1990-1993 (FORMERLY 4 YEARS- NOW CONDENSED TO 3)
Brian Rogers:
Thank you!
Jim Ratto:
Return Home, the Fix with 1-5/8 Header and the 1970 Bus
No need to bore us all with the long, dusty drive home, misfiring away, pointed north up US101. The cities and smaller communities all merged in a long and dark blur. I think I dropped Jason off at his parents' house sometime around 11:30 Sunday night. The drive to my parents' home was no more than 10 minutes east, and these mere ten minutes were bordering on an experience in hell. Back in late December I had driven down to GBE from the Bay Area to buy a GB6710 shifter, to replace the Scat Dragfast. The new shifter never went in quite right, getting first instead of third was a gamble. At the intersection of Santa Rita Rd and Black Ave, light went green and I am in no mood for drama. Of course, I was in third instead of first, and stall the motor. A twist of the key to light it back off results in nothing. Twist again, nothing. The VDO gauge install meant I ditched the stock speedo and the generator and oil pressure lights. Stupid move for obvious reasons. But here I sat, near midnight, stuck in an intersection. And out patience.
Luckily a shove start across the crown of Santa Rita fired he motor off in second gear. I didn't care if the goddamn wheels fell off, I just wanted the car to get me home. From there I didn't care what happened to it.
Except I did care.
A few minutes later, I idled into my spot in my parents' garage and nudged the brake pedal to stop the car. And the pedal went to the floor with a slow hiss. I would have at this point, paid to watch someone crush this car flat.
I went into work the next day, carrying the weight of the world on my back. Everyone was going to pester me about the trip to Ventura and where was my car? Not only was I exhausted, and defeated, but also ashamed. But I planned on sticking with my schedule. I'd pull the motor and just transplant the VZ35 out and the W125 back in.
Buggy House serviced the smaller independent foreign repair shops within a few miles in all directions. In the early 1990's, small-import-car repair shops were proliferate in Hayward, Castro Valley and San Leandro. Just south of BH, was Mike's Car Service, which rose to local fame doing VW air cooled repair, but also did Japanese. A variety of characters ran the place and I liked all of them. One guy, Mark, was known for his wild eye gaze and for some of his personal rides. One was an El Camino 396. Another was a 411 Fastback with a 3.0L 911 motor and real Empi 8 spokes. And there was also the story of the pan with the 2180 48IDA motor (which, sometime after midnight, one night, he drove through the Alameda-Oakland Webster Tube tunnel at well over 100mph, just to illustrate his good judgement). Another guy was Lee that wore flip flops to work on cars. And another guy was Eduardo, who was probably the nicest of all of them, but spoke very broken English. He drove a scab-blood red colored 1970 Bus that looked it had been through a nuclear war. But on this Monday, as he pulled up in it, in front of BH, it hit me. I needed a Bus. But not one of the early model Buses which I found too primitive. I wanted a '69-'71, the bigger body, the more modern interior and dash and the Type 1 style motor. My thought was a Bus could easily haul parts and tools, could serve as a place to camp, or even a place to live temporarily. And how cool would a mildly hot rodded place to live be? If a Bug could be made to run, then a Bus could be improved too. But first things first.... finding one.
So that Monday I asked Eduardo, where could a kid like me find a Bus like his red blood clot colored version? And I learned he was actually selling his: $300. And it had a "new" motor. (!)
Though I had every intention of dealing with the letdowns with my own Bug, I needed the distraction of the idea of buying the '70 Bus. I had the cash stashed at home, I had never heard of a car sold so cheap. Since it has a new motor, I could keep working on my '67 and give my Fiat X19 a much needed break.
That Monday night, once home, I wrote out my nightly schedule for the week, to attempt to return my '67 back to a better tune. Once done scrawling it out I hung it on the north garage wall, above the workbench. And then I began the engine extraction. Which meant digging into getting 13mm intake manifold nuts off. And draining oil from the AN8 hoses without making the garage floor a slip and slide of Kendall 40W. It meant wrestling the dressed longblock out on a much too small floorjack and hefting it up onto the engine stand. Which all happened that Monday night, and I fought my through stripping the motor to its bones- picking wrist pin spiral locks out, pulling oil pump out, and bagging everything up to drag to work the next morning. The VZ35 cam and its Scat lifter friends looked mostly new. The grey parkerizing on the cam had just started to thin at some of the lobe noses. I unbolted the gear and put the cam back in the box it came in. Lifters went in the trash, as I had no plans, ever to run the cam ever again. Ever. Here I was again, a pile of oily parts, and my car disabled once again, on jackstands, its ass in the air.
Each night, after work, I made progress. By Friday night, the longblock, now with W125 cam, was clothed in its fan housing and now had a Fourtuned/Phoenix 1-5/8" brand new header bolted to it. Buggy House was now stocking the 1-1/2" and 1-5/8" competition headers (we had, up until that point, stocked single and dual can street header systems, and for some reason the dual mufflers for the merged systems). I think I bought the first one we received from Phoenix. I also bucked up for all new bearings, mains, rod and cam, since the motor was apart, and the parts were cheap. And I didn't want issues.
And by this Friday, the Bus was now mine. I had given Eduardo three one hundred dollar bills and he transferred title, and keys over to me. In fact I drove it home, leaving the Fiat at Buggy House Friday night. Driving a Bus, my first time, was a big shakeup from driving an X19. It wandered terribly at any speed above 35-40 mph. Any input to the steering didn't seem to mean much, at least for the first 45 degrees of steering angle. And it was slow. It felt as if the engine was actually intended for a scale version of the Bus. I actually felt bad as I drove east on 580 up the grade into Dublin. By the summit, I was struggling to maintain 45mph. Was this a mistake or what? Why on earth would anyone tolerate driving one of these? I had thrown $300 of 48IDA money away. A smell of burnt clutch and burnt oil began to pour from the heater channels. Once off the freeway and idling @ stoplight @ Hopyard, I found the oil pressure light firmly on. Not glowing or blinking, but on like a noon sun. I knew this wasn't good.
But I knew how to build a motor for the Bus.
67paulo:
Finally......so nice to read a Jim Ratto story again. Thank you, it's been way to long
karl h:
cool, hoping for more...
Brian Rogers:
Thank you so much! No looking foreword to checking in every day now.
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