After all the haste and preparation,
the Festival was over. We had survived the day & returned the
bus to its home at North East Powder Coaters. Didn't take long til
we were itching to start again - we were back before the end of
November.
Although the aim was to start getting
all the mechanicals back on, we decided to tackle an easy job first
- the door seals. All started well, we measured everything up and
cut the seals to length before gluing them on. All looked well until
we went to close the doors again - the doors would not fit, instead
overlapping at the middle with a bulge along the inside seam. Much
head scratching later - and a call to Dave Dirk for his recent expertise
- and we realised our error: we had glued seals on the inside and
outer of the hinge edge, when in practice there should only have
been s single seal. The offending seal removed and all works well.
December was marked by the Sale
of North East Powder Coaters, the home of the Kombi & the place
our wives knew to find us when we were not home. We put in a lot
of effort to try an get things finished before the sale date but
to no avail. We hit a snag with the gearbox: after spending a session
fitting it back to the diff, we connected the selector and aaahh
- no gears. We ended up calling on the expertise of Garnet Kruger
who advised us that sometimes the selector forks come loose in the
nose cone when the gearboxes are moved around. So out it came again
and sure enough that was the problem.
Work on the car had to stop while
we packed up all the Club's assets and found new homes for them.
We also had to pack up all the miscellaneous parts and dispose of
the donor car which had been used for panel parts. Then it was off
to the Kombi's temporary home until permanent storage could be organised.
Jan & Feb passed without much
time being spent. March marked an improvement, when we managed to
get together and fit up the remaining bits to the engine. The big
question then came: do we run it before installing in the van. After
the gearbox experience, we thought we could not afford not to. With
a bit of expert assistance from Paul Kennedy, we set the valve clearance,
adjusted timing. Paul also provided us with remote starter, petrol
etc., and with little difficulty we managed to start the engine.
The carby needs a bit of work, but compression is fine on all cylinders
and there are no nasty rattles.
March and April were also marked
by a lack of progress. Late May, Rob & Ken managed to get back
to the bus and do some work. During a busy session, they managed
to get the gearbox selector lined up and connected properly to the
gearbox - hooray, 4 forward and 1 reverse gears. Then it was in
with the engine. Looking good.
Word now is that the Kombi is heading
to a new home .... one where it is again easy to work on her on
week nights and week ends: she
may even end up in the company of another splittie!!!.
Hopefully progress will pick up once the move has happened. Suddenly
the last weekend in October is not very far away......
