VW Syncro Westfalia - Build Log with Pics

KTM Kirkland wrote:

Man, the work you put into the bus.......and the work needed to post and describe........amazing!

Yea. Considering after up loading 2 pics my patients are gone.

KTM Kirkland wrote:

Man, the work you put into the bus.......and the work needed to post and describe........amazing!

I enjoy tinkering with my hobby vehicles....all part of the fun :-)

Hodakaguy

Ran a flat Cat5 extension up to the front today for the Scangauge II. The flat cable made the run a lot easier as it can slip between areas that a round cable couldn't.




Time to fabricate the mount for the gauge. Started with laying out the design on a piece of aluminum.




Cut out, bent and painted.




I used foam RC servo tape to adhere the Scangauge to the mount, and the mount to the plastic cover where it will be mounted. I tried using Velcro but wasn't happy with how secure it held the gauge. The servo tape is really strong but can be removed with a piece of floss if needed, you just saw through the tape. VHB tape would work well also but would be harder to remove if needed.




And mounted up :-). The gauge is easily readable in this position, is out of the way so it doesn't attract unwanted eyes in parking lots etc and doesn't block anything else.

The Gauge will be a great asset, you can configure it to monitor anything the engine computer is looking at. So you can see real engine temp, RPM's, batt voltage, fuel trims, etc etc. Plus you can use it to scan/clear engine codes as well.








The Scangauge has two options to plug the Cat5 cable into, one on the side and one on the back. The flat cable fits perfectly under the lip of the gauge cluster and comes out right behind the gauge, no drilling necessary!




Hodakaguy

Did a little more work on the panel today. Went to Mikes house and used the lathe to make some stand offs. Tapped them to M6x1.0.




Fabricated a cover to protect the electronics, I added a hole so I can still operate the disconnect with the cover installed. Still need to make the cables from the aux batts to the disconnect/fuse panel and make labels for the switches/fuses.




Here's the end piece that I'm fabricating to hide the fuse panel/electronics from the passenger side. I covered both sides in matching laminate, I think I'll cover the edges with rubber trim for a factory look.




This is where the end piece will go. Once the seat is re-installed all the electronics will be well out of sight.




Hodakaguy

A little more electrical work today. Installed the Yandia Combiner and the house batts under the drivers seat today.

First up...make a bracket to mount the Yandina. Ok...Done and check that off the list.




Now to make up a cover to protect the wiring behind the switch panel, under the sink. Cover marked up....




And bent up ready to mount.




Wiring under the sink.




And with the cover installed. Should keep the wiring safe now, I'll come back later and either powder coat the cover or maybe cover it with a grey contact paper to blend in with the cabinets.




For the batts I went with 4 of the UB12220 22AH units for a combined capacity of 88AH. Today I fabricated the battery cables and ran the wire to the car batt for the Battery Combiner. Just in case anything ever grounds out I added a fuse on the combiner wiring. The batteries are a real snug fit and still allow the battery door to close as normal.




I drilled out the rivets on the batt cover, trimmed the corner where the wires go through and re-attached it with small sheet metal screws instead.




Wired up and power on. You can see the combiner mounted just to the right of the switch panel.

With this setup I'll have either full auto or manual control of the batteries. I have a battery tie switch mounted behind the passenger seat which allows me to run on the auto batt, house batt or both.

If I want full auto control between the two batteries I can leave the combine switch in position #1 and the Aux battery switch/breaker in "ON" on the aux panel. When the car is off the fridge etc will only be running on the aux batts and won't drain the car batt. Once the car is started the combiner will connect both batteries and keep them both charged, again separating them when the car is shut down. If I plug into shore power the onboard charger will start to charge the aux batts, once the combiner detects a high enough voltage it will combine the batts again and the charger will be charging both batts. If I want the charger to only charge the AUX batts and not the car batt then I can flip the lower right switch on the panel which will force the combiner in a "OFF" state and allow charging only on the aux batt.

If the car battery is dead I can get a jump from the AUX batts by switching the combine switch into the "BOTH" position and combine the two banks. I can also run on both banks if needed.






Hodakaguy

Got out for a shake down cruise today with our friends in their Westy. We headed up to Palouse Falls, it's a beautiful area with rolling hills and scenic views around every corner. Both vans ran flawless, Mike had to tighten a shock bolt that didn't get fully torqued but that was it. Put about 250 miles on the rigs today. It was really nice to just stop whenever you want, pop the top and make up some lunch.

Here's a few pics of today's travels.






Mike tightening up a loose shock bolt.


























Had a great time, feels good to be using it now instead of working on it!

Hodakaguy

Went up in the hills today to check out some paragliding...man I'm going to have to try this!

The trail to the top was all poof dust, the Westy is going to need some cleaning after this trip!












Hodakaguy

I was asked for a wiring diagram of my setup. I didn't write anything down when doing the wiring, I had the concept in my head and went with it. I threw this together pretty quick last night by freehand so it's not the best, but it does represent my current wiring. When I get time I'll make up a better diagram.

I'm still going to add a master breaker on the main starter line in case anything ever shorts to ground from the tie switch back, as it sits now if anything shorted I could throw both switches to off and kill all vehicle power...if I'm in the vehicle when it happened. I'll also be adding Solar in the future as well.

The setup includes:
Yandina C100 Battery Combiner (The forced off for the Yandia is ran to a switch on the switch panel, this allows charging of only the aux batts on shore power)
Genius 10A Onboard Charger
Blue Sea 50A Breaker/Dissconnect (Used to disconnect Aux bank from Aux Batts)
Blue Sea Fuse Panel
Aux Batts (4 - UB12220 AGM 22AH Batts, 88AH Capacity Total). I would prefer a single AGM batt instead for reliability reasons...we'll see how the UB12220 batts hold up).
Car Battery (Duracel Group 48 AGM 70AH Batt)
Blue Sea Switch Panel (Allows individual control of each circuit seperatly)
3 Way Battery Master Switch
50A Maxi Fuse Holder x2 (Used on each end of the Yandina in case the cross over wire ever shorts out.
Wire used is Tinned Marine Wire (Available on ebay here: http://www.ebay.com/sch/genuinedealz/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686)




Hodakaguy

Just returned home from a 1600 mile trip to the Redwoods with our friends the Shaffer's.  We had a great time and got to see a ton of cool sights along the way.  The kids had a great time, both vans ran great and the weather was perfect.  Can't wait to do it again! 

Here's some pics from the trip. 

A overview of our route from my trusty Garmin Montana GPS.




Setting up first nights camp. 




A TON of room available and some dill hole comes in late and parks super  close to Mike's van....then proceeds to get out and argue with his wife over how to set up the tent.  I think I would have got out and had words with them if they were parked next to my van.

Took these shots the next morning. 








Rollin through Portland on our way to the Evergreen Air & Space Museum.




The Spruce Goose....yeah yeah I know there isn't any Spruce in it :-)  This baby is so big it looks fake even when your standing there looking at it in person!




Mike trying out the Giant RC Simulator in the kids section.  It was a blast!




Ryan pointing to the "RYAN Aircraft Company" Spirit of St Luis.




Camp set up at Beverly Beach State Park in OR.  We'll be driving 101 down to CA.  The Fanchers wrap worked great on the top, helped keep the heat in which lets the Propex run less and kept the top nice and dry in the one rainy nights camp we had on the trip. 




Relaxing in the Westy.




Kids loved the beach.




Watching a evening movie together in the Westy.




Rollin down 101 :-)




Group shot in the shark tubes at the Newport Aquarium.




Another Nights camp :-)




Cooking Dinner.  New York steaks on the Biolite grill and fried taters and onions......YUMMMM!  On a side note the Biolite drill works awesome!  I carry a small box of hickory chunks to use as fuel and carry the grill in the top case in the luggage rack.  We used it just about every night on the trip...great portable grill for the westy :-)






Another awesome beach with lots of tide pools etc.  Kids had a blast here.






Rollin along again :-)




Stopped at the Prehistoric Gardens along 101 to see the Dinosaurs.  Another popular stop with the kids :-)   Had to post the Westy's with the Trex




This looked like a cool stop...but it was closed.  Still made for a cool photo op :-).  I wonder how they got it up this far onto land. 




Next stop, the Trees of Mystery.  This is a great place to check out the Redwoods and see some cool sights. You also get to ride the gondola up to the top of the mountain and see the Redwoods from above.  And of course...more Westy photo ops :-)






Giant Redwood.



Sky Car ride. 






Catching some waves at Ocean World




And hanging with the locals :-)




HUGE trees.....Awesome! 




Redwoods Shark?




Nope...Just a Vanagon :-)




Stopped at a Glass Shop in Grants Pass OR, the kids got to help blow their own ornaments.  They loved it!








Mikes wine rack....who needs a extinguisher anyways lol.




Looked down and noticed the van rolled over to 50K...had to snap a pic :-)




Crater Lake...7K ft.  We got snowed and hailed on the way down. 








More Steaks...Yummmm.....




Checking out the Bend Lava River Cave.  Pretty cool!




Top of the Cinder Cone.






Great State Camp Ground....put out the hammock, kids loved it.  You can see the drivers headlight fogged up, once home I cleaned the lens out and sealed the rubber boot around the bulb, shouldn't be a problem now. 




Marshmallow gun fights :-)




Awesome views! 




I think this is my new favorite pic of the bus :-)



Happy Westy Driver :-)




The Westy worked beautifully on the trip.  By a couple nights in we had our routine down and everything went smoothly transforming from driving to camping.  The Propex is AWESOME!  A few of the nights were very cold and we were nice and warm in the Westy set at 75 deg :-).  The Propex didn't seem to have any effect on the fridge even when running a lot, the fridge stayed nice and cool and we stayed nice and warm :-).  A few of the sites had power and we plugged in, letting the onboard charger keep the batts topped off all night.  Even without a charger the batts did great with the
propex fridge running, although we were driving quite a bit each day to keep everything all charged up.

Can't wait to head out again on another trip!

Hodakaguy

Well we have almost 4K miles on the Syncro since it's been back on the road, It's been running great and problem free!  We've been on several camping trips with it since the redwoods trip, just this weekend my Father, my son and I did another 650 miles going to the Arlington Airshow and back.  :-)

The more I use this van the more I like it!  I really love the size of the van, it lets you go anywhere a normal car would go plus you have all the benefits of having your home with you at all times.  Being able to make your meals whenever your hungry or take a nap whenever you want it great!  Can't wait to head out again soon!  

Here's a few shots from this weekends trip.  

We left home and headed for the air show hoping to get a space in the RV camping section, in years past they have been full.  We arrived and found a lot of open spaces, Sweeeet!  They had a few spaces open in the first row, best seats in the house for the airshow!  We held a space next to us for our friends that were going to arrive later that night.  Another westy was already camping a few rows over, after talking to them they moved down to Westy row...sweet a Westy camp out!  




We were right at the end of the taxi way so all the planes coming in and out of the show taxied right past us....Oh yeah!




Globe Swift performing in the airshow.




Now that's what a roof rack is for!  




P-51 and P-47  doing a fly by.  Man the sound was awesome!  




Taxing back in behind the Westy's.  This P-51 flew three sorties on D-day in WW2!  




My son getting ready to take his first airplane ride...in a 1929 New Standard Biplane!  He loved it!  The first words he said when we landed...."That was Awesome!". :-)














Hey...there's our Westy's down there!  




Giant gas powered RC tank!




Ryan checking out the scale town where the RC tanks were doing battle throughout the day.  




Someones home made non running art bike.  It's for sale....$150K lol.  




Cool half track being restored.  




Breakfast time!





Watching the airshow.  




Took Steven's pass on the way back home, stopped in Levenworth to stretch and enjoy some good food :-)




Hodakaguy

Just had a Subie powered westy in the shop !

Time to get back to working on the Syncro! I have several more projects that I want to add still....Safari roof rack with extra lighting, back up flood lights, Snorkle Intake system with Donalson Filter assy, and Rock Sliders. First up.....Rock Sliders.

I like the looks of the Das Mule rock sliders but decided to fabricate my own. I will be replicating the Das Mule setup and adding my own twists to their design. Not only will the rock sliders offer protection for the lower rocker panels but they will provide a strong secure jacking point which will be nice with the lifted height of the Bus.

Here's a picture off the net of the Das Mule Sliders...Nice!




First up...purchase the materials. Made a trip to the local steel supply this morning and picked up some 2x2 square tubing 3/16" thick, some 1.25" seamless 1/4" thick tubing, and some 2" x 3/16" flat bar. This setup will be nice and stout!




Next I cut the two pieces of tubing to the right length and then laid out the ends for cutting.




Ends Cut






Cutting the end caps, still in rough form here.




End Cap welded in place.








More to come....

Hodakaguy

Where's the UHMW wear strips?  THose look rugged!