Hello! Log in or Register   |  Help  |  Donate  |  Buy Shirts See all banner ads | Advertise on TheSamba.com  
TheSamba.com
 
1969 Westfalia Build
Forum Index -> Bay Window Bus Share: Facebook Twitter
Reply to topic
Print View
Quick sort: Show newest posts on top | Show oldest posts on top View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
bus guy
Samba Member


Joined: November 13, 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Southsea, UK South Coast
bus guy is offline 

PostPosted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 4:25 am    Post subject: 1969 Westfalia Build Reply with quote

It’s been years since I put a build thread up on here, but I read other’s build threads all the time, so I thought I’d start a thread for my ‘69 Westy build. I’ve owned over 100 VWs - a fair few have been flippers but I’ve owned a lot that should have been keepers too.

I got back into a bus back in 2018; I’d sold my last one, a Mouse Grey ‘63, during my divorce in early 2014 and was penniless for a while - build thread for that bus is here: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=565151&highlight=mouse+grey

In 2017 I managed to buy a really cheap RHD Bug from Sweden and sold for a profit, then a nice ‘67 Bug that I kept and improved for a few months. Finally, in late 2018, I bought a ‘71 Deluxe project from Colorado. This was to be a keeper, but a ‘71 is not my ideal year. I built that one on a deadline for a holiday and then used it for another year while working on it.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I then sold it to a guy in Germany and bought a patina ‘66 bus.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Subsequently though, I reminisced about a trip to Europe in 2018 in a poptop Westy and decided, if I’m going to build a keeper bus, that it should be a 68-69 poptop Westy. Here’s the Westy I took that trip in:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I sold the ‘66 and looked hard for a nice Westy, but I was on a pretty tight budget. Eventually I found this one that had been in the UK a year but the guy who’d imported it had deactivated the ads when it didn’t sell and he went back out to Las Vegas, where he lives much of the time. The price was £6500 and I bought it unseen from a load of pics. I had to wait 4 months for the split bus to go to a new owner in France and to take delivery of the Westy, due to Covid lockdown restrictions.

It arrived in July 2020. I was pretty stoked that it’s M coded D67, so left the factory with the tent. It was manufactured October ‘68, so has a lot of the cool early parts, such as dash top, rear view mirror, odometer placement, no rear side vent window, etc. Here are some pics of it as bought - there are a load more in the gallery but I didn’t want to clog the first post with too many:

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Smack on the nose put me off at first, but I can fix pretty much anything.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Typical rust in lower doglegs

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Basically needs work everywhere.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Accident damage at the rear too - hatch is so dented that the glass has a slight curve 😮


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Interior fairly complete but pretty roached in some areas - ice box fell apart when I removed it, but I’ve kept it for templates. As it basically needs to be remade, I don’t feel as guilty about changing it up - I have an early Continental full-width bed and rear head banger for it. The plan is to create an interior that was possible to special order from Westfalia.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Gallery Classifieds Feedback
bus guy
Samba Member


Joined: November 13, 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Southsea, UK South Coast
bus guy is offline 

PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2020 11:55 am    Post subject: Re: 1969 Westfalia Build Reply with quote

The first thing to do before I got my hands on the bus was to restore some original SWF wiper blades that I had - sanded and repainted them before adding new rubber inserts.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


As I didn’t have the bus for a few weeks after purchase and I knew that the poptop was in a bad state, including most of the wood being broken, I decided to restore a poptop I had already. This one was just as bad, but I figured it was good to do the job over the summer in my garden.

Here is the state of the top before work began:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


The rear rack section looked to have been close to a fire at some point, which had damaged the gelcoat:

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I started with some 120 grit on the rack section, before applying some epoxy resin. Once this was dry I used a fine filler and block sanded until smooth:

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Next, I replaced the wooden bows by templating them and cutting out with a jigsaw. I then glassed everything into the poptop. The side members had come loose but the wood was in good shape. I did have to cut a couple of the wedges out of new wood.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Someone has crudely glassed some
Metal reinforcements into the inner sides of the top as well, so I removed these and cleaned up the fiberglass in this area with an 80 grit flap disc.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Gallery Classifieds Feedback
bus guy
Samba Member


Joined: November 13, 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Southsea, UK South Coast
bus guy is offline 

PostPosted: Wed Nov 11, 2020 1:10 pm    Post subject: Re: 1969 Westfalia Build Reply with quote

The poptop work took a few weeks and was weather
Dependent. Once I was done with the structural repairs I decided to take the top to a shop where I was doing some work.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I sanded the top with 180/240 and then epoxy primed it with a high build primer; I put it on in 2 thick coats, so I’d have plenty to block sand off once dry.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


After a ton of sanding it was ready for 3 coats of L581 Cloud White. The first time I’d ever painted 2k but it went pretty well.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I was then ready to really carefully transport it home.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


After I got it home in one piece, it was time to wet sand everything with 2000 grit and machine polish.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Next, I got all the new parts out: a German quality yellow canvas from NLA VW and some stainless poptop hinges from Buttys Bits. These are copied from the stronger ‘73 only flat bar hinges and great quality.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I fitted the above and then added fringe material with a glue gun and a full new poptop seal kit.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


The Westy had arrived by now - I had it transported to the street outside my house, so I could fit the poptop. I accomplished this late one evening in the summer - it was too hot to do in the daytime. Blankets were to protect the roof from the hinges.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Gallery Classifieds Feedback
bus guy
Samba Member


Joined: November 13, 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Southsea, UK South Coast
bus guy is offline 

PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2021 12:14 pm    Post subject: Re: 1969 Westfalia Build Reply with quote

Lots of progress to update so I’ll try to do it gradually.

First the tent; as I mentioned in the first post, this bus was M coded D67 - it left the Wiedenbruck factory with an original tent. When I first bought the bus, I had a quick search and saw that the prices for the tents have gone up a lot since I had one 15 years ago.

I’d put owning one to a ‘one day’ thing until I saw this one on UK eBay for £150 OBO. I put in an offer of £130 and it was accepted within 5 minutes. I think it helped that it was in Northern England and collection only. I was lucky to have a VW friend who lives near the vendor and he picked it up and stored it for a few months. Finally, my folks were in the vicinity so I had them grab it the week before they were heading down this way.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


We went for a BBQ and I put the tent up there and then. It’s had a couple of old repairs, but in nice shape overall and all the zips work. It’s missing one half of one of the foyer poles, so that’s on my list of things to find/replicate.

It was also missing the guy lines and had two tattered pole bags but no original tent bag. I’ll source some original style fabric probably next winter and have some replica bags made. The pole bags, from what I can tell, are amber fabric but the tent bags are either striped, army green or navy like the roof of the tent. Someone suggested they were probably made with fabric offcuts at the Westfalia factory...maybe this explains the different bags.

I found the guy lines on eBay a couple weeks later; a woman was selling 10 so I bought all 6 that I need; the dog looks pleased Smile

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


The poles look to be painted gold over galvanised steel. I may replicate this in powder coat or paint down the line too.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Gallery Classifieds Feedback
bus guy
Samba Member


Joined: November 13, 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Southsea, UK South Coast
bus guy is offline 

PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2021 12:35 pm    Post subject: Re: 1969 Westfalia Build Reply with quote

I was lucky at this point to buy and sell another bus; this had a nice 1776cc engine in it that was built by Painters Grinding in Denver. I swapped it out for the decent 1600 my bus came with and ended up with a free upgrade Very Happy

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


It had dual 40 Dellorto carbs and an A-1 Sidewinder on it, but neither of these were in my plans, so I removed and sold them. I’m gradually blasting off the green paint; the plan is gloss black with some vintage speed add-ons.

I had an original square top Pierburg fuel pump that had seen better days. I removed the silver paint, stripped it and had it ultrasonic cleaned, before fitting a new BBT rebuild kit:
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

I also took the time to gently heat and remove the brass fuel fittings and reinstalled them with epoxy glue after taking a file to the pipes to rough them up a bit.

I picked up a vintage Zenith 32NDIX on an isolated tube manifold. I actually bought it just for the carb for an old single port project for a Baja but that’s in the future and the fact it came with a dual port manifold made it ideal for this project.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

I also found a Treuhaft 010/YL distributor for this project. I blasted the parts before mocking them up.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I’ll need to modify the alternator a little bit to clear the manifold; I don’t really like the look of an alternator with vintage parts but I decided to retain it in a camper, as I’ll also be running a split charge/leisure battery too. You can also see the custom early style pulley nut I’m using.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Gallery Classifieds Feedback
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Forum Index -> Bay Window Bus All times are Mountain Standard Time/Pacific Daylight Savings Time
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

About | Help! | Advertise | Donate | Premium Membership | Privacy/Terms of Use | Contact Us | Site Map
Copyright © 1996-2023, Everett Barnes. All Rights Reserved.
Not affiliated with or sponsored by Volkswagen of America | Forum powered by phpBB
Links to eBay or other vendor sites may be affiliate links where the site receives compensation.