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.

Sealing the Gas Tank

Circumstances (the magic triumvirate of good weather, time off, and motivation) aligned themselves properly last weekend and I finally sealed up Ludwig's gas tank.

I been hypnotized! from stirring the POR-15. If you do this, stir it, don't shake it. POR-15 is the anti-007. Then you pour it in the (taped up except for one hole) tank, tape up the last hole, and slosh it around so it coats the inside all even-like.

Then you dump all the excess into an empty cat litter container (or equivalent).

After it drained for half an hour I looked inside and didn't like what I saw. My sloshing technique had been wanting, leaving some thin spots. The directions say not to do two coats, but I figured that it hadn't cured yet (it takes 96 hours), and so a second sloshing wouldn't count as a "coat". I dumped the POR-15 in again and revised my sloshing thus:

This time around it looked good. I think.

While the tank's out you might as well check out the filler neck, especially if your bus smells kind of fuelly after fillings.

First you unscrew the ring that holds the neck on up there where you fill 'er up. Then you pop off the "pie plate" (above) so you can get at everything. Some punk vandal had been there first. Honestly, I don't remember doing this.

Then you just pull the whole works out at the bottom end. Aha! Hence the fuelly smell at fillings. I put on a new one.

I thought this was cool, the evidence of 36 years' worth of gas nozzles.

Apparently VW didn't seal gas tanks at all after a certain year (if they ever did; I don't remember), so if you seal yours it'll be better than new! Go for it. Full instructions here.