Raffle Bus Update - Thursday, June 5, 2025
40 Miles On The Freeway!!
Where air-cooled VW enthusiasts share their knowledge, enjoy the outdoors and support local charities!
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Saturday, June 14, 2025 at 2pm
Sue and Miller deMar (along with ABC) are puttin' on a fun get together/soiree for all the folks that have helped with the Raffle Bus and volunteered for Club events. Basically, as Miller said, "It's a party to show appreciation to all for making the Club successful."
Chicken, hotdogs, carne asada & water bottles will be provided. Everyone is asked to bring an appetizer, a side or dessert and their preferred beverage to the BRBQ as well as a bathing suit.
Don't forget to sign up!
Thursday, June 5, 2025
John started to put some miles on the new engine to break it in, 40 miles to be exact! Read how his morning went here.
Click the button below to see more pictures.
Thank you, Jeremy's Upholstery for upholstering our Z-Bed and front seat cushions. Also a BIG shout out to Roy Jonas, who helped us with upholstery the past two years or more. Huge thank you to Wolfsburg West and Space Age Auto Paint Store. See some of our other sponsors below. You'll hear more about them soon.
Check out these pictures of Wayne Olssen painting the bus. Looks amazing! Thank you Wayne!
Things are coming together for our next Jamboree. Check our Jamboree Page. We've started adding information and will continue to add info as we confirm it.
Check back often!
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Join us for our next meeting. We'll be talking about Club business, raffle bus update, and upcoming events. Interested in the Bus Club? Wanna learn more? Here's a great opportunity to get to know us and you don't even need to own a bus! Don't forget to bring your chair! If you can't make it in person, watch it live on our Facebook page.
May 16-18, 2025
Great times were had at the Young, AZ Campout! A huge thank you to Justin & Corina Griffin and Clay and Amy Wills for hosting our campout at the Antler's Cafe & Bar. Justin and Corina offered their vehicles, including Corina's side-by-side to see the sights in Young.
See all the pictures from the campout below and don't forget to go to the end of the
images for an image from the
Pleasant Valley Fire Dept..
April 25-27, 2025
Nothing beats sitting around a big campfire with friends. If you missed this campout, be sure to check next year's schedule to
join us then.
Pictures coming!
Event Charity: The JoyBus
Visit their website to learn more about this wonderful organization.
joybus.org
Amilkar and his 1952 Barn Door - Awesome!
Thank you Four Peaks Brewing for hosting our event! We truly appreciate your support!
Jim Simpson, PHD, CPA & Founder
Thank you, Jim!
(ABC Accountant)
Located in Phoenix, AZ, Masters of Coin is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping low income and elderly individuals with income tax preparation. Learn more about Jim and the organization he created.
We'd love for you to support these wonderful sponsors. See links below their images. Let's show 'em some love!
5 Jun 2025 11:35
40 Miles On The Freeway!!
30 May 2025 09:27
Planned on spending about 2 hours doing the final hose routing/installing on the remote oil filter. The first hose went on easy, 50 minutes? Looking just like I’d hoped. The second hose, not so much. The hose I brought from home was 1-1/2” too short! So had to go to Orielly’s, Ace and NAPA, second trip today for NAPA, before I found hose the right size and strong enough to work.Then discovered the bottom fittings coming out of the oil pump were clocked wrong and the mustache bar modification that was made to allow the bar to fit around the fittings needed work. And that meant the bar had to come down, tools found to allow the bar to be further modified, reclock the fittings, and then reinstalled. Took hours! Had to refill with oil, spin the motor with the coil disconnected to get oil into the new filter and hoses so we wouldn’t starve the bearings of oil, and finally start the engine. So it’s done, looks as good as I hoped, no leaks and hopefully we won’t have to take the mustache bar down ever again. The next step is to start driving the bus. A lot! Need 500 miles of break in before we can declare victory. And it’s now ready to go. Well, it’s still up on the Jack stands I had to put under it today to work on it and was just too tired to remove them when I was done about 3:30 this afternoon. Maybe someone has a spare front driver seat we can temporarily use until our beautiful newly reupholstered seats are ready? Let me know and I’ll meet you at Russell’s and we can get it installed…. Thanks.
28 May 2025 15:17
This is just a short status report on the Raffle Bus.
20 May 2025 19:48
Special thanks to Mike, Wayne, Dan W., and Miller for joining Russell, Greg and me today to knock out a list of final chores on the raffle bus.
15 May 2025 09:30
Just bringing everyone up to date on our progress.
10 May 2025 21:34
Friday was a day long exercise in frustration while working on the brakes. Russell and I got the new master cylinder, upper fluid reservoir and found the new lower fluid reservoir and the connecting tube were for a different year master cylinder. So I had to modify the tube and clean up the old lower reservoir, both of which took hours to get right. Got everything assembled and started bleeding the brakes. That seemed to be going ok, just taking forever when the master cylinder started making strange gurgling noises and wouldn’t pull fluid from the upper reservoir after pumping new fluid into the calipers. Finally decided that our new master cylinder was at fault. Luckily, when I called Mike and asked for his advice, he said he had another new one in his stash and he brought it to Russell’s Saturday morning. Life saver. It was a real struggle to get the bad new master cylinder out, transfer over the lower reservoir to the good new one and then install the new assembly under the bus. Really messy work with brake fluid dripping everywhere. But we got it in, got the system bled, and now have really good pedal pressure/feel. I don’t know what we’d do without Mike.Bill Ross came by after he got off work to work his magic on a very hard closing sliding door. It took a lot of head scratching but he was able to figure out what was wrong and make the adjustments needed to get the door closing as it should. Russell can put the door panel on now. He’s very happy…. Thank you Bill…Joe brought the new radio and dropped it off. It’ll look good in the dash. He wanted to install it but Mike and I were under the bus doing brake things and the bus on jack stands is too dangerous to have anyone working inside. Joe will maybe come by later in the week and get it in. Thanks Joe. But the big news is Reuben went and picked up the newly upholstered bench seat. It looks terrific. I think Russell posted a picture of it and I really like the material/color choice. It’ll be going in next. It was a long drive and a lot of trouble for Reuben to pick it up. Thank you, Reuben. I’ll start putting the dash/cover/padded trim back in place tomorrow. I’d been looking for a driver door switch for the front dome light and they are NLA. I’ve got an easy work around that I don’t need dash access for. So the windshield will go in next week and we can start test drives just as soon as the newly upholstered front seats show up. I think they’re being worked on now. I hope.
4 May 2025 21:32
There was a lot happening on different days this week and I know I have some items that were done earlier in the week called out here. But you get the idea….
30 Apr 2025 20:31
Thanks to Wayne, Dan, Russell, Brian, Bill M., and Greg B. for helping out at this week’s unofficial get together over at Russell’s.
27 Apr 2025 23:21
Thanks to Wayne, Dan, Russell, Brian, Bill M., and Greg B. for helping out at this week’s unofficial get together over at Russell’s.
19 Apr 2025 22:28
For not having an official work party today, we sure got a lot done!Greg, Kitty, Ray, Laura, Russell, Bill R., David C., and Greta were all there today.Kitty came by and finished installing the curtains. The sliding door gave her fits, but everyone chipped in and figured it out.Greg and Russell worked on cabinets all morning and most of the afternoon.Russell got the windshield wiper assembly in and helped troubleshoot the washer system. The new switch works great, the motor works and the squirters spray as they should. There is some kind of air leak somewhere that still has to be found but the fluid itself doesn’t leak. Russell also helped me finish putting in the bolts at the CV/axles. Mike and Wayne had gotten the axles in earlier this week but 5 of the bolts were in such bad shape that they could not be torqued. I brought some from home so we were able to get the five new ones in and torqued down.The really hard job went to Bill Ross. He volunteered to get the front door latches installed. The passenger side went in without a lot of drama and the latch and interior opening handle went in with some modification of the lever arm rod. But the driver side was a real bear. Bill and I fought it for a looong time with little success. So I called David Cissna to see if he could help. He came by and after seemingly forever he and Bill figured it out successfully. David had to remove the window felt channel among other things to gain access to make things work. Then the outer handles went on and both doors now close and lock. It was a long, tough, frustrating job that they just wouldn’t give up on and were finally able to get done. Very, very impressive effort! Took a lot of grit. Thank You.And Greta was there with an amazing lunch for everyone. What a nice, nice job she does for everyone. Makes our whole day! Thank you Greta!
16 Apr 2025 14:14
A lot got done at our work party this week. And it was because the turnout was substantial and everyone worked like crazy.
30 Mar 2025 12:46
Well, we somehow got a fair amount done on Saturday March 29 build. The weather was perfect but we took two steps forwards and one backwards without our fearless leader (John Manning), who was visiting his son and grandsons in LA. David C. worked tirelessly on the drivers and passengers front windows. The rubbers and aftermarket pieces did not fit perfectly, and he had to modify the parts so that everything fit perfectly. David C. also worked on installing the rear latch and things onto the engine lid. Well, the latter was again an exercise in frustration, in that the seal for the rear latch we ordered said it was for a '71, but it did not fit our latch.
Sure! But we hope you'll consider becoming a member to help the club grow. As a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, we work hard to support local charities and your membership dollars contribute to that.
Nope, it's a great way to learn more about vintage air-cooled buses before investing in one. Especially if you're willing to help out at our Raffle Bus Work Parties. Not only will you get your hands dirty, but you'll get to know some members and get a free lunch to boot!
The list is long over the years, however, here are some charities we've recently supported. Jerome Volunteer Fire Dept., Walter Hive, 4 Wheels 4 Good, Liberty Wildlife, The Ryan House, Dogs 4 Vets, Hospice of Arizona, and Sleep in Heavenly Peace.