eche_bus: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper

[Stuartzickefoose]

Rekeying an original lock wouldnt be a lot....id run that route. Same key, iriginal german parts.


Looking sharp!


Have you considored a pull knob/ring for the inside of the rear hatch? Easy mod, allows opening from inside while in bed....worth looking into for a camper thats gonna get used!
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Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[Stuartzickefoose]

Rekeying an original lock wouldnt be a lot....id run that route. Same key, iriginal german parts.


Looking sharp!


Have you considored a pull knob/ring for the inside of the rear hatch? Easy mod, allows opening from inside while in bed....worth looking into for a camper thats gonna get used!
_________________
Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[Keith]

Anyone have a link to the rear hatch inside pull mod? I saw it on here a long time ago.
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Formerly known in the forums as "OVALTEEN"

"I firmly believe that some villagers from Botswana could probably build a better road than PennDot."- Splitty

"If you do anything to your car someone will hate on you for it. People absolutely love to complain and find fault with others. Don't let it bother you. Just live and have fun."- Lind

[rob.e]

This is a great thread. Thanks for sharing.

[TweedLinn]

That is very easy mod, & I'm glad I made it. There's a few threads that talk about it, but I just reviewed them & its so self explanatory that I didn't even want to post links, & make you read through pages of nonsense. Once your panel is off you can very easily see a hole in the arm on the lock mechanism that I put a 2 cent bolt through, with a nice simple cabinet pull on the end of, line up the panel, drill a small hole in it, & you're done. Now you can open the hatch from inside. I use it all the time
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76 Sportsmobile

[eche_bus]

I'll consider doing this. Yes, the hole(s) in the latch arm are very obvious. Will just have to see which side of my mind wins the battle between "stock is everything" and "don't forget useability".

Thanks rob.e for the nice comment.

[Hoody]

Keep up the good work! You are an inspiration Jon!

[Doug Brown]

This is somewhat off topic, but how is the chassis saver holding up? I have need for either that or por15, Ive read mixed things about chassis saver. Im interested to see how the few spots you've coated held up. Durable enough as an undercoat?
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'78 Bus - My Flickr

My Bus Restoration Blog

[eche_bus]

DougBrown -it's holding up fine, but it also hasn't been put to much of a test, either. Mostly, this bus has sat in my garage getting overhauled as this thread documents. I followed the instructions and had no problems with adhesion and have topcoated it wherever it would be exposed to sunlight or the road. It does what it is supposed to do - neutralizes and seals rust. When I used it on the underside of my battery tray area, I coated it with black enamel spray paint and then sprayed the area with spray undercoating. Like most coatings, if you play fast and loose with the rules, there will be problems. No problems using it yet!

[eche_bus]

Front Bumper Installed
Has it really been 2 months? It's about time I started posting photos of what's been going on, 'cause there's been plenty of that. Before I open the floodgates showing the big deal stuff, it seems a good idea to get a few other things out of the way...

First off, remember those bumpers I had straightened? They've all been painted now (correct color, too!) and it came time to get the front one out of the way and back on the bus.

I tried fitting the repro plastic bolt covers over the bolt heads. There was no way that was going to happen and I'd read about people cracking them, so I marked where the points of the head lined up and cut small slits with a mat knife. This allowed the plastic to expand slightly when pressed onto the bolt, allowing it to fit nice and snugly as it should.

FYI - the bolt you see in the photo is VW's current replacement for the original p/n. The original mounting hardware is a stackup of a regular bolt, small washer, and a large washer. Trouble was, the stackup using this bolt with just the large washer ends up too tall for the plastic cap to sit flush against the bumper. Solution: hardware store bolt. Cap fits just like it should.

The end result:

You might notice a couple of things a little "off" in this photo.

First, the repro white plastic VW logo is not the right color. It should be the same color as the bumper but is instead a very bright white with a blue cast to it. It's worse than the photo shows, believe me. Thank you VW aftermarket community for providing us all with such fine parts.

Second, and man am I embarrassed by this one. The license plate mounting holes aren't centered! A PO (maybe even the original dealer) strikes from the past! This thing sat in my basement for a month before getting painted and another month after. You think I'd notice? Nope. Installed the bumper, stood back to take a look and ...
So, time to drill new holes in the right place and caulk up the old ones.

[eche_bus]

Power Inlet Overhaul, or how many times can I do something over?

Way back I'd stripped and repainted the stupid little exterior power inlet box. I sat back admiring the results for a while and then put the part back on the shelf, to let it sit for a good month or so for the paint to be good and hard.

The time came to apply the cover decal. As I handled the part, all seemed fine, so I applied some painter's tape as a guide to get the decal straight. I sweated through getting the decal placed just right and happy with the result, began removing the guide tape. I watched in horror as the paint came off right along with it, and soon realized that the paint had not bonded with the primer for some very odd reason. I have painted a lot, and this has never happened before.

It wasn't just the paint that upset me, it was having to replace the decal. This isn't the cheap, wrong decal that comes with the sheet of Westy stickers most VW shops sell. Nope, this is the correct one that comes with a healthy lead time and a healthy price.

It wasn't even just that. The reassembly of the front cover to the base is a royal, time sucking, pain-in-the-kazoo. There is a spring and a rod that defy nearly all efforts to align everything for assembly. I've done it twice now and have no clue how the manufacturer must have done it efficiently.

So of all the do-overs, it had to be this stupid little box.

But that stupid little box is finally done and no longer taking any more of my time and money!

It's now painted with epoxy primer and urethane auto paint. First time was FLAPS spraycan shite. I knew better, too.

Here's a shot with that new big beautiful decal applied. I'm happy that Matt (curtis4085) has made this very specialized decal available. Just not so happy to buy one twice for the same box.

Here's the inside front, showing the new zinc plating. It came out unusually blue for zinc. Oh well, beats looking at corrosion.

Finally, and I swear this will be the last time I talk about this damn power box, the backside.

Please check in tomorrow for something MUCH more interesting, I promise.

[old DKP driver]

I feel for you as I did the same thing and, should Not have painted the power
inlet.

I ended up removing the paint and taking it to a friend at a body shop and had it done right. I have never had the knack for body work and also
received the 'sticker' from Matt a year ago. Thank You 'MAtt Curtis'.

It is indeed very high grade Zinc and needed to be treated before the finish
was applied.

This was one of the last items to be done this spring before getting my Bus
on the road for summer
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V.W.owner since 1967

[eche_bus]

@old DKP driver - sorry to hear you had a similar experience, but glad you've been able to straighten it out. Matt has done us a great favor by making these decals available. Not only are they the right text, more importantly they're the right size that actually fits the cover! The problem I had with the paint wasn't adhesion to the zinc, but adhesion to the primer. The primer stuck great but none of the paint had bonded to the primer. It was sprayed the day after the primer, too. Congrats on getting your bus back on the road soon!

[eche_bus]

Refrigerator Overhaul part I - original condition
The winter here in MN was long and brutal and with an unheated garage, the focus was on interior cabinet overhaul that could be done inside. A lot of the cabinet work was performed in parallel, but the fridge was the first to get completed (finally! ). Man, it was a lot of work.

Let's begin with the original condition. This tired old horse still worked, but it showed every bit of its nearly 40 years. Scuffed/scratched/chipped/lifting laminate, with extra drilled holes, worn out paint, shrunk and warped T-molding, missing tie-down straps, warped and stained Masonite back panel ... that was just the outside.

Inside, the fridge cover had a healthy coat of mildew around the seal.

The vent cover's varnish was worn out, the wood stained, and brass hinge showing plenty of age.

The metal top frame was chipped and rusting here and there.

The control panel (this is a USA Westy) was scuffed, scratched and rusting under the paint.

The cooling fins were not pretty.

... and that was what we could see before taking it apart.

[eche_bus]

Refrigerator Overhaul part II - disassembly
So let's tear it apart.

First thing we (my wife helped tremendously) did was to remove the big laminate panel. Iron plus wide putty knife are the right tools. Heat to soften glue, push knife between panel and wood in softened area, repeat. Do not use force. You are shearing off glue softened by heat. Unheated glue does not shear. Force = broken laminate.

The top metal frame is removed by unbolting the wood strip at the top back and then removing the sheet metal screws around the perimeter. Sorry no photo. Got busy and forgot.

The fridge box and cooling "stuff" all comes out as a unit by removing 4 (?) screws from the face and the two screws located where I'm pointing in this photo:

Out she goes.

With the fridge parts out of the way, we can see the discoloration left by the heat. That will get sanded down and re-varnished along with much of the cabinet interior. At this point, the Masonite backing board is still stapled in, but after a feeble attempt to restore it, it was removed.

Time to start fixing stuff.

[eche_bus]

Refrigerator Overhaul part III - refurbishing

Stripped down to a bare hull, the fridge was now ready to thoroughly clean years of accumulated gunk and rodent exposure. The varnish was still good in the fridge box area, so I sanded and re-varnished the floor(s) and the area under the cooling "mechanism" that had discolored. It's more even in tone in the areas that will show. The lighter areas immediately under the fins and tubes will not be visible.

The area at the very bottom was also sealed with several coats of varnish to protect it from inevitable moisture. No more mouse piss!

The outer face was cleaned of glue residue (yeah, that's a whole lotta fun! ) and final sanded with 180 grit using a random orbital sander. Any chips/gouges were filled.

Here's the huge laminate panel, frightening as I considered coating it in contact cement and precisely aligning it with the cabinet again. These cabinets will all be repaired using OG laminate, and although it was split from top to bottom, I had no better panel to use than the one that came off it originally. So, the split was superglued to hold it together well enough to be installed.

Needless to say, we had our hands full gluing and aligning the panel with the cabinet. The process wasn't photographed here, but I will show you further on. Let's just say for now that combining contact cement with precise alignment is not for the faint of heart. Some of the fading you see here will be removed in a later step.

Let's get that fridge stuff back in the box. Looks a little better now, eh? Amazing what a good cleaning and paint will do!

Repainted frame and hinge bar installed.

Repainted temperature control panel installed.

New Masonite backing panel and refinished storage box installed.

Good enough for ya?

And onwards to complete the outside ...

[eche_bus]

Refrigerator Overhaul part IV - more refurbishing and done!

With the insides finished, "all" that remains is to finish the top covers and tie-downs. Sounds simple enough, but still plenty time-consuming.

Those tired old brass hinges needed help. Stripped off the worn coating, polished and recoated, they look much better.
Photo: old one at top, polished at bottom.

Can't forget the screws, right?

OK, time to re-laminate the top covers. But first, a "Thank You" ...

I am extremely grateful to one of TheSamba members, DaleNW who provided me with all the old OG laminate he removed from his Westy to use for replacement and repair. I could not have done what you see here without this generous help.

The laminate for both covers was pretty badly damaged and needed replacement. Fortunately DaleNW's old vent cover laminate was in good shape. However, the fridge cover laminate piece was also damaged so I had no choice but to make a new one from one of the other panels. Trouble was I also had to make a new spare tire cover panel and there were no other way to accomplish this but to cut them from the large closet panel, which was not otherwise useful. This panel was precisely large enough but required I cut between the pieces using a mat knife and metal ruler. No room for error, a router or saw blade would have removed too much material. Seriously time consuming cutting.

Panel cut, here's the jig we came up with to precisely align panels with cabinet parts. It's an adjustable three-sided box with clamps holding things as needed. Contact cement is completely unforgiving. You touch the parts together and they are stuck, so you must think it through beforehand. You don't "get it close" and then move it around. For this particular panel, we aligned to just the front edge (top of photo) and used the sides only as coarse guides to keep the panel centered. When an original OG pre-cut laminate panel was used, such as the fridge vent cover, the box would be closed in tight on all 3 sides and a clamp placed across the open end to hold it tight against the cabinet part.

The dowels are used to keep the glue-coated laminate and wood apart from each other. The laminate panel is placed into the "guide box" on top of the dowels where it can not move and so retains proper alignment as the laminate is pressed down and the dowels are removed one at a time.

Maybe this will make more sense with a laminate panel in the photo.

Both pieces coated with DAP contact cement, jig at the ready.

Final result, both panels. Ready for T-molding.

Heating T-molding in boiling water. Completely removes any bends, ripples by slightly stretching on removal. Hotplate makes this handy.

Laminate polished/waxed, bottom wood sanded re-varnished, T-molding cleaned with acetone, repainted vent cover, hinge installed. Vent cover top and bottom.

Same basic stuff plus mildew removal. Fridge box cover top, bottom.

Whew!

Finished refrigerator cabinet, exterior. Yes, there is a noticeable tone difference between the top panels. OG panels aren't all the same and there has been some sun-fading of the vent and face panels that couldn't be entirely removed. This is not as obvious as the photo makes it seem, but is the best than could be accomplished with extremely scarce resources.

Finished interior, fridge box. I added small felt pads to keep the wood and metal from wearing on each other.

Finished interior, storage/control area. New tie-down straps were cut from OG curtain straps. They are exactly the same, just longer.

Just missing one small part. Anyone have an extra cheesehead screw and nut?

Coming next ... headbanger cabinet overhaul.

[curtis4085]

Looking great!!

If others need a Decal for there shore power outlet PM me as I still have a few extras.
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Special Thanks to:
Headflow Masters - Vista, CA
www.headflowmasters.com

[Waves2day]

Wow that's looking good!
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Sam
1976 Westfalia Camper Pop-top
1972 Westfalia Hardtop (sold)

[RONIN10]

That's a tremendous level of quality and attention to detail. Thanks for the documentation; it will be a great guide for the rest of us doing this work downstream.
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Andrew

Oscar: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper, 2.0L FI, Manual Transaxle