Spaghetti Junction

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm.
Theodore Roosevelt

We managed to get some of the new wiring spliced in, soldered and sealed last night.

It helps to have prehensile toes! The rear section has been matched up, labelled and soldered. We have wrapped up the individual joints with a sleeve of shrink-wrap, then the whole lot has been sleeved with a larger piece of shrink-wrap. This lot has been bound with a bit of insulation tape, then the whole lot has been bunged into a plastic conduit. Finally that conduit has been stuffed inside the hollow chassis rail.

Should be fairly well protected I reckon! That's the rear end finished, next week we'll do the front section joins.

In my spare time I have been tidying up a few loose parts, mostly plastic and rubber bits. I love rubber bits. They looked pretty rough to start with but a simple scrub with some soapy water already got them looking a bit nicer. Pictured are air vents, step rubbers, mirror, door handles and cubby door.

A lot of polishing and buffing with regular shoe polish and they all look like new! Loads of elbow grease but it's all worth while and these bits will look luvverly when I refit them.

Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Staying On Course

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C.S. Lewis

In our attempts to remove the old and useless ignition switch we also managed to damage the steering wheel quite badly. It'll still work but it looked a bit naff so I took it home for a bit of extra tlc.

The Plastic was a bit old and brittle and a couple of larger chunks had been dislodged, although the main metal frame is still strong and undamaged.

I filled it with a two-part epoxy putty and gave it a few hours to set. I filed it and sanded it until it resembled the original a little more. Re-fill the holes and low spots and sand it down again. Repeat a final time to fill in the blemishes caused by my own drunken careless file work. It's very much similar to the earlier work that I have done filling dents in body panels, but this putty sets really, really hard!

I sanded down the entire wheel after I had tidied the putty work. This to give it a bit of a key for the paint, which I applied from a rattle-can. Eight coats on the centre hub but just two on the outer ring 'cos I want to bind that with leather strips.

A few unfortunate slips with the rasp means that I left a couple of wee blemishes in the final finish but . . . so what? It looks pretty good to my weary eye and I have more important jobs to get on with right now. It looks okay fitted back in it's place and I think that I can learn to live with it as it is :)

Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Vague Steering

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We are continuing the slow slog down the long list of loose ends and trying to tick off a couple or three each month. We have stripped and removed the steering mechanisms from both donor buses and will attempt to assemble a best-of-the-best setup from the selection of parts.

These are some of the steering bits, parked on my spare desk for now, a reminder of the work I need to do in my spare time this week. It's in pretty good nick, just needs cleaning and maybe a lick of paint and we'll be able to replace it next week.

We also managed to do some more work on the re-routing of the new wiring underneath the bus. We are using a combination of regular plastic conduit, plastic electrical sleeving, shrink-wrap and the natural chassis rails to route the new cables. Most of it is using existing holes and channels in the chassis, some of the newer holes are our own handiwork. Next week we can start the joining, soldering and wrapping.


Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Must Dash

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
John Muir

Marigold's original left-hand-drive dashboard was removed before the skeletal remains were dragged away and taken to places unknown. I do have a bit of a soft spot for the old dials and guages, having spent so many happy years of my childhood studying them on our regular holiday trips. So I have taken out the relevant clocks and dials and transferred them to the new, right-hand-drive dashboard. Makes my heart happy to see, it really does, like a familiar smiling face. As usual, click on the pics to enlarge 'em a bit.

I managed to locate some colour images of the wiring diagrammes (thanks to the nice people at The Samba for the help) and printed them out to use in trying to make some sense of the tangle of wiring beneath the project. I cut and slashed rather indiscriminately when I did the original Big Chop and did not really think ahead very far. At that time I expected to redo the entire wiring loom in the unseen future. As it happens the wires that exist have been well protected from weather and other agents. They are in excellent condition and I expect that I'll be able to safely re-use long sections of the original loom. Thankfully, despite some minor differences between the 1971 front and the 1972 rear, the wiring is very similar and the colours all seem to match up except one.

When I look at the front interior of the project I think that I must be a bit blinded by affection. Or beer maybe, it could be beer. I don't seem to notice the huge collection of mess until I take a photograph and realise just how awful it all still looks. Never mind, any progress is good progress and we are indeed getting something done every week or two. After seemingly endless fiddling and following all of the exact directions on various expert websites I simply cannot get the ignition switch removed. I only have a working key for the original ignition switch taken from the other front-end. So I'm going to just change the whole housing and move it across - it'll be simpler in the long run I s'pose.

I gave the housing a light sandpapering and a couple of coats of satin black from a rattle-can. Looks okay, now we just have to get the steering wheel loose and I can fit the whole thing. Next tasks: to complete the wiring, test it all and chuck in a battery. We're getting there!


Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Loose ends

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
Henry David Thoreau

Ah yes, I have hundreds of loose ends. I have started documenting all of the little odd jobs that need to be finished. My memory is getting a bit dodgy so a written record can only help.

Despite remakes of my new control cables I managed to get the measurements wrong again, if only by a smidgen. So the end of the accelerator cable was refinished with a small plate of sheet metal and some molten solder. It was all expertly rolled around the end of the cable and fitted. It's not particularly pretty but it works and should be good for years to come. Good stuff.

Next task was the handbrake cables. Also remade, they are unfortunately about 2.5cm (1 inch) too long for comfortable adjustment. We made up some simple spacers by drilling holes through the length of some 12mm square steel bar. We then fitted them as spacers beneath beneath the front adjusters at the base of the handbrake lever. Another job has been jobbed!

Next up was the rear brake adjustment. This was relatively straight-forward and was managed expertly by Marius in a few minutes.

We then dug out the massive 46mm socket and prepared to tighten up the mighty castle nuts on the rear hubs. After application of generous gobs of copper compound we stepped on the newly adjusted brakes, added a long extension bar to the power-bar on the socket wrench and heaved away. The appliance of science! Massive leverage in the form of a one-metre extension combined with the gravitational force of a 120kg neighbour and it's tighter than an elephant's girdle. Finished off by popping in a couple of brand-new split pins (a free gift from the nice people at the Yellow Paint Store, thanks guys). More good stuff!

While fiddling about in the engine bay we noticed that the breather pipe connecting the air-filter to the carburettor has split again. (see Clean Air). I chopped it into manageable pieces and trimmed off some excess rubber.

I have bought a bit of clever-bendy-stretchy-wonky pipe from the turbo guys up the road and attempted to fix it again. I'll refit it next week and see if it's going to work.

Right that's about that for now. Thanks for sticking with me so far. I wish everybody a safe, happy, loving and peaceful festive season, cheers for now :)


Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Settling In

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
Mark Twain

I've completed the move to my new home, much smaller and neater than the old one. And so has the Marigold Project. Thanks to my super-accommodating neighbour I have managed to squeeze her into a luxurious undercover spot that is warm, dry, windproof and includes another VW granny as company!

It's a tight fit - the standard garage is 6 metres long and Marigold is now 5.8 without the bumpers or the front spare wheel fitted.

I hope to re-commence work on the project shortly - visit again for updates!

Thanks for stopping by
CooP

On The Move

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.
St. Augustine

I was really worked up for the big move today, exciting stuff for an old fart like me. I got the ever-friendly and helpful neighbour Marius along to help with some diesel pulling power. And he brought his dad-in-law Pieter for support, thanks to you both for the help.

When I originally fitted the poles to the car port I managed to hit an underground pipe so I moved the centre pole a little further to the right than I originally intended. I calculated that Marigold should just be able to squeeze out. WRONG!

I only miscalculated by about 2 centimetres, so close but so useless. After mucking about with jacks and ramps for half an hour we just decided to lop the pole off at the bottom and bend it out of the way. It's just going to be quicker and easier to weld it back later.

And she's out! Away from the back and into the front garden. For the first time ever I can take a photograph of the full left-hand side.

And we stumble straight into our next problem - the grass is sodden and the ground beneath is slick, soggy clay. Great if we were re-enacting "Ghost" but hopeless for towing a tonne and half of dead weight up a 30 degree slope. Despite the awesome turbo-diesel power of the Isuzu and letting the tyres way down we only managed to achieve a lot of noise and splattered, muddy mess. We just couldn't get over the ridge at the gate and all we managed to do was create violent wheelspin and flying lumps of garden. Think, think, think...

Aha, Marius just remembered that he has an interesting souvenir left-over from his 4x4 days - a rather oddly named thing called a "snatch strap". Stop drooling at the back, it's not what you think. He joined this fearsome 7 metre long bungee to both vehicles and set off up the hill at full speed. 

In the driving position in Marigold I was not really told what to expect. So it was only when the Isuzu reached the main road and I was airborne like a kite behind it that I realised that the loud "clank" was the sound of both of my eyeballs landing in the same socket after bouncing off the back of my skull. What a fearsome and unexpected launch. Next time I'll be certain to ask more questions before offering to sample any equipment that seems to have been designed by a sadistic bondage expert.

Never mind, despite the extreme lift-off we managed to come down to Earth with a safe landing and well clear of the gates and the muddy ditch. The contents of the bus had taken a step towards the rear tailgate, as had the fibre-glass roof. (See the pic above and compare to the previous pic.) But no permanent damage has ensued and we're out! Three frustrating hours but I do like a happy ending. A safe and gentle tow around the corner to Marius' house where he has kindly offered storage space for the next period.

What a thrill to be behind the wheel and actually steering the project on a real road. Ok we were taking it really easy - slower than a tortoise off a lettuce - but still, very exciting to be using steering and brakes for the first time in this four-and-a-half-year project.

To Marius and his family, thanks again for all the help mate! Much obliged.

And my newly completed car-port stands forlorn and empty. It's a bit sad that I managed to get my working conditions so right, just in time to move out!

As usual, click on the images for a slightly larger version.

Thanks for stopping by
CooP