'Let's Go! Scotland-Croatia and onwards in our Kombi!'

[mcdonaldneal]

I cheered myself of up by reassembling the wiper motor with the new repaired plastic gear' which looks great!
Packed the gearbox with fresh grease and set the park position of the actuator arm.
The trickiest bit by far is putting the motor back in its casing, which requires you to hold back the brushes with something to let the commutator get past them. I used wire bag ties from the kitchen (and a helping hand!)

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

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[mcdonaldneal]

I took a trip out this morning to see how the work on the Kombi is going.
There has been progress.
The new battery tray has been welded in and sealed, still to be painted. This is the view from underneath.

The vent in the floor has also now been sealed. This and the battery tray will be painted with zinc primer and then under coated. View from top and bottom.

The 'roo bar has now been fixed so that it fits. Just needed the bracket moved. Still to be painted white.

The spare wheel carrier has been reshaped to bring the wheel closer to the tailgate. It will also be painted off-white, like the roo bars. Slowly getting there!

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Pretty random update here!
We're taking a short break in Croatia again. We flew to Munich and drove down over the Austrian Alps in a hired car. The weather is dismal, but we went yesterday into Rijeka, a port city with the regions biggest pre-Easter Karnevale parade. All the villages from miles around have a part to play, over 100 groups and loads of music, dancing and drinking!
Anyway, one of the villages had an old VW beetle as part of their display, so I've put in a couple of snaps.
Our Kombi is still in the body and paint shop... I'll give him a ring or go and see him when we get home.

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[1961bluebug]

no cat pic?! I´m a bit disappointed:-) Keep up the good work. Can´t wait to go to Croatia this summer hopefully in our new 1968 bus.
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[mcdonaldneal]

I was at the paint guy this morning asking advice about the Ghia bumpers and I took a look at the Kombi.
They've been tied up with out of town jobs, but I knew he was planning to work on the Kombi starting yesterday.
He's taken the removables from the front panel, and has a paint made up to match the colour on the doors. The windscreen has two aerials stuck to it, but he should be able to leave them attached while the work is done. There are a couple of rusted spots visible before the screen comes out but we'll see what things look like underneath soon. Hopefully not too bad, as the screen was out about three years ago!

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1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

As part of the Dometic fridge refurbishment, I had painted the front panel with cheap white rust preventive paint as a base coat. I now know that's not a great idea, and what's worse is that I tried to clean it with isopropyl alcohol and it 'melted' the paint!
So, I've read up on how to paint a panel with aerosols and...
Sanded down with fine paper and my dual action polisher, cleaned and laid a coat of Zinc-182 primer, and now it's drying before a second coat. It's 4deg above freezing here, so there's a heater in the garage, and I'll leave it overnight. I have an aerosol which looks a good match for the original fridge colour, but I think it'll need a day or so between coats.

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Winter being what it is, I spent the day clearing space in the garage so that I can work.
The fridge front panel is painted and lacquered and I'm letting dry for a day or so before I rub it down and polish it. It looks ok for a first bit of painting!
The inside of the door had orange foam strips which had disintegrated, but the tape backing was stuck fast to the fragile reflective foil...
A couple of hours with adhesive remover, a plastic scraper and wet wipes and it's come clean. I'll put new foam strips on when it's dry.
I got a replacement catch, which has been missing since we got the Kombi 16 yrs ago! It's grey though, so some fine abrasive paper and matt orange enamel should sort that!

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

I was about to take the metal dash away to be powdercoated, but I wasn't sure whether to weld bolts to act as speaker mounts first.
So, I had a good look at it. The old speaker is buggered, one of the terminals is broken beyond repair, and was crudely screwed into the holes in the dash.

There are actually two tabs and a hole that are supposed to accept a mounting plate that the speaker attaches to. Maybe I could make one up?

It does look as though a standard 6"x4" speaker will fit in the gap, so I'm looking out for a pair to buy. One can go in the Ghia!

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

The fridge door has taken an age, and it still isn't finished! The foam strips I put behind the metal first were too thick, and I couldn't get the panel in place. I'll get some thinner stuff, but in the meantime it's looking oko!

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Im just dotting around, finding odd bits and pieces to do while I wait for the Kombi painting to be finished.
I found six hubcaps while I was tidying the garage last weekend. Two were beyond the pale and I threw them out. One was stainless steel, so can replace the worst on that's on the a Kombi at the moment, and three were rusty on the inside, but the chrome was either good, or good enough to act as a spare.
So, I sanded and wire brushed them clean, degreased, rust treated, and today put a first coat of POR15 on them. Hopefully the chrome will clean up ok...

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

I thought I would show how the hubcaps cleaned up.
It was surprisingly simple to get a good (initial!) result!
Searching revealed a consensus that wadded up kitchen foil, dipped in water or a branded cola drink did a good job of removing the rust, but not harming the chrome.
We never have Coke in the house, but by chance a friend had brought some around with a pizza last night!
This was the worst of the hubcaps:

The foil/liquid produces a lightly abrasive paste. After a couple of rounds I wiped off the paste and polished up with Autosol metal polish.
Happy with the result, so I did all three!
Good to know I've got usable spares for when any of mine roll into a ditch!

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Good news, bad news!
I had decided the tired, slightly rusted metal dash top from the Kombi needed refreshing. So I dropped it off at the powdercoater who is blasting the Ghia bumpers and we decided on a satin powdercoat that is the darkest grey that he has. Almost black, but not quite!
Picked it up yesterday, and I'm very happy! I'd never noticed the VW logo on the top of it before!

I also had an ashtray, from an older Bay, but with the Automatic shift logo on it. Got it on EBay, and it was as rusty as anything, so I wire brushed and painted with leftover POR15.

I planned to clean off the grime on the black part of the face and touch in the logo with white enamel. So, used some car interior shampoo and a toothbrush...

Oops!
Maybe a lesson there for anyone trying to clean one of these up? I might still try to paint on the logo, but the long term solution could be to print off the correct decal for the late bay, which is on a thread here somewhere!

Found it!
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7077647
_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[dasdachshund]

Hubcaps look great Phil. I'll bring mine next time.

All the best.

-dasdachshund

[Bala]

That powder coated dash looks great! Color looks perfect.
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1976 Westy

1966 Beetle

[mcdonaldneal]

Still don't have the Kombi back, but we visited a flooring warehouse to try to pick an age appropriate material for the floor of the camper!
It's been really difficult to find any example pictures of camper floors from the late '70's, but I'm going for a Linoleum. Probably a small pattern, as it is a small floor area, and the colour is best to be able to tone with the Orange paint, the fridge door and the cabinets.
Here are the samples we got. We'll probably go with the middle one nearest the fridge, which is a suitably '70's marbled effect.

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Had a couple of painting jobs today. One easy, one very difficult!
The easy one was putting a second coat of grey rust treatment paint on the inside of four hubcaps (actually from the Ghia).

Trickier was repainting the logo on the Auto shift pattern on an early bay ashtray I had picked up. In the process of cleaning the dirt off the plastic (very gently!) the White logo had cleaned off. There was enough of the outline to see very faintly, so with some modelling enamel and a cocktail stick I had a go at repainting it.
Nowhere near perfect, but a second coat should even it up a bit. Very fiddly, and required some reading glasses and a headtorch!

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Last thing for now...
Some 4mm very flexible tubing arrived from Vietnam of all places today. I needed to use it as a spacer around the edges of the painted panel of the fridge, to centre it in the frame. That and some adhesive foam strips have done the job perfectly, and then door is finally finished, with the panel nice and snug!

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

Finished the logo on the ashtray.
Ok, if you don't look too closely!
Before, during, after...

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

I went to make one of my regular visits to the Kombi today.
The front panel is midway through preparation for paint. The good news is that the windscreen edge has cleaned up pretty well and didn't need anything extra welded in, other than a small straight section.

The other bit of work is the rear wheel arch, which has previously been damaged and repaired. The rust is significant at the edge and the filler extends a fair bit above it, so we agreed to replace the whole arch with a new panel, which I have ordered.

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!

[mcdonaldneal]

The long and winding road to getting a couple of small paint jobs done continues!
The frustrating thing is, now that it is spring, the paint guy has more time to do his weather dependant 'real work', and the Kombi gets done piecemeal.
However, progress is being made. The new panel for the rear wheel arch is fitted, primed and painted. Unfortunately, the water based paint is too translucent to cover the primer, even after five coats. So, he'd ordered up some solvent based paint but...
They sent the wrong paint! Axxx instead of Exxx. The right stuff should arrive today, but we'll then need to wait a day or so before the windscreen can go back in.
I was able to remind him about a couple of small extra things, the rust at the front end of the rain gutter is going to be painted, and the small screw holes in the cargo bay that held down the subfloor are not really necessary, so he is going to seal those up and paint.
Fingers crossed I might be able to pick her up by the end of the week!

_________________
1978 marino yellow Bay Dormobile camper
1969 signal orange Karmann Ghia convertible
1976 martini olive Bay Dormobile camper

Stop dead photo links! Post photos to The Samba Gallery!