What did YOU do to your van today?

[Kdj]

Between rocket box and different lengths of kayaks, paddle boards,and racks ect. Never been happy with spread on the artificial rain gutters on my pop top that where installed by some previous owner. So fabed up a couple of full length to replace the two forward ones. This will give some mission flexibility in how in mount my yakama towers. Now I have 40” of for/aft adjustment. Might be overkill but was an easy afternoon project.

[alohah3]

furlough project to install the RMW spare tire holder onto Ducky the syncro. PIA to fit the supporting bracket in the vent puka, but we did it. now to source a rubber duck tire cover
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1988 DOKA Transporter
1989 Twin Slider Syncro
1984 Green Machine 4x4

[alohah3]

furlough project to install the RMW spare tire holder onto Ducky the syncro. PIA to fit the supporting bracket in the vent puka, but we did it. now to source a rubber duck tire cover
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1988 DOKA Transporter
1989 Twin Slider Syncro
1984 Green Machine 4x4

[alohah3]

furlough project to install the RMW spare tire holder onto Ducky the syncro. PIA to fit the supporting bracket in the vent puka, but we did it. now to source a rubber duck tire cover
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1988 DOKA Transporter
1989 Twin Slider Syncro
1984 Green Machine 4x4

[4Gears4Tires]

This is what I have done in the past when I had no access to the backside to weld: Drill it out so that the hole is just big enough to fit the nut you want. Using a magnet across the gap to hold the nut in place, tack the corners. Once you've tacked all 6 corners, go back and really put some heat into the welds and fill the gaps.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[jlrftype7]

You could weld a nut onto some 14 ga or 12ga steel, like a 2 1/2 x 2 1/2" or 3x3 square with a hole already drilled out for that nut to allow a bolt to pass through. Enlarge the bumper hole to allow the nut to sit up and inside the metal section.
Then have 4 holes spaced towards your corners to drill and rivet the plate up onto the bumper. Would beat cutting and welding internally into the bumper...
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'68 Westy- my first VW and vehicle/Bus- long gone.- sold it to a traveling Swiss couple....
'67 Type 3 Fastback, my 2nd car- gone
'69 Semi-Auto Stick Shift Beetle-gone
2017 MINI Coopers, our current DDs
‘84 Tin Top - Hilga....Auto

[bobbyblack]

I took a look at several other T3's sub bumper construction. There's not an option to slip a 3/4" nut in anywhere. Leaves me little doubt that I'll be doing some cutting and pasting..

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'87 Westy 'Flossie','86 Westy 'R1','86 tintop GL - Subi2.2 'J2','83.5 stock tintop L 'ZoomBus','74 Karmann Ghia, '63 Notch

[vanis13]

[bobbyblack]

Two options I can come up with are to grind or dremel out the hole, and weld in a new nut or, I can drill out some 1/4" holes around the frame hole, somehow get a new nut slipped into that area, and plug weld the nut back on top of the sub bumper.

I guess I was already dropping the pan down a bit, maybe I can grind off the paint, and just weld a nut outside the frame rather than trying to fuss with recreating the original.

I'll take a look at another one of my buses that the bumper is off from, and see if I can spot a good method of getting a nut into the sub frame.

Thanks for cheering me up, helps a lot!

-bobby
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'87 Westy 'Flossie','86 Westy 'R1','86 tintop GL - Subi2.2 'J2','83.5 stock tintop L 'ZoomBus','74 Karmann Ghia, '63 Notch

[brickster]

My bad, missed that important *thread* detail.
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1984 Campmobile Automatic

[vanis13]

I think the difficult issue is the busted off receiving but in the frame.

Maybe a humongous rivnut?
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83.5 Westy with Subaru 2.5, 4 spd manual, center seat, COLD A/C on 134a!, Winter camp heated with an Espar B4 gasoline furnace

www.SuperVanagon.com - some stuff I make

[brickster]

Or you could swap one in from one of your other vans as needed. ;^)
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1984 Campmobile Automatic

[jlrftype7]

Sorry all that happened to you...
With all the collective minds here on Samba, if you post a few close up pictures of your damage, I'm sure we can think of a repair or two for you.
Plus, all of this makes me a bit more mindful of not high centering my spare tire carrier now...
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'68 Westy- my first VW and vehicle/Bus- long gone.- sold it to a traveling Swiss couple....
'67 Type 3 Fastback, my 2nd car- gone
'69 Semi-Auto Stick Shift Beetle-gone
2017 MINI Coopers, our current DDs
‘84 Tin Top - Hilga....Auto

[bobbyblack]

A while back I installed a Corkins invention -- the auto bleed / heater valve. I like it, but I failed to follow his procedure, and bent the cable at the control lever. I got a replacement cable and will do better at keeping in mind his instructions.

Two things have happened between installing that valve and now;
1) I cut down my spare pan to fit a slightly larger tire, and added a longer bolt that holds it up.
2) I took too steep a descent that caught my pan or bolt where it bottomed out, which bent the welded in nut and surrounding metal that holds up the pan backwards a bit at a slight angle.

It didn't bother me to see the bolt sticking back a little ways, but the procedure to replace the control cable required me to take the spare down. After looking at the job at hand, and finding out it was not going to be very easy at all, I decided to put the spare and pan back up, and figure out the problem when I have more time.

So I go to putting the spare back in, and find that the pan won't fit back up like it used to, and since the bolt is at an angle, I had to try bending the pan back with a crowbar and attempting to get the pan to push back far enough to line up the bolt with the bent back nut in the body. I could not get that to work. My next thought was that I could bend that location back and that was the part that I knew would be sketchy. It was. I broke the weld on that nut, which is somehow welded in place inside the sub bumper, likely before the sub bumper was welded together.

So, I put a little muscle on bending it back and it broke out of the frame... Bad Bobby, bad!
Now, pan sits of floor in a way that tells me every day that I am an idiot when I pull my rig into the bay. I have no idea at present on how I will remedy the situation, but it will involve welding, I am sure.. How to get another nut welded in there baffles me. Maybe I can fish a bolt down through that hole instead. That will be ugly, and prone to oxidize and if that happens and I don't catch it in time, I will then not be able to get my spare down when I need it!!! Feeling defeated

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'87 Westy 'Flossie','86 Westy 'R1','86 tintop GL - Subi2.2 'J2','83.5 stock tintop L 'ZoomBus','74 Karmann Ghia, '63 Notch

[Camper_Velourium]

Started the process of cleaning a couple decades worth of build up off of our new Westy.

[littlejoe]

Replaced all the shift linkage last night and took her on her first road trip!

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Current: 83 Westy WBX
Gone, but not forgotten: 57 Beetle, 71 Beetle, 82 Westy, 84 GTI, 01 New Beetle, 05 Passat Wagon, 06 Jetta, 08 Touareg, 09 Passat, 10 Touareg, 10 GTI, 19 GTI
Gone, firmly forgotten: 06 Jetta, 21 ID4

[big swifty]

Onward with the Syncro front end rebuild, I got the PS bushing housings out. The DS weren't nearly as difficult.
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Evan
1987 Vanagon Syncro // Westfalia pop-top graft // Factory new ALH. 11mm IP. AFN 110 RC 2,3,4 // S7 turbo// Titan P502's
2013 Golf 4d TDI. Deleted. Tunezilla Stage2.
1991 Jetta coupe TD. Giles Superpump. SOLD

[big swifty]

[4Gears4Tires]

[jlrftype7]

Odometer Repair take 3. My last venture into preventing the gear and shaft from walking out past the mating gear lasted months. So, I thought I was done…
Recent trip to Michigan proved me wrong, so one more time to remove the speedometer, this time adding a brass brace against the shaft and gear to preset it walking out again.
Single #4-40 screw drilled and tapped for the housing, to hold the brace tight against the speedo body.
Drop of Loc-Tite to prevent the screw from loosening up.
Shoulder cut into the brace to lock against the speedo body, since I only have 1 screw holding it in place . Fussy work due to the size of the parts and space I was working with, but it got done.

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'68 Westy- my first VW and vehicle/Bus- long gone.- sold it to a traveling Swiss couple....
'67 Type 3 Fastback, my 2nd car- gone
'69 Semi-Auto Stick Shift Beetle-gone
2017 MINI Coopers, our current DDs
‘84 Tin Top - Hilga....Auto