Tutorial on removing 71 westy interior

[71WestyDood]

How to strip a 71 VW Westy interior
Derek Andree

I must start with the standard disclaimer here, this is only for a
1971 Westfalia, I have no idea if this will work with other years, and there may even be differences within the 1971 model year as Westfalia made slightly different interiors.


Front Passenger Seat:

To remove the front seat, lift the backrest up (skyward) and then pull it forward and upward.


Sink / Fridge unit:

Once the front seat is removed, you can see either
two hand knobs or 10mm bolts. Remove these by twisting lefty loosey
with your favourite tool or hand.

The sink is a heavy booger with the water in the tank, so you may think
about draining the water out first, there's a small tube underneath the
bus, with a plug in it. Twist out the plug to drain the water tank.
Now you'll likely realize you should have had a big bucket underneath the
tube as the water drains onto your garage floor or driveway.

There are a couple of brackets on the bottom of the sink/fridge assembly
Which have screws (or not, maybe someone didn't put them back in) securing
it to the floor, remove them if they are there.

Whether you need to drain your water tank or not, look under the bus just
under the sink. See all those tubes? Those are the ones you don't want
to break off when removing the unit, especially the drain tube you just
removed the plug from. To remove the sink/fridge unit, pull outwards on
the top of it and kindof up at the same time. When you get it clear of
the 10mm bolts sticking thru the front passenger side bulkhead, pull
directly up on the unit to pull the unit out and the drainage tubes out
of the floor of the bus, being VERY DANG CAREFUL not to damage the tubes.

When you set the fridge/sink outside the bus, be careful once again not to
damage the drainage tubes. It won't sit upright because of the drain tubes, so
don't even try it!

Set the sink/fridge unit on it's side (one of the sides without doors).
You should probably lay out a piece of carpet or throw blanket so you don't scuff up
the side of the unit. Keep the sink out of the way of foot traffic, or some clumsy
person (you?) may walk by and kick the precious drain tubes breaking them off and
ruining your day, week or month.


Rear Facing Seat:

This is the seat directly behind the driver's seat. Remove the seat
cusion to gain access to the floor inside the seat. There are 4 bolts
holding the entire seat assembly in, may be 17mm, may be 15mm, may be
13mm, depends on who messed up your bus before you got it. Regardless,
remove all 4 bolts (if you don't have 4, remove however many you have,
one of mine had 2 bolts). For safety I would recommend replacing any
missing bolts as they will keep your rear facing seat from flying around
and smacking people in an accident. Once the bolts are removed, lift
the seat up and out of the bus. This is the easy seat to remove.


Rear bench / bed ("Z-Bed"):

Yipes, this one can be a bitch ('scuze me stinky French).

Lift the bottom of the bench up a bit
and look for securing bolts / nuts. There should be two 13mm bolts and
a 17mm bolt on the passenger side, very close to the closet... so close
you'll not get a socket on it so grab your 17mm open end wrench. Remove
all the nuts and give your back a rest cuz it will hurt by now.

Think you got all the nuts? Did ya see those two little 8mm aircraft
lock-tite pain-in-the-butt nuts on the driver's side? Take 'em off, the
easy road here is a deep 8mm socket and ratchet. When you get them off,
the two studs may fall out and under your bus, which will suck. Mine did
and I didn't put them back on. If you follow my strange ways, be sure to
plug the small holes left by the studs, they are under the wheel well and
be sure you'll get all manner of crud sprayed through them if you don't
plug them somehow.

Run around back of your bus, open the rear hatch, climb in. You'll see
3 to 4 big screws securing the rear brackets of the Z-bed. Remove them,
and the Z-bed is free!

To get the Z-bed out, you have to *carefully* wiggle it up over the big
bolt by the closet, then slowly forward, carefuly so you don't mess up
your side panels (the thin 1/8" birchwood on the sides of the interior).

Wiggle, wiggle, pull, and wiggle some more, cuss if you must...

and your z-bed will come free.

I taught my neighbor kids some new swear words with this one.


Top shelf:

To remove the top shelf (the one over the rear bed), you need to remove
all the screws heading up towards the ceiling. There are lots of them,
and some have snaps on them for your rear screen (don't have one? try
eBay for one cheap!). There is usually a bracket on the driver's side,
with two screws in it. Remove those. The last pain is the 10mm bolt/nut
which secures the top shelf to the side closet. You can get to it from
the front of the bus (where the z-bed used to be). Reach up in the
shelf and go directly to your left, you'll feel a 10mm nut there. Get a
ratchet and socket if you can, and remove the nut. Be careful, after you
take this nut / bolt out the shelf will try to fall on your head. Pull
the shelf out towards the front of the bus, and then out the sliding door.


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Hope this helps someone out... I learned the hard way on alot of things while stripping my 71 westy!

peace
-derek

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1968 Campmobile Parts Manual
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ta5qt0ci84yc072/-Campmobile_Parts_Manual.pdf?dl=0

[VWlove71]

what about the closet!

[calebmelvin]

Damn no pictures! I love pictures with these things!
_________________
Caleb
'68 Tagged Manx | My Wanted Ads
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[Riguy718]

[calebmelvin]

Thanks for doing the write up by the way. Someone will find it usefull for sure.
_________________
Caleb
'68 Tagged Manx | My Wanted Ads
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[jonnie5]

thanks for the info
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Jon


'73 Westfalia x2
'07 GTI

[skid]

This is very useful in two ways!! One I want to take the interior out to put down bedliner and attack that bit of rust in the wheel well. Two, I had no idea there was a plug for the water tank.. (anyone got a pic?) So that's why the water would always drain out when I tried to put some in the tank....
Thanks!!
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'71 Westfalia

[Desertbusman]

It's good for a somewhat general overall description of what's involved. But some of the details are not accurate. Such as removing the passenger seat. Refer to the owners manual. You have to lift up the front of the bottom cushion to allow the backrest to drop down out of the retainer. Knobs or bolts? Neither, but rather two small nuts. The jump seat cabinet behind the drivers seat (Westy calls it the front bench seat) is held with 4 bolts in the bottom corners but you will only find the size bolts that mate with the raised threaded brackets in the floor.
The warning about easilly damaging the drains running thru the floor under the icebox cabinet is very important. The drain pipe for the water tank can break the bottom of the water tank if not careful. The large sink drain is difficult to pull up thru the floor. Combination of tipping the cabinet to the rear while lifting is needed and it's not easy. But the biggest trouble maker which wasn't mentioned is the sink vent pipe going up thru the roof. This needs to be removed very first thing. There was a Samba topic on this about 3 weeks ago. Search for Vent.
The side clothes cabinet is secured with screws amd bolte here and there. Totally empty out the cabinet to see where they are all located. Baiscally the same with the rear bench and the cabinet underneath.
Derek mentioned the two little bolts that secure the left hand end of the bed/bench cabinet to the left wheel well. That's a plate, seal, and 2 little bolts under the wheel well and nuts on the top side. It is a source of trouble and source for rust in the wheel well.If repair of the wheel well is needed be sure and do it.
There is a '70 Campmobile manual floating around that is identical to the '71 but I'm not sure if it is in the technical section.

EDIT Here is a '70 manual with some of the info in it. Same as '71. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/manuals/manuals70westy.php
Also here is the past discussion about the vent pipe which first needs to be removed. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=404293&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
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71 Superbug
71 Westy

[1971bluesuperbeetle]

thank you so much, this was the biggest help when restoring my bus

[Desertbusman]

A picture of before and another one of after won't help much
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71 Superbug
71 Westy

[jack-o-van]

I think I had to remove the table to get the rear seat/bed out...

[Abscate]

He is still working on it, good persistence factor
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.ssS!