And so we have come to the point where we must discuss in
depth, our third traveling companion Charles Theodore Finley. Who is Chuck?
Well, sit back and let me tell you a story as old as Volkswagens and cable
TV in 2006.
The Van
Chuck first and foremost, is a Van; or as the EPA prefers
it, a “multi-passenger, multi-purpose vehicle”. A 1982 Volkswagen Vanagon Camper. But beneath his cool white (paint code LD90)
exterior, lays a deep dark secret. Chuck
is a Shagin-Wagen, a super-funk generating machine descended from the lord of
all hippy busses, the ‘62 Spilt-Window Westfalia camper.
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| Chuck's Grandfather |
Or at least that’s what this ancient hippy told me in Vegas…
Anyways, He has a few interesting tricks up his
sleeves. First he has 2 fold out
twin-ish sized beds.
From what I understand these beds can sleep a total of 3
women and 1 man. Again, the Vegas Hippy
assured me that the 2-2 and 1-3 combinations were impossible due to van
physics, who am I to argue with the master?
Additionally Chuck can pop his top to provide an 8ft ceiling
and prodigious ventilation when necessary.
Now, don’t get your mind blown by all this Epicness. There is much more to follow. Chuck has a stove, a fridge, and a sink. That’s right, a whole freaking mini-kitchen.
The stove and fridge are powered by a 3 gallon propane tank
mounted under the driver’s side. The
sink gets its water from a 12 gallon tank inside the interior cabinetry.
Now, this is all standard equipment for Westfalia camper
vans. In addition to all this (admitted
already awesomeness) we have outfitted Chuck with a variety of upgrades, and improvements.
Curtains: The previous owner (PO) did some atrocious things
to Chuck’s interior. We remedied that
with new upholstery (done by Jen) and new thermal curtains (Jen again).
These curtains contain advanced magnetic wizardry that allows
them to stick to metal. Black magic you
say!? Tis the power of SCIENCE! (you may
be a child of the ‘90s, like me, if you just had a flashback to Bill Nye the
science guy)
Seats: Chuck’s front
seats were adequate, but not really enough for the amount of driving we
do. We pulled the stock seats and
replaced them with early Eurovan seats.
I modified the tracks to fit Chucks frame, Jen re-upholstered them in
matching colors and added lumber supports.
I also removed the driver’s side swivel as it is totally useless. The passenger swivel works very well for
us.
We also added a low-power folding fan. It gimbals in almost every direction, very
nice when the weather gets warm, due to Chuck’s lack of AC.
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Lighting: Chuck came from the factory (Westfalia Werke) with
the cutting edge in lighting (in 1982…) incandescent lights that use tons of
electricity. This is not a big deal for
a home or office where power is mostly unlimited (not free though); but in the
van all our electrical gear is powered by a battery bank (separate from the
starter battery, cause a dead starter is bad mojo in the boondocks). This means we are limited on total energy
capacity. The AUX battery bank is only
changing when we drive, so extended stops can be an issue. Thus we tossed the old incandescent lights for the lighting
of the future, LEDs.
We decided to use 12v LED strips, which I cut to length and
installed in and under chuck. These
lights make 3x the light at half the power usage of the previous ones. Not only are these strips self-adhesive, they
are silicone coated for waterproofing as well.
Shower: We needed
some way to wash the road grime off without freezing or paying for a
shower. Through this need, the power of
Google and Amazon, and a 4-year engineering degree; I developed a shower
system.
This system uses water from Chuck’s free water tank and
pumps it through a heat exchanger that uses hot engine coolant to heat the
water. Then after passing through a
thermostatic mixing valve (the thing in your shower that keeps a nearby toilet
flushing from scalding you) the water exits through a small spray nozzle. This system allows us to take warm showers
anytime we have water and a warm engine (usually takes about 3-5 minutes of
idling to get the water warm enough). We
have a tent-like thingy to cover the rear hatch so we can shower in
privacy.
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| Stock photo of the Bus Depot Add-A-Room. |
Power: Chuck did not
originally come with an AUX battery.
Although almost all later model campers did. We could have put an AUX battery in the stock
location under the driver’s seat, but the small space severely limits the size
and thus the capacity of the battery.
Instead of struggling to get a battery under the seat, we opted to
install a larger battery bank under the rear bench.
This battery bank consists of 2 GC-2 type golf cart
batteries in series. They provide around
200 Amp-hours of reliable capacity. They
handle vibration and deep discharges well. The only required maintenance is
checking the water. The AUX bank is
connected to Chuck’s charging system with a Blue-Seas battery isolator. This nifty little device prevents Chuck’s
starting battery from being discharged by only connecting the AUX battery to
the charging system when the engine is running.
Exterior: Chuck has had a substantial number of exterior
modifications in the name of improved driver happiness.
Chuck has new eyes.
We replaced the weak stock bulbs with H4 lenses and high output bulbs
rated at 100W high and 55W low beams.
This necessitated installing some relays to take the load off the
headlight switch in order to prevent crispiness.
Chuck has new ears.
The stock mirrors on early vanagons are absolutely worthless. They are manual adjustment and so floppy,
that a strong wind can blow them flat.
We replaced them with some late model mirrors.
These little girls are power and heated, oh ya daddy likes
it heated… cough cough…. Ummm anyways…
Speaking of mirrors, the stock rear-view mirror is just as
worthless due to the low hanging rear cabinet. We replaced Chuck’s with a compass auto-dimming mirror from
a Cadillac which is mounted 14 inches lower on the dash. 4$ labor day at the pick-n-pull junkyard
Chuck came to us with some terrible shocks. The rears were replaced with Monroe sens-tracs for a F-150. Worth every penny, and they cured Chuck’s saggy butt. The fronts we replaced with sense-tracs for an SUV, they just don’t have the damping for Chuck’s heavy front end, and they will be replaced at some point.
Engine: Chuck’s heart
was originally a 1.6 liter non-turbo diesel.
Absolutely gutless in the normal vanagon, in a Westy camper? It was downright dangerous… Chuck came to use with a 1.8 liter gas
engine. It was barely adequate, but I
wanted and bit more oomph. I pulled the
old engine and started the Frankensteining.
Since almost all VW inline-4 engines until the late 90s use the same
core design, they are mostly interchangeable with each other, at least
physically. I pulled parts from 3
different cars in the junkyard and built a hybrid engine. The sport tuners have done this many times
before me, and through the power of google I was able to follow in their
footsteps. (brace yourself for tech specs in 3…2…1) Chuck now has a 2.0 liter 11.0 compression 8
valve counterflow inline-4. This setup
uses a custom exhaust with stock-ish exhaust hangers. The fuel management system is unmodified (mostly)
Digifant-2 from a cabriolet. This is all
held in place by stock diesel vanagon mounting parts.
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| Cabriolet setup that inspired me (and somehow fit). |
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| Another Vanagon I4 setup, this inspired me to use digifant. |
The transmission is a stock air-cooled vanagon
transmission. It is physically the same
as an early diesel transmission but the gear ratios are much better suited to
the new engines torque curve and redline.
I would like 1st and 4th gear to be a bit
lower. Tires are the stock size.
The Myth:
How did Chuck get his name?
Well it is a long, but not actually long story. It all starts in 2006, with the television
show Burn Notice. (a personal favorite
of my wife, back when we had a TV) Within this show there is a character named
Sam Axe. Now Sam is a bit of an enigma,
ex-special forces, crazy mojito drinking, and Hawaiian shirt wearing
retiree. Sam has an alias he uses when
he needs to do “business”. This alias is
Charles Theodore Finley, or Chuck. The
way I see it Charles is an alias within a character, within an actor. Why did we name our home on wheel Chuck? In a way, Chuck (the van) is the same; a
home, within a van, within the greater world.
The layers are what counts. Or
maybe it is because our Chuck is as versatile as the alias of Sam Axe? It could just be because Jen secretly
fantasizes about the Sam Axe character? Or maybe it’s because Charles Finely is
an excellent 3rd wheel in the show, kind of like our van? We may never know, but always remember Chuck
Finely is forever!
The Legend:
Westfalia Campers have been the epitome of micro-scale
camping since the ‘60s. Many a baby was
conceived in the back of one of these vans during a Grateful Dead concert. I have heard rumors that during the 60s and
70s one of these vans could add 3 points to the apparent hotness of the
owner. A Vegas Hippy once told me of a
mystic ritual that could only be performed within a Westfalia camper. According to this wizened master; if
performed correctly this ancient rite could cause women’s clothing to literally
explode off their bodies. 0_0
Steeped in mystery, hung in legend, and nearly impossible to
find parts for, the Westfalia Camper has made an irrevocable impression on the
American Psyche. Chuck is forever.
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