65 deluxe "the bavarian"

[esde]

I've been slogging away at my 11 window project for a little under a year now, and posting about it as I go http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=607359&highlight=
and that's led to me meeting some other people, either for parts, or doing welding work (like the 60 http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=621610&highlight=). I had mentioned to a friend, (who has a 62 15 window deluxe that I have helped a little with), that I wished I had a 13 deluxe rather than the 11 window standard. Fast forward a few weeks and phone calls, I was towing home this 13 window deluxe, that has an awesome story. Here it is where we picked it up in NJ

and on the trailer, with one flat and one seized drum

when I went to meet the owner, his son met me instead, who I knew from several years ago when he lived a few blocks away. I never knew he was into VW's, but this was his ride through college, as his father bought it new in 65'. Ed's got a few Vw's now, an early beetle, and a split panel. I imagine he would have kept this, but there's one spot on the frame that's pretty bad, and a lot of it is right on the cusp of being awful. It's got a small sticker in the center of the dash that reads "the bavarian" that's been there since the early 80's, that was the bus's name, so of course it has to stay. Anyway, he saw the work I had done on the 11 window, knew I was capable of fixing this, and we made a deal.
The good: it's relatively complete, except for the rear and middle seats which are in Ed's bus. I'm hopeful that I can strike a deal to get them back in some sort of trade, it would be nice to have the original seats. The headliner is great

front seats have covers, with the original mesh grey underneath

The sides are straight, I don't think it's ever been hit.

The bad and ugly: No motor, some bad rocker repairs, and miata blue up to the deluxe trim. The roof has been sandblasted and primed, but has some gaping rust holes in front. The windshield bottom frames are shot. And this

which is worse than it looks, but at least just one side. The floor cross members are right at the point where you think they might be ok, but when you start picking they go to pieces.

currentl;y the plan is to keep collecting parts. I've already got most of the Gerson panels it needs, except the long rocker and front floor. I've got a motor on the stand waiting for some tin, and some bus 15's powder coated, waiting for tires. Can't wait to start it, but I'm going to finish the other welding projects that I have right now so the shop is clear before I dig in..
Sadly I can't justify keeping it and the 11 window. I'm hustling to finish the welding and electric, then I'll list it for sale. You'll be sure to read about it in the whine section.
SD

[orangebug60guy]

[esde]

You know, I'm hardly worried about that. Once it's done, so long as everything was squared up and positioned correctly, it's done. Nothings really in the way. I am really trying to figure out if I'll be able to carefully pull the headliner back from the front, so I can weld the roof repairs in, and then pull it tight again. I don't know anyone that's tried, if a headliner's nice, people are careful not to wreck it. I've gotta do something though. thoughts?

[mr white]

Love the title. The Bavarian!! Nice headliner!
Wicked rear frame rust. Lets see the other bus next to it!! Congrats on your find!!

[TexasAirCooler]

[esde]

Not really any progress, aside from tracking down parts, and sorting out the electrical gremlins. The bus is still 6 volt, or was till a few days ago. I have the old 1835 from my beetle to install (thick 92 cylinders), and it runs a 6 volt/ 200mm flywheel with a 12 volt generator. I'm going to run the old 6 volt starter on 12, and have gotten most of the bus swapped to 12 volts. Headlights, dash lights, and voltage regulator are done. Still need to disconnect the radio so I don't fry it, and do the taillights, horn, flasher, and interior lights.
The ignition switch doesn't match the other lock keys, and isn't a correct "T" code key. I've arranged to pick the right one up while at Flanders show this weekend, and hopefully have Justin re key it to match my bus. New Bosch fluted glass in front

And, I"ve gotten a few old pics of the bus. Here's the guy I bought the bus from, almost 40 years ago. So great to have gotten this picture to keep with the bus!

[silvertonguedevil]

Awesome picture!!^^ Really glad you got the bus you wanted. Can't wait to see what you do with it!
_________________
-Greg

[esde]

I figure if I'm going to drive this a bit next season I better get started, so I made some room and a plan of attack. First, over the past 6 months I've filled the bus with seats, wheels, and boxes of parts and panels. If I hope to do anything it has to move so I made the obvious choice and bought a rack. Now it can all go up top.

I'm doing the windshield frame, seatbelt mounts, and the leading edge of the roof now, and will leave the doglegs, floor, and valences for next year. Lower edge of the frame is gone

I'm pulling all of the switches, speedo, and covering the dash. When I'm done welding the dash will buff up nicely. The rust stains rub out where I've tried.

The first casualty after the windshield frame, the parcel tray:

I scored a clean replacement at Flanders.
And the previous floor repair: heavy fiberglass matt and resin. Ugly as sin, and will be a bear to remove, but it'll also work for another season.

Under the drivers seat, not too bad. Only rust through is at the seat belt mount. But every bus has rust there

Pulled the wiper motor and linkage as well, looks like the driver side pivot is shot, so another wolfsburg order will be coming soon..

[esde]

I figure if I'm going to drive this a bit next season I better get started, so I made some room and a plan of attack. First, over the past 6 months I've filled the bus with seats, wheels, and boxes of parts and panels. If I hope to do anything it has to move so I made the obvious choice and bought a rack. Now it can all go up top.

I'm doing the windshield frame, seatbelt mounts, and the leading edge of the roof now, and will leave the doglegs, floor, and valences for next year. Lower edge of the frame is gone

I'm pulling all of the switches, speedo, and covering the dash. When I'm done welding the dash will buff up nicely. The rust stains rub out where I've tried.

The first casualty after the windshield frame, the parcel tray:

I scored a clean replacement at Flanders.
And the previous floor repair: heavy fiberglass matt and resin. Ugly as sin, and will be a bear to remove, but it'll also work for another season.

Under the drivers seat, not too bad. Only rust through is at the seat belt mount. But every bus has rust there

Pulled the wiper motor and linkage as well, looks like the driver side pivot is shot, so another wolfsburg order will be coming soon..

[esde]

About the only thing less enjoyable than cutting out rusty metal, is carefully peeling a spot welded, rusty layer off a piece you have to save. But doing the windshield frame, the repair piece ends at a factory overlapped seam. The rust was far too bad to find and drill the spot welds, so I just picked away at it

here I have most of the rusty crap cut out

And the gerson panel roughly fitted

The nose pillar always needs some tweaking to make the profiles match

It's easier to bend it as you weld it though

The passenger side isn't wanting to sit where it needs to, again, I'll get the rest tacked in place before I start to coax it into position. The view from under the dash, you can see where the green metal overlaps the original metal

Need to triple check everything, and get my welding blankets back to protect the dash before any welding happens though. Also have to finish chasing bits of rust, and getting weld through primer in the places that are getting covered
I've been methodically working on the passenger front door, which has been stuck shut for 20 some years. After carefully removing the door panel, outer lock and handle, and carefully soaking the latch with penetrating oil it still refused to budge. I had to get a friend to push part of the mechanism down with a screwdriver, and then I reached through the outer lock hole with a skinny punch and hit it hard a few times. Finally it freed up and opened, theres a chance I didn't completely wreck the lock too.
Inside of the door is as close to perfect as you find on an east coast rust belt bus, look it even has the factory paper

I'm going to sandblast the inside bottoms, treat whatever rust I can't see, and hit it with some cavity wax
Next post I hope to have the windshield frame welded, and be started on the front roof repair. I need to search some and see if it's possible to peel the headliner back some. Mine is pretty damned nice. Much too nice to trash, but I can't risk setting it on fire either. What to do?
SD

[esde]

short update:
Been doing some more prep to fit the windshield repair section, and completely grind out or treat any rust thats been exposed. A lot of time under the dash with a 3" sanding disc on a mini die grinder, and ospho. I'll be welding soon, and will post pics of the process
I found a front roof section cut from another bus. I'm going to carefully pull the headliner back as far as I'm comfortable, and replace the whole front 4-6". Hopefully the seller can get it stuffed under a greyhound for me tomorrow.
And, I dug into the wiring a bit. Pulled the speedometer to clean it up and swap in all 12 volt bulbs, also removed the incorrect beetle ignition switch. Realized that the hole for the key had been hogged out larger to make it fit, and also there was a hole drilled for a push button in the middle of the dash.

decided it had to be fixed, rooted under the turret punch till I found some correct size round plugs.

And then mig welded them in

I'm going to have to do some respray around the dash anyway, maybe these can get blended in at some point. Some point way in the future..
SD

[esde]

Welded the nose frame in this weekend, here are the details:
Before the Klassic Fab piece could be welded in, I had to repair the inner lip that holds the window rubber. I carefully cut some pieces of 20 gauge sheet to fit, backed them up with copper, and welded them in. It's important to have a welder with good low voltage settings, as everything I was welding to was very thin

Then when it was time to fit and weld the KF panel in, I drilled another hole in-between the holes where the cleko clamps held it in place. I set the welder for a fast, hot weld and did every other hole, leaving time for it to cool down between welds. Then removed the clekos, and completed the holes. I also did the driver side first, then the passenger. No reason why, that's just how it went

The KF panel is sized so you can wrap it around the rain gutter, but on the passenger side I seemed to be a bit short, so I cut it and welded at the inside corner where the skin turns up to the gutter. It's gonna take some filler to look perfect but I wasn't confident that I could do it the other way without messing up the overall fit, so it is what it is..

And, greyhound dropped off the front roof chunk, that I will use for my repair.

Now to find a way to weld it in without wrecking my nice original headliner….

[esde]

Didn't have the nerve to cut into the roof today, so I fixed the drivers wheel well/ b pillar area. I still need to find a 24mm threaded plate to add the seat belt mount, as it was totally gone

I barely cleaned it up, this is what was gone when I got the bus. Took about two hours and 4 separate pieces of 20 gauge sheet to get here

Feels good to button up a repair in one day
SD

[Schwing]

Nice clean work as always. You were right they always rust there, I think it was you that said that. Keep on keeping on.

[esde]

Thanks Schwing.
I'm pulling the pop out windows to free up some stiff rusty hinges, and one thing leads to another. I nicked the deluxe trim, so I decide to take it off and avoid more damage. Only had to drill out one screw. The rust hiding was worse than expected, especially the corner.

I have this section left over from another project, if I need to graft in a section. First this needs to be sandblasted to see just how paper thin it is.
I did take the belt line down to bare from the corner to the door, and then treated the rust pitting with phosphoric acid. I'm going to leave the bottom miata blue, but will paint the top the correct blue white this summer.

I also started dealing with the roof rust, but started a different thread as I was asking some questions about the headliner
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=646325&highlight=
It's working out so far.
SD

[esde]

Sadly, the last few weeks have been spent doing work on my daily ride so little progress has been made. But, warmer weather is coming and I'm trying to get back to it. I have a new assistant

He's a little young, but super excited to sit in the seat and pretend he's driving. And move my tools around so I can't find them.

We just got started tackling the front roof edge rot, so marked it and started cutting

And I'm pleasantly surprised, because it's not as bad as I expected. I can honestly say, I've never said that before.

It looks like there's just surface rust inside, with a few holes through. I had bought a whole front roof, windshield frame, air box, and all but I think I'll order the smaller autocraft panel instead. Not bad, I'm going to try to get it done this week, so I can paint the front and put it all back together again. Show season is around the corner

[esde]

Busy day. Moved two cars out, and then put the new tires/ powder coated 15's on the bus so I could roll it outside. Looks goofy as it's still stock height with tires for a lowered bus..

full house

Power washed the engine bay and all of the underside that I could before bringing it in and putting it on the lift for the first time

The rust is B A D in this one spot

It looks like on top of complete;y rotting out, then someone attempted to lift the bus and collapsed that section. I started making a template for my repair pieces, this will be the first section to be fixed. Then all of this will need attention

On the bright side, the sections I need to replace have pretty much rusted clean off, so theres not even much to remove. Surprisingly, between the frame rails is very solid. Except for the heat pipe, which is a mess of 3" dryer vent and duct tape.
And, the engine bay came up clean and nice blue paint all over

Just finished running new brake lines in the front and rear, (left out the long one till the frame is fixed), and then pulled the front spindles to send out and have dropped. Goal is to have it driving for June. Tall order, but maybe..
SD

[esde]

Tore into the frame tonight. Ugliness everywhere
What little is left of the outrigger and top hat, with wire lathe and plaster.

Chopped out the remains of the inner rocker

More nuts. Every damned VW that's come into my possession over the past few years has been full of damned nuts. Usually acorns, this time the entire rotted frame rail is full of peanuts

I left the top of the frame, and only cut out the bottom

The torsion tube is rusted through, but only on the bottom where it passes through the frame. This will be the third time I've done this fix

Tomorrow I'll cut the patches and get to work…
SD
_________________
modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.

[peecee69]

Woah. You're a brave man. Glad it's in yor capable hands and looking forward to the resurrection of the bavarian!

[esde]

fitting patches and welding. Here's the outer side of the frame

Welded on the outside and ground smooth. I welded a mending plate to the inside where it's hidden

And then made the inner part, there are mending plates where it joins the original frame.

I have some repair to do behind the torsion housing also, and then I will weld on the bottom of the box to finish the repair.

This area really is a pain in the ass to repair. It would be great if someone made these sections so that it could be repaired as it was originally made.
SD
_________________
modok wrote:
Bent cranks are silent but gather no moss. I mean, ah, something like that.