Engine Update & more screens!

The wonderful Moonie who is re-doing my engine has been updating a post on the Full Moon Bus Club's website along the way. Click here if you'd like to check it out, this is the tech section of the site with my engine rebuild in its own topic; which he keeps updating with photos of new work he has done.
The engine had not been rebuilt 30K miles before my purchase as stated by the guy who sold it to me. I had assumed it hadn't been rebuilt anyways, so turns out I was right. From what 'bear'( the moonie who is working on Lenny's engine) has told me I am surprised we made it to California and back~ and we "were very brave" says Bear.  All sorts of pins and even nails had been jerry-rigged in there, and the cylinder heads ended up being so bad we had to buy new ones.  Now Lenny is going to ride like a champ!  Now its time to get the rest of him in shape along with the engine.
 The engine is starting to come back together~ just waiting for the cylinder heads to come in.
I made screens for the sliding door that open in the middle and magnet shut from the same materials I made the front screens from.  The white is old bedsheets I had, one of them became the outside facing side of the interior curtains.

 I suppose this week I should get a start on sanding the paint back down, working on some of the areas starting to rust again and get that badboy all primed.  Once he is totally primed I plan to draw out the plan for the paint job directly on the primer. 
For now I am doing what I can and keeping my fingers crossed we can have him on the road soon~ it would be a nice birthday present for me. :)

Window screens & engine delivery

I made some screens for the driver's side windows from mesh "curtains" I had in an old house, old sheets, and super magnets. They are a bit smaller than I would have liked, but they do fit very snug.
We delivered the engine today, we are so happy to know its in very good hands. This man has worked on Vws for 45 years and in that time has only had 10 engines come back to him. Our friend who is storing Lenny for us and who took the engine out has also been doing some body work and can also help us with everything else we are doing. Lenny is finally going to be in the tip top shape he deserves!

Engine out~ Tranny lookin' gooood

In other news~
Our GMC Sonoma hit 200,000 miles today! Still runnin' strong and delivered Lenny's engine. We couldn't have done it without "the blue room!"

Back to the grind

The engine is out. Wednesday we are shooting to drop that bad boy off at the mechanics shop. It will take about 3-4 weeks for the rebuild. In the meantime we are going to get Lenny into top shape while we are at it. His transmission is good, his gas tank is clean, and breaks worked on last summer/ except the E-break.
Luckily this time the Bus is stored with a mechanic who has done plenty of work on VWs and loves to tinker around, and especially loves Lenny. Yesterday he said "I want to straighten up those crooked headlights so bad I can taste it." I said, "Go for it!!" Since Trey and I only have 2 days off a week it will be a lot of help for someone else to do some of the work.
I am kicking around the idea of a new paint job. I don't like how I painted him in matte colors last time, I would prefer a nice shine. Also since it was just a spray paint job there are spots flaking off, runs, and now areas with black from the countless dirty mechanics hands that have touched him recently.

I have seen painted buses done by Kenneth Mitchell while researching Buses two years back during the first "restoration." Then last year he came down to Charleston and painted my friend Snoopy's Bus "Wanderlust"(RIGHT). Ken had described his process under one of his photos, which I have saved. Seeing how beautifully his painted buses turn out, it really makes me want to paint Lenny in a similar fashion. So I've been playing around with different themes, but haven't come up with anything yet. I am leaning towards doing a variation of the paint job he has now though..
Ken has also done a paint job on the canvas of the pop top for a Vanagon I have seen. He isn't sure how long it will last though. That's given me the idea of doing a faded henna style design on the inside of my canvas, so that when our inside light shines through at night, you can see the design on the outside. I am going to look more into henna paints, but that is probably the very last item on the list.