Due to arrive soon

[94touring]

I'll open it if going slow but definitely not at highway speeds.

[94touring]

Day 2 completed.  Highest temp today was 82.  Went from about 2500 feet up to 7100.  Some areas 55mph was all she had.

[MiniDave]

So, where are you tonight? Do you hotel it on your travel nights so you can get a shower and a cool night's sleep?

[94touring]

Staying in Pinedale Wyoming tonight.  Could have easily made it the whole way to Yellowstone today but didn't want to feel rushed. We can take our time getting up there in the morning. Using hotel points since I collect them at work.

[94touring]

Just got home after 3500 maintenance free miles!  Well one maintenance item, the left rear driving bulb needed twisted a smidge to make contact.  Today was an ass kicker at about 13 hours driving time with about 9 of that in 100-105 degree weather.  Stopped into Longmont Colorado for a mini door for this one customer car at my shop, then swung down to Aurora to get flares for Dave.  This was the first big trip with accurate cylinder head temp gauge hooked up under #2 plug while the other was left in #3 for comparison purposes.  Engine runs cool, real cool for a bus.  325-335 was it most of the trip loaded up hauling butt.  Today at 105 degrees into wind and rolling hills was the test.  With a tailwind 335-345 was normal. Into the wind 355-365 at 65mph was all she had in her, before oil temps began to run 230ish.  Head temps can run 350-375 all day long so the vw experts say.  I'll probably toss a small oil cooler on for the next trek across the midwest in the summer to keep oil temps under 220-230. What did help was drafting behind semis.  65mph chugging along at 355 degrees on the head, then getting behind a truck passing me, I'd get up to 71-75mph and head temps would come down to 335 again with oil temps hanging in that 230 range.  If the truck took an exit with those headwinds in this heat it was back to 65mph.  I was severely loaded up with gear though too.  Gas mileage wise once I got to the mountains I averaged 20.5mpg.  Headed west to the mountains was an abysmal 13mpg and east 15mpg.

[BruceK]

Wow, I had no idea aircooled VW head temperatures went that high.  Good quality oil must be a great engine saver.

[94touring]

Wow, I had no idea aircooled VW head temperatures went that high.  Good quality oil must be a great engine saver.

They say 400 is peak for minimal spurts and beyond that your valves start to drop. Running vr1 synthetic!  So I wasn't too concerned with 230 temps. 

[94touring]

Also, the 200ah lithium battery was a real beast!  The routine was wake up relatively early, make coffee with the 1500 watt electric tea kettle, maybe run a toaster depending what I was cooking, charge phones, run interior rope lights if it was still dark, and at 8am when generators were allowed, begin to charge the battery.  Usually charged it for about an hour in the morning before heading out for the day, and then again for 2-3 hours in the evening. Running the fridge with it about 20 hours a day except for when the generator was going. Additional string lights would be going in the evening after 8pm when generators weren't allowed.  So the battery really did a lot of work.  Charge time math revealed most days the battery used 30% of it's capacity.  Occasionally 35% if I got ambitious with the tea kettle.  It ran the fridge for two days on the way home without being charged up. 

[94touring]

Did a few random things on the bus today.  First on the list was removing the electric signal unit to the electric speedometer.  It picks up it's signal from the mechanical line that runs off the front left wheel.  The problem has been the needle bounces even after changing cables and something funky is up with the sender where I never could get it to read consistently.  One day fast next day slow.  So after much aggravation bought a gps sensor to wire into the electric speedometer.  End result is it works perfectly!  I had 4 wires to choose from on the old sending unit and 3 on the gps unit depending on what pulse per mile you go with.  I managed to guess the right combination on the first attemp so it went quickly. 

Next was remove the old cylinder head temp gauge that wasn't accurate and move the air fuel gauge into it's spot.  After that was move the new accurate cylinder temp gauge from the bottom of the dash to the top, using a gauge holder that sticks to the dash. Now it's right there for me to watch without looking down between the steering wheel and turn indicator.

Final thing for the day was went ahead and installed the extra small oil cooler. Took some looking around for the best location and ended up beside the other oil cooler, which meant it was at least easy to run lines between the two.  It was 101 degrees on the way home.  It took me doing 80mph into wind, camping gear still on the roof rack for next months trip, for a period of time before it would start to come up on 220 degrees. 

[jeff10049]

What a great trip the head and oil temps make me think (you too I'm sure) of small airplanes either waiting on it to get hot enough or pulling power/richen mixture and waiting on it to get cool.
What was your favorite part of Yellowstone? Its such a cool place with so much to see it takes more than one trip I think.  I really like the grand canyon of Yellowstone and I think it's the mammoth area where the minerals look like a staircase. And of course, the wildlife is great.

[94touring]

Mammoth was really cool.  My favorite spot was grand prismatic springs. We hit the entire place hard for a whole week and saw what felt like 500 geysers and springs.  With the floods the previous few weeks closing it down, and then days before we were scheduled to stay there they opened it all back up.  Which meant a lot less tourist, easy parking, short lines, little traffic.  I did see a number of vw vanagons and one split window bus.  They all waved and were excited to see another bus on the road.  In the afternoon drives back to camp when it was hot outside, I'd open the safari front baywindow.  Doing 45-50mph with wind in the face felt pretty good.