Favguys Brazilian Last Edition blog.

[favguy]

Hello all, I'm hoping this is going to be the right place for this. I'm picking up a Last Edition Brazilian bay window bus on Wednesday and hoping to be keeping a blog about it on here.

Built in December 2013 and first Registered in January 2014, it's as new as they get, whilst somehow, generally managing to be older in feel than an early German bay!

It's generally pretty nice all around, (as it should be at only 9&1/2 years old with just over 8k miles on the clock!), but it has been lowered (I think badly!) and previously had a turbo fitted, then removed, once in the UK to comply with emissions and the engine bay is all messed up as a result. It's also had a sliding sunroof put in which would be really nice if it hadn't been done so badly as to barely work at all, so that needs to be redone.

It's had an interesting life so far. When nearly new, it was raced around Interlagos by Rubens Barrichello for a Brazilian Top Gear style TV show. Then it ended up in the UK as a wedding hire bus until recently.

I haven't got any proper pictures of it yet, but it's one of the last 1200, so looks a lot like this, except mine's lowered and has the wrong wheels:

The plan initially is to get it back closer to it's original specifications and restore minor imperfections to get it as perfect as possible, then enjoy it for a little while in its original 8/9 seater format, whilst I decide on how I want to convert it to a camper.

Anyway, bye for now, I'll be back later in the week with the initial appraisal of just what sort of money pit I've got myself into... along with a few pics.

[Vangabonders]

When do we get the pics?
_________________
73 tintop to poptop westfalia (Frankenbus)

[favguy]

As soon as I get it home and take some!

[favguy]

Well I picked up the bus, drove it home 160 miles or so. So far I absolutely love it, and hate it in equal measure!

It's such a cool bus and overall in really excellent condition.

But... The drive home was harrowing to say the least, the steering and handling is absolutely horrific, not just the usual bus slackness, it's really too unsafe to drive anymore until I get it properly looked at. It might be a combination of the slack steering, very low profile tyres and very dropped suspension (that I think has been done badly). Then the exhaust drone, it's just awful, it's got a modified manifold, cat and exhaust that's been done to increase performance, but it sounds hideous. (It is pretty fast though, for a bus anyway)

Today I'll get it washed off and dried and put in the garage, then I can have a proper look at just how much of a money pit I've bought myself.

But again, it's such a cool bus, I love it, just hope it doesn't bankrupt me.

[favguy]

And the first pictures.

Sorry, I should have got some better ones whilst it was still outside after washing. Anyway, it got it's first proper wash and look over and I didn't find any unexpected issues on the bodywork as you often do on the first proper clean, so that's a good start.

It's tucked up in the garage for now, I need to rearrange my working space then it's going up in the air on stands and the wheels are coming off to have a proper look at what we're dealing with. Sadly I can't get it on the 4 post, as it's not possible to drive onto the lift whilst clearing the garage door on a van, so I'm back to old school floor work, yuk!

It's frankly a death trap to drive at the moment, I'm not even kidding about that, a driver only used to modern stuff may not have made it back! I came across a very undulating A road on the way back home through lincolnshire that caught me unawares and it damn nearly threw me into a ditch! The steering & suspension set up is absolutely hideous.

I'll humour you all some more later when it's up on stands and we can have a proper look at it.

[favguy]

OK, so where had we got to... body is very good, engine runs nicely, but we'll have to get around to tidying up the bay and getting the current awful exhaust system off it and back to an original one in due course.

But let's start with sorting out the suspension and steering issues.

So, with the bus up on stands and the wheels off, let's look at the rear to start with... and here are the spring plates, aren't they just hilarious?

The right hand side spring plate appears to have been made up from parts of 3 other spring plates welded together, with part of a broken adjuster left on it just for giggles. The left hand side appears to be still utilizing a badly made adapter that's been badly welded on, causing a hole through most of the piece of plate it's attached to, it looks like it could collapse at any minute if it hit a large pothole. Scary to think the last owner drove on a trip across europe and back, over 3000 miles with it like this a few months back!!

I've ordered a new set of 2" dropped plates to replace this junk and get the subtle drop I'm wanting. Can't wait to get them off and in the recycling pile, but it's going to be a while, as new plates have a lead time of about 2 months! Other than that disgrace, it needs a pair of new bump stops, everything else seems to be OK around the rear. (horrible exhaust aside) I'll give the brakes a good service in due course once all the remedial work to get it riding safely is done.

Next up, we'll take a look at what's happening up front. Spoiler alert!, this is where it starts to get really weird!

Back soon. Smile

[favguy]

Let's have a look at the front end. First thing I established is we do have beam adjusters and they appear to have been welded in quite neatly, which is a relief. Having seen the state of the rear spring plates, I thought this might have been a similar mess as well. They are however set close to the standard position at present, giving me no option to increase the height, just lower it some more. So, there must be another reason for the current low setting of the bus.

It turns out the current lowering must be a combination of flipped spindles and too small a wheel and tyre size.

The spindles have been flipped and as a result the brake back plates have been hammered into a different shape to accommodate this and now don't fit very well and all the grease nipples have been left out, so we'll have to get that sorted. I think the camber and wheel alignment is most likely all wrong as well, but well get to sorting that out later.

I've stripped it all down and boxed up the assemblies and they're getting sent out to be overhauled and reverted to normal tomorrow.

Other things I discovered whilst under the front end.

The R/H side wheel bearing is knackered.

The steering box, which is part of a Lite-steer power steering upgrade fitted 15 months ago wasn't adjusted properly, causing lots of "slop"

I took a rough camber reading with a small level during dis-assembly as well, I've yet to check what the camber is meant to be, but this definitely isn't right!

No wonder it drove like a dog with that lot! There's a fighting chance it may just drive nicely once I'm done I reckon.

[favguy]

I'm also missing something I think. I suspect it's some sort of routing guides for the handbrake cables, but not sure. My beam just has the bolts alone in these brackets, like shown in the picture, but I notice the handbrake cables run just above these points.

Can anyone tell me what's actually meant to be attached to these, what they look like, are called, or where to find whatever is missing?

Thanks, I'll be back soon with more knackered bus fun.

[mikewire]

Nothing bolts there, those are the steering stop/limiters.
_________________
-Mike

@countdowngarage
@bigskyeuro

1972 VW Kombi 9 Passenger Deluxe w/ 2.0L F.I. VWAC swap
1965 VW Beetle Deluxe Bahama Blue

[favguy]

[favguy]

Made some more progress on the bus over the last couple of days. Got the old spring plates off and replaced with some properly engineered ones. I went with an adjustable 1" lowered set in the end. The brake lines weren't looking too healthy so changed them as well whilst I was at it.

What I did notice was the old spring plates had been fitted using some random sized washers instead of directly, you can just see this in the picture below circled in yellow. Why? I've no idea, but it compromises safe function as there's no friction bond between the mating surfaces with it like that. They weren't even properly tightened up either. No wonder it lurched about so much with them in that state. This bus must have had some real geniuses working on it!

Other thing I did was straighten up the bump stop mounts ready for fitting new stops. They'd been knocked badly out of shape by the tops of the hacked old plates crashing into them.

Back soon.

[Vangabonders]

Doing great! Fixing the important things first
_________________
73 tintop to poptop westfalia (Frankenbus)

[favguy]

[favguy]

Whilst I'm waiting for parts to come in to get started on sorting out the front suspension, I thought I'd take a break from groveling about on the garage floor and make a start on sorting out my messed up dash.

It's interesting to note that the Brazilian bay never used the European bay switchgear, instead it used similar switches to the 1968 on, metal dash Beetle. Like I said, these buses are a little weird/different!

Anyway, mine has had a set of front driving/spot lights installed. They're quite nice, I like them, they suit the bus. The switch installed to turn them on though didn't match the original switchgear. Even worse, it had been fitted carelessly and wasn't aligned with the other switches. So the first task was to carefully file out the mounting hole to accommodate the correct style switch bezel. Thankfully, as the OEM style bezel is larger, I was just able to get the switch in the right place without the edge of the now elongated hole showing.

I used a beetle hazard switch with the front illuminated red panel swapped out to a green one, then applied the correct symbol to the front to get an OEM look. Turned out pretty nice I think.

Before and after:

[favguy]

Unfortunately the dash has been hacked at the other side as well to install a rear fog light switch, needed to comply with UK requirements to have a rear fog light.

Yuk!:

This was going to be much more troublesome, as the hole is much larger, and again not well centered. So I sat and stared at it for quite a while trying to figure out how to deal with it in a way that would get it looking more like it left the factory that way, what to do?

I remembered I had some 1mm phenolic sheet kicking around and began to formulate a cunning plan...

... Some time (much) later, after cutting, drilling, sanding, and a coat of satin black paint, the solution was finished, I'd say I'm 90% happy with it as the only better option I could come up with would involve welding and refinishing the dash and that's just not feasible.

Here it is, again, a modified hazard switch was used with the correct illuminated amber panel and rear foglight symbol attached.

OK, that'll do for today, I'm off to bed.

[panel]

Love reading the updates
_________________
My '65-Subaru EJ20 Turbo conversion

[mikewire]

Nice fix, looks great!
_________________
-Mike

@countdowngarage
@bigskyeuro

1972 VW Kombi 9 Passenger Deluxe w/ 2.0L F.I. VWAC swap
1965 VW Beetle Deluxe Bahama Blue

[favguy]

Currently the bus has original oil shocks on the front and a set of very rusty looking gas shocks on the rear. I had a closer look at the these shocks and ran the part numbers stamped on them. It turns out they're for a Mitsubishi Pajero. Obviously they physically fit, but whether or not they're suitable for a bus is anyone's guess as the Pajero is almost twice the weight of the Bus.

Once I've got the suspension overhaul finished, the bus will be riding about 2" to 2.5" lower than standard. So I decided to treat it to an all round set of Bilstein gas shocks specifically designed for lowered buses.

Now on their way from Type 2 Detectives.

The cost of this stuff though, it's all eye watering!

[favguy]

Slow progress of late, but finally got the spindles, back plates, hubs and disks back on. New bearing in the right hand hub whilst I had it apart.

Got to refit the calipers and track rods today, then get it back on it's wheels and see how the height is looking now.

[metz]

Enjoying this. What wheels are you going for?
_________________
68 panel
64 ghia coupe