Getting the syncro back on the road

[ajdenette]

Man this picture just makes me say wow at all the work this shows that is not clear. There is Stainless Steel coolant lines, the rubber power steering lines to replace the crusty steel ones, the diff project and the front break rehab cant belive I have done all that in just over a year.

[fusername]

and i was gonna post and say a nice sliding door action really makes any bus 10x more amicable. new rubber anything is always amazingly satisfying though, but maybe that is just me. good to see it getting closer and closer to show quality! now all you need is a suby diesel boxer, and youve got the finest breadbox vw never made!

[ajdenette]

Fixed the gas gauge makes sense why the new sender never read anything well guess I screwed up on the install soldered the shorter blue wire back on and now know how much fuel is in the tank. With no working odometer, trip odometer, or gas gauge it was pure luck I haven't run out of gas or it might be that I never got to drive it enough to get the chance to run out of gas, also installed a new return line inside the tank.



also received my new Burley sway bar links as both of them snapped when I tried to remove them to clean the inner CV joints when I pulled the front diff drove it around filled it up but there is still a good drive shaft vibration .



Guess I don't need your help on the fuel level sensor Fuser

[fusername]

your new engine is clean and all, but you need to pull it out and make room for this
http://www.boxeer.com/

[ajdenette]

Well this van will hopefully stay rather stock at least all VW plus I don't have deep enough pockets to buy the engine never mind the aftermarket management system. The 87 on the other hand is likely going to get a Subaru engine, I am getting the title cleaned up so it is in my name then I hope to get it running with the wasser I just pulled out of the 90 after I pull the heads do some investigating and maybe try again at re sealing it, then it is time to gut the interior and do some rust repair then on to chopping up the westy chop and the Syncro roof still debating on which method to convert it with then it is on to setting up the Multivan interior. the Syncro Multivan will be changing to a Yellow body and the multi colored interior will need to be recovered in a single interior color. I have a Subaru engine that came out of my brothers car after he overheated it after running it out of coolant the mechanic felt it was a cracked block I think the new water pump the place that cobled it together installed was not sealed well and had a cracked water outlet causing the leak so it will get rebuilt. I have a wiring harness out of a 2000 Legacy that I bought a computer from and have an intake to match so hopefully not to much to have a full running engine. so that is the plan for that hopefully I can drive and not be working on the 90 alll the time. I do need to to get a fuel pump and a clutch slave cylinder line to work with the engine I have to try to get it going instead of sitting still.

[Jadewombat]

Unless there's a major unfixable problem with the stock injection, or you plan on going with a hotter cam or something don't bother replacing it. These systems run fine as it is and the unless you plan on racing it, I wouldn't plan on redoing the whole injection system just to squeeze out another hp or two.

[ajdenette]

The Subaru boxer diesel takes an aftermarket management system, this 90 will likely always have digifant. Fusername brought up the Subaru boxer diesel and why I talked about my other van getting a Subaru enginr

[ajdenette]

Well Last Monday I decided it was time to investigate the engine with Issues and see if another attempt at assembly was worth making. After finding a rusty plug I had a feeling the 1-2 side was the head to pull and try to find the issue. well after pulling the intake runner, power steering bracket, valve cover, rocker set, and pulling the push rods it was time to unbolt the head. well it turns out the right stuff really glues the head on and really gums up the head bolts.

That head did not want to come off:




First impressions:


Starting to look at the green o-rings where I suspected the issue was:


This looked like it might be an issue though it did not seem big enough to be the primary issue:


Then I noticed this on the other cylinder not happy but should not have been an issue:


THIS looks like the root of the problem the O-ring is completely severed:


Here are the o-rings from each cylinder notice one is broken:


Evidence in the head that this was where the leak was:


as I was cleaning things up I went to put the cylinders at mid throw and noticed something strange with the bottom of the cylinder:


well I have all the gaskets I need and a spare cylinder to replace the bad one, unfortunately my spare ring set got rusty so I had to throw them away so I am gong to reuse the rings on the piston in the new cylinder. I cleaned up the head so after putting the piston in the new cylinder and putting them both back in the case it will be time to put the head back on, hopefully successfully this time.

[fusername]

So I installed the first of the nicopp lines today. Dear lord are they dreamy. beyond easy to install, and if the lifetime rust thing holds out, hell I would pay 4x as much for a set. speaking of which, on checkout last night, i discovered BD actually carries a full set of bus nicopp lines... oops. not cheap tho, and I am happy to have the tool. the bubble flairs are muc hbetter now, turns out you don't want it slightly shorter than the guage says, you want it a LOT shorter than the guage says, and then you get fantastic flares every tiem. gonna re-notch the tool to the proper depth so I don't have to eyeball every one.

[ajdenette]

Well had a productive weekend working on the Syncro my parents needed the basement cleaned up a bit and that meant my Carat interior needed to be installed in the van to get it out of the basement. I first stripped out the interior luckily not finding any rust I didn't know about (aka the passengers side) and worked on installing the bracketry for the table.







here is a shot of all the small hardware for installing the interior luckily there is a lot of extra hardware that I had gathered for the other Syncro and just some spare bits. notice I have 4 of the extra brackets to space out the back pins one pair for reference and one pair to install.



as it turned out my first positioning of the top bracket up inside the wall I had positioned too low and the table did not move slowely so it all had to come out (minus the seat as I hadn't installed it yet) to get things to line up and work. after moving that one piece it all went together fine and works nicely.





I used the earlier speakers up above as most carats had AC with the speakers in the AC ducting and I don't have AC and the Speakers were in the panels by the elbow of the back seat. I was lucky to find these panels for a van without AC even thought they were not very nice they cleaned up OK and I was able to add the holes for the rear belts using the AC panelset for reference

After getting the interior swapped I had to fix some exhaust leaks there was a crack in the input pipe to the muffler and the pipes didn't line up nicely so I got them installed but after a few heat cycles things seemed to have straightened out and the bolts came loose some new bolts and gaskets and things were sounding better.

now that the van was all back together and looking nice with its new interior I had to pull it apart to move some furniture for my parents to get them recovered. I ended up pulling the mattress pad both jump seats and the passengers seat to fit it all in but I ended up getting a chair, a love seat, 2 couches plus all the cushions for all of them into one load in one van.

[ajdenette]

I did end up getting the correct rear pad for the interior so it all matches I just need to assemble a motor for a friend for it.

[fusername]

they are lovely and spacious vehicles, can never deny a vanagon that! Also didn't we meet through me selling you one of those table setups? could that be it? that pop-up side table is nice. was one of my fav features of the vanagon. deffinatly DIYing one for my bus, as well as the rear jumpseat, although I actually have the factory vanagon parts for htat.

[ajdenette]

Well my father wanted some shots of his Travelall in the snow in the field I didn't feel like walking around in the snow so I thought I would drive the Vanagon out there too wellll the snow was a lot deeper and slicker than we thought. I got the Vanagon stuck in the snow pretty quickly my father wanted his pictures and was going a different rout and left me stuck and kept on going. I tried to take some early shots but apparently there was no chip in the camera and it didn't take long before the Travelall was buried up to the axels in the snow we tried to winch forward but that ended up worse than we started we spent the next two hours getting everything out and back to the tar road more pictures and stories later.

[fusername]

I thought you wanted to get it back on the ROAD? get lost on the way out of the driveway eh?

dumb question, that little lamba sensor on the dash of some vanagons, is that optional equiptment or later model only or what? I remember one of bob's vans had it, the other 300 didn't seem to, or they were all broken, I don't recall.

[ajdenette]

Here is where the Vanagon made it to trying to take pictures before I had to get out and walk as well as where the pulling began


Throwing some snow


Syncro's can throw snow with all tires


Where the Travelall managed to make it to


The swath after getting it free to shallow snow


The Travelall in shallow snow