Air-Cooled and Itinerant

There's this guy, see. And every Summer for the past five (?) years, he's driven around the country in his 1973 passenger bus keeping appointments with mostly bus owners, showing them the ins and the outs of their beasts.

We were happy to get him (let's call him "Colin" because that's his name) to Missoula on 11 June. He was less so. It wasn't anything we did, but it turns out that Colin has more of an affinity for warm weather. We can't blame him (or anyone) for expecting decent weather in early June, but this is the Northern Rockies and Missoula has recorded snowfall in every month of the year. So naturally it snowed the morning of his visit and was cold (ca. 34F) and rainy the rest of the day.

To his infinite credit, Colin was willing to work with us in our impromptu $10 WalMart garage, complete with cardboard flooring. After some time in the apartment going over all sorts of things, we took it outside. The first order of business was a valve adjustment. I did the work and Colin audited.

Colin generally hydrates himself solely with Diet Coke, but on this day we had to supply him with coffee (black) to keep his blood from congealing. Above we are timing the engine.

I believe that Colin in this picture is either scolding me for making some unwarranted and dangerous assumption about Type IV engine operation, or expressing his disbelief that seemingly rational people would voluntarily live in such a climate.

Normally Colin wears little more than a tank top and oh-so-short shorts. I was secretly glad that, at least, the weather forced him to don a more civilized outfit.

With the engine tuned and running (as well as it can with its two mortal flaws: a 009 and a Weber carburetor; Colin made us promise Ludwig that we'd rectify these errors as soon as money allows) we took the bus for the mandatory drive. He tries to get a real feel for the vehicle, as most of us owner/operators don't have a standard benchmark with which to compare as Colin does--his immaculately running '73. I also got a lesson on how to (properly) double-clutch for downshifts.

There was a scary moment during the drive when this young lady in a Ford Taurus nearly (and I mean nearly) smacked us in the rear passenger corner. It was an unregulated intersection, and Colin got out to talk with her about what had almost happened. He wasn't mean or anything; he's not like that. We were both impressed by Colin's quick wits and with Ludwig's Teutonic sportscar-like response. Whew.

Late in the afternoon, Colin told us he'd had it with the weather and that he was calling the day short (they normally go from 9am-7pm). But it wasn't like he abandoned us in disgust. He knew we were going to Maupin the next day, and pledged to give us the balance of our time there that weekend. So we saw him off ("South!" was his only indication of where he was headed next) into the dank Western Montana evening.

The weather was 70F and sunny the next day.