Build thread: Aussie Westfalia Conversion

[izzydog]

Looks great!

[OzzieJo]

Can anyone tell me the correct thickness of washer to use that go over the four bolts that are used to secure the rear of the luggage rack .... cheers

[jimf909]

Woa! I've missed a few updates. What great progress on one of my favorite threads! Glad to hear all is reasonably well.

Beautiful color and beautiful paint!!!
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- Jim

[OzzieJo]

Spent some the weekend installing Dynamat in the doors and up under the front panel. I should have enough for both front doors and maybe some of the floor. Once this runs out I plan on shifting to the “Car Builders” brand equivalent products, including their van liner and carpet underlay products. Once finished I hope that the van will be a lot quieter and a bit better insulated.

I also spent some time wet sanding the front grills and side mirrors in preparation for a much needed face lift.

The Ol Girl is starting to fight me a bit now, last week the clutch slave cylinder went, tonight the indicators and horn would only work intermittently ... I guess that there must be bad earth somewhere or the contacts in the switches need a clean.

I also tried to pull the heater box apart with the aim of giving the internal a good clean out and replace any perished seals After about an hour of trying to separate the two halves I was getting no where, I removed all of the clips but it has been glued and will not budge so I gave up in fear of damaging something. I connected a 12v battery to the fan motor and it seems to run smoothly in each of the settings, so I might try to connect the heater core up to a small pump that I have and flush it out, and that might just have to do with this part of restoration.

[OzzieJo]

Did some fault finding ion the turn signals last night and discovered that they cease working whenever the headlights are turned on low/Hi beam.

Is there anyone who can offer some advice on how to rectify this issue?

[chompy]

That sounds like a grounding issue. Have you cleaned up all of your grounds that connect to the two ground stars under the dash on the driver's side?
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'81 Westfalia Subaru EJ22
Manual Transmission

[OzzieJo]

[OzzieJo]

Managed to find some electric mirrors that I purchased a while back so the last few nights I've had them out on the bench trying to figure the wiring harness out. After a bit of detective work and checking Bentley I realised that I had a fair few extra wires associated with electric windows and central locking. After I removed all the excess wires from the loom it became a whole lot easier to connect up and to my surprise it all worked. I also found a central locking/immobiliser from the old T3 that I found in the bush a while back and that bench tested ok as well. The power mirrors came with the rubber boots that go through the door into the vent channel the runs across the front of the van so I will pull all of the wiring for the central locking through those boots to neaten it all up.

While on the subject of electrics I found this loose wire near the fuse/relay panel. It is a black/yellow with a single blade and comes from the main wiring loom that heads of to the instrument cluster .... any suggestions on what it is and where it should go ? (89 T3 Transporter)

Cheers

[T3 Pilot]

Mornin’

I think that is an unused part of the power window circuit that you have deleted. Look on Bentley 97.190 in current tracks 1-2. Check it for ignition switched power and look at terminal G1 to see if that is still connected. Need coffee now.
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1988 Vanagon

The most important part in every vehicle is the nut behind the wheel......

[OzzieJo]

Took advantage of some Autumn sunshine to clean up and re-spray some trim. First up were the front grilles.

I new these horse hitching rails were going to come in handy one day

Then I moved onto the mirrors

I also started re-spraying all of the plastic that goes in the dash, eg glove box, instrument cluster, etc etc. They were all originally brown, but I'm moving to a black/grey interior up front. I was pretty happy with the way the plastic is coming out. "Dupli Color - Bumper and Trim" out of a rattle can is what I'm using, so far I'm impressed, I guess time will tell though, I will get a picture of the can next time.

While the paint was drying I decided to install some new hardware on the luggage rack.

Found all of this ash under the luggage rack when I removed it ...... reminders of a bad summer

[OzzieJo]

I decided to add some relays to the high and low beams today. There are a few posts already on this topic, but I though I would document my own task here for completeness.

After checking Bentley, the two circuits that I wanted to insert my relays into were the Yellow wire going into A21 (Low Beam) and the White wire going into B22 (High Beam) shown below.

The A and B terminals are shown below with A21 circled

This is the Yellow wire going into A21

I purchased 2 of these relays from a local auto parts store. 12V/40A Single Throw/Single Pole (STSP) normally open.

The mounting arm (little silver thingy) can either be screwed into metal and the relay then slides over that, or in the case of this installation you can just slide the mounting arm into a slot on the top of the relay panel.

here it is in final location above Relay 53

Ok first up I made a few leads (both about 15-16in long), the red one was rated at 50A, the brown not so sure it was used as ground on the switching side of the relay. Soldered on 1/4 in female blade connectors and then heat shrink over the top.

.

Make sure that you disconnect the battery before this step.

Find the yellow wire going in to A21 and cut it leaving enough room so that both ends can be connected to the relay where you want to install it. I screwed up here as I didn't realise that the relay mounting arm would fit on top of the relay panel so I cut the yellow wire in a position where the relay could be mounted on the main structural member running across the front of the van. Later I realised that the relay could be installed on top of the relay panel and now I will need to splice in a little bit extra into one of the yellow wires to make it long enough again. This step could have been avoided if I spent a little more time planning my install first. OK sorry enough of that cut the yellow wire somewhere as shown below and solder on two more female blade connectors.

Now its time to wire everything up.

Connect one end of the brown wire to pin 86 on the relay and the other end to an empty earth pin next to the relay panel.

Connect the yellow wire coming from the relay panel (A21) to pin 87 on the relay.

Connect the other cut end of the yellow wire to pin 85 on the relay.

Connect one end of the red wire to an empty blade connector on the "P" side of the relay panel (Circled above on page 97.6.

Connect the other end of this red wire to pin 30 on the relay.

If you are changing the wattage of your bulbs you may need to change fuses in locations 9/10 (High Beam) and/or 21/22(Low beam) to suit

Job done ... re-connect battery and cross your fingers

Seemed to work OK for me !

[OzzieJo]

Putting in the headlight relays seems to have solved a few problems. Firstly the indicators now work when the lights are on, and secondly the horn is working ... stronger than ever. Oh and solved the mystery yellow/black wire that was hanging loose near the relay panel, it is the power for the instrument panel dimmer... on on

[jimf909]

Are you familiar with adding a relay for the horn? It lightens the load on the ring contact in the steering wheel. It also can improve horn performance, esp. with multiple horns. Recommended.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=472190
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- Jim

[MarkWard]

Hi, good progress. For the relay you added, I would suggest you heat shrink the spade connectors too. Too easy to accidentally short them.
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☮️

[OzzieJo]

[OzzieJo]

[OzzieJo]

Sometimes you just have to take a few steps backwards so that you can make progress.

I needed to remove the steering wheel so that I could replace the boot where it exits the floor. After the steering wheel came out I thought I might as well keep going and removed the brake, clutch assembly so that it would make access easier for laying sound deadening, then the windscreen wiper assembly had to come out for the same reason.

While the windscreen wipers were out I realised that the wiper fluid hose needed replacing so out that came and in with a new one, in the process of that I removed the washer reservoir and found that it still had water in it from ???? how long so the whole thing had to come out and get pressure washed, I replaced the top grommet and put it all back together again. I tapped the washer hose onto some of the insulation that I have been laying so that the hose would not kink anymore.

Installed as much sound deadener and insulation as I could up front.

and in behind the brack/clutch assembly

Also decided to tidy up the relays that I installed last week by installing a relay holder for each so that the wires at the back were much more secure and hopefully not prone to a short.

[OzzieJo]

Things started out pretty messy this weekend wires everywhere, steering wheel/seat/heater out but it came together in the end. Because my van did not originally come with power mirrors or rear window defrost I had to run a few extra wires through the mirror harness.

The yellow wire is my 12v return, through Fog Lamp switch, that then goes to a relay for the LED light bar. I nested this relay with another so that the light bar will only come on when hi beam is selected. The white wire is my 12v return, through rear defrost switch, that then goes to a relay for the mirror heat. All up now I'm running 5 additional relays for Hi/Lo beam, LED light bar (2), and mirror heat.

Spent ages cable tying everything back together and buttoning it up neatly, then re-installed the heater, steering wheel and drivers seat, crossed my fingers and turned the key ... shabang everything works, heater, clock, instrument lights...phew. Then realised that I forgot to run the loom for central locking .... onto that now, then stereo, amp, sub, speakers ... sheesh

[4Gears4Tires]

That looks great. Good call on adding insulation on top of the butyl sheeting. That's going to be a hefty sound reduction. If I ever have to pull my dash, I am going to copy that.
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'87 Syncro
Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition

[OzzieJo]

Before I put the dash and heater hoses etc back together is there anything else that I should be doing in this area ?