it up! -  Later I'll remove it out of my way as need must!)

 

What we did was bolt the box into its rear mount (or the mount nearest the centre of the van!)

pop a big block of wood across the engine bay, and remove the jack from underneath, whilst supporting the engine on ratchet straps (these straps are rated for and excess of 400kg and proved quite useful !- again please dont try this at home, i take no responsibility for any other like minded superhero's attempting any of this! )

I was anxious  to see what clearance i would have with the factory inter-cooler, & the body and also clearance with the ground & my sump

 

I removed the factory inter-cooler brackets , left the bottom, and dump valve hoses connected, but removed the one to the throttle body, so i could get the intercooler sitting flat (in the scooby it sits on a angle to make the most of the bonnet scoop)

I got it all set up,

 Till i had about 20mm clearence between the floor and the intercooler, but having read a hell of a lot of what the guys on the scooby forums were saying about heat being my enemy, i figured moving the intercooler elsewhere, and gaining another inch and a half of ground clearence was a better option

as you can see from this angle, the engine was just hanging out of the vans ass far too much!

so off again came our cross member, for some more measuring and modification 

In this shot you can see the modified cross member, and also us mocking up the Scoobys original back box

New engine, required a new fuel pump and filter. I was planning on using the factory scooby set up, but time constraints means i could'nt afford to spend 4 weekends making it work, so i opted for a high power fuel pump (5-12 bar of pressure) and a race spec fuel filter

Eventually, i plan on fitting a bigger capacity tank, possibly stainless, and if i do, I'll try and fit the senders from the scooby, till then i'll make do with the stock VW tank, and sender.

Another issue was the radiator, remember my van is/was air cooled. I'd been told the stock VW radiator was up to the task, however, I had that beautiful radiator that came with the scooby, which someone had spent vasts sums of money on, and i was convinced i could make it fit.......

However as mine was going to need a new front panel ( i had rot in the lower edge between the impact bar, otherwise I might have tried cutting the hole in the original panel!)

With the tyre tray removed, it was obvious the scooby rad would fit, just not from underneath!

so, i did what any other insane person would have done....

I cunt the front cross member that separates the cabin with the front panel

And with a small alteration to the inner bulkhead with my hammer, fitted the scooby radatior

 Wally welded the original crossmember back in place, and the front panel soon followed

Turns out, Halfords own yellow filler primer, is quite a good match for the original bamboo yellow!

Result, well it will do till my pockets can take a repaint!

Originally i was going to use the scoobys lower front panel, and just get Wally to weld those brackets into place, but we fabricated these up in less time then it would have taken to unpick the original brackets

We have used the original rubbers, however, if this rad ever fails, it will require cutting out, either by front panel removal, or with a reciprocating saw  lol!

I suppose i could notch the chassis on one side, then cut the brackets and slide it out.

 

Chapter 23 - Box Clever

In my absence from writing this blog, my thoughts have been about my dear Vee Dub, and of course when my thoughts are on my Van, normally my bank account takes a hammering.

After much research,  I had decided to go with RJES bellhousing conversion, as well as one of his special input shafts that allow me to use a Subaru clutch. Also in this picture is the new thrust bearing carrier arm (more about that later) as well as the bracket to mount my new slave cylinder for our hydraulic clutch.

For the record, my missus flipped when she came in while i was taking this picture, as apparently the kitchen is not for my car parts!

First thing i did was strip the original bell-housing off while the box was in the engine bay, and check that my new one would fit my gearbox (as i wasn't sure which gearbox i had as there are many different boxes fitted to these vans, turns out mines a type 091, 3 rib model. If you look closely at the input shaft where it attaches to the inside of the gearbox, you can just see the reverse gear. There is a cir-clip on the input shaft, and you must slide the cog back as far as you can on the input shaft, then unwind it as it's screwed in.

I found the best method was to stand the box up like this, and rotate the diff to a position which gives the must clearance to the cog your trying to lift out the way. (other box types have a access hatch on the side that can be removed and make this a lot easier or so ive been told)

Here you can see the completed job, with the new bell housing fitted, also notice the thrust bearing shaft that Richard gave me, which is a prototype of a new product he's developing, which was really lucky for me as my original that was supposed to get sent to him for adjustments to make it work with my new set up broke due to my heavy handedness

Originals are supposed to look like this.... Notice the missing arm? we were trying to remove the arm the cable attaches to (on a cable operated clutch system), gently with a hammer, and as you can see i don't recommend this

In fact, if your going to do this conversion, save yourself the hassle and the time, and just ask Richard at RJES, for one of his, and get in touch with VW herritage for the other part to the arm (they are currently building me one in Germany, and intend to start stocking them for other busy Vee Dub Modders :D

I'd just like to say the quality of this kit is awesome, if you look closely you can see the level of detail thats gone into this bellhousing and the development time spent is obvious

with the new input shaft in place, it was time to fit the new spiggot bearing (some people call them pilot bearings)

Here you can see the larger spiggot bearing fitted to the flywheel (the hole in the middle) I find its easier to remove the flywheel from the motor, place it over two blocks of wood, and knock the bearing out from behind, then to struggle trying to remove it insitu. then to refit, use a little bit of copper grease on the outside of the bearing, then i used a socket of similar size as a drift to knock it back in (please note it wasn't flush when i removed the old one, so i returned the new one to the same position)

With the clutch stripped, its a good time to examine the clutch itself and replace it if its looking worse for wear. Although mine possibly had a couple of thousand miles left in, i felt it was better to replace it now, and save me having to yank the motor back out a few weeks after its was on the road, however, on close examination it looks like the clutch had had too many burnouts etc, and the was some warping on the clutch cover, and in this shot, you can see the left hand clutch and its segments,and the right hand one is smooth.

I've spoken to a few local lads with scoobys, and they say, unless i'm running big power, that Exedy make really decent clutches, so i splashed out on a complete kit.They're also made in Japan, and are O.E. on a lot of High end Jap cars.

All i needed to do was line it all up and rebuild it,

A good tip, if you don't have a clutch alignment tool (and you've already put your input shaft in the gearbox, like i had) try taking a deep well socket, and find one that's a snug fit in the spigot bearing, then find a shallow socket, that's a snug fit in the clutch centre, pop the two together, and hey presto, a clutch alignment tool!



Works for me!

As you can see its all coming together nicely.

Stay tuned, i'll soon have it fitted in the van and looking all cosy!