Haven’t heard that name in a while, right? It seems like after renovating the fuel system way back in 2021, Spool Bus just kind of vanished off this website, except for appearing as background set in photos occasionally. That is because Spool Bus became sort of an unsung hero of the Old and New Robot Trap House: it was principally in charge of all the 𝕿𝖗𝖚𝖈𝕶 𝕾𝖙𝖚𝖋𝖋:

After all, can’t have my white elephant doing any work or something. Once the summer’s worth of mechanical work was completed, Spool Bus was simply a well-running and driving truck, albeit one with many peripheral functions missing or worn out. But that means I didn’t feel bad chucking scrap metal (above) or rocks and concrete waste (below) into it.

It is kinda nice to have something you don’t really feel bad subjecting to this kind of “throw it in and send it” treatment. Like, there wasn’t really anything I could do to Spool Bus to make it consummately worse than it already was, with gaping floor rust holes, almost every dashboard instrument dead, and a bed made of 3/16″ thick plate steel. And with that mechanical service front-loaded in 2020 and 2021, my usage cases were really so light-duty for the platform that I barely even touched it for all sorts of maintenance since.

This isn’t to say Spool Bus was only pulled out once in a prime number collision for some menial task. It not only participated in meme recoveries including, in this very year, the most arduous van recovery mission I’ve ever taken on (More on that story later), but I also regularly brought it around to local car shows… or just took it to the Tail of the Dragon for fun while chasing the Lemons Rally.

But gradually, the grievances did pile up. When I said “nothing in the dashboard worked”, I meant it. It had no turn signal pilot lights (though the blinkers and lights themselves worked), and the oil pressure and thermostat gauges were inoperable.

The wipers only ran very slowly if I hit a pothole in the correct way, a sign of the motor being just totally spent.

The HVAC blend selector was stuck on heat with the lever broken, so I had the choice (when the blower motor was actually working, needing a different pothole impact angle to work) of Hot or Even Hotter.

The vacuum system was so weak that said HVAC system could rarely get out of defrost mode, and I only had one pump of power brake assist available. This probably meant the brake booster canister was bad as well.

The front fuel tank’s feed line probably had a crack in the hose, because it pulled air instead of fuel and would aerate the fuel system nearly instantly if I switched to the front tank. So I really only had the rear tank available (whose gauge only reads below 1/4th, else it reads zero).

Let’s just say it was just getting really bad and uncomfortable to operate on the regular. So, in May, before the weather started entering truly hot and steamy territory, I decided to embark on the LONG HOT SUMMER OF SPOOL BUS, a quest to eradicate as many of these problems as possible.

At minimum, I needed a working HVAC system and wipers. Even if the air conditioning is toast, the Econoline’s front vents are not wimpy and at least lets things be survivable (Mikuvan’s front blower motor is very weak with wear/age, making it pretty deathy to drive in summer besides being deathy to drive in general).

So, I focused on those problems first. I pulled a wiper motor from a junkyard van many moons ago because it was right in front of me, and the intent is to just change it out while keeping the old motor for a future rebuild, as chances are high it simply ran out of brushes.

To do the HVAC selector/blend door system, I had to do a deep dive and take apart the entire thing from both ends, in order to reach and inspect the broken Bowden cable that connected them. So back to the scene I’ve been presented with many times…

Like I said before, I had no beef at all with how Spool Bus drove. Arguably it starts and runs better than Vantruck does (I have long suspected that this is not its original engine, and it had a proper rebuild or reman engine dropped not too long before it went in-op), and the little Banks turbo adds like 7 butt-horsepower and convincing sound effects. But this is definitely the layout that made me try out the low-mounted twins of Snekvan, then Vantruck, through Operation IDIocracy.

Knocking the dashboard down was easy enough, although the (sporadically working) radio is annoying because all the knobs have to be removed first to unscrew its faceplate. The HVAC selector pod is below the radio, so removing it is required.

On the passenger side, removing the blower motor and its cover is just a few screws. This allowed me to peek into the absolutely filthy poop-encrusted blower box and heater core housing.

That foam covered door is what moves when the temperature lever is pulled, and I think at some point it might have become stuck and then the cable broke internally. That, or the mounts cracked off. Either way, it was free to move at this point already.

The blower motor and fan wheel dismantled well for being rusty and 40+ years old. As I suspected, the motor simply became brushless over time. I had a replacement I bought a while ago, so this pile of motor got put in a Giant McMaster-Carr Bag for future rework.

I mean, all it really needs is brushes and maybe some oiling of the bearings. They’re just too simple to truly die.

To get to the Bowden cable that moved the flap, I had to remove the blower housing, which fortunately was just a couple more screws but required very close-quaters van combat above where the dashboard pad covers everything. Nothing but a few plastic-threading screws here though. The Dremel was needed to cut new drive slots into several internal panel screws which were thoroughly rusted.

(This was also a great chance to vacuum, air blast, and somewhat pressure-wash this whole box out because who knows how many animals have pooped in it over the years)

Interestingly enough, the Bowden cable was still fixed and working on the blower box end… but on the selector side, the Z-bend that used to connect it to the lever was snapped off. So, it might just have been fatigue over time.

The problem was that the small plastic snap that anchored the cable housing (so it could do the Bowden push-pull thingie) was also cracked apart. This meant the cable housing couldn’t stay in place any more.

Nothing a large, healthy blob of Sugru couldn’t remedy. At the same time, I noticed that the selector valve itself was slowly cracking open at the seam between the black and pink housings.

This probably helped explain why it would barely switch over, as it would just be a massive vacuum leak. I solved this by cracking it open the rest of the way, then putting a big ring of CA glue around the former factory joint and clamping it together.

My solution to the broken Z-bend problem required a big of digging into some very old parts bins…

I was just going to use a model airplane pushrod connector. In doing this, I sacrifice about 3/8″ of travel off the lever, so “Mostly Hot” is fully hot, but this worked perfectly on the cold (a.k.a Still Mostly Hot) side.

Getting the Bowden cable housing screwed in again on the other side, though, was one of those “double blind” van wrenching operations.

The first blind is visual because you can’t actually see what you’re doing because you have to face the other direction for your arms to bend the correct way. The second blind is tactile because you have to feel for where the screw hole is while simultaneously making sure the little plastic tabs line up, and all of this operation is occurring near where your fingers’ Jacobian matrix is as singular as you are.

But luckily, after enough wiggling, the Bowden cable was anchored on both sides again, and I regained control as to whether Spool Bus blew Warm or Warmer air into my face. As I said, the lever stops about 3/4 of the way up the Hot mark, but that is nothing a strip of black Gorilla tape can’t fix by visually blocking the rest of the way!

Alrighty, next task. It’s windshield wiper time! To remove the motor, I had to dismantle the windshield cowling which necessitated some Advanced Fastener Extraction techniques in some areas because the 40 year old Phillips head self-tapping metal screws had basically become smooth-head rivets from corrosion.

After the cowling comes off, most of the wiper mechanism is immediately accessible from the top.

The linkages and bushings were in surprisingly good shape without much slop. They’re held together by these funny little clip-on retaining rings, which were all on the borderline of disintegrating – if they do vanish, I’d just replace them with regular snap rings or E-clips. I took both of the linkages apart and cleaned and regreased them anyway.

The motor itself is removed from the inside underneath the dashboard. As you can see, there’s a pretty clear (for a van) path to getting its mounting scr….

No, just kidding. This is what the view ACTUALLY looks like when you start.

The shop books suspiciously skip over the fact that you have to dismantle out the fuse block, its little mounting bracket, the ground fanout bracket (on the upper right), and disconnect the brake light switch and cruise control vacuum switch. And, on top, the left side dashboard panel has to be removed and the ventilation duct behind it as well, which means you’re disconnecting the headlight combo switch and wiper switch too. All it says is “Remove Motor”.

Y’know, I’m starting to think I thought this was an easy job because the junkyard van already had all of those things stripped out by someone… so I was just looking at the wiper motor, going “Ah, yes, there’s nothing in the way!”

I took apart the junkyard motor for a quick visual once-over and to clean up and re-lubricate all of the gears and bushings (compare it at the top with Spool Bus’s motor with its totally dried out and crusty gearbox).

The parking switches on these things are just embedded variants of a self-stopping limit switch circuit, something I would do with a discrete snap-action or button switch or something.

The motor is able to receive 12V power through the normally-closed contact (shown in this position) via the springy copper strip until the little plastic finger pushing on it falls into a specifically placed divot on the drive gear. Once it’s in the divot, the strip gets pushed onto the normally-open contact (below the finger, with two little rivets).

At this point, the motor stops moving until the intermittent wiper controller clicks its relay, and that supplies a momentary pulse of power through this N/O contact, just long enough to get the motor moving and getting the finger out of the divot – at which point the motor runs as normal until it comes back around.

It’s definitely a very analog and old school way of doing limited-range motion without a modern encoder-equipped motor and its control module. Stuff like this still has a lot of appeal to me, because while it’s not very in-field configurable and changeable, it…. just works.

As with the blower, this motor has totally exhausted its brushes and only works if I smack it a few times, enough for the remaining stump to make contact (which is why I had to selectively hit potholes and curbs to get the wipers to cycle). So some time later I’ll pop it open and do that service and rebuild, including perhaps machining the commutator.

After SIGNIFICANT WIGGLING, I got the mounting screws lined up and piloted. These old rubber bushings are not very friendly when it comes to lining things up, and to make it worse, they’re in incomplete sockets (C shape, not a fully surrounding hole) so they like to fall out as I am trying to hold the motor with one pinky finger.

And the rest was simple. Now, when I said this self-parking motor circuit was “simple and just works”, I meant “Wow this motor just is doing whatever the hell it wants”. Some times, it takes 2 or 3 tries by the intermittent wiper controller for it to finally start doing the go-around thing. Other times, it parks and stops at this awkwardly high position. But after who knows how long, I could actually see in the rain again!

(As of September, this issue has largely resolved, and I think it was because the wiper motor contacts were probably old and not making good connections)

We’re not done yet, though. Not long after this round of work, one of the funniest van failure modes I’d ever experienced ended up requiring some Operation IDIocracy inspired shenanigans to recover from…

This is the last of a three part series about retrofitting an electric fuel pump and frame-mounted fuel filter onto my 1985 6.9 liter IDI turbodiesel spool bus. Last post, I got everything wrapped up and operational from the fuel system end, but discovered that the steady 10PSI feed pressure was now causing a whole bunch of the injector return fittings to leak!

Go figure, as part of the problem is the o-rings that seal them become crispy. I actually drove for a while like this to make sure everything was operational when it came to the fuel system. However, by the late November into December timeframe, the leaking was getting steadily worse, and I really had to address it.

What it did show is that the electric fuel pump will help extend the time horizon of having to deal with all your fuel line fittings on one of these things. I could leave the key in the “on” position after it sits a few days and hear the bubbling and gurgling coming from the lines for the first few seconds. What the e-pump does is keep the inlet end of the injection pump primed, so it can at least light off quickly. Then you can usually inertia through any further problems.

But that’s no way to live, so before it got cold, I was out to correct the problems and also repair the glow plug circuit – up to this point, I was still monkey-starting it with a little shot of ether.

The downside to all this? I have to go back in there. UGH.

Off the cover comes! By now I’m well used to digging around under here, so the crankcase vent value, intake hose, and some other hoses actually went away quickly. I made sure to leave the hose clamp screws in accessible positions last time since I knew this would be inevitable.

A 5/8″ regular wrench (I guess you could use a 5/8 flare nut wrench if you wanted) releases the injector line fittings. They pull up slightly, and then the plastic return caps come off, leaving O-rings behind.

So here’s the story on these “return lines” and why they’re nightmares besides being hidden in a cave. The only thing sealing the fuel being returned to the tank are those O-rings. They’ll get old and crispy, and with the fuel system under vacuum due to the engine and filter being higher than the banks, they’ll start letting air in to drain out the fuel system slowly. Then you have a bad time.

Dunno why anyone thought a series of handmade rubber hoses with plastic caps was a good decision here (seriously, they definitely had to build each of these by hand on a stand). Maybe a single molded plastic or cast metal “rail” was considered but ended up being too costly. Maybe secondary compression/flare fittings were considered too underserviceable.

Whatever the case, just grab a return line kit from Accurate Diesel and use the existing line lengths as a guide. I’m being a little dishonest with these photos – I did the same operation for Murdervan a few months prior, but haven’t written anything else about it because it ended up being just quite functional and as you recall, I ended up selling it in early September.

I learned from that time to cut the hoses very slightly short, like 1/16″ short. It’s easy to pull them a little outwards from the fittings to get the line of them to sit straight. The spring clamps grab a fair bit of width, so I wasn’t concerned about having enough seated over the push fittings to seal.

Otherwise, if the hose is curved between them, looking like an S or snake shape installed, it’s exerting a pressure towards one side which could cause premature hardening/deformation of the O-ring over (let’s face it, a long) time.

Because Spool Bus has the aftermarket turbo system, the return lines are set up differently than OEM with the crossover line occurring at the front of the engine and the “master drain” at the very back of the driver’s side. I needed more of the 180 degree straight-through fittings than provided, so I ended up recycling in some of the old ones.

There’s nothing wrong with them, mind you. I cleaned them up and inspected them for cracks or chipping. The only thing that causes pressure sealing loss is the O-rings, which disintegrated as I was picking them off the injectors.

After crafting the two sides and the “reacharound hose” to connect the two, the installation involves lubing up the O-rings (I used some plain lithium grease; any petroleum grease will dissolve in the fuel bath to come), shoving them on, then seating the return line caps over them.

I used a remote hose clamp grabberator to maneuver the clamp into position on the Reacharound Hose, which is at the very front of this arrangement behind the A/C compressor – not super tight here, just awkward and out of sight. Remember what I’ve said about working on vans being Nightmare Mode Wrenching – you need to be comfortable with wrenching by feel and estimating positions.

I was expecting the turbo side to be impossible to access, but actually it wasn’t at all. I did undo the mounting bracket of the turbo itself to let it shift an inch or so to get better wrench clearance.

The injector train and Reacharound Hose connection on this side is actually easier reached from the front side behind the alternator, with an approach from the centerline (i.e. right in front of the grille). If the turbo wasn’t there, it would be an easy reach from the interior.

All return lines now installed and fully seated. I let the system fully prime and sit for a while with the fuel pump running to make sure nothing was coming out.

The next weekend, I was out to change the glow plugs, so I can continue building this thing up to turnkey operation (instead of, you know, Pop-the-hood-puff-the-ether-close-hood-open-door-get-in-then-turnkey operation). Another order from Accurate Diesel for their IDI 6.9 glow plug kit was on the way so that means….

Taking the fucking thing apart again.

I had ascertained from testing the circuit that at most one of these were still working. They’re positive temperature coefficient resistive heaters, so they start out drawing a burst of high current and very quickly settle down. I got the entire glow plug harness to draw only about 20 amps, when it should be 200 to 300 amps.

Before I started, I used alternating blasts of shop air and brake cleaner to really clean out the wells they sit in. Spool Bus had accumulated a lot of wildlife in its years of sitting wherever, and I did not want any grunge getting into the open glow plug holes once I removed them.

These dudes are one of the “middle difficulty setting” service items in an Econoline IDI engine setup. They stick out and can be grabbed with a 3/8″ deep-well socket on a swivel. But you do need to wiggle it through the injection lines and rely some on proprioception to land the socket. Loosening the clamps for the injection lines helps them be able to wiggle a bit to get you some more space. Notice in the photo I also swiveled the Diesel Delivery Dongle out of the way to get at the front two on the driver’s side.

For some reason, the passenger side is actually easier again, probably because they are displaced towards you instead of away. I used one longer extension to get around the turbo outlet pipe.

Now, installing them again is definitely a “By Feel” exercise. I started with putting some copper antiseize grease on the threads (In case I had to do this again…. or someone else) and started the thread manually. If everything’s clean, you can thread all the way up to when it stops by hand, then tighten with the socket handle.

I decided to connect them up one at a time and measure the increase in current draw. Each plug will add about 20 to 30 amps at the start and taper down to ~7-9 amps each, after which they should be cut off from power to prevent damage. I suspect a failed glow plug controller, apparently a known defect in this generation of the engine, caused them to burn out.

A shot after all 8 were hooked up. The current momentarily bursts up to 280A and falls rapidly to about 100 over the course of 10 or so seconds. Obviously, taking a picture of this was hard.

With this complete, I know that the glow plug contactor was working fine – since I’ve been throwing it with an alligator clip touched to the battery – and all the heavy wiring leading to it. What was not working was the glow plug controller. I obviously couldn’t tell exactly why not, because….

Yeah, uh, this is going to be a problem for another day. My upcoming mission was to tear out this Wiring Teratoma as I called it and just start from scratch after reaching the OEM layer.

For now, I just rigged up a switch as usual so I could activate the glow plug contactor by hand, count to 10, and let go. Spool Bus then starts with a single key bump, so all is good up to whatever has happened to the control wiring for the OEM glow plug control module!