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Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:04 am

Hello everyone!

Few weeks back I am a proud owner of a 1978 T2 bus. My first car.

Little backstory
My name is David van Os (24) and I live in the Netherlands. I always take public transport here so never needed a car.
From before I can remember I liked these little busses(thats atleast what my mom told me).

The name Loafy is because I thought it looked like a bread loaf, I first wanted to call it "Broodje" its the dutch word said in a cute way for a bread loaf.
But I wanted it to be in English so it became "Loafy".

I am not a car guy, but I always loved old timers.
So I also have no car experience, pretty much have to learn everything. But I learn quick with everything I can do with my hands. I have tons of expierince with working with tools and making things.
I am a qualified Furniture maker, 3D designer, 3D printing enthousiast. worked on houses and overall handy guy if I may say so myself.

I scored this bus for a crazy good deal (atleast for here in the Netherlands), 3500 Euro, plus 350 transport

It is 90% complete, I am missing some parts like Distributor, handles for front doors and rear hatches. and other small bits. Oh and the driver seat, but I have bought that allready.

The previous owner bought the bus for 3000 euro back in 2015-2016 I believe. His plan was for it to give it to a school for car restoration as a practise for them and free restoration for him. He payed around 3000 for new metal. (new front doors, front, cargo floor, side panels, and chassis pieces).

The day that the bus showed up at my front door was an amazing feeling. Looked for 5 months, to find the right bus for me.

Its a project car that I will try to restore for not a ton of money that's why I will try and do everything myself.

Here some pictures of when I first got it

Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:11 am

Welcome!
Very nice project you have there! I have to say that's a great space you have there to work on it.
Good luck!

Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:18 am

First things I did were to check what I have adn don't have.

I pretty much got a bus filled with boxes with random stuff in it. To my suprise I found lots of stuff that did not even belong to my car, Volvo. renault and other brands car parts. That was because it was setting in a school for car restoration. they used the bus as storage place haha.

Even some cookies wrappers and broken angle grinder discs were thrown in the engine bay, like if it was a transcan.

I made a list of everything I have and what I dont have. Currently I am discussing with someone who has donor busses to get hold of these parts.

He has nearly everything I need. but still have trouble finding the right distrubutor 113-905-205T. I found two guys selling it for 160+ euro, hopefully I will find something cheaper.

After I purchused the parts that I am missing from him, for around 400-500 euro's I will routhly have a 97% complete stock bus I think.

I took the bus more apart, I removed the engine and soon will remove the gas tank. also removed all parts that should not be painted when I do the chassis.
I ofcourse put everything sepperatly in ziplocked bags with names on them for what the parts are used for.

Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:25 am

daves_ale wrote: Welcome!
Very nice project you have there! I have to say that's a great space you have there to work on it.
Good luck!

Thank you!

Yes its big open shed,
I just googled what "kapschuur"(our word for that kind of shed) is in English and its "Dutch barn" hahah, (I am Dutch)

The right front corner where the ladder is, there is a "big" open space, I am going to turn that into a insolated workspace, for the upcomming winter. So I can still work on some bus parts in a relatively warm space.

I worked hard on getting that Dutch barn clean and ready when I had my bus. Still needs work but I can do that in the meantime aswell.

Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:32 am

Ofcourse I had to buy tools for this big project so, bought my first welder and some other tools for car work. currently spend a little over 700 euro on tools, mostly that welder it was quite expensive.

So I practised welding, because I definitly going to need to use that alot haha.

I have had some experience with electrode welding, but that's ofcourse nothing like MIG.

After a little practise this is my offcial first weld on the bus.
I am quite happy with the results, after going over it with an angle grinder it was pretty much flat and strong.

(also there was a free welding clamp hidding inside my bus)

Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:42 am

The bus was worked on quite alot already, some welds looked really bad. But if its strong and I can flatten it with an angle grinder. I cant complain too much.

I did a big inspection on the bus looked for all the spots I had to weld before I can prime and sand.

These are some of the worst spots.

Be warned these pictures may shock some of you ;)

Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:49 am

My bus is a benchseat bus.
But I want to convert my bus to a camper. so a walktrhough would be more of use for me. The bulkhead wall is already not orginal anymore, the PO got rid of it appperently.

I will convert mine to a walkthrough and will use @Daverham's thread as a guide.

I have bought two seats for the front and will sell the front bench and the 2 orginal passenger benches.

Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:34 am

Wow! I thought New England rust was bad. Your ambitious to take that one on. Good luck, and when frustrated, walk away for a couple days. When you come back to it later the fun will restart. At least thats what happens to me.

Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:06 pm

Yeah busses can get crusty here. Seen way worse in the price category I looked in.

It's definitely ambitious but keeps me busy hahah, sadly can't work slot on it yet. I am studying at a University so that always has priority.
The goal is to have the bus chassis work finished and painted in the summer, because I have 6 weeks of then.

Looks great the pictures you send. Very clean final result.

Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:37 pm

Good luck with the project buddy, hope it goes well!

Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:48 pm

Your welding looks good, actually.

Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:14 pm

That’s a really good first weld

It’s better than my hundredth weld

😃

Mon Mar 29, 2021 1:26 am

Thank you guys for the compliments!

This weekend I did not work on the bus but on the future workspace.
Slowly I will add a roof and fill in the gaps with multiplex boards and make it ready for this winter.

I am happy how far I got, I had to move some very heavy stuff like that metal table, luckily with help.
Having everything I need at a central location is great.

The brown big closet will later be resorted so power tools go in there.

Having checked what I need to buy new for the bus so I will soon place that order.

As you can also see the craftmanship was not the greatest when they replaced the panels. the bus is quite wavy on the sides. I see what I can do to fix that but not sure.

Mon Mar 29, 2021 5:14 am

Thats a great workspace. Big table, vice, ANVIL (awesome!), and wicked nice parts and tool storage. Id say your set for some production. Keep us posted on progress. Cheers.

Mon Mar 29, 2021 8:09 am

Thank you!
Im very pleased with it too.

Just a little update I ordered the last few replacements metals I needed but sadly also discorvered that the school that "repaired" the van made another big mistake.

They forgot the floor beam where the shifter rod goes through. so have to add that in. but to do so I have to remove quite a bit.

Also they made there own front side jackpoints. but with the measurements of the rear jackpoints, so they are way to short. and are incorrectly welded in.

Will need some time to cut these parts carefully out because I want to reuse them.

Now I am not sure what I need to focus on first. I would like the van exterior to be done with paint end of this summer. I have 6 weeks off in the summer.

A bit more welding is needed then I intially thought.

Tue Apr 06, 2021 9:21 am

Sadly this weekend no work has been done on the bus, I am really busy with uni.

I have bought my replacement metals that I needed to complete the bus.
One piece is even an NOS replacement piece if I am not mistaken. I noticed that the NOS part uses thinner metal than the modern variant.

My left back corner was very badly welded by people long ago and rust has ruined alot of it too so bought this big piece from a donor bus.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/kP40cJh.jpg?1[/img]

Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:26 pm

I have some other projects I need to work on before I can really start on the bus. not to worry these projects will be done in 1 or 2 weeks.

One of them is working on the workspace, I have started on theconstruction for the roof. I am routhly halfway done with the roof.

But porobably what you guys find more interesting is that I finally was able to remove the tank, the bolts that held down the tank were really rusted.
Behind the tank I found a little seashell and old foodball cards haha.

My bus also has a 5 rib gearbox and a older style 1600 engine.

My goal is to have the bodywork done and painted in this summer, I have 8 weeks holiday so that must be doable I think.
After that I will be focusing on the engine and other mechanical stuff. hopefully have the bus being able to ride around next summer.

Mon Apr 12, 2021 4:26 pm

DavidOx wrote:
A bit more welding is needed then I intially thought.

That's signature line material there.

Good luck with your project. A lot of us have been there. Kudos for doing it yourself.

Mon Apr 19, 2021 1:49 pm

Thank you Jimmie!

Hahah yes and well I can say it again. The sills are very far gone, they did not look too bad from the outside but, they have been repaird multlple times. But did not treat the rust propperly so it rusted from the inside.

I finally had time thise weekend to really work on the bus, I started with removing rusted areas and treating them with rust converter. after that I cut out the wall and welded some palces taht were loose or badly welded.

Fri Sep 03, 2021 1:21 pm

Sorry for not updating in such a long time, I am bad at that.

I worked a lot of the bus, mostly removing all the rust and badly placed parts. The previous owner made some mistake with the chassis parts.

I started welding in parts aswell. here are some photos but I did more than shown.

I am now quite sure on what body work is needed to get the van ready for primer.