Goodies for the road

This time around we have more experience under our belts heading out.  On our last trip we typically ate instant mashed potatoes with canned veggies, easy mac&cheese, and assorted pastas. 
This time we are traveling in the summer, so we plan to visit local farmers markets very regularly, and roadside produce stands.  I shop at the local farmers market here and for $5 you can get quite a few days worth of vegetables and fruit.  I am so ready for watermelon season! 
I've made 8 quart jars of different batches of granola~ even two chocolate varieties to satisfy my sweet tooth.  I have a great article I tore out of an Oprah magazine with directions to make popular varieties of granola or where to buy if you don't like to DIY.  Its very simple though, just rolled oats, honey, canola oil and various nuts and/or dried fruit of your choice.  Instead of honey you can use maple syrup (amazing!!) or agave nectar... and add a bit of molasses to help make clusters.
I found this recipe for making condensed tomato soup, and I followed the suggestion of a commenter who omitted the butter & flour and just blended the tomatoes up and cooked again a bit longer.  I ended up canning 12 jars of it and had a batch for dinner.  Just like store bought, you mix one part tomato soup and one part milk, water, or broth.  If adding milk I think you have to add some baking soda to keep the milk from curdling, but I add broth or water.  The texture was a bit off and could have benefited from another go in the blender, but Trey loved it and he doesn't like the store bought kind.
 Trey made a huge batch of tomato sauce which we canned 11 jars of  it.  Last year we ended up using cheap jars of sauce which usually had strange ingredients in it.  I went to Costco and bought 3 huge jars (like the ones restaurants use) of dice tomatoes and tomato sauce for only $3.50 each.  When factoring in price of jars each one was about a dollar or so to make.  Not bad, and its ingredients are only tomatoes, onions, extra virgin olive oil and some spices-we can add more spice when heating up.

Engine is done and ready for pickup

I got word today that the engine is complete!  Tomorrow we plan to pick it up and bring it to our mechanic to put in this week for us.  Also tomorrow we plan to drop the fuel tank and install our new fuel sender.  I  bought a rebuild kit for the shifter so if there is daylight tomorrow I can work on that.
Once the engine is in, we must "break it in." Below iare the complete instructions given to me by Bear~

"remember it must have oil put in it, and when you first start it, run it at 2000 / 2500 for at least 15 minutes, if at anytime you have to stop before the 15 minutes are up, you have to start over, once this is done, let the engine cool for a hour, then set the timing to 7.5, now it is time to break in the rings, do the speeds four times and let the engine back down slowly, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. Now you can drive the van up to 55 MPH, put 300 miles on it, driving around where ever you want, then change the oil and filter, now you are good to go for 1000 miles, not exceeding 60 MPH, once this is done be nice to the engine but you can go faster, Remember hills will burn up your engine, so take it easy climbing them. I would recommend a CHT and a OIL TEMP set up on it and use it Max head temp is 450F and max oil temp is 230F any oil temp over 250F you are doing damage to the engine. 450F is the max for the heads, any amount of time above this could damage the engine.  Remember, this engine has no oil in it, put in 3 QTs, run the engine it's 15 minutes, then top it up to the top line."

We are so excited to be on the road in less than one week from now!  Then only a few more weeks of saving and preparing and are off to the Western Wilderness once again. 

Storage lid re-do

Yesterday I painted the lids to what use to be our refrigerator; now a wonderful storage space. Here we keep our clothes because its easier to dig through than the closet. Today I will be sewing storage bags to hang over the sink area in a bare spot, because i threw out the shoe organizer that held the odds and ends previously. I feel like this will add a bit more space to the cab. I am also in the market for a waterproof storage bag to carry on our luggage rack. Last time we had issues with storage of less used items, and since we reinforced the brackets on the top we can safely carry important items up there. Before we had a 10 gal can of gas we took everywhere, and never used once. Now that we will have a working gas gauge I think a smaller gas can will be sufficient, if we decide to bring one at all. Our roadside assistance policy will send someone out with gas should we run out. I am planning on doing a new paint job. Since my last job was done with just a rattle can, some places are flaking off while others have become stained with all the mechanics hands touching it. At Fire on the Mountain I learned that tractor paint is a great paint to use to paint cars. I was planning on doing a fancy shmancy paint job, all custom and artistic, but since the engine took a month longer we have run out of time... So I may pick out a buttercup color paint after I sand it all down again and prime... Lenny the buttercup, has a nice ring to it. :)

This is what a new engine looks like

The engine is just about complete! Just a few odds and ends and it should be ready for pick up early next week. It looks great and I am sure it will run just as well.  I am also looking into having my mileage counter set back to "0". Apparently our alternator is the wrong size, but our mechanic did some adjustments and now it will work properly.  This explains all of the belt loosening, battery dying and push starting in the past.  Now we won't have that problem. :)

Sprout, a friend of Lenny's, is also having a new engine put in. Apparently to break in the engine for the 1st 600 miles you must drive something like 25mph to 55mph constantly increasing and decreasing between those two points. During this intense few hours of driving you change the oil at 100, 300, and finally at 600 miles to remove any sort of metal shavings that could have fallen in the engine. Sounds like fun!
 This upcoming week we plan to drop the fuel tank, clean it, put in the new sender and tighten the shifter/put in new bushings.   Once the engine is in we will replace the clutch cable and e-break.  Then we shall hit the road for many new adventures! 

Stickers to raise awareness for Myesthenia Gravis

You may remember my visit from Carole & Dexter, who are traveling across the US to bring awareness to an Auto-Immune disease called Myesthenia Gravis. I am doing what I can to help Carole raise gas money to fund her trip back to the East Coast, and to plan for some events she can attend in the fall.  Carole has supplied me with some stickers to sell to help raise funds.  If you are interested in purchasing stickers, please contact me and we can arrange payment via PayPal.  Please add an additional 50 Cents to price for shipping.  Thank you!

Black with White Print 1.5x1.5

2 for $1.00

White with Black Print 3x3 

2 for $3

Color (Oval cut) 4x3

1 for $3 OR 2 for $5 

Links: The Yes We Can journey
VWs working for causes

on a side note, Blogger has come out with a new platform for posting, which I really dislike at the moment.  I hope they can work out the bugs or else I may just need to get on with another blog site...  

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!"