Das Volks 2013

I got talked into it.  Really I did.  I decided this year that I am going to do more with the VW community here in Calgary.  This past wekend I went to Das Volks and met up with some great people from the Calgary Club Vee-Dub.  Met up with them on Friday night at Big Rock Brewery for a couple of beers and they convinced me to come to the Show and Shine that was bing held on Saturday. 

My initial thought was that I was just going to park the bus and walk around and look at all the nice VW's, chat with a few of the owners and move on but that wasn't going to happen.  Tracy talked me into forking over my cash and entering the Green Monster.  Having never been at one of these events before I had no idea what to expect. I backed the bus into a shady spot by a tree, opened it up, had a coffee and waited. 

I was amazed by the number of people that were there but about 12:00.  Not just VW's but also all kinds of Euro cars from Alphas to Ferarris.  People would just stop in, say hi and poke their head in your vehicle.  I had a great time chatting with people especially the kids.  They would be amazed that you can climb up on the top bunk and go camping in the little old bus.  It reminded me that a lot of these kids had never seen anything but their family's 5th wheel or Grandpa's big RV.

Awards went out for each category from Air cooled car, Type 1, Type 2, Mark 1 - 4 and so on.  As I was chit-chatting with one guy who stopped by I hear my name on the PA system.  I made my way up to the front and much to my shock, I had won for my category.  I'll post pictures of the award later as it's still sitting in the bus. 

As they day wore on people came and went and it seems that everyone had a story about their time in a VW bus.  Some were stories of how they uesed to go camping in them as kids and others were cross country treks that they did as they just were heading into adulthood.  I feel priviledged that these strangers shared a little slice of their life with me. 

Overall a great day.  A big THANK YOU to everyone who stopped by. 

 

http://youtu.be/J4HRGMZKmLM

 

 

Camper Jam 2013 - I'm in!

Just forked over my $75 to reserve my spot at this years Camper Jam.  I have no idea what I am getting myself into (again) but what the hell right?   Don't get me wrong I fully expect to have a great time but have no idea what goes on at these events.  I suppose I should have gotten off my ass earlier and gone in 2012 or even 2011 for that matter. 

Are we all going to sit around the campfire, holding hands and singing Kumbya?

You know in a way I kinda hope we do.  I remember as a kid sitting around a fire singing.  I was never lucky enough though to have that cute girl sit beside me and hold my hand but maybe this is the year!

It's weird, I don't have expectations, but I kinda do.  Bottom line is that I think it'll be fun and I'll come away from the weekend with some new friends and I'll smell like wood smoke. 

I'll have to do some digging but maybe I'll see if i can find my old "Jarts", or Lawn Darts.  What a great game, we'll just have to keep the kiddies away.  I have to laugh because I remember as a kid watching my parents play this with their friends in the back yard at a Sunday afternoon BBQ.  What a great idea having your friend throw weighted metal darts your way while teetering back and forth trying not to spill their beer...  Ah, the good times that were had. 

Here...hold my beer and watch this....

Snow again!

I think the weather has finally turned here in Calgary andwe have seen the last of the snow. Famous last words right?  I wantit to warm up but the sad reality in Canada is that we will likely get anotherdump of snow probably right around the May long weekend. That said the forecastfor the balance of this week actually looks good.  In the mid-teens and sunny throughSaturday.  For my American readers whohaven’t quite caught up to the rest of the World with the Metric system takethe temperature in Celsius and multiply by 1.8 and then add 32 which will giveyou the conversion.  So ( 15 Celsius x 1.8) + 32 is 59 Fahrenheit. 

 

Off I go on a tangent, don’t get me wrong I am not slammingthe imperial system… but it really makes conversions way more difficult than itneeds to be 

 

12 Inches = 1 Feet

5280 Feet or 63360 Inches  = 1 Mile

 

Oh and you use FRACTIONS of Inches.  Think back to your grade school math andremember how much you loved adding and subtracting fractions.  You didn’t did ya?

 

100 Centimeters in a 1 Meter

1000 Meters to a Kilometer 

 

Everything is base 10…makes adding and converting WAYeasier. 

 

To be honest I still struggle with the bus and the speedometerand odometer because of the miles and mph. More than once I caught myself ripping through a playground or schoolzome going 30 MPH not 30 KPH ( about 18 mph). Just glad Officer White wasn’t around to hand me a ticket.  

 

I’m hopeful that we have seen the last of the snow untilnext winter and I can take the bus out for a spin this week. 

 

Snow again in Calgary... will it ever end

Well damn it.  Calgary got about a 2 inch dump of snow last night. I keep looking forward to weekends so I can take the bus out for a cruise but I keep on getting dissapointed with the weather. 

A former co-worker of mine bought a Delorian last year and man does it look great. I think we are going to try and go for a drive together and maybe re-create the chase scene with the Libyans.  If you aren't sure which scene I'm talking about here is a link to the Youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPeHFDxKUP4

As i sit here the snow is still falling in Calgary and the forecast for the week doesn't look.  DAMN.  Well hopefully I can get into the van next week, clean her out and get her ready for the coming camping season. 

Oh, and I found a place in Calgary that actually works metal when it comes to body work and they look not too bad.  I might take the Monster in and get a couple of things touched up. 

Camper Jam 2013

Well the location and dates have been set for this years VW Camper Jam.  I missed last year AND the year before.  Not going to miss this year.  I'll probably hit it on my way back from Seattle.  Wow thats a lot of miles on the old bus.  Hopefully she'll hold up.  If you are at all interested and want to check out the page, here is the link to the Facebook page that was created for it. 

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=tn_tnmn#!/events/531626200201491/

Other than looking forward to the road tirp this year, I'm jsut stitting here looking out the window wishing the snow would melt ;so I can take out the Bus.  I did manage to finally get my copy of The Bus movie but haven't had time to watch yet.  Hopefully I'll get to it next weekend. 

I did pick up one of these for my camping adventures this year

http://www.gizmag.com/mr-quicksplit-kindling-maker/25385/

I tended to get frustrated last year as I would use up all the small bits of wood for the initial fire, then be left with nothing to light subsequent fires.  Not this year though.  This little device will help me split all the kindling I need.  Fun times ahead. 

That's it for this update.  In the meantime, think warm thoughts so the snow will melt and i can get out in the bus.

New Canvas

Well, I have been lax this year in updating the blog.  My apologies, if anyone is still reading of course.  A couple of things to get you up to speed.  I can’t remember if I mentioned this previously but the canvas in the pop top ripped earlier this year.  Not a huge deal but it was big enough that I had to slap some gorilla tape on it to keep it from ripping further. 

 

I ordered a new hemp blend canvas from gowest.com  It was a little pricey but I figured I wanted something that was durable, going to last and that was going to fit.  The canvas arrived a couple of weeks ago.  I called up my friend Matt and asked to see if he was up for some Westy work.  Thankfully he was up for it do I threw some beers in the cooler, grabbed my tools and headed out to Cochrane, AB to replace the canvas. 

Once I got there we got down to business.  We cracked a couple of beers and took a look at how to tackle this job. It seemed easy enough.  There was a gasket at the bottom of the canvas that was easily removed by taking out the Phillips head screws.  Then it was on to the tough part.  Taking off the top.  Let me say this for anyone thinking about replacing a canvas on the Westy pop-top… it can be done with 2 people but really taking that top off and putting it back on it a 4 person job.  Seeing as it was just Matt and me, we kept calm and soldiered on. 

We undid the bolts that held it at the top then went to work on the brackets that held it on at the bottom.  It was a little tricky with the bracket of the bottom due the strange angles and confined space but we managed. 

Once the top was off we took the old canvas off and went to work with our handy dandy staple gun attaching the new one.  Once we got the new canvas attached to the top we went about putting it back on the bus.  That was the hard part where having 4 people would have made a world of difference.  We got the top back on and all the brackets secured and went to work securing the bottom of the canvas to the bus. 

Overall it went fairly well.  Friday, I headed out to Dinosaur Trail Provincial park for a weekend of camping with a shiny new canvas. 

Busy weekend kinda…

 

Well on Saturday I was supposed to meet up with a friend and help him work on his bus but Mother Nature conspired against us and dropped snow in the Calgary / Cochrane area.  From what I understand Cochrane wasn’t too bad, but I had over 6 inches in my back yard.  Needless to say we put it off for a bit.  He’s in the process of putting in a new engine that will leave me in the dust.  I’ll be struggling to go up a hill without losing speed and he’ll be gearing down and actually ACCELERATING up the hill.  It’s the journey not the destination right?  RIGHT?!? 

He’s  also in the process of selling his other bus.  It’s a 1967 and it’s sweet.  Check it out.  If you’re interested drop him a line. 

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1292790

On Sunday I participated in Calgary’s 45^th annual pathway and River cleanup.  There was a group of divers that went in the river and braved the current pulling up trash from the river.  We had everything from cans and bottles to knives and a little model of a Hindu temple… seriously.   All in all we pulled about 500KG out of the river.  It’s amazing that in this day and age people still think it’s okay to litter.  Smokers are the worst… there were hundreds if not thousands of butts.

The blurb on the diving starts at about 5:16 on the video.  Check it out. 

http://www.globaltvcalgary.com/video/news+hour+may+6/video.html?v=2231586390

I of course had the Green Monster out for this.  Besides being fun to drive it was a great vehicle for getting geared up in scuba gear.  All in all a great day out on the river, even though it felt like being in a washing machine sometimes and my buddy twisted his ankle.  Hopefully Donnie takes it easy this week and gets some frozen peas on it and he’ll be ready to go when Lake Minnewanka opens up and we can camp and dive.  Good times!!!

Invasion of busses planned May 5th

Wow, what a dump of snow yesterday.  It kinda sets the invasion of the busses and bugs on the streets of Calgary back a little bit.  Probably only a few days though.  Speaking of an invasion, if you are reading this and in the Calgary / Southern Alberta area mark May 5^th @ 2:00pm on your calendar.  Thinking of an informal get together / flash mob of busses at Mckay’s ice cream in Cochrane, AB.   I’m just putting the word out now and I don’t know who or how many will show up but I think it’s be kind of cool to have an army of busses show up at a Southern Alberta landmark for an afternoon.  I’ll keep you posted as to level of interest and how it all works out.   Posted it on the local VeeDub club forum. 

http://www.clubveedub.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45721

Other than that, not much is going on this week.  I’m heading to Vancouver for a couple of days for work and in a really geeky kind of way I’m hoping to see some busses while I’m there.  I’ll take my camera and post pictures if I happen to see any. 

Pleasure, pain and click…

Who knew something that is so much fun can be so frustrating.    I went down to the registry a couple of days ago and re-newed the plates for the Green Monster.  It was a beautiful spring day, I had just seen the first Robin of the year, it was a balmy 14 degrees.  It was time.  After a long winter in hibernation it was time to get the van rolling.  I put the little sticker in the bottom right hand corner of the license plate  and I was good to go.  I have to admit I was a little excited as I put the key in and turned for the first time.    It took a couple of cranks as the fuel worked its way through the system and the engine started quickly and easily. 

I backed it out of the drive way and hit the road.  Not much of a drive but enough to work out any of the winter stiffness.  It was great cruising down Deerfoot at 100kph watching the world rip past me .   After about a 45 minute drive I headed home. 

The next morning I had a couple of errands to run so I thought I’d take the van out.  Perfect.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing etc, etc, etc.  I decided on the way home that I’d stop at the gym.  Once I was done I headed out to the van with a big grin on my face knowing that cruising the afternoon away would be my reward for working my ass off at the gym.  I put the key in, turned it and “Click”.  Click…. WTF ?!?  It was running great about an hour ago and now “click”?  Not even engine cranking but click…. SIGH.  Tried push starting it, tried a boost but nothing….. click.

So knowing I didn’t have the time or the tools ( yet) to replace the starter I had it towed.  I know I am going to get shit from one of my friends for this.  He’s going to tell me that we could have done this ourselves and he’s  probably right.   So at the very least the a rebuilt starter is going to be about $200 

http://store.concept1.ca/store/product/53345/Bosch-Rebuilt-Starter-T2-72-79/

So, yes it’s in the shop, and yes I’m gonna have to pay for it (again) and yes my friend is going to give me shit for it.   No estimate yet but I’m hopeful that it’s not going to be too bad.  I’ll keep you posted. 

The summer winds down

I had a gentle reminder from a friend that I have been remiss in my blogging duties.  He was right.  I havent posted anything in a while and for that I appologize.  

I haven't really done much with the Westy recently since I have been on the road for work.  Actually as I write this I am in Thunder Bay.  I will be back soon and I'llbe taking the Westy into the autobody shop to get and estimate on the body and paint work that needs to be done from the door falling off. 

To be honest, I have been reuctant to take the Westy out because of the door.  I don't want to be out somewhere either diving or camping and have to door come off and not be able to get it back on.  I don't want to give up on camping this year but I might have to face that reality.   I really hope that I can get the door fixed, painted and it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg to do it.  I also hope that it doesn't snow for a while because I want to go out diving and camping still. 

Well I'll keep you posted and I WILL post some pictures of the damage from the door coming off when I get back.  

500 hits and counting

Well, I had assumed that no one was really reading this but I took a look at the stats and found that sometime last week I topped 500 page views.  Overall not too bad.  I had originally started this as a way to keep track of what I am doing with my Westy so years from now I can look back and admire all of my many accomplishments.  Some interesting things from the stats…

USA – 254 page views

Canada 207 page views

Malaysia – 10 page views

Germany – 7 page views

Austria 5 page views

Then there’s a handful of other places that have 4 or less views… the strangest place Russia.  I didn’t think that there were that many VW fans in Russia.

This weekend coming up I am going to head to Two Jack Lake for camping.  I’ll drag out the camera and telescope too and hopefully I have clear skies and good weather.  I’ll keep you posted.

Vent Windows

I need to add latches to my front vent windows.  You know those little triangular ones.  I know there are a few threads on thesamba.com about this so I’ll do the research and see if I can get them in sometime next week.  I got the latches yesterday from an online supplier for about $10 so I am happy and ready to tackle this small repair. 

I was looking online at classifieds on thesamba.com and had some guy respond.  Wow, he needs to take a chill pill.  He had both windows (complete) and they were in decent shape.  His asking price for them however was $125 for the pair plus $50 shipping.  Let me rewind a little bit here.  He send me a message on 08/03 saying that I was “2nd in line and the other guy didn't pay yet. If you want them send your address for shipping costs. I accept PayPal. If you Pay right away I will delete the ad and send the first guy an email telling him they are sold. If you want to call me my # is 909-396-XXXX.  Let me know.” 

It seemed a little fishy to me that he already had a buyer but if I paid him first he’d let me have them and tell the other guy to bugger off.  I asked how much shipping would be to me in Canada…” I'm sure its $50 to ship so the total is $175 box will be big and a little heavy PayPal is barimanXXXX@aol.com sorry I sent the wrong phone # it 909-496-XXXX Let me know I just checked the the other guy didn't pay”.

This is all in the span of a couple of hours.  Talk about impatient. 

So yesterday I was busy and believe it or not, I didn’t check my email and he sends me this…”So now  you won't answer my emails. Don't bother replying to any of my ads. I won't ship any of my parts to you”   

Seriously?  24 Hours and this guy loses his marbles and tells me that he won’t ship to me, ever.  Seems a little harsh doesn’t it?  Well I sent him a cheery email this morning thanking him for the information and that I’ll pass on these parts but it seems to me that this guy is just on the site to make some cash.  He really didn’t have the helpful, friendly attitude that I have encountered in other forums or when asking questions on the site.  Oh, well I guess a guy like this will reap what he sows. 

On a completely unrelated note I drove the Westy to work yesterday and as I was waiting at the lights at Southland and 14^th street a beautiful older beige bug pulls up beside me.  The guy rolls down his window and says “nice bus”.  I give him a smile and a thanks and compliment him on his bug.  It was in amazing condition.  I’d love to take a close look at it so he gave me the street that he’s on in the neighbourhood so I’ll take a cruise by later in the week and see if I can get a couple of pictures to post up here.  It was kinda cool having a couple of vintage VWs sitting side by side at the same stop light.  We were getting a lot of looks from other motorists.  I had to laugh at myself as the light turned green.  He gave me a wave and rather than wave back I flashed him the ‘peace sign’. Duuude.

Weekend in Drumheller

Well I survived the camping weekend.  In all honesty it wasn’t that bad.  I left Calgary a little later than I wanted as I had really hoped to avoid some of the “weekender” traffic.   No such luck.  Actually There was a huge thunder storm bearing down on highway #2 North of Calgary.  Right at about Airdre the skies opened up and the rain came, then the hail. Golf ball sized hail.   Luckily it wasn’t the really hard kind of hail that dents the crap out of everything but the kind that makes a lot of noise but no damage.  It was one of those storms that whipped in and out in a matter of a few minutes.   Over all the storm wasn’t that bad but it did leave a crap load of water and ice on the road and spawned a bunch of tornado watches for the area. 

The traffic on the #2 got backed up a little bit and I didn’t get to the campground until just after 6:00.  As you can see we got a primo location right by the porta-potty.  Luckily it didn’t smell.

The kids pretty much sorted themselves out in terms of sleeping arrangements and no drama.  All in all a good time was had by all.  We managed to visit the Royal Tyrell as well as Horseshoe Canyon. 

On another note I was down by the A&W last week on a Wednesday and there were a bunch of vintage cars there.  One of them actually came over and flagged me down.  They talked me into coming over and have a look as well as park the Westy in with them.  Since I really didn’t have anything else going on I stayed for a bit and popped the top.  I was amazed at how many random people came over to have a look and check out the Westy… here are a few pictures.

Camping weekend

I was corresponding with a pal of mine who has been having trouble with his bus lately.  He had purchased a new engine for it, installed it but for some reason couldn’t get it running properly.  As it turns out there were a couple of screws that had fallen into the engine and toasted a couple of his pistons.  Kind of a pain in the ass.  He managed to borrow an engine from a pal of his and got it installed and it runs, in his words, “like a top”.  Good news since he’s heading camping with the family this weekend.

He said something interesting to me in one of our emails in reference to my post about the Westy I ALMOST bought.. that I am going to re-post here (with his permission of course).  I am going to edit out names but otherwise these are his words:

 It’s funny how these old things usually have ties to family memories whether it be directly or indirectly.  I think that’s what gives them their vibe and draws people to them.  I remember taking my son on his first camping trip in the Westy when he was 4 months old.  That was before I knew a thing about busses and I packed up the family and just drove.  It was a great fly by the seat of your pants trip and we had an amazing time.  I also remember driving it home in the middle of the night after holding my Grandma’s hand as she died.  I look at the memories I’ve had with the old machine and think of everyone else’s contributions over the last 45 years (51 in Mango’s case) and it’s pretty cool.  At the end of the day, they’re just hunks of metal but I’m convinced they do hold onto the vibe of their previous owners.  We’re just the stewards of them for a couple a brief period of time.  Each repair you do, each camping trip you take, it all adds to the coolness.

I thought this was very profound… Think about all t he stuff that you have done to your bus and all that has been done before you. Each bus keeps a little of the character of the previous owners and we are just the caretakers for the small time that we have them before we pass it on to someone else.  Very cool.  Thanks for that!

Well I am all packed up and ready to go for my camping weekend out in Drumheller.  It should be fun as there are going to be 9 of us all total and hopefully no drama..  I’ll take some pictures and post them on Monday or Tuesday when I get back. 

Have a safe weekend.

The Westy I ALMOST Bought

Back when I was contemplating making the jump into the world of Westys I had a couple criteria.  One, the Westy had to mechanically sound.  As I have mentioned previously I am not THAT mechanically inclined but I am reading “How to keep your VW alive” among others to learn.  I didn’t want to get something that I had to dump a lot of money into right away (hahaha…if you only saw the bills so far). The other criteria is that the body and interior had to be good to…again see reasons above. 

Indulge me as I take a walk down memory lane a little bit here…  I remember as a kid my Dad went to a car auction and came home with a 65 Corvair convertible.  Understand my Dad was always fascinated by older cars and was a bit of a gear head even though he never seemed to have the time or the money to spend working on a classic car. The first few years we took it out in the summers for the day but overtime it didn’t get used that much and spent more time under a tarp than on the road.  Just after Easter he passed away suddenly and I went back to Winnipeg.  I can’t remember which website this one was on but it was located in St.Andrews, Manitoba which is just outside of Winnipeg.  So while I was in Winnipeg dealing with family stuff I took a day (because I needed it!) and went to look at this Westy.

Overall it was in decent shape and had about 65000 original miles on it.  There was some road wear on it but not too bad.  I wasn’t keen on the configuration inside but everything was original.  One thing that scared the bejeezus outta me was that it had basically been sitting in a garage for the past several years and nothing had been done to the engine.  So not only would I have to get an out of province inspection done on it but I would have to figure a way to get my car as well as someone to drive the Westy 1400+ kilometers back to Calgary (that’s about 870 miles for you Yanks btw).  My sister offered to drive it out West but I couldn’t do that to her. 

Here are the pictures of what would, I’m sure be the Orange Monster…  I'm sure my Dad would have loved my Green Monster. :)