Monday, September 28, 2009

My Father

Yesterday was a sad and tough day. My father passed away at approx. 5:45am on 9-27-09 of a massive heart attack. He has had heart disease so this was not unexpected but not easy none the less. My parents were the ones who got me into camping. My father was the one who influenced me to take on mechanics as a hobby. I will miss him.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

McCain Valley view point


















The bus parked at the view point.

















The dirt road you can see is the road I had to take to get there. Doesn't look bad from here as it really was.






















The bus parked at the view point.


















































More from the view point.



















More from the view point.



















There is a view point on the way to the camp spot. This is some of what can be seen from the view point.



















These are wind mills producing electricity. This pic was taken about 5 miles from the wind mills.


















One of my favorite camp spots is McCain Valley close to the town of Boulevard.





Grand Canyon Camping

Here are a couple of shots of the Grand Canyon. The second pic is our camp site for a week (5 days).
















Green Valley Falls Camping

Ok, we have a camp trip scheduled for mid Sept. So far my girlfriend and I are going along with a buddy of mine and his family. We will camp at Green Valley Falls on Cuyamaca Mt. in San Diego County. Will post some pics once we get back. We will be going in my bus on this trip since it is just a camping trip and not a riding(quads)/camping trip.

I forgot to bring my camera camping saw the only pics it took were with my phone. So they will be not as good as I would have liked. I will be posting those and past camping pics soon. Stay tuned.

Here are a couple of lame pics from this weekends trip. I had forgot my camera so this is all I took. This is at Green Valley Falls on Cuyamaca Mt. in San Diego County.



















Sunday, September 6, 2009

Oil pressure issues

9-1-09

I have 2200 miles on the motor now. Oil pressure was a bit high so I changed oil pumps. I did have a 30mm pump from Berg but now I have a 26mm pump from aircooled.net. Since then, I have been low oil pressures at idle. I did face the oil pump cover and blue printed the pump according to the How To Hotrod you VW book. Then I found that my oil pickup came loose. The tab that holds it to the drain broke. I had to fab up and attach something to hold in place. I also swaged the other end in the case. However, my idle pressure was still low. I then looked at my oil reliefs. I did have a custom oiling system by Headflow Masters that uses a steel ball in place of the original piston. I removed the custom components and reinstalled the stock components. I also had 0w-20 oil in an effort to reduce oil pressure initially. I removed that oil and used 10w-30 Brad Penn oil. All of this finally got my idle pressure to about 7 to 10 lbs when hot.

9-6-09

I changed the oil relief piston back to the ball. What I found is that it was not sealing well and therefore much of the oil was bypassing the cooler and therefore the oil was getting hotter than normal. I changed to a stronger spring also. I will have to make sure that the idle pressure stays where it should. I will report on that in a couple of days.

9-24-09

Well I'm back from camping. My oil pressure seems to be under control now. I actually reinstalled the oil control piston and still using the ball valve for pressure relief. I have several oil control pistons in my spare parts. However, one was taller than the rest. The diameter was the same but longer by about .050". This seemed to make a difference in idle pressure. So that is what I ended up with.