skadi the syncro

[zeohsix]

The original VW Weekender seat standoffs are SAE 7/16-20UNF threaded fasteners. I would increase the size of your bolts to at least 10mm. I also carefully measured the location of the Weekender upper seat latch threaded hole to the other existing threaded holes, then milled away the 2 weldplates on the upper seat latch bolt mount assembly and welded a single mounting plate behind the latch mount that bolted to the existing holes on my Syncro's body, one bolt is pretty tight for clearance but, the hex head will just clear the striker base and allow a weld free installation into a non Weekender van. Nice work so far, have fun!

[phlogiston]

thanks for the advice eric! your solution looks elegant & robust, but i think that we are working with different types of seats. yours looks like the sheet metal framed variety, while mine has a wooden frame inside a metal hinge mechanism.

i've alwyas liked the way the wooden seats can be operated easily grabbing only the front edge, and the shape seemed more amenable to my reupholstery plans, so i ditched my metal seat in favor of the wood one from my old weekender. i also like this seat because of its ease of mounting--4 bolts into the floor (where i had to build standoffs) and 2 into the wheel wells (that i just had to drill). the back is supported only by the base and these 2 easily mounted angle brackets that barely make contact; they seem to be only present to support the seat in the event of a rear-end collision.

anyway, now that i had the height figured out and the standoffs built, i needed to position them. i had taken careful measurements of the position in my weekender, but with so few perpendicular surfaces and gobs of factory seam sealer everywhere on both vehicles, i was not convinced i could properly center the seat without some empirical measurements. so i stopped work on the floor for a bit to transfer the plastic panels from the weekender to the syncro.

the drivers' side panel had sustained some damage in the same crash that tore up the side of my weekender (hit & run by an unlicensed immigrant driver in san francisco... grrrr). but my long term plans are to replace everything in front of the bench seat, so i decided to work with the damage for now. thanks, wendy...

it took a couple hours to undo all the wiring that i'd hidden under the jump seat. it was a bittersweet moment, undoing tons of my own work, but knowing that it would all eventually be improved upon and recreated in the syncro.

trimming the syncro's fiberboard panels...

i drilled out the rivets and removed the mounting channels for the weekender trim panels. however, they were painted brown, a color that will not be present in my final color scheme. fortunately i've acquired lots of spray paint during this project and always get offered lots of help when it's time to paint. we practice the "hold your breath while you spray" method of PPE for small parts painted outdoors.

riveted in place...

wish i could deal with that awful vinyl now, but that's a project for when the windows are out.

i spent a lot of time standing & staring at this 3d puzzle... the original panels can only be installed & removed with the floor out, but i want to mount my floor semi-permanently, so i'm trimming down the panels such that they can be removed with the floor in place.

i got this jigsaw 10 years ago at a yard sale for $1. it survived most of the way through this project before it finally gave up the ghost.

finally, my chance to test fit everything in place and mark up the standoff position on the floor. i also used the opportunity to start mulling over some tough color choices. i'm aiming for mostly monochrome with some blue to match the exterior. flooring material is going to be marmoleum.

i did the grinding, marking, and seam sealer removal. eion at the tec shop did the welding for me. someday i'l have a welder, but i need a bigger garage first!

replacing the seam sealer.

self-etching primer for the clean bare metal. i masked off the sealant because it wasn't fully cured.

time to deal with the swiss cheese floor. i heard there was a wheelchair lift installed in this van long ago. they didn't skimp on the mounting holes. eastwood rust encapsulator and SEM seam sealer.

spraying the underside of the holes before adding the seam sealer.

dealing with some other rust and scratched-off paint.

how does one cure paint and sealant when it's 55deg and raining outside every day?

after all that work getting the floor out of the weekender, i was also able to scavenge a few of these cool plugs--low profile button head plastic M8 "bolts" with rubber washers.

[jimeg]

Great (re)build thread.
_________________
1986 Root Beer Syncro Tin Top....so many plans.

Here: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=578490

[zeohsix]

Looking GOOD! reminds me of how I spent last Fall season. This fall I'm trying to get my replacement Westy on the road. Your right about those side panels, once a sub floor is set, they won't remove. Good pre-planning on trimming the panels, if your in the market for new cup holders, the ones I purchased had West Marine packaging, seems thats what vendors are selling, they are about an exact replacement for the OEM VW beer can holders but, now they can hold the USA "Big Gulps"

[phlogiston]

thanks! good call on the cup holders. got 'em on order now...

with winter right around the corner, i'm starting to feel a sense of urgency to get the van into a stable state, one where i can go weeks without having an entire day to dedicate to the project. the snow has already started to fall here in the northwest, and two weekends ago i ended 3 long months of not snowboarding by riding new snow down the southwest chutes of mt adams.

that trip was only 21 hours door to door, but i slept through half of the next day and dented my productivity for the weekend a bit. fortunately, we got some painting done prior to that storm, when the weather was still a little drier...

the driver's side trim panel is a bit smashed up. the fiberglass repair that i did 5 years ago had come unglued. i plan to replace this with custom paneling eventually, but in the meantime, there's got to be a bit of a fix...

bondo!! i only had the kind with fiberglass hairs on hand, and didn't think this project justified another purchase, so the finished texture is kinda rough. but at least the panel is all in one piece now!

i was tempted to paint the panels blue, but my gf insisted the krylon fusion blue did not match the "marine blue" of the van. we both agreed the grey was too light, so that left only one option.

everything looks good when you are spraying black paint in the dark!

i couldn't resist adding a bit of blue... and the color matched a little better with a light coat over the black base.

alright, painting done... time to head back inside.

[phlogiston]

rainy days are good for "indoor work" like tracing the carefully trimmed floor pieces onto the marmoleum. it's important that the plywood weight stay entertained, so dancing is allowed.

filling in around the now painted standoffs with cascade audio decoupled floor barrier material.

could this be the last of the many times this floor has been carefully placed in the van?

nope. at the last minute i decided the underside needed painting. i also added some 1/4 plywood as a spacer along the edge facing the sliding door. the ridges in the floor don't extend to the edge, and i didn't like having it unsupported.

at last, fastening the floor down.

i was hours away from finally getting the flooring installed when my project ADD kicked in. it was a sunny friday morning and i had the day free. i knew my windshield leaked and needed to be fixed before winter, and i wanted to do it on a sunny day, because i had a feeling that some painting would be involved. in fact, i was pretty apprehensive about finding out what was underneath that seal. my curiosity got the better of me, and i impulsively started a project that probably would have benefited from some advance planning.

not quite as bad as i'd feared...

things looking better after some serious sanding. it seems as if someone has been in here before and treated the rust with some conversion product... some of the corroded spots are black and sand away _slower_ than the surrounding clean metal. better leave it alone for now... it's going to rain tonight.

ready for paint.

eastwood rust encapsulator.

i let the rust encapsulator cure in the sun for a few hours, then sprayed primer and some color matched paint. then just before the rain started, i pulled the van under the overhang by my garage door and got to work on scraping out the old sealant. quite a chore. i tried a flat screwdriver. i tried a plastic scraper. i tried grinding a corner onto the rope-cutter attachment for my 300W soldering gun and scraping with that. finally i put on my respirator and set to work with a brillo pad soaked in 3M adhesive remover.

now for the hard part....

[bmxanddie]

Looks great! I actually just helped my buddy put a new windshield in his Westy the other night. I was very surprised about how easily and smoothly it went in. Just remember to use the wire trick in the seal and it should be painless.

[tschroeder0]

Nice thread, the shot of you place with the maps up on the wall made me smile, the whole thing to me embodies what the vanagon thing is about- adventure, living a lifestyle, family...very cool brotha!

[phlogiston]

thanks! i'm a bit of a map collector and love to stare at topos and dream up backpacking trips and snowboard adventures. it's nice being in the cascades where so much mountain awesomeness is within a few hours' drive. i never go wanting for forest service roads to go beat up my vans on!

anyway, my first attempt at installing a windshield did not go that well.

after much research and hang-wringing, i had purchased two products to seal the windshield in place:
3M 08509 bedding & glazing compound was an easy and well accepted choice for the rubber to metal seal.
i had a much harder time selecting a product to seal the glass to rubber. most of the pros seem to use urethane that requires a primer on the glass, but most of the primers ran upwards of $30 alone. it seems there are no products on the market specifically labelled for this task, so i did some asking around and got a recommendation to check out dow primerless products, and ended up purchasing betaseal U-418 primerless urethane.

this is listed as a "fast cure" product, which is not ideal, and reading the fine print of the betaseal literature leaves one uncertain as to weather the "primerless" moniker refers to glass or "frit" (which seems to be sintered glass beads that present a better surface for adhesion--NOT what is on my vanagon windshield).

anyway, i don't blame the chemicals for my lack of success. i failed at my first 2 attempts to utilize a rope to seat the rubber gasket onto the pinchweld, and by then my helper (gf) had other obligations and had to leave. it was an hour later before we made the final and successful attempt to get the glass in place, but by then the urethane had mostly set. we were able to get the glass in place, but as the rain the next day proved, the seal was just as leaky as the bad original one that i'd sought to improve.

at least i got some windshield fitting experience and had a chance to sand and paint the rust under the seal. here was a shot i took between installation attempts, showing some of the 3M compound smeared around on the blue color matched paint that i had sprayed over the eastwood rust encapsulator.

it was a frustrating and time consuming weekend that had me really thinking what a great deal it would have been to pay the $60 extra to have the glass installed by the shop i bought it from. but (foolishly?) i now have a little more confidence and am already planning to try again myself.......

in the meantime, at least i had a windshield to get to work on monday, and i could start thinking about gluing in my floor.

i glued the front section first and then set some weights to keep it in place while i spread adhesive under the rest. i then rolled over it with a ~30lb chunk of cylindrical aluminum stock that i found in the shop at work, and followed up by placing every heavy object in my garage on top of it, then setting the space heater to keep it warm for the night.

at last i had a floor!

[ShowaBraun]

I love that floor! Goes well with the rest of the interior too.
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__________________________
83.5 Westy 2.2 Subie
98 Outback 2.5
80 Caddy 1.6TD
66 912

[Gunldesnapper]

I cant wait to see how it all turns out.
_________________
1990 Vanagon Carat "Pig"
USN RET

[phlogiston]

the arrival of winter in the northwest has distracted me a little from working on the van (and a lot from writing about it). but i've been quite stoked to finally have a chance to take skadi out and play in the snow...

it was pretty satisfying to camp out in the snow last weekend. i posted these shots in a little writeup of the mission on a ski forum and was happy to see that almost every response i got was a comment about the van.

anyway, before i get carried away, here's the rest of the story about installing the rear interior...

before i could put the seat in, i needed to install the trim panels, and before i hid those wall cavities, i had to deal with something a little scary:

what brought about this carnage?! seems the rear side window seal is leaking.... (i read on here it could also be the latch that holds the sliding door open, but mine seems quite tight).

i checked the other side for comparison, and saw that it had been liberally sprayed with wax at the factory, so i became optimistic that the mess on the bad side was more wax than rust.

sure enough, after a liberal application of volatile chemicals (and lots of elbow grease) things looked a lot less scary. i drilled a tiny drain hole to let the water out and keep it from filling again.

i used the remote nozzle that came with my can of eastwood rust encapsulator to douse the cleaned and dried cavity, then stuffed a heat gun in there on low to cure it. then i gave everything a liberal coat of fluid film.

the last step before putting the panels back in was to apply some constrained layer damping material.

there had been a mess of nasty jute glued on here, and i was tempted to just cover it up, but instead i got the chemicals back out (they don't scare me now that i have a fume respirator!) and tried out a 3M drill-mounted adhesive removal tool.

was it worth an hour of nasty work? maybe not, but my OCD side was happy.

the side panels were ready to go in, but then my OCD kicked in again, and i decided to take the bench seat apart and paint all the metal pieces. of course the prep work alone took awhile since i had glued dynamat on there years and years ago when i bought the weekender and stuffed a sub under the seat.

i got some conflicting advice on how to paint galvanized steel. eventually i had to get off my computer and go paint, so i settled on a self etching primer.

i sprayed black enamel on most of the metal...

and blue color matched paint on the inside.

i failed at finding a replacement for this damaged spring for the hinge latching mechanism, so i spent some frustrating minutes (a lot of them) with 2 pairs of pliers trying to cut and bend a larger spring into the correct shape (one offset hook and one centered one).

and that was it! the happy moment had arrived where i could finally get the bench seat out of my crowded garage and into the van!

certainly not going to win any car shows (and it took a lot longer than i'd expected), but i was going for a pretty utilitarian look all along.

i'll probably be pulling a lot of this out again later during the winter once i save up enough and start buying stereo components, but for now, i'm just happy to have a van that's ready for camping!! and i just heard the magic words on the radio "avoid mountain passes tonight due to heavy snow accumulation" so it looks like it's time to load up my gear and go find me a mountain pass!

[flomulgator]

I'm pretty sure I met you in the Steven's Pass parking lot on Sunday. I was the other syncro-driving touring guy (with the H6 as you so adroitly noted). Looking through only part of this thread it's incredible to see how much work you put into this thing!

Since your TAY post was filled w/ van chat I'll fill this one with ski talk. My wife, friend and I hit the north chutes down to the iron goat trail, but were wallowing through bottomless mank with lots of sticks near the bottom. It was good to get out and get a few nice turns at the top but I hope your group found a better line!

[Yukon Syncro]

Me too, glad to check out your TAY thread, getting me excited that winter is finally here! These are my stomping grounds about a 1000 miles further north http://yukonbackcountryskiing.com/
I am driving my syncro for the first time in snow this year and its been a blast, a cold blast at -30 but fun!
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1987 1.6 TD (JX) 1.9 TD (AAZ) Syncro Transporter Tintop with front and back lockers - Escorial Green. Got a North American High Top buried in snow waiting for a spring, summer when-oh-when-lord install.

[phlogiston]

it's cool to start meeting other vanagon owners who like to ski in the wilderness. not too surprising given our location, perhaps... both seem to be quite popular hobbies here in the northwest!

well, sadly i missed the seattle meet at marymoor park last weekend due to a classic conflict between the two interests--i was invited to spend a weekend camping out at an old fire lookout in the north cascades. i'd been up there on a recon hike back in the fall, and couldn't turn down the chance to go back with some riding partners and my snowboard.

despite the bitter cold and wind affected snow, it was a fun trip, but i'm still sad i missed the chance to check out a bunch of local vans and meet their owners.

anyway, back to the vans--my 2wd backup van was suffering from a pretty leaky radiator, so i used the opportunity to get a brand new one for the syncro and swap the old but still watertight one into the 2wd weekender. it also seemed like a good time to add some CLD (damping) material to the sheet metal around that loud radiator fan. .

i was kicking myself a little for not just putting in a new radiator when i did all the coolant pipes and hoses over the summer. nonetheless, the job went pretty quickly.

after hearing the rave reviews, i was excited to try out some loctite 518 on the always-leaky radiator connections.

just in time to climb some snowy, untracked forest service roads!

the next test was a long freeway drive down to san francisco for thanksgiving. my brother just opened a restaurant there, and he closed it for a day so that a bunch of us could cook and eat thanksgiving dinner there. i cured up some jowl bacon and lamb sausage and got my first chance to try out an electric smoker... indoors no less!

skadi made the long drive just fine, but during her post road trip checkup, i noticed what i'd been fearfully looking for all summer--a leak from one of the head gaskets.

i can't help but wonder if doing so much driving without the "engine tins" in place contributed to this failure, as it failed at the point closest to the exhaust. i wonder if the radiated heat helped to deteriorate the sealant or rubber at that corner?

oh well, either way, now i'm left with a tough decision of how to spend my holiday vacation--take out the syncro engine, do some repairs, and reinstall.... or just pull the engine from my 2wd van (which i went through 3 years ago and installed new rods, oil pump, and heads) and swap it over. hmmm. it's tough to invest much time and effort in a WBX engine, all while still putting money aside to do a 1.8t swap when summer comes.

i better make up my mind, the clock is ticking to the next snowstorm!

[dobryan]

Nice thread. For the head gasket leak maybe throw some of the Subaru conditioner in there and see if that will help. It really seems to work well on minor seeps and it may save you until you are ready to do the final engine swap.
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Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[phlogiston]

i have to admit i've been tempted to throw the subaru conditioner in there and hope for the best.... but i'm also optimistic that between now and summer i'm going to work out a road trip to alaska, so i still need to get some miles out of this setup before i have time for the 1.8t swap. plus i'm not sure how i feel about gumming up my brand new radiator (plus a couple of heater cores). i tried that subaru stuff in my weekender when the head "channel" gasket started leaking, and it didn't help.

[Zeitgeist 13]

Speaking of the 1.8t engines, since this thread gets a lot of PNW eyeballz, I thought I'd mention that the local Pick a Part here in Oly currently has four Passat/A4 donor vehicles in stock. They're under new management so I don't know about the current pricing, but they used to charge a little over $200 for engines and ~$150 for transaxles. FYI
_________________
Casey--

'89 Bluestar ALH w/12mm Waldo pump, PP764 and GT2052
'01 Weekender --> full camper
y u rune klassik?

[phlogiston]

well as of 1am last night, the engine is out. as soon as i get home from work the heads are coming off...

thanks christopher for letting me borrow your engine hoist.

[TopBud]

In the last picture with the van and the snow, what tires are on those black rims? Are they snow studs? Great thread. I will one day too do a redo on the syncro. Just saving money, and thinking….
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86 bostig SYNCRO
66 convertible Karmann Ghia