The Dirty Double Cab - Built to Take a Load

[crownline]

Wow lots of work. Great you're saving this.
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1972 Bus 1700 cc Single Carb. But not a progressive.
Barelymuvin
Wish I still had the ones I got rid of.

"It"s got some dings and dents and neither of us is going to SEMA."(Update, I went to SEMA in 2019 but the Bus stayed home)
[url=http://www.vw-mplate.com/mplate-8446.png]Click to view image[/URL]

[NUG637]

Thanks crownline

Since all the work along the front is all but done it was time to close up the lower front nose for good

Ground all the welds with a 1mm cut off disc to keep the heat out of it, then smoothed it off with a flapper disk

With abit of filler and some creative blending in the future, this thing is looking pretty good from this angle

[NUG637]

The fun continues on the cargo floor now….

With an access hole cut in the tray, for better access for hacking out the floor…

I wanted to try remaking the bottom C pillar before cutting it out of the way to do the sills…

I started by cutting away the c pillar on the parts bus from the cab floor up to see if I could use a section to form the lower part for the dual cab….

Then pie cut it and bent it to shape and filled in the gaps

Think this will work out a treat considering you can’t buy them anywhere that I could find….

And after being bullied out of using checker plate for the cargo floor I spent 4 times the price on a cheap set of vw cargo floors, thanks justkampers

[NUG637]

A few minor repairs to the top hat and jacking point on the LHS

Then burnt in the inner sill and sill strengthener. I’m very impressed with the justkampers preservation panels

[NUG637]

I Feel like I have been toying away at bottoms of pillars for weeks now as most of these panels are not readily available

Made The bottom of the B pillar

Then welded in both the bottom of the "B" and "C" pillar repair sections i had made.

The Tray bed support pillar repair was interesting... abit of head scratching but making it out of one piece and getting the right curve has seemed to work out well for the 2 outer skins that joint on it

Test fitting the outer skins and marking the curve i needed for the tray bed pillar

Had a go at making the outa skin that attached to the tray bed pillar

All just sitting in place as a test fit

Also Made the lower reinforcement panel for the rear quarter section

Might actually get to melt some more metal together next week and get some of these outer sills welded on

[richparker]

Awesome work, very impressive!
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’71 Westy build
Adventure thread
’65 Deluxe Build
’71 Double Cab

[jtauxe]

Ya know... You're so good at fabrication of difficult parts that, since your truck is right-hand drive, you could consider adding the second crew cab door. Right side crew cab doors are not impossible to find, since they went with LHD trucks. Tha hard part is the B and C pillars on the right.
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John
"Travelling in a fried-out Kombi, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie..." - Colin Hay and Ron Strykert
http://vw.tauxe.net
1969 Transporter, 1971 Westfalia, 1976, 1977, 1976, 1977, 1971, 1973, 1977 Westfalias,
1979 Champagne Sunroof, 1974 Westfalia Automatic, 1979 Transporter, 1972 Sportsmobile, 1973 Transporter Wild Westerner, 1974 Westfalia parts bus, 1975 Mexican single cab *FOR SALE*, 1978 Irish 4-door double cab RHD

[NUG637]

Thanks guys

[Buggeee]

This is a very motivating build on a very worthy truck

I picked up a shrinker stretcher off Marketplace so I can follow your lead on the windshield repair.
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Big Time 1988 Vanagon Westy
Release the Krankenwagen! 1966 Sportsmobile Camper
Dr. Kompressor 72 Super Duper
61 Turkis Pile (adopted out)

[NUG637]

Thank you,

You won’t regret the shrinker stretcher! I have used it more times then I would of ever thought

[NUG637]

Had to fix a few patches in the rear wheel arch...

I hand made the front wheel arch repair that butts into the outa skin

Once the Inner wheel arch repair was sorted i burnt in the outa skin

Passenger side all Rust free (apart from the hangables for now)

there is a fair bit of filler on that rear tray side that im just gonna blend back in as i want to maintain alot of the existing paint and scratches.... this will not be a show car... rather a rust free beat up old cruiser

i also beat out the big gouge down the side and ran a weld over it to seal out any water.... going to leave that as abit of a battle scar to i think....

[NUG637]

This last 2 weeks has been 1 step forward 3 steps back as more rust holes appeared in sections while i was trying to repair areas nearby.... one of these areas was the engine bay firewall and fuel tank tray area...

started off by trying to repair this back left corner of the firewall

I used bennet's customs trick by making a template from dirty finger marks over a piece on paper

than used my Indian backstreets panel beating skills to form a shape

but before i could weld this off i had to fix the tray that would normally hold the fuel tank in kombi VANS, so back to the parts bus to get hacking...

replacement piece retrieved

to fix this

but while cutting out the section to be replaced on the D/C, it revealed more rust in the bottom of the "firewall" where the 3 pieces lap eachother behind the engine. The tray meets the firewall and then the engine bay seal channel is welded on the engine side of the firewall... so what felt like 1 million spot welds later while laying on my back in the filth revealed i had to do a little repair strip to the bottom middle of the firewall before welding in the tray repair section.

Done!

then i could weld in the panel i made 2 weeks ago before it turned into a really big job...

With some wild joint sealer sprayed over this section you wont notice the imperfections from being hand made i don't think....

oh and all this was achieved under the careful supervision from the new workshop dog...

just the inner wheel arch section to weld in now an thats another shit job ticked off the list

[Earl Bay]

wow man, I admire your work. That's some mad panel beating skills you have.

[ALLWAGONS]

Wow! If I was only half as talented as you, I would resurrect everyone’s bus!

Awesome skills Sir!

Martin
Allwagons
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I'd be UNSTOPPABLE if not for Law Enforcement and PHYSICS.

I recycle old cars and parts, other than when I rot, that's as Green as I am going to get.

Thanks to my Tesla driving neighbors, I feel more relaxed driving my SUBURBAN and old VW's.

Everything sounds good on paper!

[NUG637]

[ALLWAGONS]

[NUG637]

I respect that very much, i think a lot of it is mindset to… i have abit of mongrel dog in me i think and dont like to be beaten so i will poersist until i concur

[NUG637]

Kids had another play date yesterday afternoon so while mum and the groms were out i finished off that inner wheel arch… my initial cut was a little small to fix all the rust so had to tack on a little extra piece off to the side to finished it off…

While drilling the the spot weld holes in the little extra side piece, i was rushing to get it done and was holding the metal in my hand while drilling… and in my head i was talking to myself saying, “this is risky, if the drill grabs this will hurt” and no sooner did it grab….. one day i will learn

Abit of grinding next week and then onto the next area for some cancer treatment