'63 Panel Camper to Deluxe conversion project

[55samba]

[edgood1]

[GLHTurbo]

Cool, think the fat hatch profile would work to repair a lower front windshield area? My outside corner is rotted.
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1957 Beetle
1966 Bus

[edgood1]

[edgood1]

It was raining today and I had a little time to work on the bus. I didn't want to take it out of the garage for fear of all the bare metal rusting so I took off the rear hatch and started figuring out a plan to turn it into a deluxe rear hatch.

The donor metal I had to work with was two cargo doors, one had really rusty window sills, the other was so-so and the aforementioned bay window drivers side middle section.

I mulled over how to go about this for a bit, there are a few ways that would work. I could have trimmed and formed the bay window bus section to work, but the inner liner panel is completely different and would need to be separated. I'm kind of bored with drilling spot welds out (no pun intended).

The cargo doors have the correct inner liner panel profile, so I decided to use those, trying to keep the inner liner panel attached and graft both the inner and outer panels to the hatch. This is the first time I did it this way, on all the other windows I've separated the two panels at the spot welds at the window lips.

So here's how I'm going to do it:

First I cut out one complete window section from one of the cargo doors, both inner and outer as one unit.

By my calcuations, the rear hatch window opening needs to be 33" wide, edge to edge. This is 13.5" longer than all the other windows on the bus. I cut the top and bottom window sections out of the rusty cargo door, again both inner and outer;

The sill is crap:

I have to fabricate that lower section, both inner and outer, so I turned to the bay window section and cut a piece out of that:

Here's a cross section of the two pieces side by side. As I mentioned, the belt line curve on the bay window buses is more promienent than the splittys...actually it starts about the same at the front of a bay window bus and gets bigger as it goes rearwards. You can also see how the inner liner panel is deeper:

I separated the inner and outer panel (more spot weld drilling )

Here's a shot showing the different belt line profile, it gets bigger farther back:

A little bending and hammer work and its perfect:

I wanted to be absolutely sure the contour was right. I held it up against the original section, and over one of the other windows on the bus. Its a perfect fit:

I found an inner liner in my ever growing pile of scrap metal to use. I cut it to size and clamped them together. Here it is side by side with the junky piece:

I then cut the "good" cargo door window in half:

..and clamped in the sections I'm going to add. Here's what a deluxe rear window should look like:

I ran out of time before I could tack it together. tune in next time for that.
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1987 Syncro Westfalia powered by Subaru
1963 Panel to Deluxe Bus project :::: (photo album)
'65 Westfalia

[BarryL]

Those are some brave moves your making. Do you have the glass and rubber yet?

[edgood1]

[55samba]

If it helps I took some measurements off an original deluxe hatch I am working on right now. Fresh from the blaster...

[edgood1]

thanks a ton for those pics!! my calculations were spot on! I can proceed with more confidence now!
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1987 Syncro Westfalia powered by Subaru
1963 Panel to Deluxe Bus project :::: (photo album)
'65 Westfalia

[edgood1]

I got the rear hatch window frame welded together today. This took a lot of time to get square, straight and flat. I meant to take a pic but the opening is exactly 15.25" x 33".

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1987 Syncro Westfalia powered by Subaru
1963 Panel to Deluxe Bus project :::: (photo album)
'65 Westfalia

[GLHTurbo]

[edgood1]

had a thinking session early this morning. I'm trying to figure out if I can make this frame section work without separating the panels. I did some measuring and there is very little room to work with on the inside of the rear hatch. My original plan was to cut the outer panel smaller and fit it in from the back of the hatch as a unit.
I made a cardboard cutout of the inner frame and it got me thinking it might be better to separate them... still thinking...

in any event this is gonna be a lot of work.

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1987 Syncro Westfalia powered by Subaru
1963 Panel to Deluxe Bus project :::: (photo album)
'65 Westfalia

[edgood1]

Ill save this for later. Its gonna be some work!!!!

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1987 Syncro Westfalia powered by Subaru
1963 Panel to Deluxe Bus project :::: (photo album)
'65 Westfalia

[edgood1]

hi my name is eddie and I'm addicted to thesamba.com

I took a break from rear hatch calculation and decided to do something fun:

got to use some markers:

and a cutting wheel:

some of my previous handy work done on the corner:

I was careful not to compromise the integrity of this pillar. The window opening is really close to it:

Its ready to weld in and although I might change my mind after I start welding, I gotta say the outer corner sections that EIS sells are really good. They are a little thinner than stock but the fit is spot on. We'll see how much hammer work it will need but its clamped in right now and looks real close.
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1987 Syncro Westfalia powered by Subaru
1963 Panel to Deluxe Bus project :::: (photo album)
'65 Westfalia

[Enkiel]

looks pretty good.

too bad you'll add skylight
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1964 Turkis Flipseat

[edgood1]

[edgood1]

its remarkable how much the look of the van changes by adding a corner window:

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1987 Syncro Westfalia powered by Subaru
1963 Panel to Deluxe Bus project :::: (photo album)
'65 Westfalia

[Enkiel]

[edgood1]

I tacked in the corner window. I'm very happy with the fit of these corner window outer panels that I got from eis. they are made by a Brazilian company called IGP.

I spent a few hours getting this tacked in. I was super careful to get all the metal lined up perfectly. I played hop scotch with the clamps doing one tack at a time and working the metal with the hammer and dolly and even shrinking it in some spots. . I wanted this to be right since its a more complex shape than the other windows. I'm really happy how its coming out.

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1987 Syncro Westfalia powered by Subaru
1963 Panel to Deluxe Bus project :::: (photo album)
'65 Westfalia

[Enkiel]

looks very good.
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1964 Turkis Flipseat