My 1966 Deluxe Project

[Malokin Martin]

Nice ride!

Make sure to take lots of pictures when you get going! I have an identical bus (color, windows and rust) so it'll be cool to see the progress and how you tackled the floor

[william metcalf]

Hi there my name is Will. I helped the guy you bought it from. to get that bus able to sell. Im very glad your stoked about it. i had it in my yard for about 14 months, in Sacramento. in the summer of 2011 i finished the major work of getting the wiring all good to go and the engine running decent without spending large on it. It had really bad cargo doors on it when i had received it about Sept 2010. i did not buy it, i had it towed to my place so i could make it a decent runner so my buddy could sell it because he really needed $ badly. it was missing most of the side windows, the rear hatch, and pass side front door glass too. one of the rear stationary glass was gone. i rounded up parts as i found them and installed the parts. the old cargo doors were terrible. i really feared i would not be able to remove the front cargo door in that the bottom screws were seized and very stripped out in the centers for the screw driver. but i kept adding penetrating oil and torch at low heat to not ruin the paint or surrounding metal, and one day the screw just came out easily. it was a magic moment for sure. i can tell you a whole lot more about the TLB bus story, its good, since the original plate has TLB on it. [email protected]

[william metcalf]

I would like to give you some more info about your 66. its too bad about the rust in the corner in the front window, but i had to put that plate in there with the caulking and paint over it to keep the rain water out. it dont know how long it was that way. the hole was not that big before so i dont think huge amounts of water got inside. but i would recommend putting some rust bullet or por15 down in the front bottom of the nose area inside and kill any rust in there. when i went about filling that gap, it had to be done, so i peeled any very loose rust out and used naval jelly all the way across the window channel and wire brushed it to clean metal and then used Rust Mort acid to kill any unseen rust from continuing to spread. i would say, that corner is the worst spot on the bus and the cargo door rocker panel area. the front floor needs work indeed. i would not cut out the dents in the nose. one really good way to pull dents there is to weld small metal rods to the skin in that area and then use vise grips or slide hammers and pull the dent outwards. the metal is thin so it does not need lots of power to pull the metal out. my 55 truck has the same issue. unfortunately the 66 was in outside storage for too many years. you should show pics of all the really cool paperwork that came with the bus, it was all found inside of it when the time came to clean out all the critter stuffing. its was a mess for sure.

[Spitty1974]

Hi,
So, I have been accumulating several metal panels for my bus and will start some of the metal work over the summer. It has been a while since I have posted anything on my bus.

One of the replacement pieces I was in need of was a new rear apron. I could of repaired mine, although it was rusted in several spots. After looking at buying the bottom section from a Samba member and then fabricating the inside piece that was rusted out on mine, I just decided to buy a reproduction apron.

I had thought about WW apron, but I had heard it was thin, based on previous posts, so I never contacted them to see if it had changed. I know one Samba member had a repop in the classified section from Brazil, I think. And, I know that Klassic Fab was making them at one time and that KF version was probably really nice.

That said, I did some research on Autocraft and decided to give them a try. The guy I dealt with at Autocraft was super helpful and the order arrived safely and quickly.

The apron/valance is made of the same gauge metal as the original. I placed it next to my original and I could not see any difference at all. It actually is heavier because of the cancerous rust that had taken over on my original. All details and construction is spot on identical. The craftsmanship is in line with a German VW original.

I also ordered two lower side window frame replacement sections that look great.

I will check the fit of the apron tomorrow just to make sure all is good, but I am confident that it will fit perfectly as did the original.

Below are a few pictures comparing the original to the replacement from Autocraft.
Spitty

[BarryL]

I like that. Good to know. Kinda hard to get paint inside but dooable.

[DiggerD]

Looks pretty damn identical!!

I was about to pull the trigger on one of those when I found a nice OG one at a show for 1/3 the price. Good to know there is an option if a good original can't be had.
_________________
63 Beetle
66 Deluxe Bus

[kingscory]

What did you use to clean that old goop out of the cargo area? That came out looking excellent.

[Spitty1974]

[Spitty1974]

[Spitty1974]

In preparation for some serious work to my bus this summer, I pulled the motor out the other day. I built a dolly with four caster to move it around easily. Just storing it in the engine compartment right now, it wheels around easily.

The motor will be out for a long time, should I do anything to it for storage?
The only thing I did was drain the oil out before it was pulled out.

[Spitty1974]

Ok, so I have not updated my project in a while, my life has been crazy.

Anyway, I have a blasting and epoxy question. I posted it on the painting form but have had no responses. Anyone who knows about epoxy primer and paint can you take a look and let me know.

Thank you,

Spitty

The link is here below:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=528682

[Spitty1974]

Now that the weather is warming up and the days are longer I am able to spend more time working on my bus. School is out for the summer in six weeks, so I will have about two months off from work to get cracking and get some work done.

I bought a Hobart handler and have been practicing a bunch. I'm not quite ready to tear into my floor repair yet, as I need some more practice. I'm slowly working on the removal.

It looks like I will be getting my front windshield repaired by a local member who has agreed to help me get out of a really crappy situation in the coming weeks.......I am grateful for their help.

For those of you that read a previous thread several months back which exposed some terrible work done to my bus windshield screen you can understand how happy I am to finally get that area of the bus repaired so that I can move forward with my project. I have been a bit hesitant to dive into other repairs with that repair still hanging over me.

I decided to look a bit closer at my short rocker. I knew there was a dent and some Bondo, so I decided to remove it and also began removing the paint.

Applying some paint remover and scraping the first layer.

Going in for a second scrape, I notice, wow there is a good sized dent there.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=1053884

Here you get a good idea the amount of filler present.

Yours truly getting into the good stuff.

Once all of the paint and Bondo is removed. I was happy to see no cancer in this area of the bus. Looks like most of the dent can be repaired without to much filler.

Here is a shot of where I stopped this evening. The body looks to be in good shape......Once I finish the vent area, I will move into the right rear corner. Unfortunately, I know there is a bit of Bondo there as well.....Overall, I have been told that my bus is dry and straight despite a few areas of concern.

[Spitty1974]

For those of you who have kept up with my thread you know I had some major trouble with my front windshield. It was in bad shape when I bought the bus and it needed to be fixed. There are pictures of the window area on the first page of this thread when I bought the bus.

Anyway, some of you may have remembered a poll thread that was started by a metal fabricator/sunroof mechanism business owner down in Huntington Beach, California that did some work to my bus. One of the things I hired him to do was to repair my front windshield and dash. If you read and saw the pictures you know that the work was way sub-par and didn't match the guys ability or talent. The thread ended up being a disaster for him, (which by the way, he started the thread not me.) In the end, he settled with me, but I was left with a huge mess. The funny thing is, I had hired him to do the repair because he normally does good work and I wanted the area on the bus to be fixed properly. And, I just don't have those metal skills and I did not want to mess up my bus because I tried to tackle a job left for an expert.

Luckily, one local member here in my area (M113) offered to help me out to complete the work and get out of this huge mess that Mr. Happy put me in when he did a Mickey Mouse Job on my repair.

This photo shows the huge gap where the panel meets the nose. This installation coming from a guy who makes a living working with metal and reproduces sunroof parts.....Dare I ask, Mr. happy would you accept such a gap on your own bus?

Below you can see Mr. Happy's Sub-Par work.

Here is a picture of the left side, look how the inner lip is not even with the outer lip. Look at those spot welds, don't think those will hold?

Here you can see the driver's side, note how the panel is not even, it is placed too high.

Here is the driver's side inside. look at how it does not line up, look at the missing metal....Do those spot welds look like they will hold?

Here we get a shot of the inner middle sections, look at how sloppy the inner and outer piece line up. Can you believe that a expert metal fabricator would do a job like that? Especially a guy who makes a living off of metal repairs and fabricates sunroof parts.

Here we see that Mr. Happy welded the panel down, even though it did not fit properly. Don't you think with Mr. Happy's skills he should not have welded that in place?

Here is a shot of the dash where Mr. Happy was to replace and fill in and fix the rust/cancer that was caused by the window area damage and rust. The picture illustrates what he did...He told me he Tig welded it in......Not sure that that was the patch/fix that we spoke about when I hired him to complete the work. Looks to me like the cancer would return and the area would need much filler.....Nope, not the way I want to complete the repairs on my bus.

Thanks to member M113, the pictures below clearly illustrate how to repair a window properly. I can not thank M113 enough for helping me out with this very complicated fix. Mr. Happy down south really jacked it up, for lack of a better description. The work below was done properly and well. Mr. Happy made me out to be some pain in the ass customer here on Samba........Just for the record, I'm not. I'm 100% happy and thrilled with the repair that M113 completed. He does amazing work and was extremely professional.

Yay!!! My window repair done well by M113

This is how a windshield wiper holes should look.

Here is the other wiper section....Look, the holes line up.

Here you can see the proper fit of the panel to the nose in the center. M113 executed it perfectly. I will have to load up a picture and show you how large the gap was when Mr. Happy in Huntington Beach welded the piece up. The gap was huge. Thank you M113 for taking the time to do the repair correctly.

Wow, look how nicely the middle inner section was done.

Here is a shot of the inner lip on the driver's side.. Look how great it is, the two pieces of metal meet up and the spot welds are actually holding metal together.

Here is a shot of the passenger's side done well.

Here is a shot of the dash area that had to be repaired....Wow, look at the clean metal....I don't see any cancer rust, it was removed and replaced in a way that didn't leave anything left to cause problems down the road. Thanks M113 for taking the time to repair that section of dash correctly.

Well there we have it folks. All of the pictures that illustrate a shitty repair by Mr. happy in Huntington Beach.....And, all of the pictures that show the excellent work done by M113.......Thanks again M113 for getting me out of this terrible situation.

Spitty

[EverettB]

Awesome. Very nice to see that fixed and you back on track with the Bus.
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[zuggbug]

That is a hard way to learn a lesson..

I am sorry you had to go thru Mr. Happy, but glad you were able to hook up with a qualified metal guy and get it all straghtened out.
_________________
SOUTHERN INTEGRITY AIRCOOLERS
58 15 window
56 westy

[crazyfingers71]

Looking good ! The difference is night and day. Glad your back on track with Da Bus Bro . The bus came by and I got on thats were it all began...
_________________
"Comes a time
when the blind man takes your hand
says: don't you see ? " Garcia/Hunter

[Spitty1974]

[Spitty1974]

I had some bus therapy this afternoon and started to strip the paint off of the long driver's side. I'm finding it a nice way to unwind from work...This time of year my students usually start to drive me insane.....Three more weeks and I will set them free for the summer.

It looks like the rocker is not going to need to be replaced. There are a few small bits of rust from where the rocker spear was missing for a long time, but I am sure with a light media blasting that the metal around the spear holes will be clean. I am hoping to get the rest of the long side stripped this weekend. Below are a few pictures of my labor this afternoon.

I have been using Jasco's Paint Remover......It seems to be working. I have been doing a light wet sanding after just to remove any residue. Does the Aircraft Stripper work any better?

[Spitty1974]

So, I took the rest of the paint off the driver's long panel, well except for the vent area. I still need to go back and sand off some of the left over primer.

I then started to remove the paint from the driver's rear corner.....Much to my dismay, I found a bunch of Bondo.....Someone at Earl Scheib back when the bus was repainted blue or wherever the cheap blue paint was done went trigger happy with the drill and also applied a ton of body filler.

I am hoping to work the metal out some and not have to use so much filler.........As I have yet to spring for an air compressor, I have been doing all of the paint removal by hand, it is slow going but works. Then, I have been doing a light wet sanding to clean the panels up for now.

On a side note, I found that paint stripper seems to break down old Bondo. I apply a coat of stripper, wait a bit, and then scrape it off layer by layer, it works well.....No dust at all.

Here are a few progress pictures that show what I mentioned above.

Stripped of the paint.

A side shot showing the whole panel.

The corner when I just started to remove the paint and find the massive amount of Bondo.

A closer look at the Bondo in the corner.

A shot with about half of the Bondo gone.

Getting closer to being free of all the filler.

Here is a shot of the side closest to the engine compartment. Here is where you see some of the handy holes that were made right along the edge that bends in for the rubber seal......Someone went crazy with the drill back in the day.

Here you can see all of the filler is almost gone...I think you can see a few holes....There are also holes on the outside as well...I guess I will have to learn how to weld those holes up eventually.

The last shot of the day. I almost had all of the filler out, but it was getting late and I already had told my wife I would be done 30 minutes prior to taking the photo.....Look at that pile of filler!

Next up will be to sand everything to get rid of any residue and also any lingering primer.....Then, I will start on the upper section of the driver's side...More to come soon.

[TexasAirCooler]

Looking Good!
_________________
Terry

Common Sense Is A Flower That Doesn't Grow In Everyone's Garden.