How Ludwig got his groove back

We've had a request for the tale of Ludwig's re-animation after the woes wreaked upon him in Death Valley, to wit, his getting stuck in second. A previous post shows our removal of his engine and transmission, and What I Found There.
Unfortunately, from an aesthetic point-of-view, this post describing the reinstallation of these components might be lacking. It is difficult to take pictures when you are as mad and frustrated as we were when we tried to put Ludwig's motive components back in. "Installation is the reverse of removal" indeed.

We did some other stuff while Ludwig was laid up waiting for his trans-mission to be rebuilt. This is a picture of the cockpit as it comes stock. (Well, the floor mat is wrong; a Westfalia from the factory has carpeting, not the black rubber mat seen here. The old orange mat was completely destroyed by mouse urine during Ludwig's comatose years. We found a good used rubber one in Ventura for cheap and put it in. I think that the "incorrect" rubber mat is more conducive to the use of a camper anyway. Plus the extension on the shifter ("chick stick") wouldn't've been a factory accessory. But I digress.)

Here you can see the result of installing the package tray from the Bus Depot (good people). Quite a useful addition, we think, and much more practical--and in keeping with Ludwig's overall mid-1970s aesthetic--than the bamboo package trays that are also available. Drilling is required, but like I've mentioned before: Ludwig is for driving, he isn't a museum piece.

Another thing we did was replace the x-year old shock absorbers with cringingly expensive Koni's (also from the Bus Depot). Koni is a Danish company that makes a range of high-performance shocks. Example: Konis are standard equipment the Lamborghini Gallardo, a $180,000 car. They hadn't made shocks for the second-generation Type 2 in years, but a dedicated bus lover ("Ratwell"--see link at right) convinced them to make a limited run for busses like Ludwig. (Thank you, Richard.) This is Melissa putting in the fronts; there was much easier access to the rears with the engine out.
It might just be the hype, but on my first drive with the Konis in, I was nearly moved to tears. With these shocks and the right tires, Ludwig drives like a dream.

When Rancho was done with the transmission, we took Fang Fang to Anaheim to pick it up. Rancho are also good people. The guy I talked to, I think his name was "Luis", said that this particular tranny is very desired on the sand rail circuit because of its gearing and strength. I guess Ludwig's had just had enough. I suspect it had 200,000miles on it at least when it gave out.

We took the 405 (that's how you refer to highways in SoCal--"the 405", "the 5", "the 217") part of the way back. This is the highway made famous by a certain former USC running back when in 1995 he had his buddy drive him down it nice and slow. Maybe he wanted to enjoy the beautiful Los Angeles views--click on the picture and try to see the San Gabriel mountains through the smog.

This is where the pain started. I've helped take engines out and put them back in several air-cooled VWs in my life, probably a dozen different times, including Ludwig's. But the operative word is "helped". I'd only done it with (01)Melcher or (02)McDonald or Groaner, or some combination of these guys. This time it was just me and Melissa (I'm not dogging on her ability, she was great. But she lacked the crucial experience), and I just couldn't (can't?) muster what it takes to get that bear back in. Maybe I shouldn't've listened to an ACVW mechanic in Santa Barbara who told me it was "crazy" to put the engine and transmission back in as a unit. Instead, we put the transmission in seperately, and tried to mate the engine to it. After all, that's all I'd ever done before anyway; I'd never had a transmission out before. "Too many things to balance on the jack and try to line up all at once," he said. BS. Next time they come out together and they go in together. (Probably.)

In the end, we didn't have time to tow the whole schmear to a mechanic--with a lift, what I want is a lift--to have him put it back in. We put the engine in the back of Fang Fang with the cats (why don't more people love station wagons?) and pushed Ludwig onto a trailer, hooked it up to the moving van, and undignifiedly towed him to Missoula. He'd've been towed in any case, but it still seemed undignified somehow. We dropped him off at Mountain Imports and had him back a few weeks later, with all four gears and no more slop in the shifter. His engine now has about 5000miles on it, and the tranny has fewer than a thousand, making Ludwig an almost new vehicle, mechanically at least.

Thanks to Craig, who helped us during this trial, and to Ian, Luke, and Kevin who helped push Ludwig onto the trailer.

nota bene: Here and elsewhere I've referred to the thing that transfers engine power to the wheels as the "transmission". Well, technically this is incorrect. All manual ACVWs have transaxles, not transmissions. The reason for this discrepancy is available upon request.

West Fork Butte

Some friends invited us up to a lookout they'd rented in the Bitterroot Mountains, thirty miles or so outside of Missoula. There are several of these lookouts around here available to rent, equipped with bunks and stoves for cooking and heating. (The cooking stove was a real stove, while the cabin was heated by a wood burning stove.) They offer spectacular views. This one is the West Fork Butte Lookout, in extreme Southwestern Missoula County, nearly in Idaho.

Melissa was caught in front of the fire explaining to the group how we could never do something like this in California; either there'd be a gigantic waiting list to do it, or it'd be illegal somehow. (I said no such things.) The lookout is around 100sqft and that stove kept it so hot that we left some of the windows open, even though it was windy and snowing outside. It has four bunks, but we opted to sleep in Ludwig. There was actually one spare bunk, but since the bunks were twins I thought it would be silly to sleep in the cabin when we had a full sized bed in Ludwig waiting for us. I mean I like Mitch and all, but seriously...sleeping on a twin together? No thanks!

Ludwig was nestled among the pines. The trees kept us out of the wind so we didn't get too cold. In fact, Ludwig stays pretty toasty even in colder weather. Sometimes we even have to sleep with one of the jalousie windows cracked just to keep him from getting too stuffy.

Me, blasting clay pigeons with Beau's (at right) shotgun. 

While we were out shooting (well, I threw the clays and opted out of shooting this time) we heard ALOT of gunfire. The deer and elk hunting season had recently opened up, so there were many many hunters sharing the mountain with us.

After all the clays were used, we headed back up to the cabin to relax. A snow storm rolled in, and it was the first time Mitch and I witnessed snow falling from the sky since the winter of 2003. It was a perfect way to see snow again; scenery in Montana is truly like a postcard.

2482 miles = 40 hours of driving

These aren't from a trip with Ludwig, but with Fang Fang (our Subaru). I thought they deserved a wider audience nonetheless.
We went to Ogallala (Nebr) for Thanksgiving, and went to Lincoln briefly on Saturday, thinking we could get up early Sunday and drive straight through to Missoula--1241miles, 20hours. Obviously a bit ambitious.
We didn't make it. In Sheridan (Wyoming) at 8pm, we checked the Montana Dept. of Roads website and it said the roads west of Big Timber were either snow-covered, ice-covered, or both. And there was fog. We spent the night in Billings and left the next morning. The pictures (click to enlarge) are of the roads we'd've faced at 330am had we pressed on.

These photos were all during heavy snow, which is why all the views look a bit foggy. The visibility was obviously pretty poor, but the views were incredibly impressive nonetheless.

Homestake Pass (6332ft)

The Boulder Batholith

Although we had both driven through the Rockies several times, neither of us remember driving through the Rockies during a snow storm. The travelling was relatively slow, but we were lucky enough to be about 3 cars back behind a snow plow while we were travelled the snowiest of the mountain roads.

I-90 over The Great Divide

During the "chain-up" areas along the I-90, we noticed all the 2 wheel drive cars and 18 wheelers pulled over to put chains on their vehicles. We didn't have chains (or studded snow tires) for Fang Fang, so we just kept driving. Even in these road conditions Fang Fang didn't have any problems negotiating it. In fact, I've been told by many Missoulians that chains and/or studded snow tires are completely unnecessary for Subarus, even during western Montana's long snowy winters.

More of the Boulder Batholith. In the last century or so, four square miles around this structure have yielded 20 billion pounds of copper. Efforts to discontinue minting pennies are fiercely opposed in and around the city of Butte.