Rebuild Thread: 1978 Bus

[mfemenel]

Started to dig in a little yesterday. I pulled the bumper off, addressed the rust and repainted. I used a nylon wheel on a drill to get all the loose stuff off. Sanded it with 80/120 and the put Eastwoods Rust Encapsulator Platinum on it. I had used Por 15 on my other bus but it was really difficult to paint over. With a little scuffing the Eastwood product seems to have taken the paint better. Just going with plain white for now, it'll be easier to cover over later. I also put the bumper back on correctly. Not sure why it was upside down. I'll pull it again since I'm waiting for parts and clean/straighten/paint it.

Pulled the passenger wheel off. Shocks are toast, fine. Ball joints, tie rod ends, etc etc... all questionable. Brake caliper boot, cracked, rusty, brake lines, cracked, no bueno.
Large order of parts placed. I'm waiting for an estimate on the cost to rebuild the calipers. If I send them out I'm sending the master cylinder and brake booster as well while I'm at it.

In positive news, the wheel well and surrounding area doesn't look to have any rust at all. Things are good in this area. While I wait for parts I'll start picking on sections to do body work and fix the driver side door handle.
Pics included, more to follow....

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'79 Westy FI/AC/Auto
'78 Tin Top FI/Manual
'71 Ghia Coupe Project - FOR SALE!

[Jetfxr69]

Excellent. Prove us all wrong, and make it happen.
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You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. Zappa

‘77 westy Seamus
‘76 tintop Crusher
‘77 westy The Judge
‘72 tintop bastard westy Hudson

[cmonSTART]

Hey, if you need to do a lot of body work on on your Bus and want to keep it rolling while you do, paint like this is a blessing.
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'78 Bus 2.0FI
de K1IGS

[TDCTDI]

Pssst, the mods detest multiple threads on the same topic.
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[mfemenel]

[ImAddicted]

[mfemenel]

I decided I felt like doing a little welding today. I removed the plastic bracket from the old mirror, ground the edges of all the holes down and welded them. My goal was not pretty, my goal was not having flex tape over the holes. Not exactly welding outside weather here in NC. Good enough for now. Just some white primer to keep it covered. Body filler and cosmetics will come later.

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'79 Westy FI/AC/Auto
'78 Tin Top FI/Manual
'71 Ghia Coupe Project - FOR SALE!

[mfemenel]

Todays progress. While waiting for parts I decided to get the driver side on a jack stand as well, caliper off. It's as bad as the other side. While on the driver side I loosened all the bolts I'll need ahead of time. Shocks, tie rod ends etc. Other than driving the tie rod ends out, that side is all good. This evening, or tomorrow morning, I'll loosen up the remaining bolts on the passenger side. When parts arrive I won't have to mess with them and I can actually do installation.
Of note, I decided to hold off on pulling my brake booster and master cylinder. I want to see what new pads/rotors and fresh fluid do for me. I don't see any external signs of leakage and the pedal was not firm as if the booster had failed. Also heard back from BrakePartsSTOP. They can't do the master cylinder or the calipers, just the booster (3-4 week turn around). I'll learn how to do the calipers myself.
Ball joints will need to be done, that'll be a fall/winter project.
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'79 Westy FI/AC/Auto
'78 Tin Top FI/Manual
'71 Ghia Coupe Project - FOR SALE!

[Cap10323]

[mfemenel]

[Cap10323]

You need to figure out if you have the ATE style or the Girling style. I bought Girling style remanufactured by Centric, with metal pistons.

They were like $130, since I had no cores to send back (this was on a friends bus I was working on), but they were OEM VW castings, with good quality rebuild parts and worked right out of the box.

I absolutely hate rebuilding brake calipers, and so does my friend, so we were happy to cough up $300 to be able to just bolt on new ones.



If you haven't checked out RockAuto's parts stock for these busses, you need to. They have an impressive amount of stuff, for unbeatable prices.

I bought every part needed to do a full rebuild on my rear drums, including lines and cables. And it was like $200 shipped to my door.
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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[mfemenel]

[mfemenel]

Todays progress. Outside @ 5:30 a.m. (no power tools till later). Got the tie rods broken free. Replaced steering dampener as a new one came with a box of parts when I bought it. Old one was definitely junk. Replace driver side seatbelt buckle. Applied a small can of por 15 to some rusty areas underneath. Not worried about UV on the underside. I like buying the 6 pack of smaller containers. The lid is really hard to get off the big container unless you clean the rim carefully after use. It's held up well on my '79 after 6 years and I had 3 containers on my shelf anyway. Discovered the magic of ATF/Acetone for stuck bolts. Bottom shock bolts are freed up as well. Cleaned up some rust inside the middle section, degreased half of it with straight simple green and then hit it with some rust encapsulator to finish it up. That'll be good enough as I'll cover up the floor so I'm not worried about cosmetics. I'll get the other half another day when I need a quiet task or it's raining. Caliper rebuild kit arrived today. Picked up a set of metric flare wrenches at Harbor Freight as well as a couple of other things. Drove my '79 and was thinking about how much I can't wait to try Marina (my daughter named her) on a longer trip than just around the neighborhood. Will try to get the brake lines off and calipers rebuilt this week as well as tie rod end replacement. LOTS of new parts arriving throughout the week. Hoping by the end of the 5th to have the front buttoned up and maybe the rear brakes depending on if the weather cooperates since I have to work outside. The good part about not sleeping very much or past 4 is that I can be working quietly outside while it's cool.

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'79 Westy FI/AC/Auto
'78 Tin Top FI/Manual
'71 Ghia Coupe Project - FOR SALE!

[Jetfxr69]

Having grow up on a Northeast New England bay, Marina, is the perfect name for that paint job! If, and I hope when, you repaint, that aqua-marine-whatever-the-fuck it is, would be perfect for that name. Maybe drape a little dried kelp/ seaweed/ hang a horseshoe crab, about for effect. Press on my man.

As much as I read this website, the guys with the balls to make shit happen, are the ones im most interetsed to read.

Edit: i dig the 05:30 start time. I was in my garage at 0230 the other day. I get it!
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You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. Zappa

‘77 westy Seamus
‘76 tintop Crusher
‘77 westy The Judge
‘72 tintop bastard westy Hudson

[mfemenel]

The caliper rebuild just isn't going to happen. I'll get a refurbished set. These things are so far gone I don't think I'd ever not be thinking about them blowing up on me at any minute. The outer rubber seal is fused to the metal. Some of it disintegrated, some of it is just holding fast. Just because I like a challenge, I did eventually get the pistons out. I'll just say non conventional methods were used because I knew I didn't care. ATF/Acetone again proves incredible and Sea Foam Deep Creep did a nice job as well just a little slower acting in my opinion. I'm all for saving a few bucks and learning but not in this area. My test drive and my driveway movement could not possibly have been using front brakes. I had to have been stopping on what I can only imagine are the slim slivers of brake shoes on the rear. Yet to be cracked open. Someone isn't going to like getting these things as cores. I'm good with that.

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'79 Westy FI/AC/Auto
'78 Tin Top FI/Manual
'71 Ghia Coupe Project - FOR SALE!

[Cap10323]

Wow, those calipers are absolutely awful. My Bus sat in someone's back yard for over a decade and the calipers weren't anywhere close to that bad. All I had to do was bleed them to get them working smoothly again.

It almost looks like that bus was parked somewhere it regularly flooded.
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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[mfemenel]

[mfemenel]

Win some lose some. My flaring tool arrived today. First attempt I broke the adapter I needed. Things don't always go as planned. Rather than mess around anymore, I happened onto O'Reilly's site and they have 8 inch length 3/16 brakeline with 10x1 ends for $5 and change. I got 4 of them in case I mess up my bends and in case I need them when I crack open the rears. In positive news, I did get the rubber lines from the wheel well off and put new ones on. So win/lose today. Tomorrow, new calipers arrive, new brake lines should be ready @ O'Reilly and I can do my passenger tie rod ends.
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'79 Westy FI/AC/Auto
'78 Tin Top FI/Manual
'71 Ghia Coupe Project - FOR SALE!

[mfemenel]

Minimal progress today. Calipers were delayed one more day. Hard line was ready at O'Reilly. Got one of them bent pretty close. Close enough I think. 8 inches was the smallest line I could get. The original is probably 6 or 7. Part # of what I'm using and old/new side by side below in pics.

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'79 Westy FI/AC/Auto
'78 Tin Top FI/Manual
'71 Ghia Coupe Project - FOR SALE!

[mfemenel]

Progress! Painted brake backing plates in the morning and generally cleaned up both sides with a brass brush to get any rust, cobwebs, grass etc. New shocks on both side. Replaced the metal brake line with the slightly longer one from O'Reilly. Finally got the bend right to make up for the extra length. Replaced rubber line as well. New calipers arrived from Napa and they are VW shells so that's good. Much cleaner looking than the old ones for sure and hopefully refurbished well. Got stuck for a while on both slides because the sleeve from the old shocks stayed behind. Cut off wheel and acetone/atf mixture again with a little hammering and pry bar finally got both sides free. Anti-seize was used on the new shocks. Started to thunder and get dark so I opted to clean up. Driver side brakes need to be finished up and tie rod ends should be here tomorrow. I can put those together in the garage since it's going to rain and then install Saturday. It certainly looks a lot better than when I started. I hope to take a test drive with new front & rear brakes plus new tie rod ends by the 5th.

_________________
'79 Westy FI/AC/Auto
'78 Tin Top FI/Manual
'71 Ghia Coupe Project - FOR SALE!