Rescuing a 1979 Transporter

[RONIN10]

Hey everyone,

Warning this is long, but has lots of pics.

Background
I was perusing Craigslist a couple weeks ago and came across a listing for a bus. From the pictures in the ad, it looked in pretty decent shape, just abandoned and left to suffer the elements:

The asking price wasn't bad at all ($800) so I emailed the seller. We exchange 40+ emails over the course of the next week, talking about the history of the vehicle, getting additional photos, and figuring out how title transfers work under the circumstances. Here's what I learned...

The vehicle had been parked on her property for around 11 years, last registered in November of 2005. It had belonged to the boyfriend of a former roommate who had since passed away. She didn't have keys, title, or any other documentation. The vehicle was parked there because of transmission issues and hadn't been moved since. She had the idea to turn it into an Airbnb, but decided to move before that could happen.

In my mind, the paint job was pretty unique and cool in that fun, 70s sort of way. If it was solid enough (and the wife approved), I would get it, make it road worthy and sell it on. Even if I don't make any money of it, at least it would be back on the road and not sent to the crusher.

Long story short, my wife agreed to look at it with me, talk through the work that needed to be completed, and go from there. We went to the seller's home last weekend, and scoped out the bus. It was rougher in person than the seller's pictures indicated, with some heavy rust in areas, but overall still worth the investment.

That's a mouse nest in the right corner of the engine compartment.

Any guesses where the mice got their bedding?

Doglegs...passenger side is pretty bad.

Just inside the sliding door. This is the single worst spot of rust on the bus. The rear passenger floor pieces had multiple areas of bad rust, but only this one rusted fully through.

Lots of dots of mold on the headliner and only a few small tears.

Dash is very dirty, but not unsavable.

All the wheel wells looked like this!

On the way home, I revisited the sales pitch to my wife, talked through the financials, and ultimately convinced her it was a viable deal. I spoke to the seller that night, offering $600, she countered with $500 and a deal was struck.

The Extraction
This was so involved, it requires it's own heading. Hopefully someone will be able to learn from my folly.

First off, a big, big thanks goes out to Zelten who loaned me his Chevy Tahoe to tow this bus home.

I discovered a few things on my inspection visit that convinced me to rent an auto hauler from UHaul instead of a dolly or simply towing it behind another vehicle. First, the transmission (it's an auto) wouldn't shift out of Park. Fine, I was going to disconnect the drive axles anyway. Second, with no keys, the steering wheel is locked and not going anywhere. Fine, I can simply remove the steering wheel, the ignition switch housing, reinstall the steering wheel, and voila! No steering lock and easier to maneuver around. Well, the deal breaker in my mind was that all four tires were flat when I inspected it, who knows if they would hold air for 60+ miles, and the bearings could easily smoke and seize given that the vehicle had been sitting so long. So an auto hauler it is!

I thought all week about how to extract the bus as the property isn't really conducive to an easy "haul it up onto the hauler platform" extraction. In the end, my son and I just went at it, muddling our way through the various problems as they arose.

The first issue we experienced was that 1 of the 4 tires wouldn't hold air. I anticipated this and brought along the spare from my 76 Westy. Simple enough, problem solved. I then disconnected the drive axles (hint: start with the top bolts then move to the bottom bolts on the CV joints). When I went to remove the ignition switch housing, we hit an impasse: wrong size socket for the steering wheel. No amount of adjust wrench application would break it loose, simply too much of a bad angle. So bummer, no steering. That'll make things more difficult. Next issue on hand was that the left rear wheel wouldn't unseize. This caused issues throughout the process, making things so much more difficult, so we ended up dragging troughs through the seller's driveway as we moved the bus around.

The bus was parked almost perpendicular to the driveway and needs to be loaded onto the auto hauler facing forward. So with this in mind, the strategy we settled on was to tow the bus backwards out of its spot and further down the seller's driveway and back the trailer up to into so we can hitch it up onto the trailer, secure it, and then drive away...if only it were that easy.

I connected a tow strap the left rear bumper bracket and the other end to the hitch on the Tahoe. Pull, pull, pull, and we eventually got the bus aligned more or less with the driveway (with some dirt troughs left behind). We had to drive through the weeds on the opposite side of the driveway to get the Tahoe out from behind the bus and in position to maneuver the trailer.

The weeds can have this space again after 11 years!

Ready to load.

Once the trailer was in position in front of the bus, I hooked up the tow strap to a Come-a-long and began winching the bus forward. It's slow, hard work. This is where the locked steering wheel and the seized rear tire cause major issue, particularly since the right front wheel wasn't quite aligned right. As I winched forward, the bus would pull to right, screwing up the alignment with the trailer. So began the time consuming and highly iterative process of winch a bunch, adjust the trailer, winch some more, adjust the trailer some more, yay! the wheels are on the ramps! oh no! the rear wheels aren't going to make it onto the trailer, lower the bus, adjust the trailer, winch, winch, winch...

I think this was partway through the second time onto the trailer.

Lots and lots and lots of doing this.

You get the picture. After much work and six hours of time spent with an understanding, but still grumpy teenager, we got it onto the trailer...slightly askew to one size. Screw it worked! We got it home.

We stopped for lunch...at 3pm

We had some adventures unloading it as well, but it wasn't nearly as challenging. The worst part was asking my son to pull the Tahoe 6 inches forward and he gave me 3 feet resulting in the bus dropping of the side of ramps to the tune of a 12-18 inch drop. Nothing seemed to be damaged though, thankfully.

I gave it a scrub down with water and a brush, vacuumed the interior, and pulled the bulk of the mouse nest out of the engine compartment, but that's been it so far.

M-Plate
For those that are interested:

Next Tasks

Get the rear wheel unseized and steering lock decommissioned then move it into the garage.

Cheers,

Andrew
_________________
Andrew

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

[Elrick]

I think that looks pretty good, no visible battery area corrosion. Bumpers look good. If you have a good body the rest can be figured out.

[RONIN10]

[[email protected]]

Looks like a fun project, love those stripes. Good luck and keep us posted on what you are doing and what you find.
_________________
72 ASI Bus "Mill"
66 Singlecab
68 Squareback
62 Ragtop Bug
77 Westfalia

[Stuartzickefoose]

I happen to have a full set of locks that match if it comes to just swapping them all out.


Sweet score!!
_________________
Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[RONIN10]

[jtauxe]

Three cheers for another rescue!
Hear!
Hear!
Hear!
_________________
John
"Travelling in a fried-out Kombi, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie..." - Colin Hay and Ron Strykert
http://vw.tauxe.net
1969 Transporter, 1971 Westfalia, 1976, 1977, 1976, 1977, 1971, 1973, 1977 Westfalias,
1979 Champagne Sunroof, 1974 Westfalia Automatic, 1979 Transporter, 1972 Sportsmobile, 1973 Transporter Wild Westerner, 1974 Westfalia parts bus, 1975 Mexican single cab *FOR SALE*, 1978 Irish 4-door double cab RHD

[Zelten]

I'm glad I could help. That's the 4th bus that Tahoe has pulled. I look forward to watching the progress and glad to see another bus saved!
_________________
1978 Delux Campmobile
03 Jetta TDI
15 Q7 TDI

[aerosurfer]

you can always pull one (all) of the lock cylinders and get the code to have a key made or just swap around the little wafers to key match your 76 and then you have 1 key for both buses

Good save, looks like it has good potential... well at least $500 in parts
_________________
Rebuild your own FI Harness..My Harness

77 Westy 2.0L Rockin and Rolling Resto!

72 Sportsmobile (sold)
79 Tran$porter... Parts car money machine (gone)

[wcfvw69]

Very nice save. That bus looks pretty darn good rust wise. Not too bad at all.

What's the plan to try and get a title?
_________________
Contact me at [email protected]
Follow me on instagram @sparxwerksllc

Decades of VW and VW parts restoration experience.
The Samba member since 2004.

**Now rebuilding throttle bodies for VW's and Porsche's**
**Restored German Bosch distributors for sale or I can restore yours**
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**Restored Porsche fuel pumps or I can restore yours**
**Restored Porsche distributors or I can restore yours**

[Tcash]

Get the rear wheel unseized and steering lock decommissioned then move it into the garage.
Drop the drag link and do some tire kicking to get it into the garage.

Nice score
Tcash

[RONIN10]

[RONIN10]

[Mr.West]

Digging the adventure to get that thing out of the weeds!

Cool stripes too. I love how those look (most of the time) Reminds me of the first bicycle I had.

Did you tell a white lie to the Misses that you were going to flip it but only had intentions of keeping it??

[zoobum]

Congrats!

Lots of work ahead of you, but man that thing looks RAD!!!
_________________
-Zach
1979 CA Riviera 2.0L FI

[VDubTech]

An easy way to be able to turn the front wheels when the steering is locked and you don't have a key is to pull 2 of the bolts out of the steering coupler. That totally disconnects the column from the steering box and you can turn the wheels by hand in the direction you need to go. Disconnecting the driveshafts wasn't necessary and just added to your frustration. If you were flat towing or dollying it then with an automatic yes they need to be disconnected but just to get it up on a trailer? No way. Always, always, always bring a BFH when you're digging out a car that's been sitting for any length of time. Jack up the car, pull the wheel and beat on the drum, it'll free it up every time. The last 2 Beetles I dragged home had been sitting in a farmer's field for 25 years. All 8 wheels were seized solid. I freed them up and then used a towbar to drag them the hour ride home down the highway. Great job though looks like a solid Bus and I love the stripes and the colors.
_________________
First Trip in the RustyBus:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=279077&highlight=

[RONIN10]

[RONIN10]

Hey all,

Late last week, I removed the steering column and was able to unlatch the steering lock and remove the ignition switch to get the key code for the switch. I know I could've pulled the key code from the sliding door, rear hatch, or some other location more easily, but since I couldn't guarantee that it would match the ignition, I wanted to be absolutely certain. Since then, I've been searching for an area locksmith that can cut steel keys since I've had these R profile keys floating around for a few years and wanted to put them to use.

Now, you may or may not know that almost all of the keys we use in North America are predominately made from brass. As such, virtually all locksmiths in the area have machines that operate at around 900 RPMs and don't have a cutting blade that can handle steel. So when you call them to have a key made, they can usually make a key for you, but they will likely insist on using their own blanks or that the blank you provide is made from brass. If you want a steel key cut, the locksmith will need to have a machine that has a carbide cutting blade and operates at almost twice the RPM as the typical key cutter.

Long story short, I did a bunch of calling around this week and finally found one: Bulger Lock and Safe in Lake City. I won't get a chance to have them cut my key until Friday, but didn't want to miss the chance to pass the information along for those in the area that might be interested in getting steel keys cut. There is also a guy here on the Samba that will do them as well, check the classifieds.
_________________
Andrew

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

[Zelten]

Bulger locks on Lake City way cuts Steel keys. They're on the corner of Lake City Way and 115th.

Edit: I replied before I finished reading your post.
_________________
1978 Delux Campmobile
03 Jetta TDI
15 Q7 TDI

[RONIN10]