More Leftovers

From Missoula, in front of the Childrens' Museum.

East Missoula

The quickest way I've found to i.d. a Syncro on the fly is the location of the gas cap ("Syncro" markings and ride height not being as reliable): two double-you dee Vanagons' caps are under the front passenger door, Syncro caps are at the rear passenger corner (see above).

On the hook at the ballpark in Anaconda

So this is what it feels like when doves cry

Wow, I guess we'll have to buy one of these. And compose volume two?

available for purchase here

Thanks to BellePlaine for the heads up!

Love for Sale

Dear someone we know,
We met this bus at the Deschutes River RendezVW in June of '08, and can attest that it is every bit as nice as the ad implies. It's definitely worth the price (~$11,600 in Yankee money), and has only 54,000 miles on the clock!

 link to ad here

Please buy it. And drive it.

Thanks,

Ludwig's Drivers.

Farewell, Missoulaneous VWs

We left Missoula last last weekend for the slightly sunnier (Anaconda vs. Missoula) lower Warm Springs Creek Valley and so far, so good.

This bus is a Missoula fixture. It used to have a Kentucky rear plate and an Ontario (?) front plate, but now it looks like its legal situation is all straightened out.

From the rear. See? Matching tags.

1974 Passenger

We talked to this guy briefly at the light but I don't remember what he had to say except that he'd been on the road for quite some time. I'm sorry to say it (he seemed like a nice guy), but Beautiful British Columbia is probably a little more beautiful when this bus is elsewhere.

On the other hand, I really like this color.

This might be one of the most visible buses in Montana, sitting right off I-90 Westbound at about milemarker 123 near Clinton (right here in fact) as it does. I doubt many bay window owners have driven by it without noticing.

When It Rains It Pours

Rocky Jennings of Walla Walla finished Ludwig's powerplant last week and was kind enough to send along a couple pictures.

I'm not sure this engine is fancy enough for these pictures to qualify as engine pr0n, but it looks pretty nice anyway. And look at that vacuum can on the distributor--no more 009! Finally.

We've always promised ourselves that when the time came, we'd rebuild Ludwig's engine ourselves.  And had we needed to do it any other time, we would've. But fate determined otherwise.

As it was, the trip we were on when Ludwig's crankshaft snapped wasn't merely to retrieve new rotors for Gertrude. We were also scoping out the town of Anaconda, where I'd applied for a job. And a couple weeks later, I got it. 

So with the moving and the house buying and the new job starting and all, we really just didn't have time to rebuild Ludwig's engine ourselves. (The dream plan, once Ludwig is up-and-running and we're settled in, is to rebuild Gertie's engine (cylinder #1≈100 lbs of compression, cf. 110-120 on #2-4) on our own schedule, in our own garage.) I feel kind of bad about this because I've always been so gung-ho about doing it myself, and now I come off as a bit of a hypocrite. But those pictures of the engine made me feel better.