Fit and (Don't) Finish

This is not an excuse to pull a DNF and give up on a project. Anyone who's been following this saga knows there have been plenty of opportunities to do that and occasionally motivation, too.

Instead, this is a rap on not being an optimist. That sounds dreary; let me try again: This is a rap on how to be a callused rivet-tough realist. They say that an optimist has more fun, but a pessimist is more often right. I've found both to be true, but a pessimist can't attack a project of any scale by starting with, "It's all gonna burn someday." You'll never get out of bed if you start there.

By the same token, the optimist also goes by the title 'cheap dreamer' and the DIY crowd is FULL of them. As a recovering cheap dreamer, I can tell you exactly what that looks like: All you see are the stars, all you smell is the sizzle, all you hear is the roar of the crowd. It is just as bad as the pessimist, but you usually spend a lot more money and still fail to achieve your goal...because your goal was either an unattainable utopia or a mislaid motive in the first place.

My restoration of a 1972-1/2 1302 Super Beetle was such a thing. I started with the idea of fixing up an old lump, dented and dinged, but mostly in moderate running condition and in the end had dumped well over $8000 and eight years into the utopian dream of creating an objet d'art which was a PERFECT reference restoration of exactly how the vehicle looked when it was delivered to the Anderson Family of Redwood City, California in May of 1972. It was perfect. Really, amazingly perfect. But I had lost the plot: This was no longer a vehicle I could drive for fun, it was an objet d'art fit for displaying at the Stiftung Auto Museum in Wolfsburg, Germany not for driving around and taking wear like a real car does.

I let my goal get away from me and realized in the end that my utopia wasn't sustainable. All that effort to fulfill a dream that hadn't been what I'd really wanted to do: I wanted to drive.

So while I'm clear-eyed on the subject, I though I'd comment on what twenty-five years in the hobby has taught me about fiddling with old cars on a budget. This is for someone who is a realist, or wants to be. The pessimist will stop reading now, "because it doesn't matter, 'cause everything goes wrong." The starry-eyed optimist will stop reading now, because they might not like the taste of the truth to follow. The courageous realist will suck it up and see if there's something worth learning.

First, what is your goal? I let my goal drift on that Beetle and made myself and my wife miserable as I chased a unicorn. We'd have been having fun driving it for many years if I'd just tuned up and sorted the few bum items. If you don't have a clear goal in mind, you're going to waste a lot of money and a lot of time and maybe not get what you want in the end.

So after you've defined your goal and nailed it to the barn, you've got to measure your resources: physical, financial, psychological, and your most un-replenishable resource, time. Having looked those four goons in the eye, the realist can then decide with the cold cash-register heart of a banker what he's really capable of accomplishing.

I'm going to be really brutal here:

You have four buckets in your life that resources flow into and out of: Physical, Emotional, Time, and Money. Almost everyone understands the money one: If you spend more than you earn, pretty soon you're out on the street. If you have a deficit in physical resources (such as, you're disabled) then you're going to constantly be taking from the other three buckets to make up for it. (It will be hard on you emotionally, everything takes more time for you, and it costs more just to get by.)

If you have good friends who can offer moral support, that can sometimes make up for a lack of financial resources. "I'm poor, but I have friends, so I'm ok." This is where it gets real: You've got to have a reasonable balance of all of these resources to succeed in your project...any project. If you throw everything in all four buckets into your business, even if you become successful (refilling the time and money buckets) there's a good chance that you have ruined your health and broken your own ability to maintain relationships. How many stories do we hear about dying young with all the money, bodies and relationships wrecked? The 27 Club?

I'm not saying I like this. Frankly, I hate it. I want to do what I want to do, and to hell with everything else. (Said by me at my most selfish, and by every punk 14 year old.) But that isn't the budget we have in life. The buckets are. You replenish and draw from each at need, and the person who "doesn't worry about one kind of bucket" isn't free, they're crazy. Think about that for a minute: its true.

The pessimist quits before they begin: they're a hoarder of their resources. The 'cheap dreamer' assumes that all of the buckets are bottomless, and gets jolted by a sudden stop when they hit the bottom of one or more buckets and there is no more.

Be a realist. Consider what your buckets really look like and then spend your resources wisely.

When the Tigers Broke Free

 

I'm hoping someone eventually reads this.

The fundamental idea of this site had been to document a collaboration of smart people working to make it practical to take COTS (Commercial, Off-the-Shelf) parts and with a minimum of fabrication (buy, rather than build) get a standardized Subaru transplant instead of having everyone re-invent the wheel themselves. So much for that. I'll come back to why this project failed in following post, but until then, I want to talk about my Bus.

My 1977 Deluxe was rescued from a downstate Delaware barn in 2012. The last time it had run was 1998. When I went through the engine to see if it could be saved, what I found was a Type4 that had been pounded almost to slag, which explains why it was parked and left. At the start of this project I was committed to doing a good job building my own engine, only to discover that the engine was a boat anchor. I even bought a replacement case, crank, steel-backed bearings, intending to put it back on the road. But the more that I looked at the outlandish expenses, the terrible parts quality available (or just no availability at all) the more I swung toward the Subaru re-power.

My Bus sits on its 6 ton jacks in a clean, dry garage now. Unfortunately, it has sat there since 2013, and not for lack of trying. No, I haven't lost my job, or been through a divorce, or any of those other horrors that often doom projects to being sold off as 'basket cases.' The Subaru engine and all of its parts are fabricated and installed, or have been at least dry fitted. There is rust repair to do, and interior work and so on, but the biggest stuff is in place. So what has changed to cause me to write this?

In 2015 my parents were both diagnosed with cancer. My father was dead by August 2016. (slowly; it was awful.) My less than sympathetic employer was clearly lining up to pink slip me. I didn't give them the opportunity: I jumped first to another job, then a year later to a contract job, then to my present job. This is after 13 years with a single company. (And the Bus had to sit.)

Then 2020 happened, not beginning in March, like it did for most people. Instead we started the year off big: my mother died of her cancer in January, I had hernia repair in February while simultaneously acting as my mother's estate executor. We locked down in March with everyone else, and then my adopted aunt died of cancer (secondary to lockdown) in July. With the help of an exceptional realtor, the estate sold my mom's house and we liquidated my mother's financial assets in record time...DURING a pandemic. (And the Bus had to sit.)

To make the family home sale happen quickly, I had to evacuate all of my parents possessions, which meant much of it came to be stored in my tiny garage already full of Bus, my shed, and inside my already too small house, all during a pandemic, and while I was still recovering from hernia surgery, my kids were doing school from home, and we were all stepping on each other's feet. (And the Bus had to sit.)

Then a 'thing' happened. A much larger house nearby came up for sale with a large property, a separate shop building, and a lot of storage space. I bought it with our share of the money from my mom's estate. You'd think this would be ideal. Finally a place to work on the Bus! But the house was in poor condition and required a lot of repair before we could move in. (And the Bus had to sit.)

During the time we would have been running around arranging items to move, my wife got back a strange test result from a CT scan. Result: Appendix and gall bladder removal surgery. Which left her in recovery from surgery just as pandemic school was starting for my kids again, and with no energy to pack.  So I had to do all of the packing and arrange for transport, while working 50 hours a week from home. (And the Bus had to sit.)

Just before we moved, one last 'thing' happened that changed the whole trajectory of the Bus: My wife told me (and in 23 years, she has rarely "told" me anything) that I had three choices with the Bus:

1. Sell it to someone who will finish it.
2. Scrap it, so that it is not hanging over my head.
3. Send it to a mechanic in Connecticut who has been a good friend and very helpful with my own adaptation designs, and pay him to finish my work.

I squalked. "But...but! Now I've got this SHOP! It is HUGE. I'll finally have the space to finish!" She pointed out to me, not unkindly, that my problem hasn't been lack of space: It has been our lives being constantly turned up to 11, screeching feedback for the last decade. So 1, 2, or 3. But that vehicle doesn't roll onto the property until it can do so under its own power. "I have spoken." (And the Bus sat.)

I have neglected to go into detail about my daughter's verbalizations about suicide, her questioning her gender-identity, being sexually bullied at school...that both of my kids are on the Autism spectrum, and that both my wife and I have different forms of depression. These items are just the foundation of sand our lives are built upon. Then, add a pandemic year. 

Being the stubborn type, I opted for #3: Send it to Connecticut and pay someone I trust who is hyper-competent to finish my vision (and probably improve on it, since he has built several conversions and know what works and what doesn't.) This is the best thing I can do.

So while I'll probably archive some of this content to thesamba or somewhere else, there will only be two more posts here. The next one will be why VolksarU failed. The last one will detail the Bus returning to the shop here in New Jersey as a driver, not a project.

Guessed right the first time!

As I mentioned in my previous post, Matt Steedle is a hell of a good transmission guy.

So after reviewing my gear ratios which I brought with me when delivering the 091, he gave me a slow head shake and said, "I'll build whatever you want: you're the one who's paying. I'll just say that based on what you described wanting, this gear ratio won't give you that."

I was stunned. After all of the work I'd put into the gear selection (dropping to a .70 for 4th gear, which would give me 65mph at 2700rpm, the same as the donor Impreza the engine came from) hearing that it was a bad selection was kind of demoralizing. So I asked and Matt replied, "The .70 will work on the flat. The moment you come to a hill, you're going to find yourself back in 3rd gear, and based on your 3rd gear choice, you're going to be spinning the engine like a dynamo. You're trying to stretch things out to artificially get the numbers to match the Impreza. I know they weigh the same, but the Bus had an enormous amount of wind resistance by comparison and your gearing doesn't take that into account."

I finally saw what he was getting at. My EJ22 NA Impreza engine makes 145HP, about twice what the original Type4 engine did on its better days. But without gear ratios (both individual gears, as well as the big Ring & Pinion) that produce a similar final drive ratio (which includes the diameter of the tires!) there was never going to be a smooth set of gearing for the 091. Not only that, Weddle Racing is the only USA source making gears for the 091, and those gears are meant either for racing, or for Sand buggies which make heavy use of the 091 because it is very robust. As a result, while you get a variety of Weddle gears, they are expensive and meant for the sudden, heavy loads of drag strip or sand, not for consistent, long hauling. They're good; they're just meant for a different application.

So what do I have now? Well, a stock 1977 Bus with an 091 manual (which may have a different transmission or gearing than your Bus has!) is geared like so from the factory:

1st: 3.78:1 / 2nd: 2.06:1 / 3rd: 1.26:1 / 4th: .82:1 // 4.57:1 Ring & Pinion. // 185r14C tires (special tires, but have a diameter of 25.7)

Using Richard Atwell's formula, I'll fill in my correct variables (if you want KPH, change 336 to 210):

MPH = RPM * TIRE DIAMETER / GEAR RATIO / Ring&Pinion / 336
65MPH = 3300 x 25.7 / .82 / 4.57 / 336

Lovely! Only one problem: While 65 MPH may be John Law approved, driving a reputedly slow vehicle in 2017 at 65mph is bound to attract the kind of attention you don't want. So with the engine and transmission package going back in as stock, I've got to get a better final drive.

At Matt's suggestion, I returned to bigger tires: 27x85R14C (orLT). These are only made by a few manufacturers but are popular for VW offroaders. I had run this size of tire in 1992 when I lived in Oregon and Washington and ran them (BF Goodrich) on my 1971 Deluxe Bus. So I have some experience with them: great off road, but noisy with poor traction in the rain on the highway. (After 6000 miles of highway on them, I felt like I knew what they could and couldn't do safely.)

Today the tires of choice in that size are the General Grabber AT2, which has all of the benefits and hazards of the classic BFG I ran 25 years ago. But at Colin Kellogg's (Itinerant Aircooled) suggestion, I've decided to use the same tire that he uses on all of his buses for 80% onroad / 20% offroad: The Maxxis 751 Bravo. The Man did Death Valley in them and the rest of the country to boot. Because Colin has been good enough to share his experience, I'll have a decently mannered road tire (and the spare, which will be in regular rotation) and be able to meet my target of 65MPH @ 3300 (good for flatland and passes without downshifting) and 75MPH @ 3700 for when the traffic around me gets pushy. Viva la Itinerant Aircooled! Viva la Matt Steedle! Viva la Comunidad!

It is more complicated than that...

The first job is to take it all apart again.
No! I have not lost my marbles! I've actually got two purposes for this apparent lunacy.

1. I don't have all of the details in my head of how it went together, and there is too much left undocumented between times that I took photos and annotated them. So I need to get my groove back. Take it apart and put it back together again is actually a pretty cheap way of doing that.
2. I'm pulling the engine and the 091 transmission as a package. That's right: together. The Bentley shop manual recommended pulling the Type4 engine and the transmission together...why not this? The purpose isn't so much to take the engine out for fun and put it back in again just to see how fast I can make the parts line up again. The major reason I'm doing this is simple: I'm exploring having the 091 regeared.

Why for regeared? Because as described a few years ago in Top Gears, the torque and horsepower curve of the Subaru EJ22 NA engine is grossly WRONG for mimicking a 2.0L Type4. All of your shift points are in the wrong place and too close together and your cruise rpm will be stupidly high on the EJ22 when they don't have to be. The other challenge is that from 1968 to 1979, there were several transmission variants: The 002, the one year only 1975 002 'pyramid', and the late 091 that later morphed into the 094 that was used in the Vanagon.

Just because the transmission model stayed the same for a few years didn't mean that the gearing did. The Ring & Pinion gear (which controls the final drive ratio for all gears) changed several times across the three different transmissions, and the 4th gear changed as well. All of this was based on the changing torque and Horsepower from different engines over those years: Starting with a 1.6L single port engine, then 1.6L dual port, then the Type4 1.7L, then the 1.8L, then finally the 2.0L. All of these engines had different emissions accessories even if their displacement was the same and gearing within the transmission changed convulsively to make the most out of the meager power that was available from the engine.

So while a few model years kept the same transmission ratios, it is actually pretty rare when the engine power output stayed the same to produce the same driving experience. This is why regearing should be considered. Of all of these transmissions, the late 091 is probably in the best position to be used without regearing...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Why bother spend the dough? The EJ22 can take being run faster than designed, right? Consider this piece of fortune-cookie philosophy: Just because you can do it, doesn't always mean you should do it. Every extra revolution on that crankshaft is one less that the engine has to give during its lifespan. Would you sprint flat-out all of the time just because you had good cardio? When you're mowing the lawn, walking the dog, shopping for groceries, etc? Of course not. Every revolution is wear and tear, on every moving part, even the external parts: belts, injectors, IAC, alternator, etc.

I've been consulting with Matt Steedle, a local transmission builder who is really doing some amazing work in the Subaru to VW world. (He does lots of makes of transmissions including the Subarugears, and comes highly recommended nationally.) I took my 091 to him and we had a long talk over what I wanted to do with the Bus. (This is always a good sign to me: It means my vendor is trying to find out what my goal is so that they can help me reach the goal, not just upsell me every goodie they can load on. Whether someone is selling washing machines or excavation equipment that should always be their first question: What is your use case? How often? How hard do you plan to run it? If they don't start with those questions, or unless you are an expert in the field already and know exactly what you need, hold on to your wallet or go somewhere else.) Some Subaru/VW friends like to put taller gears on just 3rd and 4th, some prefer to do that plus the Ring and Pinion, and many variations thereof, including the addition of a Limited Slip Differential. That's because each of them have different needs: One wants to crawl rocks, another is running a monster Subaru Franken-engine and likes to fly through the gears like he's using the shifter to crack a whip. (0-90mph in nothing flat and I just about soiled his new upholstery: It was like being strapped to the front of a rocket sled like an Aztec sacrifice!)  Everyone wants something different. So everyone needs to make different decisions about what gear ratios are going to scratch their itch.

Me? My requirement is just this: Drive...and don't even think about it. No jack-rabbit starts (it's a Bus for Pete's sake!) and no ball-bustin' burnouts. No sleeper stunts. Just breeze around town, pick up the kiddies, Sunday School picnics (not quite, but almost), occasional camping, and occasional runs to move several sheets of plywood or stacks of drywall for friends. Looong cross-country drives, where you just climb up through the gears as you enter the Interstate and then stay in 4th and not think about it. Sure, a 5 speed Subarugears unit would be nice. Put a 3x multiplier on the cost of the transmission and it isn't THAT nice. In short, reliability and as smooth as you can make the 091, considering what you're starting with: A truck transmission.

Looking from the mid-point of the Bus toward the rear. Engine and transmission
removed from the chassis. The bolts mentioned below hang the bell-housing
of the transmission from the chassis. (Pardon the wiring mess; it looks
worse than it was. Also note the CV joints disconnected from the trans,
bagged (to keep contaminants out) and suspended by coat hangers.

So two weeks ago (my birthday, it happened to be) I got out to the shop and said, "Hey Iron-Toe, ya old bastard: Let's rearrange your guts a little." As I began to work, I began to remember, and I was jotting down notes as I went. 2 hours and a pail full of swear words later, I had the bolts out.

091 Transmission separated from the engine and removed from under the bus to the side.
Note how relatively CLEAN it is. That's because it got a scrubbing and a bath before I installed it three years ago.
Most transmissions look like corndogs. Do your transmission professional a favor: take an hour to clean the
transmssion. They don't like to start with a greasy pig either. A little respect goes a long way.

So hilariously, I lugged the 091 down to Matt Steedle's place down in Atco, NJ and we spent about two hour jawing about VWs with each other. I showed him the gear ratios I wanted to run and...

The surprise of my life, next time.

Why I write this stuff...

I've been asked on more than one occasion why I write this stuff. Why do I bother? In short, who the hell are you to tell me what to do?

There are a list of answers for those questions-- a much larger list than there are questions. Before I share that list with you, let me correct the most aggressive one above:

Who am I to say what you should do?

It is a misunderstanding of the purpose of both the site and the VolksarU project generally. If you've read the whole blog, you'll have heard me mention on more than one occasion, "You can go to hell in your own way." I think that making your own mistakes is everyone's privilege. Still, when a large number of people have tackled the same problem and everyone discovers by trial and error that there are some basic principles which solve the same problem, it seems a shame to waste the collective wisdom.

In times past, that type of wisdom got written down in a central location that people could learn from, or became a oral tradition in the form of a cliche', such as "Chrome won't get you home..."

With the advent of the Internet, a million blogs, forums and etc., we have no central source for these observations, even if they don't necessarily rise to the level of wisdom. This means that we draw increasingly on un-compared data: Maria says it works, Max said it's crap, and there's no way to tell who's right or even what contexts their observations come from. Maria and Max may be trying to solve a similar problem in two different contexts, which is why they get different results. Maria's solution works and Max's doesn't...because Max is at sea-level and Maria is in Mexico City at 7300 ft above sea level. Those points of context are missed and so we just have another 'he said, she said' disagreement about observed phenomenon with the context missing.

So that's most of why I write: not just to tell you what I did while I worked this project. but to condense all of the research that I did to get to my answer so that you know my context.

Now if you want to write about your project too, let me forewarn you of some fears you'll have to conquer to document your project and show it to the world.

1. That you're not qualified to write this material.

You have chosen this subject, or it has chosen you. It is intimately tied up with your passions and your philosophy about how the world should work. That makes you as qualified as as any human needs to be to share their passion.

2. That you have nothing new to contribute to the world. 

If I thought that I had to say it better than anyone else, I'd never have started. Of course, you have something unique to say: You tell the story of the triangulation of you and your project and your context. That makes your story unique in the world.

3. That whatever form you're writing in feels too difficult.

Fear is the expected response in the face of something challenging and complex. If it were easy, you wouldn't become a better communicator by working through the process of recording and describing it all.

4. That you don't have enough time to write this stuff down; just doing it is hard enough!

If you are serious about this project, you will find a way to re-order your priorities and then cut out the unimportant things to make time to write it down. If you're not serious about the project (just the doing of it!) then you're not ready to do it, let alone write about it. Writing about it will let you find mistakes in your project that you can correct before you flip the switch; the benefit is both for you and for others. Writing down the details as you go also automatically generates a parts list for replacement, as well as a cost list

5. That you don't even know where the project is headed, even in the middle of it.

Keep taking notes and condensing them into descriptions and observations. Read back what you wrote and learn from it. ("Whoa, made a big assumption there! Better double check that!) You'll get better and faster at identifying and correcting mistakes, so fast that you'll correct them during planning or implementation, not after you've already built it.

6. That you're not a good enough writer to accomplish your goal.

None of us is good enough to finish a project when we start. I certainly wasn't qualified to do much of the restoration work I did on my 1972 Super Beetle when I started. By the time we finish, though, we have become competent by the practice of doing it. Not just the task...but the ability to describe it it others.

7. That no one will read you work.

Someone WILL read your work. Just get on with the story you are telling: the challenges, the setbacks, the triumphs, the lessons learned. Then trust that your creation will be found by people who need it the most and they will be grateful that you took the time.

8. That when this project is done, you will have exhausted all of your words and ideas.

Phooey. You might be temporarily exhausted by the end of the project and convinced that if you never write another word on the subject it will be too soon. Never fear! The more you write about your passions, the more it keeps your muse coming back. If you have the creative impulse to make something new or recover something old, you have the creative impulse to tell others about it. You might switch from VWs to restoring vintage lawn mowers (it could happen!) Having talked through the subject in a public forum, you'll be that much more practiced, more confident, and more capable talking about your new passion in a new forum. 

Bonus: People will appreciate you.

There will always be inevitable haters.You're writing on earth, not for the angels or for a crowd of completely rational, unemotional Vulcans. Mostly the haters will drop their turd-load on your work and then fly off, convinced they've 'shown you.' They rarely come around for another pass. Mostly the people who follow your work will do so (IF YOU DON'T GET ANYTHING ELSE, GET THIS!) because you're the only one out there doing it. Consider: How many times have you seen someone show 'before' and 'after' and leave out the three years in-between that actually tell you the story of how it all happened? You ask for advice, or details, or how-to...and get back either nothing, or the brush-off. 

When you describe the process you went through, especially when it was a learning process, SHARE! The sum total of knowledge in a community is made greater when people share. If you clutch your new skills and facts to your chest and either refuse to share out of some sense of pride (I figured it out...you figure it out!) or because you don't think anyone will listen to you for the eight reasons above, you are denying yourself recognition by your peers, and you are making your whole community poorer, too.

So share, and let's all get smarter together!

The Storm, and what came after

Those of you faithful enough to follow this blog have surely wondered if I'd ever post again, having gone silent for a year. Don't wonder any more: the worst of my crises have passed (my father passed, too, which was one of the crises.) I want this project rolling down the road, or at least the engine running in the driveway while I put the rest of the chassis back together.

By sheer providence, I was offered a way out of the job that has been slowly grinding me into paste for the last 13 years. I kissed off that hell-hole and my commute is now 24 feet from my bedroom to my office where I work from home for more money than when I commuted 24 miles through downtown stop-and-go to be beaten like a rented mule, verbally abused, and came home through a gawd-awful commute to merely collapse and do it again tomorrow. My new gig provides me easy sleep, a happy outlook, interesting work, and 14 hours a week LESS in commuting time and severe wear on my daily driver.
Frankly, I don't know what to do with myself, there's all of this extra time on my hands. I've got a 'honey-do' list my wife has taken pity on me and not dropped on my head and that needs work, but being back working on the Bus is on my own list. So I'm back in the saddle.

There are going to be four challenges to meet in the short term that will probably slow things down, one of which I never imagined.

1. It is winter, and my garage is unheated. Not to mention as drafty as a wicker basket. So progress is going to be slow while the weather warms up.

2. Garage: The dumping ground. My garage being mostly full of Bus has meant that my wife has used it as a dumping ground for everything that needs to be out of the house but can't go into cold storage in the shed (because that's full, too. Also on the honey-do list.) So a lot of stuff is going to have to shift, tools be regathered and re-sorted, and my working area put in order so that I can use it as a shop...instead of as dumpster style storage. Now that work has changed, I'll have the opportunity to put things right.

3. Um...I forgot. I work in High Performance Computing. (It pays, but not as much as you'd think.) One of the techniques for surviving this environment is to purge from your memory anything that you are not actively working on, so you can have all of the details of what you are working on fully at the mental tips of your fingers (to mix a metaphor.) That means that I've blown almost all of the ballast of everything that I have done for this project and actually have to re-read my own blog to re-acquaint myself with whatever cleverness or damn-foolishness I was planning. Even then, there will be a lot of lying under the Bus and scratching my head: "What the hell was I trying to do here....?" It is the only way to re-load the project so that it can be worked to completion.

4. The happy surprise, and how it changes things. When I started this, I presumed that I was going to be one of about 50 Type2s running around with Subie engines in the USA. Instead, the interest in Subaru conversions has absolutely shot through the stinking roof, no matter how the old tight-asses on thesamba.com have pooped on it. But it has spread far beyond Buses...Beetles, Ghias, pretty much anything that relied on the SoCal Aircooled scene to keep it supplied with running engine parts. Well, my predictions came true sooner that I ever expected: The low quality supply chain from China for parts has caught up with the Aircoolers and now many Vintage VW lovers are looking elsewhere for powertrains. I never expected to see things embraced so quickly. If anything, that means that I need to make VolksarU move forward faster than ever to head off hack-jobs. Again, I don't expect everyone to do things my way. "You can go to hell in your own way." Or you can follow where others have already broken ground. I intend to be breaking ground, not so much by just the choices that I make, but by COPIOUSLY documenting them for the benefit of everyone, and for the standardization of parts and processes.

So if you were wondering if I fell off the map and the project would never be finished, take heart. My wife demands that I finish it, and I don't mess with her. Her deal is: You start it, you finish it. So I'm very careful what I start.

I've also made a whole batch of friends online in the 24 months that this project languished while I took care of urgent family matters while trying not to die myself. Many groups have started on Facebook when thesamba.com made itself inhospitable. There are companies for conversion that didn't exist when I began. It is a very exciting time to be performing this conversion, but a lot of opportunities to be cheap and stupid and content with "It looks ok, let's go!" only to suffer catastrophe on the road. VolksarU is back in the game. Remember the motto: "Where U are part of the solution!"

A Pause for Station Identification..

Friends & Haters, (I attract a wide range of interested parties)

What the hell happened? Cruising along, making good progress on  the Subaru conversion, and then suddenly the line went dead. What happened?

Everything, all at once.

• The 'C' word: Shortly after my previous post (in July!) both of my parents, within weeks of each other, were each individually diagnosed with stage 4 cancers. Stages aren't a 'clock' for when you kick it: they just describe how advanced the cancer is and if it has jumped between body organs. My father is already a partial invalid who won't acknowledge his limitations, which makes him especially challenging.
  
• Kiddo troubles: I have two, and the elder has Autism. He has deep seated behavioral problems that are far worse than the Autism, and those have stalled his academic and maturing process. After a decade is a very good school system, he has proven so far beyond their abilities that we have had to move him to an institutional setting, though he lives at home. This is both heartbreaking and a great relief, as we aren't playing the game anymore that he is ever going to get or be better. His sister is heavily medicated for ADHD and behavioral, and while she is doing well in the school system, it is only by constant presence and reinforcement that she is progressing.
  
• Work troubles: We've all got them. In my case, I'm standing on the precipice of ageism in an industry where (unless you are a rare talent) 40 is old. I'm rare, but I'm not that rare. Even management admits that the volume of work we're running is extreme, so work is a place of intense stress. I'm also trying to find work closer to home due to the previous three issues.

• The reaper outside the door: We've had more friends, acquaintances and extended family either walk up to the chasm of death and lay their toes over the edge, or been snatched by the reaper, and we've been part of the support for the dying or the survivors.
  
• My own health: Not so good, and made much worse by severe stress, which you can see is the only thing I have in abundance. Possibly growing my very own hiatal hernia. Psych counselling to make sure that I don't collapse under the load already present.

In lieu of the bus, you can see that my dance card is full. Hell, I don't even have time to watch a lick of TV with my wife: I've given up all of my favorite programming because there hasn't been a 'day of rest' in half a year.

This does not mean that I have stopped (I haven't) or quit (bite your tongue!) or given up. (Say that again, and there will be blood.) I just don't have time to blog about every little scratch on the project. Here's the omnibus version:

• After going through electrical hell with what I was assured was a good battery, and having bought a new starter, second guessed all of my wiring..come back to find I have a bum cell that wasn't cause by the Autozone eval machine. $90 of new battery sorts that. The calculatus eliminatus process takes 10 weeks though, since I'm wading through everything else (see above) at the same time. The engine turns over.
• New Alternator belt 273k5 or 5pk0690.
• A new Blau fuel filler cap.

If it doesn't sound like much, you're right. It has been a heartbreak to watch others who started years after me out running around in their conversion having fun. When you try to make and document a conversion anyone can do, it is a much higher bar than just scratching your own itch. So I'm trying to give myself some grace there.

So that's where I'm at. What will 2016 bring? I've no idea. Never say, "Things can only get better." Bull. They can always get worse, too.

Instead I choose to say: Let's go see what's over that hill...