I am slow...

Man, I've really been neglecting my Vanagon blogging lately. On the bright side however I have not been neglecting my Vanagon. In fact I've been quite busy with it. Sadly, I have not been driving it. In fact I don't think I've moved it more than 10 yards since my post last month. On the bright side though I have been trying to fix the problems that I mentioned in my last post.

The main thing I did was order a complete exhaust replacement from www.van-cafe.com. I got it a few weeks ago and have been doing my best to get the thing installed. The work really isn't all that hard in theory - I mean I'm just unbolting a bunch of metal and then rebolting a bunch of different metal. How hard could that be? Well, so far I'd say pretty hard. Saturday before last I started this epic and it took me most of the day to get my 24 year old rusty exhaust off of the van. I need to give a huge shout out to PB Blaster for making it possible to get all those nasty old bolts off. It may have taken me most of the day but I did manage to get everything off the van without using a torch or my angle grinder.

I figured Sunday would be an easy and quick install for the new stuff after getting all that old junk off. For the most part I was right. It wasn't all that challenging to bolt everything together. Then I cranked the engine expecting to hear a nice smooth engine purrr. Instead all I hear is chug chug chug chug - NOOOOO!!!! My exhaust is leaky.... I must just need to tighten something up right? I spent that night until dark trying to get rid of those leaks and never did get things quite right. I ended up having to put the project on hold while I went out of town.

Well I got back to the van last night and once again tried to get rid of my leaks. I worked on the van about an hour last night and really didn't make any progress. I've still got a couple of leaks and a chugging exhaust. I'm going to give it another go tonight in the hopes that I can get things smoothed out.

In other news, I've concocted the craziest plan I've had for the van to date. I've been complaining about my paint job for most of the past year but I haven't figured out a solution. No matter what I thought of I was looking at at least a thousand dollars to make something happen. That is until I stumbled onto the Internet craze of painting your vehicle with a roller and Rustoleum!!! Yes folks, I found the $50 paint job. I was highly skeptical at first but after doing a lot of research it sounds like it just might work. So as soon as I get my exhaust sorted out I'm going to start doing the body work that I need to do to get my van ready for paint. After that I'm going to break out the rollers and go to town. I swear its going to look awesome. I would post some evidence but I prefer suspense. You guys will just have to wait and see my photos.