Zach's Progress thread on the 1972 Westy

[vacca_rabite]

So I've not updated this thread in a while.
Life got busy, bus went on the side burner for a solid year.

I needed to get Revved up to build cars again - and that was not happening at home. So I moved the bus away from the home, and brought it to Jon's house to finish. Turns outh when I'm at home I get too caught up on piddling things like Family, Work, Scouting, etc and loose focus on the important stuff like old cars.

So...

I wrapped up the bus and drove it about 120 miles to the eastern shore of MD. at the time we had no idea what was about to happen.

About 35 miles in, I took off the plastic wrap. It was a good idea, but it just did not work. The wind was tearing it apart. With the cling wrap removed, the winshieldless bus filled with air like a parachute and my truck really felt it. Until it didn't.

Suddenly, (like another 30ish miles down the road) the bus got a lot easier to tow. Looking back the rear hatch had blown open and the bus was no longer acting like a parachute. My first thought was to pull over and close it again. but then I thought

[vacca_rabite]

One of the homework assignment was seats.

Totally rehabbed.

sets were broken down, frames cleaned. Movements repaired and greased. Several coats of paint.

not at all the rusty mess that it was. Actually looks good!

All new fiber pads.

Jute over the fiber, and then fresh WW seat coverings.
We did this job in February in PA. i.e. COLD. it sucked. A warm shop goes a long way to making the seat covering pliable.

The seats ended up looking pretty rad!

Another bit of homework was cleaning all the removed hardware from this bus. I put it all in my big rock tumbler with some stainless steel pins, water and dawn dish soap. This is the same method I use for cleaning shooting brass.

After 4ish hours tumbling, all the rusty crusty hardware essentially looked new. I did not take pics of before, but everyone know what 50year old German nuts and bolts look like. BAD.

Everything then got dried, sprayed with some oil to prevent re-rusting, sorted and bagged.

Jon and I then spent about 4 days going over wiring. 4 hateful days. It was the wiring that had directly lead to the bus stalling back in 2023. We made progress, but there were still issues.

New switches did not work out of the box. Cleaned grounds would be fouled again. Relays failing - some of the brand new. And the joys of finding the right electrical bits for a 1972. They don't make it. You have to modify early bus stuff, and none of it fits right.

When we got the wiring to about the 90% point, we decided to pivot and do fun work instead, as neither of us wanted to spend another weekend wiring.

Next post for more!
Zach
_________________
1972 T2 Bay Westy in restoration
1976 Porsche 914
195? Empi Sportster Dune Buggy
1981 Rabbit Truck
1987 Vanagon Syncro GL tin top camper.

[vacca_rabite]

We decided it was time to pivot off the electrics and do some fun and rewarding work. On to the interior!

Be advised - none of my seats aft of the drivers area match. I'm going to re-upholster them, but its not done yet.

The interior panels I had were all over the place. Some were damaged. Some didn't exist. Some were in pretty good shape. Some were ok but painted. So, fine.

We decided to make some new panels out of sheets of underlayment to replace the ones that were either damaged badly, or non-existent. And I decided to just paint everything so it matched instead of trying to refinish and then match the OG German finish on the Baltic birch plywood. Trip to Ace later, and I had a can of Carmel Apple brown paint with primer pre-mixed. It was hot and humid (oh, so humid) but I rolled that paint anyway. The offered to save my formula, and I said yes. Good thing too, as I underestimated how much paint was needed.

And, yes, I did just roll them right on Jon's gravel driveway.

I was actually pretty thrilled with how it all looked until later that night when someone said "Man, that looks like the color of carboard boxes." Dammit! So I spent a lot of time making my interior panels look like cardboard. Onward!

Panels went in. I think they look good. They are not cardboard! CARMEL APPLE. CARMEL. APPLE.

One of the things that I wanted to change about my bus was the Z bed. I wanted a full width bed, and I found one.

I also went to the local carpet store and got some nice carpet from their remnant section. I made panels for the flooring out of whatever plywood was in Jon's shop and we started laying it in.

Burgundy, orange plaid, and beige. Choices were made...

I also decided not to replace the sink and water tank. Mostly because I did not have the sink and water tank. I had the plumbing, and vents. But not the actual cabinet. Which i fine. I like the open feeling the bus currently has. You may also note that the Shore Power plugs are not in place. During rust repair, that cut in was never made. I have the shore power port, and I even restored it. But I have not been able to bring myself to cut it into the body of the bus for fitment. This may change. But for the time being, the shore power box sits on a shelf in my garage.

You will also note that I decided to put a bit of carpet in the walkthrough. I wanted to preserve the walkthrough, and not fill it with a console or anything like that.

The neighbors kid approves. He even has the proper "bus driver" stance. Go Liam go!

Then came the big powder coating job.

Zach
_________________
1972 T2 Bay Westy in restoration
1976 Porsche 914
195? Empi Sportster Dune Buggy
1981 Rabbit Truck
1987 Vanagon Syncro GL tin top camper.

[superman73]

wow, looks good
_________________
Chuck

Jesus Saves

70 deluxe bus
67 manx clone
various other parts cars.


http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=228364&highlight=superman73sb+bellsouth

[vacca_rabite]

Next up was a big powder coat job.

*New rear bumper (the bumper with the bus was the wrong bumper for the bus. I could not find a good used 1972 bumper, but someone makes one new!)
*Good used front bumper
*all new hardware
*front belly pan
*spare tire holder (though I ultimately decided not to use this.)

The bumpers got back from the coater and looked AMAZING. Somehow I didn't take pics of them before they went back on the car. LAME.

The front bumper got reassembled, complete with new hardware, new rubber foot treads, and new seals.

I have not put on the rear bumper pans - I think they will just hold water and promote rust. But Jon thinks I need them for overall strength. I may eventually put them on, as the sides of the rear bumper are flexible, and I don't think its strong enough to tow with just with the rear mounts.

Another but of homework was restoring the spice rack. I still intended to use it even though we did not have the sink cabinet installed.

I ended up just totally unhappy with the table. Even with the trim reinstalled it just didn't look good. So I took off the swinging table part of the spice rack. Eventually I'm going to replace the entire top with something I make in my woodshop. But for now, it will just be a little narrow shelf.

Mounting the spice rack like this was Jon's idea, and I really like it. He also donated a VW bottle opener to go next to it.

I think its exactly perfect.

Next post will be the next work session. And the final one at Jon's before the bus came home!

Zach
_________________
1972 T2 Bay Westy in restoration
1976 Porsche 914
195? Empi Sportster Dune Buggy
1981 Rabbit Truck
1987 Vanagon Syncro GL tin top camper.

[vacca_rabite]

The next session was a three day work session over Labor Day weekend this past September.

We had a goal for this bus - we wanted to be able to drive it to Flanders NJ for the All Aircooled Gathering at the end of September. For that to happen, a lot needed to get done Labor Day weekend - Ideally with the bus driving the 120 miles back to my home in PA at the end of the weekend.

As well as Jon, we had our good friend Sean there as well for the final push.

And, boy, did we have a lot to do.

The carbs had just been rebuilt and needed to be installed and tuned.
All the electrical wiring in the nose needed to be completed.
Doors needed building. Windshield needed to be installed.
And there was also beer that needed drinking, bad jokes and laughter. Jon had a strict plan for the weekend.

Which I immediately wrecked. Why? Because the pop top was super dingy.
So the first thing I did when I got there was start taking off the bus so I could spray-bomb the top.

The sun was bright, and all that light reflecting into my eyes was literally blinding. As in when I was done and got off the ladder i could not see for about 20 minutes, while my eyes slowly readjusted. But the roof looked really good when I was done.

Sean started working on the door windows and seals. Jon installed the freshly rebuilt carbs. I kept working on trim items inside the bus. Installing the folding table, cutting out a new hatch panel and painting new front door panels. CARMEL APPLE. I used a set of those ABS panels for the front doors and for the kick panels, and they turned out REALLY nice. CARAMEL APPLE. Not f*$&ing cardboard.

Carbs in, wiring now more complete (but still not done) a discission was made to get the windshield in. We knew this bus had a welded in nose panel back from when I bought it. What we did not know was if the windshield would go smoothly.

It did NOT.

The nose was welded in slightly out of place. The opening for the glass was just a hair too small. Jon and I did what we could to fit the windshield, and then there was a POP and it broke. We both needed a breather after that. This was a big problem.

We had another windshield on hand. And another windshield seal. Jon had noted that there was a lot of filler in the windshield frame for some reason. I suggested that we try grinding it out. So we did. Again the bus got taped up. Jon grabbed an drill, put a fiber disk on it and got to work - all the way down to bare metal. At some point I took over. Then put on a coat of spray paint to protect the metal from rust. The nose was still not welded on properly, but fitting the second windshield without the seal sure made it seem like it was going to work.

AND IT DID! Mostly. The top of the windshield and both sides sucked in properly. The bottom, where the new nose was still out of place, was in but not great. We just could not get the base of the windshield fully against the flange. Short of cutting the flange off and welding it in a new location, this was as good as it was going to get. From the outside, you can't tell. From the inside, you can see where the seal is stretched about 2-3mm.

Zach
_________________
1972 T2 Bay Westy in restoration
1976 Porsche 914
195? Empi Sportster Dune Buggy
1981 Rabbit Truck
1987 Vanagon Syncro GL tin top camper.

[vacca_rabite]

From this point, the bus was a vehicle again.

Carbs were sort of tuned. Wiring was close to being done. Not perfect, and there is still work I need to do there, but enough worked that the vehicle could move and most of the circuits worked.

So time for a drive. We needed more stuff from the hardware store, and that was a few miles away. So Jon and I piled in the bus and headed up the road.

The first drive was mostly a success.

We got to the ACE, we stopped at the gas station and filled the tank. We refreshed the beer supply. But the engine was missing pretty bad by the time we got home. The carbs were not happy yet.

We started playing with the carbs, but things were getting worse and not better. The plugs were black. And we were exhausted. We wanted to swim and drink and have a campfire. So thats what we did. Jon started grilling dinner. I installed the Go Westy awning mounts and got the awning on. And then Amy got in and started driving the bus around the lawn, eventually parking it near to where the fire would be.

The next morning we got up early with every expectation that I'd be driving the bus back to PA. But it didn't happen. We were rushed, and tuning carbs rushed does not work. It ran, but it did not run well enough to make a 120 mile ride home. So, we hooked back up the tow bar and the bus came home the same way it went to Jon's so many months earlier - attached to the back of my 4Runner.

I can't stress enough how much of a godsend Jon and his shop was this past year. This would NOT have gotten done without his friendship, help and extreme knowledge. His hands and patience are all over this bus.

Next chapter, next post.

Zach
_________________
1972 T2 Bay Westy in restoration
1976 Porsche 914
195? Empi Sportster Dune Buggy
1981 Rabbit Truck
1987 Vanagon Syncro GL tin top camper.

[vacca_rabite]

This post will bring us up to date.
The bus was now back in my shop, and I still had a laundry list of things I needed to get done prior to driving to Flanders (roughly a 3 hour drive from my house) - and 3 weeks to get it done.

First off, carbs. When we had the carbs rebuilt, we had the 50 idles punched out to 55. While everyone agreed this was the right move, it was a mistake. At the time we thought the engine was a 2.0. I now think its a 1.7, and it needed the smaller jets - so I had to source smaller jets. Translog (an aircooled Porsche restoration shop) is local to me here in York PA, and I was able get jets there. I put in fresh plugs and got the carbs back to baseline. Immediately better!

I also needed to get the bus legal. Insurance took longer then expected for Grundy to get it done. It spent about a week in underwriting. But that done, I was ready for the DMV. Antique plates in PA require some extra legwork to get. I've done it before. Pics of all the sides of the bus. Scheduled the local police to come and verify the VIN and sign the needed forms. Got my packet together and headed to Harrisburg. I HATE using the local title services - and they take longer then I had to get the vehicle legal. But I failed!!!

The DMV denied my application for antique plates. The lady at the counter said I needed a picture of the vin plate. I said:

[Shonandb]

Good to see that you are almost done and the Bus is drivable again. It's great when it all comes together.

Once the Syncro is up and running, your weekend dilemma will be - which vehicle to drive?.... A nice problem to have!
_________________
*******************************
76 Westy with a 2.5L Subaru SOHC + Vanagon (010) Automatic Transaxle
Build & Trip Thread: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=758760
Previous 1973 Panel Bus:
Click to view image

[Buggeee]

I just got caught up on your thread and the bus turned out great with all that hard work. Congratulations!
_________________
Big Time 1988 Vanagon Westy
Release the Krankenwagen! 1966 Sportsmobile Camper
Dr. Kompressor 72 Super Duper
61 Turkis Pile (adopted out)