March '58 Westy resurrection

[earlywesty]

Haven't ever bothered to start a thread about one of my VW's before but for some reason this bus has me motivated to do so.

A few months back I picked up this March 1958 Westfalia Camping Box from this site. It was in Iowa and a midwest bus all it's life, as such it has some rust but is overall quite solid.

After coming to the deal I made plans for a marathon weekend roadtrip out to get it with a detour to upper WI to pick up an SO33 interior I had purchased. The night before we leave my co-pilot and called from the hospital with chest pains and couldn't make it; I felt bad but had to go anyway. It was February and we hadn't had a flake of snow yet (crazy winter) in Ontario or out in Iowa so I felt lucky to have dry clean roads to make the trip. Without a co-pilot my timeline was under a little more pressure but I took Friday off and left at 3am and was in Iowa, complete with WI detour by 10pm. What a day!. Hit the hay and headed over to sellers house first thing in the morning. Checked out the bus and chatted for a couple hours and then hit the road for the 16+hour trek home.

[67 Florida Deluxe]

Nice looking Westy. Congrats! I look forward to more pics and progress updates
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-Kent (BaT "daleallen")

OG member of the '67 Posse

A few of my toys, past and present
'56 Oval, '66 KG Conv't, '67 21-Window, '67 Bug, '79 SuperVert, '55 Pre-A Continental

[earlywesty]

The weather was sunny and dry for the entire trip out and back, talk about major luck heading up the MI upper peninsula and across the midwest and back, pulling a trailer and having nothing but clear skies and dry (and salt-free!) roads. Made it home with no problems at all the UHaul trailer was the newer style and it pulled really nice. I have a car hauler that I share with a friend but wanted to not have to worry about the trailer for at least half the drive anyway...

Once home, I took some time to see how complete it was and really look at the overall condition. I was pleased with what I found and while it's missing a few things like the ever-elusive propane fridge and the propane tank, it is otherwise quite complete. The original rubber floor mats are there as is the limba plywood floor with snaps for the mat. All the curtain rods and snaps and almost all of the original '58 only cabinet hardware. The floors are solid, rockers have a little rust, all panels with the exception of the nose are og paint and very straight.

[earlywesty]

I couldn't help but try polishing the og paint a little bit. I think it will come up great! The bus has a great patina, with primer coming through on the roof and in a few spots. My plans are to maintain absolutely as much original paint as possible but eventually weld up the rockers and areas that need repairing.

Before

After

After some polishing to get my blood pumping I settled myself to the real task at hand, getting the mechanicals sorted out. Since its been so long I opted for all new brakes, NOS german hydraulics and new shoes and steel lines, new front bearings and seals in and out. Also did all the hard and soft lines.

While the rears were new 10 years ago and had zero miles as they were installed with a rebuilt KCR transaxle big nut tranny at that time and never run. This had to come out anyway as an adapter is needed to run the late tranny in an early bus. The PO had already tried to solid mount it and had hacked the og front tranny mount.

The bus came with a 36hp that was 'supposed to run' with a ring job sometime in the past 10 years although the rest of the motor is unknown. It came out as well for servicing and installing of heater boxes and single tip muffler.

[campingbox]

Nice - looks like a great bus - enjoy it.

[earlywesty]

As I have been working on this stuff over the last few months I have taken a break from the mechanicals to do something that makes it look at least a little bit better. I tried the 'football' trick to push out the front nose dents a bit. It worked quite well, and while still far from perfect, the nose is no longer concave. Pics don't show the change very well.

Before

After

Also dug out some old bondo on the pass. dogleg. It was over an inch deep! used to fill dents that were to hard to dolly out due to the inner dogleg being in the way on the back side. The bus must have taken a small hit in the front corner at some point in the past. I have some og paint dove blue dogleg sections that I may use to repair and blend with some Glasurit L31 I had mixed up.

I also stripped the white paint of the pass. front door, it was mint dove blue underneath! I have no idea why it was painted as I expected to find damage as per the dogleg but there was none!

[campingbox]

Corey has the drivers door you need:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1328099

[earlywesty]

Unfortunately on the other side of the bus the damn PO's got too crazy with a DA sander and the og dove blue is mostly gone. I am hoping to replace the door with an og paint one and have an og paint dogleg so that will just leave the long panel to be repainted. Unfortunately that probably also means I should do the long rocker first, which means I should do the inner at the same time and the one soft outrigger... you know how it goes...I am hoping I can get it safetied locally (we have strict rules in Ontario) without the welding done as there are no holes through the body and then I can focus on the welding this winter.

Pass. Door came out well after wet sanding, should look great once polished.

I always have good helpers too... Our middle son Calder helps out the most, he loves buses and fixing stuff in the shop!

[ol36er]

That's great you got that bus Eric! Sooo much potential. Congrats and keep up the good work.
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WTB - Green Middle Seat Snowflake Kickpanel
WTB - Wingnut air cleaner

[earlywesty]

[G-wood Todd]

Thats a good looking bus. Its cleaning up real well. I look forward to seeing it run under its own power. Good luck with the journey.

[mr white]

Very cool bus Eric, I was tempted to buy it. Glad to see it ended up in loving hands! I look forward to watching this thread!

[cdennisg]

Here is that bus many years ago in MN.

Sorry for the crappy pics.
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Confusious say it takes it takes two wipes to know you need three, but it takes three wipes to know it only needed two.

[ol36er]

[earlywesty]

[earlywesty]

With everything hooked up, gas tank flushed and new lines installed it was ready to see if it starts! New 6V battery installed, thought I'd give it a try. When I got the bus a non-bus ignition was dangling from some wiring on the dash, one of which went all the way under the bus to the battery directly. I tried the key, of course nothing worked. So pulled the parcel tray and started removing all wiring that wasn't factory, which turned out to be not that much in reality...

Took a break and did some pretend driving to get my spirits up

Amazingly none of the og wiring was hacked and all went back in the right places. Turn key, dash lights! but no start. Had my wife hold the key and have juice at starter. So it must be the starter, take it out and drop off at starter shop for cleanup and solenoid rebuild. Get it back all shiny put it in and it turns over, albeit very slowly...still no start. Check spark, no spark. Figure out it is bad rotor, the only ignition piece I forgot to order and replace. Swap in used rotor, spark! Okay, now its gonna start right? Still not even a chug. Check fuel deliver, its getting to carb but carb is old and dirty, so swap with rebuilt carb that came with bus, figuring if it came with it there must be a reason.... Install NOS choke cable hook everything up, still not even a chug, even with a little gas poured down the throat.

After a few days off off-and-on tinkering I decide to give up and take a break and work on prettying things like stripping the paint from the interior cabinets as I need to work on something different.

Fast forward to this Saturday, Tom comes over to help with non-running issue. Now bus wont' even crank over at all. So we pull the starter as its getting power and I look in the rebuilt tranny and..... NO Bushing in there at all! So I steal a 6V bushing from a part bus and tap it in gently from the front. Install starter and it turns over like a champ! So now we have to figure why it's not catching. Tom has the idea, maybe the distributor drive is 180 degrees out? Switch wires on cap and bingo, it runs!

Which brings us the videos that ol36er posted from Saturday, with the bus running nice and me going for my first cruise. What an awesome feeling after all the work. Still have a ways to go before its on the road but pretty awesome to hear it purr. Once the timing and carb were dialed in it ran perfect and starts on the first revolution, even with the crank!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glern4ar7Ao&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN6a40y6WzE&feature=relmfu

[travelvw]

Congrats, man! Looks like you've been hard at it. Nothin' better than that first drive!
K
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'58 Gilla
'61 Sub
'69 Bug

[Birdmanhere]

Sweet bus, hope I get to see it on the road soon!
And Tom's bus too!
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66 Bus
71 Bug

[2Pack]

Awesome bus. Looks like it landed in the right hands. Thanks for posting.
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Please buy my Treasure

[earlywesty]