He arrived a half-hour ahead of schedule because of time he allegedly owed us. How quickly he forgets that we're the current record-holders for longest single appointment ever (9am-7:30am, 2011).
Tater Tot took most of these pictures, by the way.
Colin takes Gertie's errant behavior as a personal affront, and demanded track time with her. Of course the issue that has her currently grounded--cyclic dying off--didn't present itself but there were other running issues that've given me ample fodder for further exploration.
In our successful* effort to address Ludwig's non-working brake lights we griped about the quality of replacement parts, tail light assemblies in particular. He instilled in me a new sense of duty to inform vendors when they are vending crap.
There was some sorcery at work; the pass. side blinker worked fine with the lights off, but with the lights on the running light and reverse light blinked instead, in sequence.
At Melissa's suggestion, Tater Tot took pictures of Chloe (1970). She was astounded at how utterly filthy with bugs Chloe's nose was.
Another of TT's series. I can report that the lack of front disk brakes on 1970 and older VW buses is nothing to fear; the first time I tromped on them during my drive the front drums nearly put me through the windshield.
Storm clouds threatened so we moved it inside.
As hail pelted Chloe, we consulted the wiring diagram to try to untangle 30 years' worth of burned underdash spaghetti mess. Also, I was mystified that Ludwig's wipers had stopped working a while back, apropos nothing. Turns out the fresh air lever's movement had unplugged the motor. Who knew components had to be plugged in to work?
The Sun came back out, off and on.
But it had cooled off enough that the short-shorts came off.
Now clad with proper pants, Colin soldered in a new chunk of wire at the ignition.
Finally, I went underneath and unplugged the brake light switches to isolate the problem. With the cleaned up wiring, bulb contacts, and all shorts taken care of, everything works again. Even the back up lights, which I'd forgotten existed. The horn didn't get fixed because, as I tried to impress on Colin and Melissa, there is no horn to fix.
In his official capacity as one-way courier for the IAC faithful, Colin dropped off this much-appreciated gift from Minnesota bus pilot BellePlaine.
All in all, a very low stress, productive, and grease-free day.
*Update: temporarily successful. After replacing the wiring covers the next day, the brake lights shorted out again. Crappy parts, I suspect.** New housings will be on their way anon.
**Update update: It was the horn wires grounding out on the body.
