Houdini the Baja Bus

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It was time to tow it back to the shed and start work on filling the big gaps in the inner guards. I started on the left side. I took the wheel off the opposite side and let it down and then jacked it right up to lean the bus over to let me do the overhead welding a little more easily.








I started at the top with the small flat section that I left behind. I basically just trimmed stuff to suit, made sure it was square and them made strips up to go in there. You know the drill.











For the back corner I trimmed the bottom to match the new guard line and the carried it down to the seam where the two panels meet on the inside. Turned out pretty good and I am happy with the look. Then I made a patch for it.











On the front it is pretty much the same. But I did it in two pieces, one straight one and then the little curved piece for the bottom.








One other thing the I might do it cut the bottom knob off the rear snubbers to give me a little more up travel. But that will depend on what shocks I end up with. I have been told that Patrol shocks compress almost the same as a bus shock but give an extra 50mm of extension, more research is required. I dropped the bottom bolt out of the shock and it has no more travel in it with the spring plate on the lower stop.








Then it was time to move on to the other side.
Make the plates.





Tack them in.





Found a heap of bog in front of the right guard, extended all the way to the next panel. I ended up buffing a heap of it off back to bare metal. No rust, but the panel is pretty rippled out of shape. This will get fixed later, I just want to get this driving for now.








Trimmed the back corner the same as the other side.








And all finished off and painted. Then I through the wheels back on and got it level.





Today I am hoping to the the engine in. The flares fitted up and the sliding door arm extended. Then I can start running the engine in

Thanks for reading, 4 inch beam lift and offroad action coming in the near future.


Smiley

[smiley]

I got the flares all mounted up. They cover the wheels and tyres perfectly.











And as predicted the door goes no where near clearing them. It does for a little right at the start. But the further you go back the worse it gets.





So I removed the door mech so I could lengthen the arm. Found a few cracks in the door around where it all bolts in! Lucky I am planning to change this door in the future with a stock windowed door.














I sat the door on a milk crate and some lumps of wood so I could set the clearance to the flare and measure the distance to lengthen the arm. Turns out to be 100mm. So got some tube and added some in the middle.








The arm works pretty good on opening. But tends to kick the wheel sideways and jam when trying to slide the door closed. This is being causes by my bus's lack of the little plastic block that holds the wheel straight on the runner. It is half broken, and I have to source a new one. Another issue that I found is the arms stays in the locked out position because there is no stop for it where the longer arms should hit. So I have pulled a second stop unit out of another bus and am planning to fit it up too. Will put some more pictures of it as it progresses, there are a few things I don't like and may yet change some more things before it is done.





I cut the fuel injected airbox mount off the inside of the engine bay. Then started cleaning it up a bit while the battery was out and ended up giving it a quick spray with some paint.








A little bit of work after this and the engine was fitted back up. It starts but runs like a bag of dicks. I have since realised that I forgot to hook the booster line up so it has a massive vac leak. Will rectify in the morning and hopefully go for my first drive in a big bus!!





That back has come down some with the addition of the engine, and I have lost some of the guard clearance. It still sits a bit higher than the front. The rear torsions are sagged and I am planning to wind them up a bit once I work out what is going on up the front. I have a 4 inch beam to fit, so i will see where the back needs to be once that happens.





Thanks for reading.


Smiley

[smiley]

Hey everyone. Has been a while since I posted.

A few small updates with the bus.
First was the vac line for the brake booster. This is the monstrosity that was hanging out under the back of the bus. Plenty of places for leaks to develop, which will cook the engine.





It was replaced with a single like that goes from the vac crossover tube on the engine to the tube that runs to the front of the car. And the one way valve was mounted back in there too.





On the Easter long weekend I drove down 800km each way with 4 others to my last camp as a Rover Scout. The bus was packed to the brim with all of our stuff. There was 5 people, 3 swags, everyone's bags, fridge, shelter, stove, boxes of food, etc. Houdini was a lowered big bus with everything on board!!








A nice picture my passenger took while the sun was going down.





All set up down at the camp site. I've said it plenty of times, but it is so lovely not to have to pack a tent or swag when traveling in the bus





A week or so later I took the bus out for it's first real offroad outing. Up the local 4WD beach/sand spot, 5 Rocks. There is a fairly difficult sand dune to get into the place and on my first attempt I got a little bogged down. Backed up and had a second crack, but still no go. When I when to back up the gearbox went plink and I had no reverse. I figured I had blown the reverse idler which is a common thing to go in offroad vehicles running Kombi or Bug boxes. With a little push from two mates I managed to get going forwards and got all the way up the hill. I figured from this point on I just need to go forwards!!
It wasn't long before we were to the top of the headland that looks out to 5 Rocks and 9 Mile Beach in the other direction.

















Made it home again with no worries. I still need a bit more practice offroading in a bus. I was trying too hard to drive it like my Baja. I need to slow down more and let the Type 4 chug up stuff.


Last Friday and it was time to fix the reverse for the weekend so I could drive 800km again for a VW show and swap.
The night before I pulled the drain plus and let all the oil run out overnight. The next morning I pulled out a little toy I got a while back but haven't had a chance to use, and endoscope camera. I stuck it up the drain hole and had a look around inside. Turned out that the idler gear was fine, but the circlip had come off the input shaft splined joint. The clip must had been hit by the diff once it moved cause it was bent and in the bottom of the case. The splined sleeve then slid back and robbed me of reverse gear! This was good news. I didn't have to get my spare box out to swap in, just fix this one.

The camera.





Up the drain hole





It's hard to see in the photo, but the camera is quite clear. This is a view of the slid back gear on the sleeve.





Now it was just a matter of pulling engine and box out, separating them, opening the box and fitting a new clip.











Here is the old clip that was in the bottom of the case.





And here is the sleeve back forward in the correct position meshed with the reverse drive.





I removed the input shaft and took it down to get a new circlip.





Then just bolt everything back together and in! What a massive fix for the tiniest problem. Everything was back as it should be by 4:30 Friday arvo. I also did oil and filter on the engine and checked the valves.





Then drove it 800 odd km down for the Gold Coast VW show. It rained a lot so there was a small turnout compared to most years. I had fun, didn't win anything
On the was back about 50km from home The CV bolts on one side of the gearbox came loose while I was pulling away at an intersection. I rolled to a stop at the side of the road and there was only one bolt holding the CV up and one bent and one broken one hanging out of the CV. I lost 3 bolts and one torque plate. I robbed one bolt ouyt of all of the other CVs and bolted it back up. I also checked the others over, they were all fine. I think this one in particular came loose because the seal in the CV cup on the gearbox has a small hole in it and was weeping oil. When I put the axles back in there was a fair bit of oil on the bolts etc. So I guess the extra lube allowed it to work it's way loose.
This morning I picked up a full set of new bolts as well as a new seal for the box. I'm going to pull the axles out and clean and repack the CVs and fit the new bolts up. Hopefully tomorrow.

That is all I have for now, perhaps I will get time to start some more mods soon!

Thanks for reading.


Smiley

[petew]

Man, you're committed. But you're having fun! Keep up the good work.

[smiley]

Found a few more pictures from the 5 Rocks run on my friend's Facebook. He was driving the Toyota 80 series that is chopped into a ute.

Cruising up the beach.





Had just popped over the dune off the beach and it turned out to be mega soft. Unfortunately with no reverse I couldn't back up and have a second crack at it. Even the Maxtrax couldn't get me moving again in the uphill powder. So Luke gave me a pull to some firmer ground. And he had to drop his pressures waaay down and still struggled to get moving. It was soft!!!






Smiley

[smiley]

It's finally time! Started fitting up the 4 inch beam to the bus today.

Laying in wait, ready to go in.





How he sits this morning. Stock height (possibly sagged a little).








This is jacked up 100mm from where it was. So it should be this high when we are finished





Beam out. Took a bit more effort than I first though. A lot of the cables and tubes are run through the beam between the tubes. So a lot of stuff had to be removed or disconnected, including, the clutch cable, handbrake cables, shift rod, vac hoses, brake lines, heater hose, drag link and speedo cable.








Next part to attack was the brake master/booster mount. Because it is mounted to the beam you need to change some things when you drop everything 4 inches. I have seen it in the past where people dogleg the pushrod and just run it like that. I have always though this looked a little dodgy so I decided to angle the booster instead.
This is the bracket that holds the booster in place. Al I did was cut the weld on the upper tube and the push the top of the bracket towards the rear of the bus. I fitted the beam up and test fitted the booster and pushrod before rewelding the bracket.





I also had to extend the length of the pushrod by about 20-25mm. I had a bolt that was the correct thread. So I cut the old threads off and the head off the bolt. Welded them together, then sleeved and plug welded it too.











Beam fitted in. Then I just had to fit my spindles and brakes, and everything else that had been taken out.
Was a bit easier as most of it goes over the top of the upper beam tube now. So if I had to remove it again I wouldn't have to disconnect the clutch, shifter, heater or handbrake cables.





Have gotten it mostly back together and down on the wheels. Looking a lot bigger and better!








Still a few things to get tomorrow to finish it off. Needs new vacuum hoses for the booster feed and drain, they were too short and pretty old anyway. New fill line that runs from the brake fluid res down to the master cylinder. It was rock hard and I had to cut it to get it off. And I'm going to have some 100mm longer had lines made up for the front and rear brake circuit feeds too. They reach at a stretch But I would rather have them neat and not at their limit.
Just need to fit that lot up and the heater hose too, do a wheel alignment. And then I have to spin it around a do the back a spline or so to match.

Thanks for reading.


Smiley

[ninelives17]

One day I would love to build an offroad bus or syncro. Your build is inspiring, much like your Baja build.

[smiley]

One day I would love to build an offroad bus or syncro. Your build is inspiring, much like your Baja build.

Thanks mate! Hoping to get back to the bug soon!!


Smiley

[smiley]

So I picked up some new vac hose, and some hose to go from the res to the master for the brake fluid.
Had some new hardlines made up for underneath, 100mm longer for the beam drop. Managed to get everything to bleed up good. Had a bit of trouble at first but go there in the end. I think it is good that the fluid has been flushed through, the old stuff was very black.








This is how it was sitting this afternoon with the beam drop and small tyres on the front still. WAAAAY nose up! I have driven it for a few days like this but today I got time to attack the rear suspension. Some before pictures first. And one side comparison shot from before the beam lift.











You can see that the back is pretty low compared to the front.








So time to crank the back one outer spline, that is meant to give 2.5 inches of lift.
You can see here that the spring plate cover has been getting a bit of rubbing, and so has the edge of the plate a tiny bit.





I marked the bearing carrier to the spring with white pen before removing the four bolts that hold everything together.





You then need to push the axle assembly towards the rear of the car. Where the brake hardline runs through the axle bearing carrier it also runs through a hole/slot in the end of the spring plate. You need to slide everything back and free this hardline so you don't damage it. Then you can release the spring plate off the stop.








Then pull the covers etc and pop the plate off the stop. They are under bugger all tension in a stock height bus so it's easy. Then I took the cover to the vice and trimmed a little bit off to prevent further rubbing.








Didn't take many more pictures of the reassembly, it's all very straight forward. Move the plate around one outer notch. I also pulled them and lubed the splines and sprayed some Lanolin inside the torsion housing. Fitted new spring plate bushings while I had it apart and lubed them up with plenty of graphite powder.
I took a picture of the left side bar just to show you all how nice they were. For a poor ugly bus the torsions were immaculate. Clean, painted and not a mark on them. The housing was perfect inside and the splines slide freely with no crude or rust. Very happy with that indeed.





Put everything back together and refitted the rear wheels. And some after shots. I gained about 60mm in the back end with one outer spline. This may settle a bit once I drive it.








Then I decided to fit up the other front wheels I have for it (225/75/15s). You can see here the rims have a bit more offset and fill the front guards out better.














And of course the standard measure of ground clearance in my shed, the humble milk crate





Not quite under the front beam.





Heaps under the middle.





And good under the engine.





That's all for now. I really need to save up and get some new tyres all round for it. The rears are not matching and bald, and the fronts are very old. It is sitting pretty spot on level at the moment. But when two people get in the front it drops nearly 50mm. I might try and remedy that in the future when I build up my beam. I have some center adjusters to put in that could solve that problem.
But for now I am just going to cruise around for a bit and look down at everyone
Thanks for reading.


Smiley

[smiley]

A few little things have been happening.

I had the engine and box out a little over a month ago because the gearbox was leaking from everywhere so I decided it was time for a full reseal. It would appear that the only picture that I took was it bolted back up to the engine after it was all done.
But I basically changed all the seals that I could get to. Shiftrod seal in the nosecone, the input shaft seal in the bellhousing. The O-rings on the outside of the alloy diff adjusters in the sides of the box as well as the output flange seals and caps.





While everything was out of the way there were a few things to take care of in the engine bay.
Firstly I fitted up a fuel shutoff solenoid. I have had it sitting around for a while and threw it in while I had the extra room. It is wired up with the fuel pump.





Some of the edge of the engine bay seam was missing on the left side. I was told this is removed as a part of when the aircon is added. I figured I would put it back in to help seal the edge of the bay to the foam seal.
I just cut a piece out of a wreck, trimmed it to size then welded it in.











The final task that I wanted to tackle while the engine and box were out was the fabrication and fitment of an exhaust heat shield.
These are a factory fitted piece that are frequently missing from the Type 4 engine of a lot of buses these days. Because of the material they were made from and the constant heat cycling, a lot have rusted beyond repair. I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow one from the local VW shop that was still in one piece. Though only barely, some of the mount tabs were quite rusty and I had to be gentle lest I break one off.

Here is a the factory heat shield. You can see that it has three mounting locations that hold it above the muffler. A long bracket on each side that bolts to the tinware, and a small tab in the middle where a bolt holds it just behind the fan.














I started by taking a lot of measurements of the mounting brackets and drawing them out on paper so I had an accurate record for future use. Next up I laid the heat shield out on some sheet metal so I could make an outline copy of the main plate to use as a template in the future.





The original heat shield is comprised of two different sheets of metal over a woven chrysotile asbestos sheet that is sandwiched in between. I have decided to vary mine slightly by using a single sheet of metal to which I will attach some aluminium heat shielding material. It is what I could get a hold of, and I'm sure it will operate fine. I used my template to mark out the shielding material. I made it oversized as it is my intention to roll the edges around the metal plate and then rivet it in place.








Once that was done I marked out what was to be the main base sheet of my heat shield. You can see that I opted to raise the mounting brackets out of this parent metal instead of making them separately and welding them on. There was a few reasons for this. I figured that this would be a stronger design that would be less likely to develop cracks on the constantly vibrating engine compared to a welded design. And the gaps that I am creating would be covered by the aluminium heat shielding material anyway.
I also decided to change one of the mounts around too. On the factory shield the centre nut is on the top side of the tinware just behind the fan. The screw is intended to come up from the bottom, through the shield tab and thread into the nut. Unfortunately this process is close to impossible with the muffler bolted in place. So what I did was removed the nut from the upper tin and weld it onto the underside of the heat shield. so now the screw thread through from above and is far easier to install.
I mounted it to the engine to check the fit.











After the fit was deemed fit for purpose I proceeded to drill the rivet holes in the plate. I put a rivet in each end of the aluminium to hold it to the plate and then slowly worked my way around fitting all of the remaining rivets.
The rearward facing edge was rolled around the plate and some small washers were used to help clamp the alloy down with the rivets.











And here is the completely product next to the old factory heat shield.














Mounted up the the engine the fit is as good as before. I have included a picture of where I removed the nut from the pulley tinware and the screw goes through now.











I live in a part of the country that gets reasonably warm during the Summer months, so I am hoping that this heat shield will do a little to help keep the engine as cool as possible. The engine is back in the bus and I have been driving it around for the past month.
I'm hoping to have some more updates soon.

Thanks for reading.


Smiley

[petew]

Man, for a rat, this thing gets so much love. Good work.

[smiley]

Man, for a rat, this thing gets so much love. Good work.

Thanks Pete.
Though I don't consider the bus a rat. And you are the first person to ever call it that.


Smiley

[petew]

Embrace the ratness.

Coz roadkill.

[smiley]

A few other little things that have happened on the bus. Some today, some in the last month or two.

Added oil temp and pressure gauges to the bus. They are just temporarily through the speaker grill on the top of the dash for the time being. I intend to put them down in the dash at some point. Whoever cut the hole out for the stereo put it right in the middle of the dash and let no room top or bottom for gauges.
Also, my little elephant road tripping buddy has a better seat now





I have added a sandwich plate on top of the filter so I can run some hoses off to an additional cooler. I added a bit of heat shielding where the hoses pass under the tinware. And trimmed the tin back a bit to allow the air to flow out nicely still. Adding the hoses and fittings blocks the outlet up somewhat.
Then the hoses run down the side of the transaxle and switch over to the RHS of the bus.











The cooler is mounted between the chassis rails on a piece of angle that I trimmed one side off that would have blocked the leading edge of the cooler. It sits on the RHS of the bus between the heater hose and the chassis rail. It is mounted so the front edge of the cooler lines up with the back edge of one of the floor tophats. Then the hoses come out of the top of the cooler just behind the tophat and run to the back. I might mess around with shrouding in the future to see if I can encourage some more airflow through the cooler, but I think it will see plenty of wind where it is for the time being.








The view from the front. Don't mind the table under there. I was just using it to block the sun so I could take a picture that wasn't dark.





There may be room on the other side to mount a second cooler. But most of the lines and cable tubes are on this side and I think they will all get in the way.





Have picked up some steel to make a rear bar. Just need to get some more think wall angle. I thought I had a length at home, but alas I was mistaken.





Have a small(ish) To Do list that I am working my way through. I also adjusted the steering stops today, as well as tightened the handbrake cables and adjust the gearstick a little more rearward.





More soon.
Thanks for looking.


Smiley

[Piledriver]

You need a bigger whiteboard, or smaller tip pen.

If those long tubes coming down from the filter/tstat are threaded brass as they look, replace them with steel ASAP.
They look great.
Unfortunately they will crack and pee all your oil out quickly in short order, just from engine vibration.

1/2" tube with a nice gradual 90 degree bend would be almost ideal.
I would have run the hose all the way to the filter, even if it meant wrapping it with heat shield.
With 90 degree fittings, less is more.


Also,. if those blue lines etc are push-lok hose/fittings, the clamps are A)unnecessary and b) have destroyed the hose already, by slicing through the liner and kevlar reinforcing fabric.
Push-lok means never use a hose clamp (you can get away with it if you must at the very end of the hose, away from the barbs). The little plastic collars are supposed to keep the ends clean and from fraying.