Van-Ovations: The Mechanicals

    Many people ask how we knew how to do all the mechanical work on the van. The truth is, we didn't. I knew enough to read a manual and had a solid foundational understanding of automotive mechanics, but had no real experience in thorough restoration or overhaul jobs. I certainly didn't understand the level of dedication it takes to execute a needy old project car.

    When I purchased the van, the technical and practical considerations weren't really relevant. I was 22, had some money saved and wanted to do something fun with my extra pockets of free time and money. That said, I was in the market for a "new" car to replace my dying Honda Civic so I'd been habitually browsing Craigslist. When this van showed up, I hadn't done my due diligence on research but all it took for me to pull the trigger was a friend saying "yes", he'd split the project and we could work on it in his garage. 

    Little did I know, this would end up being an expensive and consumptive project, but one that came with so many unexpected lessons and rewards. At the time, this decision felt very unlike me. I wasn't one to take financial risks or buy unnecessary things. Case in point: a month later I bought a Prius, which felt like a logical and economically justifiable decision. This purchase felt like an experiment; I wanted to see what it felt like to behave differently. So for a while, this van was sort of like an alter ego escape of mine. The van and all of it's baggage lived in another state; it was a playground for trying out new ideas and perspectives. Call it justification, but I'm so glad I made arguably the least logical decision of my life.

I'll save all those lessons for another story, and without further ado...

The Mechanicals:

    The day I purchased the van, I drove it from central MA to it's resting place in Hallowell, ME... via a U-Haul truck and a full car trailer (see photo). Mark in Maine needed a UHaul truck for their recent move anyway so it all worked out.

The Fuel System:

    The fuel tank was missing, so it was running on a milk jug full of fuel hanging from the door handle, with two hoses hanging out. As I pulled it onto the trailer, fuel poured out everywhere. At the time, I thought it was comical. The whole thing was comical actually; a problem for a later date... Well, on a later I came to learn we were pretty lucky there wasn't a fire. It's somewhat common for the fuel system to spring a leak and cause the van to go up in flames. 

    On another later date I found the fuel was coming straight out of the fuel injector, which was practically hanging out of the engine. Okay, time to replace all the fuel lines... 
   

So our first project was to replace everything that fuel touches, from the tank to the fuel injectors:

• Fuel Tank
• Fuel hoses (all of 'em)
• Fuel expansion tanks
• Fuel pump and filter
• Fuel injectors
• Fuel rails
• and a new fuel filler cap, with keys :D

The Front Suspension/Brakes:

    We knew the suspension, brakes and bearings had to be done, as there was quite a bit of sway and audible bearing drag. After assessing quite the list of parts to order, we settled on a mish-mash of premium and budget parts, but Mark convinced me to opt for premium on the big ticket items like springs, shocks and bushings. And to his credit, he funded most of this part of the project as our plan at this point was to split the ownership of the van. So we got the T3 technique bushings, the Bilstein sport shocks and the GoWesty stock height springs. Nice. 

    Here's the list of parts we originally planned to swap:

• GoWesty Springs (Stock height)
• Bilstein Sport Shocks
• Wheel bearings/seals
• T3 Technique Bushings (the full set)
• all ball joints
• stub axle nut
• speedometer cable
  *fun fact: the vanagon uses a physical metal cable that runs through the inside of the front left spindle, which runs up and spins the odometer. On stock cars, they added an accessory along that cable that would set off an alarm every 20k miles to replace the oxygen sensor. Very clever... but we deleted ours.
• Calipers
• Pads
• Rotors
• Flexible Power Steering Lines

    And we'd refinish any rusted metal parts that needed to be helped out. 

    Here's all the parts out on the floor, which went back together surprisingly nicely. (Thanks Mark :D )

Oh, and until now we didn't have power steering either. There was a leak in the old hard lines, so we we replaced the power steering lines with flexible ones, which made routing easier. The old pump and steering rack ran just fine with a new belt.

The Rear Suspension, Brakes and more:

    Originally the rear suspension *should* have been about the same as the front, but ended up being quite the project. Long story short, we ended up being a bit more thorough while we had everything apart, doing everything from springs to whole new brake lines and CV joints. We also learned a bit more about proper rust prevention and properly treated out main metal components like the frame and trailing arm. 

Before refinishing:

The trailing arms actually needed new spring plates welded on. Thanks again Mark :D

Here they are after refinishing with POR15:

The frame before re-assembly. Also used POR15 all over.

Drum brakes ready to go back on:

Everything is back together on the driver's side:

Lots of pressing bearings and bushing in and out in this section of things.

Some late night hub reassembly:

    Unfortunately the photos have escaped me, but I also replaced every moving part in the rear drum brake assembly. As we were hooking up the rear brake lines to cap off the entire rear end suspension job, Jesse and I agreed to replace the whole brake line system while we were in there. 

    This job was about 3 full weeks of my time, start to finish. Combined with the front suspension job she hadn't been out of the driveway in over a year, which was certainly weighing on our conscience and confidence with the project!  And here's our first drive back on the road:

So here's a list of the replaced and refurbished rear suspension and brake parts:

• Springs
• Shocks
• Bearings & Seals
• New (used) stub axles 
• Bushings (all of them :D)
• CV joints and axles
• Refurbished trailing arms, with new welded spring seats.
• Refurbished hubs
• All new hard brake lines 
• All drum brake parts, including springs, shoes and cylinders
• All new bolt hardware for the moving parts in the suspension

Misc. and Ongoing Projects:

    The coolant pipes:

    A day or so before we had to drive the van to the welder, she sprung a slow leak through one of the long steel coolant pipes, a very common problem for these vans. Lucky my patch with some waterproof tape  and 4 hose clamps worked for an hour or so of driving, but we ended up replacing those pipes with new stainless ones, and flushing the whole coolant system while we were at it. 

    I'll keep this section of pipe as a memento :)

    The CV Axle:

    We noticed a persistent clicking/knocking noise coming from the rear end ever since the rear suspension was rebuilt and had narrowed it down to two options: the CV joint(s) and the wheel bearings. The noise was loudest when accelerating and turning right, so it made sense to be a CV joint over a bearing. If you know vanagons, you'll know why prayed for it to be a CV; wheels bearings require quite a bit of work to access and replace, including removing many parts and a bearing press to remove/replace/reset the bearing. 

    Today I removed the right (passenger) CV joint to inspect it. 
    To nobody's surprise, the gasket on the joint had slipped into the joint itself (see photo). Ahh, what a relief 😃
    This was a fairly straightforward fix: remove particles, regrease, replace, retorque. I took her out for a test drive and... NO NOISE! Happy day