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19 lagoons highlands of tas, fly fishing , had a blast , the old boy did good up there, did most of tassie ,cradle mountain, tarkine rainforest was bloody fantastic , mainly fished and drove, few breakdowns along the way, brakes needed an overhaul when i got home , they coped a pounding , me split wouldnt have stood a chance up in the high country lol

Cheers Brad - I'm not much of an open ocean 'boat guy' either, so the first leg will be interesting!

My brother in law, Craig, picked up a second hand case for me when he bought some odds and sods in Melbourne last year. The initial plan was to build a 1776 for this bus and then cobble an engine together for Iron Horse, however we were running out of time at a rapid rate and then late in the piece we found out it needed new barrels and pistons! So, a new plan was hatched to build this engine first as a 1679, drive it to Tassie then put this engine into Iron Horse and then take time building the 1776 for Cat...!

The 1641 had been fully balanced so the parts used for the 1679 were crank, (linished) flywheel ,(faced) cam, lifters, (re-surfaced) conrods, heads (stripped and fully re-built with new valves) distributor, (Pertronix - given a birthday) generator re-built (the bearings were shot!) and a kit put through the Solex 34 Pict-3 carby. She has also now has a new oil pump, fuel pump, inlet manifold and an improved j tubes/extractors/exhaust set up.

All this happened over few weeks under the guidance of a 76 year old retired VW mechanic. (the next engine he says he will just watch what we do, however he will be kind enough to let us know if we we are about to fuck something up! )

While the engine was out a kit was also put through the fuel tank, a new outlet fitted and the fuel gauge made to work again. A good thing is this tank is an early bay Wiz special so it has more capacity than the og splitty tank.

Good pics fly life - and I get the moniker now!

Tell me, how difficult are those VW tent/annexes to put up? I know someone that has one but sold their kombi ages ago - they just seem heavy and cumbersome??

their not too bad to put up mate , long as the poles are numbered so it all fits,tent goes up easy , if ya staying in one spot for a few days their great you just drive off leave em up , put all ya gear in there , starts to cramp up real quick with all ya luggage in the back as you now , hardest part is trying to fold the bloody thing up and put it back in its bag, lots of swearing and the mrs saying "your doin it wrong"

cheers paul

fly life wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 5:49 pm hardest part is trying to fold the bloody thing up and put it back in its bag, lots of swearing and the mrs saying "your doin it wrong"

We kept plugging away....

As of last Sunday she made her maiden voyage - all the way to Willunga.

Running it in now before Tassie in a couple of weeks.

Nice one Morts, hope you have a great trip
Bus should be like a new one now

Great stuff Morts, that old bus sure has a lot of history, just in your hands.
Looking forward to seeing some pics from the Tassie Ratex

Cheers fellas. I've just been holding my breath but, fingers crossed, she's been going like a champ.