Yukon 1970 Westfalia build

[ccowx]

After three years of staring at the thing, I have finally gathered the motiviation to get started on this one!

My wife and I have a bit of history with old vehicles with the model year 1970. I picked her up from the airport the first time I met her in a 1970 van and since then we have had two more 1970 vans of one sort or another. I also have two other vintage vehicles that are 70's and last but not least, Wendy's "model year" is 1970. So, when our last white 1970 Westfalia rusted out once and for all, it was decided that we needed to get just one more good one, to see us through to the end of our camping days.

The goal is to build a bus that is basically stock but with some upgrades to make it more useable. Starting with a solid body shell, it will get rust proofing, additional sound deadener, more power than stock and some additional nods to the world of today. It will have a satellite radio, power plugs in back to accomodate cell phones and laptops, improved running in the cold and some minor changes to the interior for comfort and appearance.

So, in 2017 we located a solid, near rust free shell in Texas. Normally, I would not be brave enough to tackle a bare shell, but since I have the complete, running white Westy to use as a parts car, I know I have everything I need, for the most part. Getting the bloody thing shipped to the Yukon was a saga itself, but we managed it! Truck from Amarillo and loaded onto the Alaska ferry at Bellingham, WA. I met it at the boat in Skagway and then had fun at the border trying to explain to a 20 something that just because some clerk in Tennessee in 1978 put "bus" on the registration form, it is not in fact an 82 passenger municipal bus! Once that got figured out and I went back two weeks later and took it home to Whitehorse, I had a project!

Then, life interfered as it does, and I am just getting started now. I will try to keep fairly current and with me most projects get done in fits and starts, but since I hope to be camping in this one by next summer, hopefully it will move along. I have collected most of the stuff needed to finish it, with more on the way.

So, here goes with a few initial pictures of what I am starting with.

Thanks!

Chris

And my parts van:

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[ccowx]

So, round two to get a bit caught up. I have made an only semi successful attempt to sand blast off the inside and underside of the new shell. Unfortunately, the media blaster and compressor I had were not really up to the task, and you may have noticed that I am in a fairly confined work space. So, I took it out in the driveway and vacuumed out 20 years of accumulated fiberglass and cactus thorns from inside it. Not ususally a problem that we deal with here in the Yukon!!

I did do some sand blasting of the floor pan inside and then the moisture issues and my lack of patience won out.

The pictures seem to make the red bus look worse than it is and the white one better. The red bus has rock solid, never undercoated desert undersides. For some reason it has rusted the front floor boards and the windshield frame, which I tend to think is pre-done at the factory to save mother nature the trouble! The white bus on the other hand is completely gone underneath. Both frame rails are rusted completely through, the outriggers are gone, along with the rockers and just about everything else for the bottom 12" of the vehicle. On the plus side, it has a working BN4, full interior, both cots, etc and is able to complete the red bus, other than seals and soft parts, plus a bit of upholstery.

Chris

[Merling]

Look forward to the progress and hope you continue to post it as you go no matter how long it takes.

[ccowx]

Ok, there has officially been some work done. I have been learning to weld and all of the things that go with that. I have tackled the cargo floor as my initial go, since it is simple and will not be easily visible when it is done! I will wait until I have had a bit more practice before I start on areas like the windshield channel.

I have been using mainly pieces from my white parts bus. Whatever caused the red bus to rust seems to have been a chemical spill and it pooled in areas like the recesses below the seat brackets, for example. There are also some holes throughout the floor area, again where something appears to have been spilled. Interestingly, the effect of whatever acid it was is that there are holes bored through the metal but unlike how that usually turns out, with everything turned to lace all around it, this is much solider. The metal is generally thick enough that I have been able to simply patch holes with welding and grinding rather than have to remove whole sections. This has made me re-think my strategy a bit, with an eye to saving original welds and metail, where possible.

So, the first order of business has been to fix the floors. I originally was not going to worry about the seat brackets, since they are not used on a Westy. However, the floor had some different contours there and the easiest way to get a patch panel that fit was to cut it out of the white bus, including the bracket and all. One of them needed a bit of work, but overall the florrs seems to be the one solid part of the white body. The two middle ones are being replaced along with they metal under them, and the end one at the sliding door is having the bracket replaced after I patch the area under it.

Chris

This was an initial attempt to save the most metal and just cover it with a bracket, but the metal was a bit too far gone, so I eventually cut it out larger.

Some metal work needed to be done to the two square recesses shown here.

The two middle floor sections with the brackets were done this way. This is the middle passenger side.

This is the outer one, next to the door track. I will be fixing/replacing the strip to the outside, much of the rest can be patched or filled with welding material. I have a repro bracket from the busdepot to go over the top when I am done. Overkill considering that the bracket is not used and the whole thing is covered by the floor anyway!

[ccowx]

Well, slowly but surely I am getting some work done on this beast! As usual life, job, family etc has interfered but work is getting done. I have also been made very aware of the tedious nature of body work and my own place on the learning curve of learning it. This is my first attempts at welding and I have apparently chosen the worst thing to be welding, ie thin, rusty body metal. I will add to this that while I feel I am getting better at the actual welding, I am very much looking forward to being able to practice on panels that are NOT corrugated. The grinding is very tedious and frankly the end results are not cosmetically perfect.

I am confident however that by the time I get to outer body panels I will be much better. I have already gained some skill in creating metal out of welding rod and pixie dust. I have also had my initial idea of minimizing cutting metal and preserving factory welds validated. There is no way that getting welds as tight and perfect as the factory around the edges of the panels is going to happen, least of all by me at this stage of my development as a welder!

I am wrapping up the cargo floor area and hope to have that completed in a day or two. The goal here has been to have a solid body with all steel welded in and I seem to be getting there. Next up will be the area above the engine, the battery tray and front floorboards. By the time I finish that I am hopeful to be able to do the outer body panel work to a standard that will not devalue the vehicle too much!

[Shonandb]

Looks like you have a lot of work to do but all doable. Take your time and do it right.

I'll be heading up to Whitehorse via the Inside Passage Ferry the week of July 18th. If you see us in town, wave us down.
_________________
*******************************
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

[ccowx]

Thanks when you are in town, give me a shout via PM and I will happily meet up with you somewhere. I have spent most of my life in Vancouver and always good to see someone from home!

Here are some more shots that show actual progress, not just the damage! Most of this is going to get more work with a flapper wheel, though it will still show. Many of the little zits of metal are welds to plug holes 1/16"-1/8" that were all over the floor. Hard to see here but I estimate around a hundred of them to be filled, which is where some of the tedium I mentioned comes in! I was really glad that the metal around them was not lace as I expected, which means I can save the floor. The edge area at the sliding door sill is the last place I need to fabricate anything, so it should go fairly quickly from here.

I don't want to bother with putty on the floor since no one will see it anyway and it is just one more thing to go wrong. It will be coated with epoxy primer and then painted with a couple of coats of body colour and then a floor over it. I am hopeful when I am not trying to grind corrugated metal that it will look a lot prettier and with a bit of putty might even look good!

This is the underside, I am probably going to leave it alone, other than painting it of course.

This shows some of the issues of whatever corrosive puddling under the seat plates. This is why I cut them out! It did not make sense to grind away the seat plate, repair the floor and then weld a plate on top. If the floor had been universal corrugated I might have just replaced them, but they had other folds that were not easy to match. The simplest solution was to simply cut out the matching piece plate and all from the parts van and install it. One lession learned when doing something like this is to allow extra metal around the plate. It is very difficult to easily finish the seams close to the plate without grinding up the edges of it.

[orwell84]

Some of your welds look too cold. You end up with material piling up with poor penetration. Turn up your machine and adjust the wire speed accordingly. Get is dialed in by practicing on some scrap metal. It also helps a lot if you get the metal really clean. Both sides if you can get to it. Cut back rusty metal until you have good metal to weld to. It can have surface rust but not deep pitting.

[ccowx]

Thanks for the welding tips, I am learning as I go. This is literally my first attempt at any welding at all, or bodywork. I have apparently chosen the absolute worst thing, ie old car body metal, to learn on! I have tried playing with the power on the welding and it is a fine line between not quite enough and blowing holes in it. Perhaps adjusting the wire feed could help.

Thanks!

Chris

PS: A friend of mine that is a certified welder told me once, "at first you will either be good at welding or good at grinding".

[Shonandb]

Was in the same situation back in 2020 when I was replacing part of my floor, jack points, etc. First time welding for me too but got proficient enough to realize that "done is better than perfect".

When I switched to welding my hitch, I found it much easier to weld thicker metal and was happy with the results. I just used a low cost "Canadian Tire Special" Flux Core welder but should have bought something better with more adjustment.
_________________
*******************************
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

[ccowx]

I have exactly the same Canadian tire welder, I bet!

[busdaddy]

Yep, way too cold on the welds. The amperage may be ok, but it needs more wire speed. You'll find it burns through much easier that way so work in small 1/2 to 1 second bursts and let the surrounding metal cool a 1/2 second before continuing, don't lift the gun, just on/off the trigger.
It's a hard thing to learn so count on lots of grinding.
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[orwell84]

There are a lot of good videos on YouTube. I learned a lot this way after welding too cold for years. The guidelines on the machine are usually wrong for thin sheet metal.

Not to discourage you, because you’re doing fine. It just ends up being a lot more grinding.

[ccowx]

Fair enough gusy and thanks! I will try that, but I do have to mention that a lot of what I have been doing is building up metal, and that seems to be happiest at this speed. I need to vary my approach to actually welding two pieces of metal together. There I can see where the extra heat might be good. I have been trying to use less heat and a slower feed and hold it "on" longer to get the metal melted.

Thanks!

Chris