TheSamba.com :: View topic - Restoration costs for 1970 VW bus sportsmobile bay window

Sun Aug 04, 2019 9:06 am

I would say drive it like it is but that frame has some serious rot.

Sun Aug 04, 2019 9:23 am

Drive it, not everything has to look nice.

Sun Aug 04, 2019 10:08 am

More pics!

Sun Aug 04, 2019 10:21 am

Pretty rusty, but like you said it's free. It will be interesting to see what it's like out of the field and stripped.

I bet that front beam is soft in spots, and if that rot in the front top hat section extends to the center of it it's a pain to change.

Good luck!

Sun Aug 04, 2019 10:22 am

VWmama70 wrote:
Went out to it with SO today and yikes! The frame is good in spots but questionable in others. The doors really do work shockingly well. We hate to leave it out there, and may just bring home to clean and part out...it’s free!

That's some scary structural rust, but it looks pretty complete and the price is right.
Selling off some parts to keep other Buses on the road and put some money in your pocket would be a good way to go with it.

Sun Aug 04, 2019 10:26 am

lost me at the snake skin. I would burn it in place

Sun Aug 04, 2019 10:38 am

always 'some' value in the sportsmobile top alone.
but rebuilding one can take a bunch more $$ alone.

Sun Aug 04, 2019 12:02 pm

That bus was a good candidate to get up and running, say maybe 25 yrs ago?
Now...clean it up, part it out. You might make enough dollars to make it worth your time.

Sun Aug 04, 2019 12:11 pm

Man so much negative. If y'all are really looking for a bus then this one is perfect for you to take home. Go find another bus that structurally sound thats a better candidate and have this one for all your small odds and ends. I just rebuilt a 74' and it was awesome having two other buses to rob little odds and ends off of. After all, when your putting one together it will drive you absolutely nuts not having little screws, nuts, bolts, washers, etc. Your getting all of your spare and probably original VW parts for FREE.

Sun Aug 04, 2019 8:56 pm

For inspiration look to England. They routinely restore/ rebuild vans in the same condition as this one. There are two restoration books, "How to restore Volkswagen Bus", by Mark Paxton, and "Volkswagen Bay Transporter Restoration Manual", by Fletcher Gillett. Both start with vans/busses in the condition of this one, and go step by step through the restoration. Restoration body panels can be bought from a number of sources, such as Bus Depot in Pennslyvania. Restoration panels vary widely in quatity, and most are poorly formed, and require considerable rework to make fit. The European brand Klockerholm gets thumbs down from almost everybody. Klassic Fab, made in Columbia by a company owned by Gerson, generally get good reviews. Try the Transporter Werks, I believe in North Carolina, advertise Klassic Fab panels. Or is it the company Monkey Nut? Also of North Carolina. The English company Autocraft gets good reviews also, and I think are available through Alan Schonefield in England.
Many reproduction parts available from many sources are very poor quality. Not only will they often not fit correctly, but often times the part you purchase will have a half life of days or weeks. Save all your old oem parts, no matter how ugly they look. They may be resurectable, and may ultimatly be better than the parts you bought.
This bus may not be restorable, but it is free. If nothing else, it is a great parts bus. If you get it home and decide that the water is too deep, possibly easier to restore, low rust busses can be purchased for a couple of grand and a road trip to Texas or Colorado, which is where I see a lot of these advertised. This bus is a Sportsmobile,, which was built on a basic panel van chassis. IIRC, Sportsmobile just used normal, non sunroof busses in their conversions, and cut a hole in the roof for the pop top. No extra reinforcement was added, and although I wouldn't do it that way myself, they seemed to have success. So I believe you could look for a donor passenger van and convert it just like Sportsmobile did. The Sportsmobile windows will not fit a passenger van, though.
There's lot's of options, and most of them will take tons of time and money. There's almost no way to do it on the cheap. But, if you want a
Volkswagen Camper, now you have the remains of one. And hopefully, enough of it remains to get you started on an adventure that will empty your wallet and rob all your time, and yet somehow put a smile on your face. Good Luck!
PS.Whoever said to ice pick the front beam, and evaluate the rear suspension torsion bar tube before trying to drive this vehicle is absolutely correct, I have seen rust in these to such a point that they will break while driving, sometimes with catestrophic results. If the ice pick shows corrosion in the towers on the front beam. it will have to be replaced, although maybe a skilled fabricator/weldor could repair a bad one. If the rear suspension tube or where it attaches to the van is bad, call in an expert weldor/ fab guy to evaluate the feasability of repair.

Sun Aug 04, 2019 9:02 pm

VWmama70 wrote: may just bring home to clean and part out...

This is the smart move. But if you want a bus and really want to put in the hard work, just accept the fact that doing the project is like putting water in a bucket that has a bunch of holes in it. But once you've finished filling up that draining bucket, you'll have a sweet bus.

Mon Aug 05, 2019 8:13 am

This is the best piece of advice ever given me in regards to restoring an automobile.

1. Think about what you want to achieve with your particular restoration.

2. make a list of all that needs to be done to achieve that goal.

3. make a list of needed parts and materials as best you can to do the job.

4. Now being brutally honest with yourself make an estimate of total time and cost of doing the type of restoration you want for that vehicle. No messing around here Like I said "Brutally Honest!"

5. Take the estimate you have just figured out for time and cost of the restoration. Now double it! Then you just might get somewhere close to the ballpark of what the actual cost will be.

6. This is no joke!

Mon Aug 05, 2019 8:15 am

sodbuster wrote: This is the best piece of advice ever given me in regards to restoring an automobile.

1. think about what you want to achieve with your particular restoration.

2. make a list of all that needs to be done to achieve that goal.

3. make a list of needed parts and materials as best you can to do the job.

4. Now being brutally honest with yourself make an estimate of total time and cost of doing the type of restoration you want for that vehicle. No messing around here Like I said "Brutally Honest!"

5. Take the estimate you have just figured out for time and cost of the restoration. Now double it! then you just might get somewhere close to the ballpark of what the actual cost will be.

6. This is no joke!

it's no joke. I estimated $15K on mine and it cost $30K. That was in 2009.

Mon Aug 05, 2019 8:27 am

SGKent wrote: sodbuster wrote: This is the best piece of advice ever given me in regards to restoring an automobile.

1. think about what you want to achieve with your particular restoration.

2. make a list of all that needs to be done to achieve that goal.

3. make a list of needed parts and materials as best you can to do the job.

4. Now being brutally honest with yourself make an estimate of total time and cost of doing the type of restoration you want for that vehicle. No messing around here Like I said "Brutally Honest!"

5. Take the estimate you have just figured out for time and cost of the restoration. Now double it! then you just might get somewhere close to the ballpark of what the actual cost will be.

6. This is no joke!

it's no joke. I estimated $15K on mine and it cost $30K. That was in 2009.

I'll say! It's coming time for me soon as well. I will be taking the mighty "Kookrod" apart so it can go off to body and paint. The body work is something I would have liked to have taken on myself but I have no space to do that sort of work at home for one. And I would have to laid out a whole bunch more in tooling I do not have as well for another.

I have found a very good shop to do the body and paint work. I will take it all apart until it's a rolling shell then once the body and paint are done I'll put it back together. That I can do! 8)

Mon Aug 05, 2019 8:59 am

Matt Murata has been looking for a body shop in NorCal who will do buses. If yours is in NorCal, he is in Campbell and was still looking as of a couple weeks ago. He even looked as far as Colorado.

Matt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=341387

Steve

Mon Aug 05, 2019 9:15 am

SGKent wrote: Matt Murata has been looking for a body shop in NorCal who will do buses. If yours is in NorCal, he is in Campbell and was still looking as of a couple weeks ago. He even looked as far as Colorado.

Matt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=341387

Steve

He's in Palmdale Ca.

Mon Aug 05, 2019 10:10 am

I'll relay my biographical experience:

I wanted a driver type of bus for many years and had basically no cash on hand to buy a running one. So I bought my '71 shell in 2015-ish for about $1100. Not exactly free but still fairly cheap. Since then I've probably dumped $16K - $17K into it, and at the end of the day my bus is just a driver. Granted that was always my original intent. However, once I put about $15K into the project I stopped keeping track because I realized I was already way way over my original $10K - $12K "all-in budget". I also did the majority of the work myself.

The main thing to consider is that my bus was/is pretty solid. It had no major structural rust issues (like I'm seeing in those pictures). However, it was mostly just a rolling shell, so I did need to buy and work on just about everything else which, in the case of your bus, you may not have to. Mine needed a Motor, a Transmission, Brakes, Suspension Work, Interior, Paint, etc. But if you factor just in metal work alone I can see your bus costing at least $10K - $12K to make it safe. Figure all-in you're at about $18K -$20K on the low-end and that's really just for just a driver.

I agree with a lot of the points raised here. The structural rust is the weakness on this particular bus. Because once you fix all of the rust, you'll still need to revive every other system on it to make it drive-able. If it were me (and speaking from how I should have done it to begin with) these would be my options ranked:

1.) I'd save and just buy a good driving camper for about $12K - $15K. Easy to do and still a lot of fun to tinker with.

2.) If you want to do a project bus but not kill yourself, find a fairly solid bus to work with and swap all of the rare parts over from your bus.

3.) If you're dead set on doing this particular project know that you're going to be putting more money into it then you've probably budgeted for (or what it will probably end up being worth in the end) and also know that all of it is okay because it's all done out of love.

No matter your chosen path, good luck to you!

Mon Aug 05, 2019 10:49 am

Oooh, they are out and hungry today. :roll: :lol:

Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:40 pm

skills@eurocarsplus wrote: lost me at the snake skin. I would burn it in place

I'm with Skills, the hidden snake is the deal breaker.

Mon Aug 05, 2019 5:43 pm

We have a 1970 VW Sportsmobile (see photo at left) which we bought in 1976 but had it in storage off and on for many years and still have it. See this website to see what you might have someday if you restore it as a Sportsmobile. https://sportsmobile.com/our-earlier-years/