TheSamba.com :: View topic

Sun May 04, 2014 1:54 pm

I've had my bus for a little over 10 years now. It's had a lot of work done over the years with the focus on just making everything run and work well. It's been through some evolution over the years, but with rust spots slowly taking their toll I decided it was time to invest in the restoration and keeping this thing from rusting out.

I actually did most of the restoration last year, but will post pics and story from that point...

This was the start, about a year ago...

New BRM Replicas You can see some of the rust spots

The interior was standard late '70s Riviera setup. Had been reupholstered 10 years ago. When I pulled the cabinet and flooring the sub floor was a mess.

At the shop for tear down.

I'll post the restoration in order as I have time and hopefully get this up to present time over the next week or so. Hopefully you enjoy.

Sun May 04, 2014 1:58 pm

Here's the start of the body work. Some good work up front cleaning some dents and tears in the metal.

The left rear fender well replaced. Along with both battery trays. I knew that the left side was rotting out. When I pulled it into the shop, the right side battery was starting to fall out the bottom of the bus.

Sun May 04, 2014 2:09 pm

Roof off and ready to clean up.

Inside cleaned up a bit

Had the windows tinted while out.

And the fresh green!

Sun May 04, 2014 2:19 pm

The top painted white! No more mildew growing on the fiberglass.

And the interior painted green.

I looked into sandblasting and powder coating the propane tank. At that cost I could have bought new. This is cleaned up, coated with POR15, primed, painted silver, and clear coated.

New rubber going in...

And I got enough glass in it to drive it home!

Secure the top, Dyamat, and cabinets next!

Sun May 04, 2014 2:46 pm

I picked up a louvered window. These are a lot of work to clean up. I got a seal kit from CIP, and a new crank gear unit off of Amazon.

My cat Chainsaw inspects...

A little POR15 in the doors

Some sound deadener

And a makeshift vapor barrier

New seat stay covers are a huge improvement.

Lot's of sound deadener inside.

And insulation over that. Surrounded nearly every wall with this insulation.

Sun May 04, 2014 11:09 pm

Planning cabinets and floors next... Used SketchUp for the cabinets.

Years ago I pulled out the old carpet and installed pergo flooring. That worked well, but I wanted something that would last and hold up to the moisture. I really wanted to use parquet wood flooring, but the moisture issue. I tried a vinyl tile laminate from Home Depot that comes with a sticky back. The first problem was that it smelled terribly bad. The 2nd problem was that the heat made the glue come loose and it would peal up. So I pulled that out and went back to HD. I figured these vinyl composition tiles would be durable enough.

Debated Colors at the store.

And done...

You can see that it was sunny when I installed these. I was unaware that this would be a bad idea. Apparently these tiles expand a bit when they are hot. So once I finished up and went inside, I came out later to cooled and shrunken leaving a few gaps. Not too bad but still annoying.

Mon May 05, 2014 7:45 am

Nice work! Can't wait to see those cabinets completed!

Mon May 05, 2014 7:54 am

Nice work! We going to see you around?

Mon May 05, 2014 9:00 am

Thanks Notchboy. Yes, I'm planning to go to the Samba's meeting tomorrow, and the Colby VW Alley this month. Looking forward to other shows as well...

Mon May 05, 2014 9:13 am

Real clean and nice, looks great, but those are not Fuch replicas, they are Flat 4 BRM replicas.

Mon May 05, 2014 12:10 pm

Thanks Red. And right you are. I'm going to correct that. I had Fuch's on the brain apparently...

On the similar topic, I'm running Goodyear Triple Tread 205/65/15 tires. They clear the rear fenders by a half inch at most. Not quite the load rating that I'd want, but they look good and have all of the traction that I need for snow and ice. I had ran the prior 9 years with first generation Blizzaks, so I'm used to the poor handling in wind. These are nearly as good in ice. And a bit better in wind, but still not great. There is a Hankook studless snow tire that I found at one point with a higher load rating that would have likely been a better choice. I really wish we had some better alternatives that didn't look like delivery van tires.

HD sway bar and drop spindles are on their way in the next week or two.

Mon May 05, 2014 1:06 pm

OK, the roof. I put a layer of the sound proofing over the cab roof. Sorry, no photos. I left areas open in case water got in there is drainage paths in each direction. Then all stainless hardware for the hold downs. And I found a pack of rivets on Ebay which match the original hold down rivets perfectly. Let me know if anyone needs roof rivets. I think I've got a pack of 100.

And all new edge trim. I like the black.

Mon May 05, 2014 3:32 pm

77 Riviera Owner wrote: Thanks Notchboy. Yes, I'm planning to go to the Samba's meeting tomorrow, and the Colby VW Alley this month. Looking forward to other shows as well...

Sweeet! Another Riviera at the Kombis meeting! See ya Tuesday!

Mon May 05, 2014 6:53 pm

On my previous couple of posts, I cheated and gave some previews...

Back in time, here's the back cabinet face. I used the original as an overall template, but didn't like the large openings for the back portion. The front needs to be big to facilitate any need to remove and service the water tank.

I made these cuts with a skill saw against a fence. Then trimmed the corners with a jig saw.

I must have dry fit this 20 times.

Counter top was a piece of 1/2" bamboo 2' x 4' that I had laying around from another project. It wasn't the best material and required some reinforcement to keep it strait as you'll see. It's thin enough and the way it's laminated it wanted to bow.

Dry fitting the front setup. This left me a half inch spare for the bed to open against the bump out for the refrigerator.

I toiled over this hole for the refrigerator. The refrigerator was a removal from GoWesty out of a Vanagon. I got it off of Craigslist, tested it on 12v, 110, and propane for a week. Once satisfied I went ahead and ordered the vent kit from GoWesty and drilled the hole. A lot of people get rid of the 3 way refrigerators, but I think it's the way to go if you want to be totally off the grid. I'll talk more about that later.

I also was determined to save some weight from the originals. 1/2" birch plywood, with 1/4" in places that I thought I could skimp. Also the original cabinets had a bottom (for the front), and both the front and back had sides that were bolted face to face. I thought this was unnecessary and wasted weight. Also on the floor I used 1/4" subflooring. The original I think had two layers, 1/2" and 3/8" on top of each other. Lot's of wasted weight in my opinion.

The piece in the back is part of the bracing that I'm talking about to keep the top strait. Also the two sides on either side of the refrigerator wanted to bow. Not good since I was eventually attaching drawers and doors to them. Eventually I made them work, but 3/8" would have been worth the slight weight add in a few places.

Mon May 05, 2014 7:23 pm

Test fitting the stove and sink. I toiled over this for some time. I wanted the stove hard mounted into the countertop where it would be accessible, but didn't want to loose the counter space.

Eventually after many ideas the thought of undermounting the original sink, then using the cut/out to sit in the sink hole was the answer.

Not too shabby. I wanted to reuse the original Coleman stove. The cutout dimensions for a new stove are the same though. At this point I decided that it was time to let the Coleman go and order up a new stainless steel unit.

Getting a coat of urethane.

And the back cabinet. Note the two holes in the bottom of the back cabinet. I have drilled a number of holes in the spare tire tub and put wire grommets in there. Perfect conduit for wires of all sorts. The back hole's cutout just sits there. I pull that one to get access to the space when needed. The front one I actually built up a raised floor. The pathway below is used to get cable from the tub through to the front cabinet where I have a fuse panel for all of the RV stuff, and to below the bench seat where I have the furnace, amps, sub...

The new stove.

And finally starting to install the fun RV stuff. The two circles on the left are a 12v power outlet and a dual USB outlet.

Mon May 05, 2014 7:44 pm

This bamboo topped pull out will work as a good cutting board, or just for a little extra counter space. The 10" deep full extension drawers were not easy to find. Nor were they easy to install with such tight clearances.

You can see how I had to cut the lower portion of this door and offset the hinge so that it would clear the bench.

Still looks good though. I'm pleased.

I had a plan at this point for above the refrigerator and the right side, but was getting exhausted with the fine cuts and pieces. The front cabinet nearly did me in.

A final tune up on the refrigerator before it got fixed in the bus. I added this aluminum tape to the fins to make sure that the heat travels through the fins and not around them. Also added the refrigerator fan below.
The refrigerator fan came with a switch that would come on at 90 degrees I believe. More appropriate for a cabinet, so that thermal switch was pulled off and saved for later. This fan was wired in with the stock refrigerator thermal switch, which is connected to the heat tubes and kicks on at a much higher temp.

With some bench testing and a heat gun everything was tested out and seems to work properly.

Time to work under the bench. This is a new Propex unit that is made to be weatherproof. I was planning to mount it under the bus but a few things held me back from that.

1. mounting outside would require two very large holes for the cold and warm air intake, versus two small holes for fresh air and exhaust.
2. there's not as much real estate available under the bus as one would think. Not with the grey water and propane tanks anyhow.
3. I just felt better keeping it inside and out of the weather

And the sub box on the left fits snugly over the wheel well.

The amps under the furnace.

Came together pretty well.

Chainsaw approves.

Mon May 05, 2014 11:04 pm

Time to update the lighting inside. These puck lights are from Home Depot. They are intended to run off of a 12v power converter. I just set the power unit to the side, and wired the three lights up in series (around 4v each for a total of 12v in series). They were like a tanning bed brightness level. I ordered a Mini LED Dimmer with RF remote off of Amazon and wired that inline. You can apparently use them as a switch, but I wanted to be able to cut off the power with a switch, so I wired the dimmer after the switch.

I did a 2nd set of these three lights above the bench with another dimer and switch. Interestingly the digital dimmers work fantastic. At full power the LEDs use almost an amp of power. At 25% power the light is just about right and they pull a little more than a tenth of an amp.

Next was the ski rack inside...

This pad keeps the back panel from being banged up by the ends of the skis. And looks sort of finished.

And new exhaust finally!

Cabinets pretty much finished. You can see the black grill above the refrigerator. This is where the refrigerator fan thermal switch went to. The switch is wired in to a nearly silent computer fan that pulls extra heat out of the cabinet.

A new LED cargo light. And some LED cabinet lights. The cabinet lights are hooked up with two DBST switches wired together as a 3 way. One switch accessible from the back and one from the bench.

Some cool blue lights sitting around the yellow H4s.

And extended the posts on the spare tire mount so I could turn around the front wheel. I thought this would look a lot better than a tire cover.

And last one for tonight. Put two of the doors on the back cabinet openings. Hinges on top and magnet catches to keep the closed. I'm going to keep the lower ones open. Since they are deeper there's less chance of stuff falling out. And some curtains coming for the front cabinets.

Mon May 05, 2014 11:07 pm

Oh and the curtains and upholstery work are care of my dear mother. She is a master seamstress, and thankfully for me she likes to keep busy. This is the 2nd time she's done the upholstery in this bus, and hopefully the last. The curtains are a heavy sunbrella type fabric with the original hardware.

Mon May 05, 2014 11:56 pm

Seriously impressive work! :shock: I never really was into the Westy camper set-up, but man...that's some neat set-up ya got there! :popcorn:

Tue May 06, 2014 7:26 am

Very nice!