GRUNT!

After two (vacation!) days of work, I have got Ferd' into the garage for the winter. This was more of a feat of concentration and 'find a way' than it sounds. The only two parts of me that don't hurt right now are my left big toe and my right ear.

The first order of business was to 'clean' the garage. I wish I could say that my garage is orderly; it is not. It is overflow for the house. Anything my beloved wife deems to be underfoot goes to the garage. In a not-too-big house, that's a lot. Two years ago, a shed was added behind the garage, and promptly filled with the outdoor tool contents of our old shed (Lawn mower, idiot-sticks, etc.) on the assumption that the old shed would come down. It turns out the old shed was still quite useful, even though the doors had been torn off in a hurricane, so the next summer the new shed contents was moved back to it...just in time for my in-laws to come to NJ (for which is am profoundly grateful) and we needed to park some of the items that would not fit in their apartment in the shed. It has only been in the last month that I've been able to use the space in the new shed for the purpose it was constructed: storage of my stuff.

I took all of one day to sort every box, bundle, bag, and bin, consolidating into bins everything that wasn't automotive related. Woodworking tools, saws, fasteners, electrical, plumbing, refinishing...everything into bins and into the shed and packed densely. And during the process I purged three 55 gallon sized garbage cans of 'trash.' Not all of it was, 'garbage' having no use at all. But merely, 'trash-to-me' including items that I no longer needed, and took up too much karmic space and needed to be permanently out of sight so that I could free the mental space they took up keeping track of them. It was miserable work, just above freezing, and raining, and I couldn't safely light the kerosene space heater to take off the chill in the garage because there was too much stuff packed too closely to it.

This picture lies. The actual space before airing down the tires was
minus 1.25 inches. A very tight fit. Note the long lumber at the left wedged
into the frame to hold the roll-up door all of the way open.

After 14 hours of cleaning, I finally had a space to put the bus, and still was held in the jaws of a dilemma: I knew that the bus was too tall to fit through the under-height door of the garage. My original intent was to put the bus on 'wheel dollies,' that are designed to let you push the vehicle around once it is in the garage, rolling it to make the best use of space in a small area. Instead of putting the tires up on these as designed, I was going to lift the vehicle, remove the wheels and set the brake discs and drums right down in the wheel dollies, which would shave off 6 inches minimum and still make it easy to move.

Then I got screwed over the cost of the Wheel Dollies. What was an online price was not the store price. You can't ship these things, they weight 25 lbs apiece. In addition, I read that the models that I was considering (Harbor Freight, no surprise) were rugged but that the casters were garbage and did not roll easily because they didn't even have bearings in the wheels! So that left me without a solution. A friend at work (who has watched the project with interest, even though VWs are not his thing) suggested letting air out of the tires until it would fit through. Stuck without any other solution, I decided to pursue this.

There was still one issue left to come out. I woke in the middle of the night before I was going to begin preparations with the feeling that I was missing something, and then I realized what it was and groaned. The bus was currently 'tail in.' Rolling it directly into the garage wouldn't work if I were to try to remove the engine: There would be no space to pull the engine out from under the vehicle, and with the vehicle up on jack stands, it wouldn't be able to roll it forward from over the engine either. The whole bus needed to turned to go in nose first. My back started to ache sympathetically.

A Spirograph turn, backing and forthing.

Late on the second day, I aired up the tires to maximum pressure to lower their rolling resistance, and then K-turned the bus in the driveway (it was more of a Spirograph turn) with much backing and filling, grunting and shoving. Despite my sore carcass, I'm pleased. A year ago I was in a serious car accident that shattered my left collarbone, totaled my car and almost totaled myself. I successfully shoved more than a ton of Bus around by myself in a graded driveway after what had already been two long days of stooping, sorting and carrying heavy bins. But there is a more technical reason to be content: the bus rolled along happily, without any beefing from the bearings or the brakes. This from a vehicle that had sat for a LONG time. Is there a possibility that I might be able to replace the brake hoses, bleed the brakes and they "just work?" Maybe.

It doesn't look that big inside, until you realize that I was pressed against the
opposite wall of the garage just to get the whole vehicle in the frame.
The optics also distort the size, as the camera  field is beginning to fish-eye.

With the Bus ready to take the dive, I aired down the tires and had my wife come out to spot the top of the bus and make sure there were no accidents. I brought my commuter car up behind the bus, and pushed it in, with my wife showing distance between roof and the top of the garage door frame. We cleared with no issues. Once inside, I quickly aired up the tires again, not wanting these ancient rubber skins to separate at the wheel bead and leave the bus unable to roll.

Done, with the sun going down on the second day of a two day break. I came away from the whole affair quite satisfied, not only for having succeeded in making an over-winter working space for the vehicle, but also with myself for having, throughout the two days, made hundreds of judgement calls over what could be put off to another time, and what needed to be done immediately to 'get the bus in.'