TheSamba.com :: View topic - How To Remove Your Late Westy Interior (Pics) FAQ

Mon Feb 23, 2015 11:35 am

driverinmyhead wrote:
It'll be a while, but I plan to remove my Westy interior to clean, replace hoses and inspect everything

Don't wait too long. You might be amazed/disgusted with what you find. :shock: With my '76 I almost put it off until after I had a few camp outs under my belt, but decided to go ahead and completely gut the interior first. One of the best decisions I made. The amount of dirt/trash/droppings was a bit disturbing. I certainly wouldn't have wanted my family camping with that junk beneath us.

Tue Feb 24, 2015 12:23 am

I already have an idea what's under there (LOL).

the gap under the back seat and area where the spare tire goes have garbage and funk that I can see.... not too sure what else might be lurking under the kitchen!

Sun Nov 29, 2015 11:22 pm

Great photo step by step! Thanks!

Question, anyone ever try to put a late bay Westy interior into in earlier bay window? I have a 78 with an exquisite interior but the body is shot. Throughout the years aren't all bay windows mostly the same on the inside? I need to find a new body for my interior. I understand finding a late model Westy body would be ideal, however, could any bay window bus work for a switch out? Are the roof structured differently? Say if I wanted to put the late canvas top in a standard model? I know there would have to be holes drilled for plumbing and electrical etc.any suggestions would be helpful!

Fri Jul 01, 2016 6:06 pm

On the left hand side of the seat, you see this near the top. Remove these 2 small nuts:

Here it is removed:

is there a technical name for these screws? I busted mine and can't find new ones without knowing what I'm looking for.

Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:43 pm

5mm metric bolt, Ace harware should have them.

Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:47 pm

sdw53 wrote: Great photo step by step! Thanks!

Question, anyone ever try to put a late bay Westy interior into in earlier bay window? I have a 78 with an exquisite interior but the body is shot. Throughout the years aren't all bay windows mostly the same on the inside? I need to find a new body for my interior. I understand finding a late model Westy body would be ideal, however, could any bay window bus work for a switch out? Are the roof structured differently? Say if I wanted to put the late canvas top in a standard model? I know there would have to be holes drilled for plumbing and electrical etc.any suggestions would be helpful!
The roofs won't interchange unless it's another 74+ factory prepared pop top Westfalia, the structure is dramatically different. The rest of the interior will fit any bay, there will be slight differences along the right rear where the bump for the fuel filler is and the rear upper headbanger cabinet may not match the earlier (or later non Westy) curved roof profile, the bulkheads behind the front seasts will also make the swivel seat pretty useless.

Sun Nov 27, 2016 12:18 am

Thanks for documenting the process! Will save many people including me lots of time.

Mon Jul 31, 2017 3:22 pm

Used this thread today to remove a complete interior out of a 78. Thanks to this thread we did it in about 3hrs. Having two people really makes this process go quickly and easily.

=D> =D> =D>

Mon Jul 31, 2017 3:32 pm

Thu Jan 04, 2018 4:03 pm

Here's our video of us taking out every piece of furniture, panel and layer until our 1978 VW bus was completely bare-bones. We cleaned him out and put in dampening material to reduce noise and increase insulation.

Beyond removing the complete interior, our video goes through the whole redesign of our 1978 VW Westfalia Bus interior, including: floors, door panels, custom cabinets and more. Enjoy!

Read all about it: http://thelills.com/the-lills-vw-bus-interior-makeover/

Tue Jan 09, 2018 6:09 pm

TheLills.com wrote: Here's our video of us taking out every piece of furniture

Not quite the entire Westfalia interior there to start with, but thanks.

Mon Jul 12, 2021 2:05 pm

Great thread. I am in the process of renovating our Westie. I basically want to remove all the cabinets that we don't use anyway so there is more space for sleeping, maybe sitting around a table. Having never stripped an interior out of any vehicle, I was a little apprehensive about doing this (like, how do the cabinets stay in place?), and this thread gives me everything I need. I was surprised to see how few screws/bolts/nuts are used to hold things in place.

Cheers!

edit: a wee note from my experience today. When removing the sink cabinet, you might need to give it a jolt. Mine felt rock solid until I gave it a wee bit oomph and it came right away.

I had a similar experience with the cooler/storage to the side of the sink cabinet, but that issue was related to a wire that someone had installed and it snaked through the cabinet acting like an anchor. Once that was cut, the cabinet came out nicely.

Sat Mar 25, 2023 1:48 pm

Trying to remove my interior cabinets to vacuum up all the mouse bodies that are probably hiding underneath. For the sink cabinet I’ve hit a snag. Underneath the bus I’ve removed the cap and the first bracket. However, unless I’m mistaken it seems to me the end of the PVC is far too large to pass through the hole in the second bracket. I can’t tell if this end is a separate fitting that has been screwed or glued on to the end of the PVC. Any guidance here?

Sat Mar 25, 2023 2:01 pm

wrxnofx wrote: Trying to remove my interior cabinets to vacuum up all the mouse bodies that are probably hiding underneath. For the sink cabinet I’ve hit a snag. Underneath the bus I’ve removed the cap and the first bracket. However, unless I’m mistaken it seems to me the end of the PVC is far too large to pass through the hole in the second bracket. I can’t tell if this end is a separate fitting that has been screwed or glued on to the end of the PVC. Any guidance here?

The pipe is all one piece. Try removing that piece of steel, if you can, and working it over the end of the pipe.

Sat Mar 25, 2023 5:52 pm

Killer documentation.

Now I know what all the empty holes are for in the westy interior some po put in the bus!

Sun Apr 02, 2023 5:47 pm

EZ Gruv wrote: The pipe is all one piece. Try removing that piece of steel, if you can, and working it over the end of the pipe.

Thank you for this! Sink cabinet is out. One slight difference is that I have the sink cabinet instead of the stove. So there is a wire that supplies power to the faucet in a little square terminal block. I had to remove this wire from the terminal block since the wire stays behind.

Fri Dec 22, 2023 7:59 am

Thanks to Eric's great instruction manual, I finally removed my Westy's Berlin (Campmobile 76) Kitchen and cabinet. It's a swiss P22, so no gaz cooker, but tri fridge, BA6 Burner Heater.

I slightly damaged one cabinet as I wasnt finding which screws were fixing the fridge to the cabinet. It's the inner Philips screws when you lift the fridge's hood on the left side as on this photo(on the right side of photo):

Again great help from you all ! Thanks you

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