My 72 bus project, “Grady”

[aragorn35016]

Hey guys long time lurker here, after wanting one for a long time and never pulling the trigger, a bus was sold to me for almost nothing a few months back. He’s been lovingly named Grady by the family. He’s a 72 camper van that’s super rough.


YouTube link walk around, sorry for the noise it was cicada season!:


Link

YouTube after the first round of stripping down (I talk too much ):


Link



As bad as it is, the bus interior with the exception of the rear seat was mostly intact. It came with most all the paperwork all the way back to the original owners, even has what I assume is a factory 1st aid kit and all the contents are in sealed original condition. For the exterior unfortunately I’m missing the bumpers and the engine, but I’m a long way from that being a problem ! It’s a big project that will probably take multiple years, but over the last few months my wife and I have slowly been cataloging and taking him apart. To date we’ve removed all the interior, dash, steering column, doors, gas tank, the transmission, and I’ve labeled every wire and extracted the harness. In the meantime I’ve been teaching myself how to weld and getting lessons from a certified welder for the massive amounts of body work in my future. Again this is a big project that I on a bus I think a lot of people would say might be too far gone, and there are days where I wonder that myself, but I’m learning a lot of new skills, and for me that’s half the fun! If any of you guys are in the north Alabama area give me a shout, I’m always looking for locals to bond over VW stuff with!

John M.

[Shonandb]

Nice find! Looks like there are some challenging areas but a good starting point. Try to do a little bit every day, every weekend, etc and it will be running and driving before you know it. Busted Bus and other used parts sites will be good to connect with.

Looking forward to following your progress.
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76 Westy with a 2.5L Subaru SOHC + Vanagon (010) Automatic Transaxle
Build & Trip Thread: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=758760
Previous 1973 Panel Bus:
Click to view image

[fatmatt650]

Very cool! Good luck with all that. I'm about to start learning bodywork on a new project myself.
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62 Single Cab
70 bug
72 Hightop
72 Hightop
"So much to do...so little time."

[aragorn35016]

Wow I had never heard of busted bus what a cool site!

I’m gonna try to pull all the windows sometime next week, thankfully my brother in law is a glass guy so I have some expertise on tap.

Fixing to start building a rotisserie like the vangabonders on YouTube did, gonna add some casters to it to make it easier to move. I forgot to mention that I’m doing all of this in a standard 20x20 garage, do the best you can with what you got ! Thankfully there’s a partially finished room that all the pieces are being stored in.