It’s pretty obvious that I’ve fallen behind in both progress on my bus and on this blog. It seems that in part I haven’t been progressing because I end up visiting with friends and family when I travel to work on it and also in part because it’s cold in that garage. I’ve thought about a space heater, but there are certain dangers that come with using one in a confined space with various chemicals.

So far since September I’ve:

• pulled the engine and wrapped it up until I deal with the oil leaks
• pulled the gas tank, drained it, and have it stored with a POR15 refurb kit for when the time comes
• got a new wiring harness from Bob Novak at wiring works.. yet to install it
• Pulled out the old hardlines and installed a whole new kit from wolfsburg west
• Installed new rear axle seal kits on both rear axles
• refilled the reduction gear boxes with 0.25L of 90w gear oil
• Drained the transmissions gear oil and cleaned out a medium amount of gunk (no metal chunks) from the drain plugs
• POR15’d the drum brake backing plates
• media blasted the engine compartments rusty areas (battery tray, above the driver side rear wheel well, and the slot for the engine seal) and painted with some silver Eastwood rust encapsulator spray paint. If I had a larger air compressor I’d have done the whole thing, so I focused on the really bad areas. Everything is solid so far.
• got a set of notched rear cargo door rods from a 56 bus off of http://thesamba.com for cheap
• degreased various areas under the car especially around the transmission and reduction gear boxes, which were totally caked with a thick gear oil and dirt mixture.

So looking back I have gotten quite a bit done, just not what I expected to do over the last 11 weekends.