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Tue Jun 15, 2004 10:16 pm

The previous owner of my bus was drill happy. My bus had a pickup truck tool box mounted to the floor of the cargo bay, mirrors off of a truck drilled and mounted to the doors, and ugly roof rack mounts drilled into the roof. Grrr... Aren't previous owners a hoot? All that stuff is now off the bus, time to start filling the holes...

- Austin

Wed Jun 16, 2004 6:10 pm

Probably used it as a, "work", van.

Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:35 am

I have bought a few VWs off older guys (usually in thier 70s') and they seem to tinker with them alot more. Especially antaennas (kant spel) and mirrors and once a window A/C unit!

Fri Jun 18, 2004 9:39 am

You nailed it. I bought the bus from an old guy who couldn't drive anymore. It sat in his driveway for three years. He said the tool box made a good bed to sleep on. The bus also had two antennas drilled into the roof. He used the bus for hauling his canoe around many years ago.
I need to drive by his house and show him how it's running without all the moss and grime.

Fri Jun 18, 2004 10:43 am

Previous owner of my bus installed some interesting "wood" paneling inside the bus. If I look through the airscoops I can see the ends of the screws poking out of the sheetmetal :evil: Amazingly enough, there is very little rust.

Sat Jun 19, 2004 8:27 pm

Every single wire in my 69 bug was painted flat black, so I had to clean them all of in order to trace the electrical prolems I had when I got the car. I plan on getting a new wiring harness to aleviate the problem altogether in the future.

Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:06 am

The previous owner of my single cab tinted the windows purple,"three" c/b antennas, cut the wheel wells out of it, installed 65 Ford Mustang tail lights, cut the vent section out of it, and painted it yellow then white (asshole) it was dove blue. Oh well gives me something to do I guess, lol.

Mon Jun 21, 2004 7:06 am

The previous owner of my 74 Super Beetle said that this Beetle was a daily driver, but i really doubt it was. When I got the car back to my aunts house, it took my a good 2 hours just get the rear windows cleaned. The interior was a mess, and the I had to was the body like twice. Daily drive, yeah right.

Thu Jun 24, 2004 4:42 pm

hey man the same thing happened to me! the previous owner drilled holes all over the thing. He screwed the emblem into the rear hatch of my bus, he drilled holes in the floor and screwed in a "center console" (which was actually a passenger side comfort barrier) And there was some weird T shaped thing bolted to the rear hatch too. I can't figure out what it was for.

Sun Jun 27, 2004 8:01 pm

some fool drilled a hole thru the floor to tap the fuel line in order to fuel a gas heater. not the brightest of fellows... :roll:

nh

Sun Jul 04, 2004 8:38 pm

The PO of my first VW, a Baja bug, discovered the perfect body filler - spray in expanding foam! Made for LOTS MORE RUSTOUT in no time!!!

The owner of my current VW decided that not driving the bug for years was the perfect solution to dealing with the problems it has, so I am still getting odd things breaking at very unexpected moments.

Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:00 pm

my bus has dent puller holes in the corners and the nose. it has fiberglass laid down and probably bondo too.

Tue Jul 20, 2004 4:11 pm

Here's a good one for ya!

The PO of my 63 Notch did a ton of re-wiring. All VDO gauges, fuel pump (electric) cut-off swith, side markers blink like turn signals.

Obviously, the guy (or someone) was an electrician. Everything thing was well done, went into wiring blocks.

When I got the car, he threw in a Bentley. Inside the Bentley was a homemade (but very clear & consice) wiring diagram of all the changes, with refs back to the original wiring diagram. I was impressed. And his wiring diagram came in handy when I restored the lights & wipers to the PB dash.

Mon Aug 02, 2004 5:00 am

Air-Cooled Head wrote: Here's a good one for ya!

The PO of my 63 Notch did a ton of re-wiring. All VDO gauges, fuel pump (electric) cut-off swith, side markers blink like turn signals.

Obviously, the guy (or someone) was an electrician. Everything thing was well done, went into wiring blocks.

When I got the car, he threw in a Bentley. Inside the Bentley was a homemade (but very clear & consice) wiring diagram of all the changes, with refs back to the original wiring diagram. I was impressed. And his wiring diagram came in handy when I restored the lights & wipers to the PB dash.

You're lucky. A PO of my car did a lot of rewiring that looked like a rats nest under the hood. I removed about a shopping bag full of wire that was just extra wire.

Mon Aug 02, 2004 10:01 am

I have spent many an hour tracking down all the *&%^$@ red wires that go to the back of various busses, marking them with colored electrical tape, marking changes on diagrams, etc...seems like most of the time people re-wire something, they only use 1 color wire...
I'd say lax maintenance is the #1 thing I've come across - nasty oil, no grease in the front end, nasty plugs, overall a lack of care.
Other than that, I've come across a LOT of silicone gobbed on windows, sunroofs, etc.
OF course, there's the brush painter as well...the list goes on and on...

Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:04 am

The PO of my '66 Deluxe (this guy bought the bus in '67) did a couple of weird things. He painted the engine tin and the inside of the bumpers bright orange. He also saved old piston rings and burned up light bulbs (which he passed on to me). He took apart various dash gauges from other vehicles and gave them to me when I bought the bus. He also used house paint and a brush to touch up the paint in a couple of places. Weird dude, and he died a few months after I got the bus.

Almost forgot this one! When I bought my bug from a local guy several years ago, it had a couple bags of cement in the front end. This was his cheap way of lowering the front end. Because there was previous front clip damage, the hood did not close tight and water got into the cement bags. Needless to say, I cursed that guy for months! Word is he still does the same thing to lower his rides.

Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:55 pm

At some point they tried to convert my 78 bus into an RV. It had huge mirrors bolted on to the side of the door, a roof rack that wouldn't hold anything, a TV antenna, Firebird (as in Chevy) stickers on each side of the front quarter panel and more than I'm still finding.

Check out that cool paint job too http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=78172

Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:46 am

my entire super was covered in about an 8th inch of bondo end to end, and the sad thing is the bondo was covering perfectly welded patch panels which only needed slight sanding to get perfect after stripping sanding and grinding all that bondo off. the bondo however did hide a bit more than i was pleased to find.
later i found out how he got these nice welds in hard to acess panels such as front lower quarters, he filled the quarters w/ bondo and foam to hold his patches in place. great welder stupid guy, the foam holded water which normally drains through there and caused his nice patch to rust through.

Wed Nov 17, 2004 8:05 pm

2 months a go I purchased a 1967 beetle. The guy I bought it from had the car since he was 16! He bought the car in '71(4 year old car). He cut the rear apron out in order to put a Corvair engine. He drove it around for 3 years til he decided to pull the engine and make it bigger. Well, he took out the engine, took it apart and sat taken apart til 2 months ago when I bought the car from him!! :P That's 30 years waiting for me!! The car has absolutely no rust and has 43,000 original miles on the speedo!! :lol: The only downside to the car is the rear apron, but a new clip is on the way and i'll have a rust-free, 43k mile '67 cal-look bug soon! :twisted:

Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:18 pm

when i bought my first car a 65 beetle the cars previous owner failed to tell me there was a hole the size of a football in the floor pan under the passenger seat.

i first found out about it when i was taking out the stereo and stepped right through the floor. the pan was completely rusted through and now we have to replace the whole thing.

lucky us we planned on restoring the whole car so the floor pan was just another objective to complete on the list and that we have a metal shop with a professional welder