Bigger Fish to Fry

My exhaust work appears to be complete. I can not feel any leaks, can't hold my hand over the tail pipe for long, and I can't hear any strange exhaust leak like noises. That doesn't mean things are perfect though. Its been a while since I was able to run my van and it sounded good so I can't say if this is an old or a new problem but the engine doesn't seem to be able to find a comfortable idle. It isn't stalling or anything but my idle is not smooth at all. My hunch at this point is that it has something to do with my O2 sensor that I replaced when I replaced my exhaust. Perhaps my old one wasn't working corectly or maybe the new one is a bad part but whatever the answer is something ain't right here.

The good news is that I'm honestly not all that concerned. I'll figure it out eventually but I'm not in much of a hurry right now. In fact, I'm actually enjoying a bit of a power boost thanks to the new exhaust. It is subtle but it is there for sure. All things considered, I'm looking at this exhaust switch as a win.

Not wanting to just sit around an enjoy my van like a normal person I dove in to the deep end last weekend and reached the point of no return. As I'm sure any regular reader of my blog can tell, I've been completely annoyed by my paint and body work since pretty much day one. It is the one thing that makes me seriously consider selling my van and getting another. Its like the thorn in my side and I haven't been able to do anything about it yet because I couldn't find any way to get everything done without spending thousands and thousands of dollars. In fact, just for fun I called a reputable VW restoration shop that is in the neighborhood and sent them a bunch of pictures. I told them I didn't want a competition paint job but I wanted the van to look nice and shiney. They said no problem - that'll be around $15,000...

Clearly I'm not spending 15k to make my van pretty. However, my van not being pretty is bothering me. I'm at an impass. Fortunately for me, as usual, my wife is saving me from myself. See if it was my call alone I'd probably just buy another van. That other van would be nice but it would cost about 6k and it would have it's own bag of issues. Thanks to my wife this is not an option. This van is my van and I can't have another one end of story.

So I decided it was time to get creative. Creative is good and all but I'm not sure how creative gets me a $10k paint job when I don't even have a compressor or a garage. As usual the Internet is to the rescue. A few weeks ago I happened to catch an email on the Vanagon mailing list that mentioned a hand-painted paint job. I thought, ugh that sounds terrible! However, I loaded up the pictures and was surprised to see that honestly they weren't all that bad. I dug through the thread for a bit and I found a few links to various message boards discussing the technique. Evidently some body/paint guy decided to see how cheaply he could paint one of his old cars back in 2006 and decided to do an experiment. His parameters were to spend as little as humanly possible but to end up with something that could be mistaken for passable pro job. He headed down to the hardware store and bought Rustoleum, some mineral spirits, several 4" high density foam rollers, and a pile of automotive sand paper. He prepped his car as if he was going to send it to the spray booth but instead of spraying it he diluted his Rustoleum using the mineral spirits to the consistency of whole milk and used his 4" rollers to roll it on the car. He used foam brushes to smooth out any rough spots or hard to reach areas. When that first coat got finished he thought he had made a terrible mistake. The car looked terrible but he decided to continue the experiment. He then diligently wet-sanded the car by hand and continued applying coat after coat of the hardware store paint. It took him over seven coats but when it was all done, buffed, and polished the job actually looked good. In fact it could easily be mistaken for a spray job. Certainly not the show room perfect contest winning job but considering the guy used rollers and did the work in his drive way it was spectacular. His final cost... $50

This kicked off an Internet flame war. Pro painters were mocking his choices and saying there was no way that paint would last. Some people accused him of spraying the car and lying about it. Others wanted to try it themselves. Two years later and his paint still looks awesome. Since then dozens if not hundreds of others have given his technique a shot as well and have posted their results. To my eye it looks like you basically get whatever you put into the job. If you do the prep well, diligently sand, and give the paint time to set and breathe properly then you'll get a decent job. In fact, last summer Hot Rod Magazine decided to put this theory to the test and painted a car themselves using this technique. They were actually impressed and have even convinced some to say that they will never spray another car again.

Welp, I've decided to join the masses. In the past month I've done a lot of reading about the do's and don'ts of paint and prep. I've decided that I subscribe to the theory that you either go all out and pay the big bucks for the best paint imaginable or you do the job as cheaply as possible. Fate further pushed me towards taking the plunge when last weekend at the Lowe's I found three quarts of Rustoleum in a color that looks almost identical to my Van's original ivory color. I took this as a sign and went home and started my prep work.

It turns out that sanding a car is a huge pain in the ass. In order to avoid being overwhelmed or rushed, I've decided to paint the car in sections. Right now I am going to paint the cab all the way to completion before I worry about the rest of the van. I selected the front because it offers the least amount of body work and relatively few huge areas that will readily show off imperfections in my work while I am learning.

My first job was to find all the paint bubbles or anywhere on the front that looked like it might have signs of rust and I used my grinder + wire wheel brush to strip the paint down to the metal. Once exposed I used 60 grit sandpaper to remove any trace of rust. Next I decided that there were so many issues with my current paint job that it was worth the effort to do a full pass using 60 grit to take out as much of the old paint as possible. I'm doing all my sanding with a block or by hand. No power tools. At this point I have the entire cab sanded with 60 and I am about 90% done with a second pass with 180. I'm striving for good level panels at this point.

When I finish my 180 pass then it will be time to use the body filler to address all of the issues I've found and get something on the bare metal. I'll also put some rust inhibitor on any place where I've hit metal before I use any filler. I'm trying to avoid filler where possible but all of the problem areas are not places where I can reach the rear of the panel to hammer out the flaws. Once the filler is in place then I'll knock it down with 180 and then do a final pass with 320. I'm debating priming but lately I'm leaning towards rolling on the primer. I don't think that I have to do it but I'm not sure if I should do it or not. I may just end up spot priming the filler but I'm concerned that will lead to uneven color. I just don't know my paint well enough at this point to really know. My paint is also just a hair lighter than my original color so I was considering using a red rusty metal primer in the hopes that it would darken my final color just a touch. Regardless, I've got time. I'm really trying to take this job super slow so that I can get good results. The prep is taking a lot longer than I originally anticipated but I think it will end up well. I've got to admit that I am really eager to get that first coat on though.

I'll post pictures when I get around to uploading them.

I Fixed the Exhaust... Sorta..

On Friday night I re tightened all of the bolts on the exhaust and could no longer feel any leaks with my hand but the engine sounded like crap. I decided to go for a test drive anyway and by the time I got back it sounded even worse. I noticed that there was a hole suitable for a O2 sensor on the new catalytic converter that I could have sworn had a bolt in it when I drove off. That explained at least part of the horrible sounds I was hearing. Without that bolt, most of my exhaust was just shooting out of that hole bypassing the muffler entirely. Luckily I still haven't thrown out my old exhaust and I noticed that it had the exact same bolt in it. Sadly it looked completely fused to the rest of the cat thanks to 24 years of rust and decay. It took me a full day of periodic PB Blaster applications but eventually I was able to work that bolt free and plug my exhaust.

On to the next issue. With my exhaust now completely I was greeted by a very loud knocking sound whenever the engine was running idle. This completely stumped me so I turned to the www.thesamba.com for help. I read about some problem with lifters being misaligned often causing a similar noise and fortunately the first step fix was to just change my oil to a high mileage 20W-50 oil. I was due for a change anyway so I went ahead and changed my oil. Afterwards I took another test drive and after a few miles the sound went away.

Next issue, my engine just doesn't sound as steady as it used to. I was thinking this must be because of the O2 sensor because I was also dripping what looked like fuel out of my exhaust pipe. I think I'm running rich and everything just doesn't sound as rhythmic as it should. I disconnected the O2 sensor completely to see if anything changed and nothing did. My hunch is that I don't have a good connection on my O2 sensor. I didn't have a proper crimping tool when I did the wiring so I'm thinking I might just not be getting a good enough signal to the computer and it is screwing up my fuel injection or something... TBC

I also tried to tackle fixing my leak by replacing the seal on the luggage rack since the old one broke and I finally replaced my antennae as well. I'm hoping one of the two was the problem but I'm going to have to wait until the next storm to get the answer.

Engine noise

My engine sounds sick

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.

I'm Back!

I haven't posted in a while but its because I've been out camping in my Vanagon. Since I last posted I've taken three trips in the van. Sadly, many things have gone wrong in that time and I'm parking the van for now until I get them all sorted out. Here are the latest issues:

1) I've developed a leak under my dash. In addition to my feet getting wet while driving in the rain, I'm really pushing my luck as I drive along watching water trickle all around the back side of my fuse panel. The luggage rack seal on the roof went out around the time that the leak started but I can't quite figure out how that could possibly result in water dumping out from under the dash. I'm going to replace that seal but I think there is a bigger problem here. I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull the dash to get to the bottom of this one. That is going to suck.

2) My rust is certainly getting worse in spite of the rust inhibitor that I sprayed on it. This winter I think I'm going to have to strip the whole van down and sand blast it all out. I'm also going to need to do that panel replacement. That could actually be fun. My plan is to keep things cheap by doing all the body work and paint prep myself. I'm really leaning towards letting MAACO or somebody else do the actual spraying unless I can find a place to rent time and equipment in a paint booth. I would then do the color sand myself and then take it back to them to shoot clear on it. I think I could do all that for under a grand including the cost of the paint (which I would supply them). I'm still researching though.

3) I've got two spots on my frame that I am concerned about. The first is in the front where somebody obviously hit something. This isn't that big of a deal but I want to make sure it doesn't end up rusting the frame. The other spot is more troublesome and it makes me wonder if I shouldn't get another van. Its a hole near the transmission that I just can't figure out. It isn't a rust hole but it is clearly a hole. It doesn't look like it was due to an accident but it is hard to tell. It looks like it was almost intentional but certainly not from the factory. I'll have to take some pictures and let you guys see.

4) This is the latest emergency issue. My exhaust system is basically rusted through. I knew the tail pipe had a growing hole but this past weekend I discovered that the exhaust had cracked all the way around right next to the engine block. So I drove on the edge of my seat just hoping the hot gas I was dumping into the engine compartment wouldn't burn through the fuel lines and burn up the entire van. I took a HUGE risk driving it home but in the end I'm glad I did and even more glad that I made it here safely still the proud owner of a Vanagon. I'm not driving it again until I get that exhaust fixed. The problem though is deciding how to fix it. I'm tempted to just get a complete exhaust system since everything under there looks about a billion years old. I think if I went under there with a good sharp pencil I'd be able to poke a hole in just about every pipe I encounter. The only thing that is holding me back is that I'm not sure when/if I'm going to do an engine conversion. I'd really like some more power. Then again, now is probably not the best time to go switching engines. Plus, I could most likely reuse the muffler, cat, and tail pipe with whatever conversion I might consider. I guess I should just get that full kit.