Dan's '65 Dormobile project

[silkvw]

Your bus is lookin great!
Glad you started the thread, and got caught up to date. I hope to see it in Austin some time, or at the Classic in Fredricksburg.
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'64 single cab Big Bend Bus Bash 2015 '16
'59 camper BBBB 2017 '18 '19 '20 '22 New Mexico
'70 Ghia........Bonneville,........TX Mile,........142 mph......(sold)

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=641871&highlight=

[zozo]

Sunday, the 26th at noon. If not in the same location, the new one will be announced.

[ThatVWGuy]

At this point the bus was running and driving safely so I started to turn my attention toward the interior. The field-find Dormobile came with the Dormobile cabinet which includes the sink and stove that mounts over the engine shelf. Cool find but as you can see in the picture below not exactly user friendly without moving the seating around. I also didn’t have the Dormobile seats. The seats would be hard to find and expensive. Even if I was able to find them at a bargain price they look super uncomfortable to sleep on and the side by side layout wasn’t what I was looking for. I was wanted more of a double bed than two twins.

After looking at all the camper interiors in brochures in the archive and photos in the gallery, I decided the combination below would make the ideal Splitty camper.

Dormobile top
Full width rear seat/bed
Head banger cabinet
Walkthru front seats
Rear facing jumpseat on driver’s side
Icebox on passenger side
Wall table
Door table
Spice rack
Childs cot
'60ish style Westy side tent / awning
Front and rear roof racks


I made a post to bounce my ideas off the masses and it was quickly pointed out that you can’t have a full width bed and a spice rack, so the spice rack idea was scratched. Being that my bus is a walkthrough the spare tire is mounted in the rear and cuts into the sleeping space. If I installed a stock Westy closet on the other side and went with a ¾ width bed would be fine for one person but would be a tight for two unless it was really cold.

First step wall the door and wall panels. Nothing fancy here, just underlayment from Home Depot.

Next I found Bay Window Westy pieces to sever as temporary fixture and as patterns.

The setup above only stayed in the bus for a few weeks before I made my full width bed and a slightly larger jump seat. By this time I had found a Split era bed mechanism but I found it to be a little janky compare to the Bay mechanism so I decided to use the Bay window pieces. The Bay window seat also has nice arms so I recovered those. For the structural pieces on the back and seat of the bed I used 1” thick plywood so it wouldn’t bow in the middle when I was sleeping on it. I am very happy with this choice and highly recommend it if you want a full width bed. It is hard to find though. I found mine at a specialty lumberyard in San Antonio.

The stock interior for the ’65 is Mesh Grey, which I love. I did a full rebuild on the front seats. Will Foitek painted the frames and I bought the upholstery and seat pads from Wolfsburg West. At the time they offered material by the yard and I bought a bunch of the solid grey/green material used on the side/backs of the Mesh Grey interior and had Gabriel’s in San Marcos use it to cover the Bed and jump seat. The only downside is I didn’t order enough material to have them cover the foam pad for the cushion over the engine compartment and by the time I tried to reorder they were out. ☹ I should mention I love Wolfsburg West. Their online interface is way better than other vendors, their products are top quality, and customer service is second to none.

Anyway, the picture below is how the interior has looks for the last few years.

You probably noticed the icebox / cooler. I was at Paul Smiths event at Lake Belton and somebody had one of them, a vintage Colman upright cooler, and that just seemed like the ticket for me. A week or two later I found a nice one at a good price on Ebay and I was set. For the last few years it has been held in with a coat hanger wrapper around the seat belt bolt and another to the caro door check strap pin but when the bus is complete I intend to have a couple leather straps holding it in place.

[pyrOman]

I am of like mind as to the usefulness and set up of campers being such that the user is comfortable with. I do call my set up "Westfalia, EAT YOUR HEART OUT!"

However, regarding your comment: " Even if I was able to find them at a bargain price they look super uncomfortable to sleep on and the side by side layout wasn’t what I was looking for. I was wanted more of a double bed than two twins." Though I too believe them seats would be somewhat uncomfortable to sleep on, they can be set up in all sorts of convoluted ways!!! Facing all forward, all backwards, each other and of course as twin beds as pictured but also as a full bed too! Which may possibly be why they are so expensive AND probably way heavy too!
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Some people are so busy being clever they don't have time enough to be wise.

[Longboardluv]

Interesting how the stove is in the back and the beds fold up to the sides. I had never seen that. Kind of odd.

[T2]

Looking forward to the on going progress of your build.

[ThatVWGuy]

Tunes man, got to have some tunes!

Last step in getting the bus to driver status was putting in a decent stereo. I installed a Clarion head unit and an Alpine amp hidden behind the passenger seat. 10 of the 12 speakers are Polk. I bought them on sale from Crutchfield or on eBay. You can find great prices if you are willing to go with last years model. The stereo can get loud but more important to me is that it is CLEAR. Currently I connect my iPhone/iPod to the stereo via a cable to the headphone jack but on reassembly after paint I may opt for a newer head unit with bluetooth and a better auxillary interface but maybe not. Here is where the 12 speakers are installed.

Four speakers in the front, two in each door.

Two in the Z-bed kick panel

Four more in the headbanger cabinet.

A downward facing sub in the headbanger.

…and a sub in the spare tire.

To keep the battery from going dead when it is parked a long time with out being driven I have installed a kill switch for the radio using an old dome light switch.

[Pinetops]

I like it. I also like the full-width bed.
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"A rolling bus gathers no rust."

[ThatVWGuy]

At this point in the build I had a good around town driver. The 1600cc (I’m assuming) single port from the donor bus was still running fine but I wanted something with a bit more power since I plan on traveling long distances. In 2002 I drove from Florida to California to Washington state and back to Florida in the Binz which had a 1776cc engine with dual 40’s in it. I wanted something at least that big. I built, or had built, an engine based on the Hot VW’s “Mileage Motor” articles from around 2006 but with 90.5 cylinders and I did not go with straight cut gears because I wanted it to run quieter. My engine is a 2017cc (90.5 bore x 78.4 stroke) built with all new parts. The crank came from CB Performance and many of the other parts came from Serrano’s. Some of you may remember that Serrano’s was selling stuff super cheap for a while but ended up going out of business and leaving a bunch of orders unfilled after taking the customers money. I think I was one of the last customers to get their full order. John Pierce of Pierce automotive in San Antonio put everything together for me. I “helped” but he did most of the work. It is running fairly low compression, around 7:1 as I recall. That was a bit lower than what John suggested but was in line with what Gene Berg suggested. Opinions on Gene Berg vary a lot but on this one I think he is on to something, at least for a bus. Busses have the aerodynamics of a Kenmore washer and that is a lot of resistance to fight with the same engine that goes in a Bug plus busses are usually loaded down with a lot more gear than a Bug. I went with more cc’s so I could run the lower compression, stay cool, and still have power.

[FlatfourFrenchy]

Very nice Dan. Hoping we see it at BNNTA. I have a stock 71 bus engine in mine. I don't stray to far from home but when I do I keep it under 60 and can grab my dipstick without it burning me at anytime. That is gonna be one sweet Dormy. David
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1971 Tin Top Westy Campmobile 70

[ThatVWGuy]

So now I have a 2017cc engine that should give me plenty of power. The next step is to keep it cool during highway driving – it gets hot in Texas. On the engine in the Binz I ran a Thing fan shroud and a deep sump with pretty good luck. The engine stayed cool while pulling a small (200 lb) trailer at highway speeds except in the heat of Havasu. If you don’t know, a Thing shroud has the doghouse oil cooler but doesn’t have the heater snouts. The thought in running a Thing shroud is that by losing the heater snouts you have more air flowing over the cylinders and through the oil cooler thus have a cooler running engine. I wanted to run the same setup on this engine. The deep sump was easy obviously but I couldn’t find a Thing shroud…so with the help of Will Foitik I set out to make one.

Here is where things get cool. Once I pull the snouts off the donor shroud I discovered that stock 1600 doghouse shroud is basically a 36hp shroud with a little extra sheet metal on the side to duct air to the heater snouts. Will and I determined pretty quickly that it would be possible to trim off the excess and with a bit of fabrication make a “stock” 36hp doghouse shroud. Yes, there are aftermarket 36hp shrouds available but they don’t have the stock vanes internally (or didn’t at the time, not sure what is available now). The thought of having a “stock” 36hp doghouse shroud was pretty cool. Lots of room for the dual carbs and to me the 36hp shape is far superior. The other modification we made was to enlarge he dog house to make room for a Type 4 oil cooler. I’m sure there is one or two threads on here about the “Big Dog” type 4 oil cooler conversion.

Comparing stock 36 hp to stock doghouse

Trimming and welding

Filling the divot for the air breather.

The finished product

BIG thanks to Will Foitik for his help with this. Without his help I could not have made this. This is probably one of the things on the bus that I am the most proud of. It is a super stealth mod, very subtle.

[bigdish2]

Been along time since I seen that bus out and about. From the way I've seen your previous buses I know it will be done right!
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For lastest finds check out
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In the stash

1954 & 63 Vert
1956 Dove blue camper
(2) 1958 23w deluxes
1958 PGSG 11w og paint
1958 logo dd panel
1959 dove blue 11w
(5) 15w deluxes
(2) 1960,63,65 double cabs
1963 swr/bg 11w og paint
1964 limo bus 350 powered
1964 SO36 Dormobile flipseat Westy
1966 (2) so42’s og paint
1969 (2) porsche 912s
1969 dart swinger 340
(3) Porsche 911s sunroof,targa,cab

[pyrOman]

[ThatVWGuy]

[pyrOman]

[ThatVWGuy]

[srfndoc]

[mandraks]

[ThatVWGuy]

[ThatVWGuy]