My 1978 Big Sage Green Giant Westy Build! Lots of Pictures!

[notchboy]

The funny part about your pOp ToP adventure and restoration - is that you ended up doing what most of us do to the top anyway - painting it with Rustoleum
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[Tcash]

Westfalia Pop Top

[smitty1976bus]

That link is perfect, lots of good info I'm going to need, thanks Tcash!

You're right notchboy everyone just ends up using Rustoleum, haha. At least the majority I read on that thread. So I decided to go with the Rustoleum epoxy rattle can. I ended up buying 5 cans, for a whopping $20 total, and went through 4 of them. Ended up doing 2 coats over it all, and will probably touch up any light spots later on. I'm pumped with the way it came out too:

Looks a million times better than it did:

Hopefully it holds up over the years!

-Smitty

[notchboy]

Yep looks shit tons better. I rolled mine as the gel coat was trash and could see fibers. Rolling puts on a thicker coat of Mayo.
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[smitty1976bus]

I think I'm done with the body work on my bus!!! I think.... fingers crossed!

I tackled the area that was under the pop top:

Then primed it:

Then I had to fix the rust and rot around the passenger side rear wheel wells, and it was bad:

Time to make a paint booth. First I scrubbed everything the best I could, then I put plastic everywhere, to keep all that dirt and sand down.

The only other problem was that the bus was just a little too long to fit in my garage tent. Well, it can fit, I just wouldnt have any room to move around and paint; I'd run my air hose through the paint on every corner.... So, I had to make an addition:

Hopefully the flimsy addition can stay standing for a few weeks while I finish painting... No wind storms! If she does, I should have a nice painting booth.

Next steps:
sand
prime
sand
sand
sand
sand
base coat
clear coat
sand
cut
buff
camp

-Smitty

[smitty1976bus]

Sorry for the trashy look of my yard, I should have taken the pictures after I cleaned up everything.

[Busbodger]

[smitty1976bus]

Great points and suggestions Busbodger! A friend of mine has a machine, beleive its a MIG, with the gas, argon i beleive...? It was insane the beads he could lay down with that set up. I even did a half way decent job. ha. He even offered to lend it to me, to do what ever job i had at the time, but the problem was I had no access to 220v. Suuuucks. The closest 220v outlet I have is probably 30 feet away, and those extension cords are big bucks. I even thought about going out and renting a gas/diesel generator to power it. Although in hindsight, I wish I had just bit the bullet and bought the extension cord, would have saved me a ton in frustration and headaches.

The next time I tackle a big project, I will need to buy a new welder. I'm just tempted to retire my old Lincoln Electric welder, so I'm forced to buy a new unit the next time I need to weld. Haha.

I just googled the unit you have, the Lincoln 180T, and that looks perfect for what I've been doing. And the price is reasonable, I even found some on Craigslist, around me, for around $450. I have a feeling, once this bus is done, and I save up some $$$, that'll be the next investment I make. Sooooo awesome


For now, thankfully, all the welding on my bus is in the past. I have it in my make shift paint booth, and began masking it off. I thought this part would be fairly quick, maybe an hour or so. Nope, it took sooo long. I had to mask off all the doors, the rear hatch, the engine bay, all the windows, the top opening, the wheel wells, the exhaust, the fresh air intakes, the gas hole, etc. I hadnt realized how much there actually was! But, she was all masked off:

Now, it was time to spray on the primer/sealer. Nope, I had to wait, because of Mother Nature. I decided that I could spray in the cold, no problem. Even in the rain, I'd just set up extra tarps/plastic sheets. But I couldnt deal with high winds. And up here in the North East, it's been windy for the past 5 weeks. And exceptionally breezy on the weekends, when I actually had the time to spray. By windy, I mean gusts in excess of 35 mph, and all the way up to 50'sh. It just blew dirt all around my tent garage.

I finally had a chance to spray today, so I took advantage of it. It was chilly, but I just fire up my propane heater for about 90 minutes, and that heats up the metal of the bus, to match the temperature of the doors, back when I sprayed them in the summer.

Once I finished spraying, I ended with this:

Not bad, I just had a lot of over spray, most likely due to the rain gutters, and my inexperience. It's not an issue with this primer, I'll just sand it away. I'm afraid when i spray my base coat. I cannot have any overspray, misting paint droplets everywhere.... I'm not sure what to do. I may have to mask off portions of the bus, and just spray one panel at a time. Doing the roof part, then front, then sides and rear; taking advantage of the panel gaps.... I'll have to see if there any threads on this..

Hopefully next weekend isnt windy, if it's not, I should be able to lay down the rest of the paint. Wetsanding for about an hour or two after work this week, should give me enough time to have it ready for next Saturday.... Hopefully

-Smitty

[Busbodger]

[VWRICK69]

AWESOME THREAD!!!!! You are the poster child of perseverance. Great job.
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1969 CREWCAB and UHAUL camper

[wcfvw69]

Nice save of that bus! Your tenacity to push through all the rust repairs and other obstacles is impressive!

Keep up the good work!
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Decades of VW and VW parts restoration experience.
The Samba member since 2004.

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[smitty1976bus]

Busbodger wrote:

[Bleyseng]

Spray vertical first then come back and spray horizontal overlapping to get even paint thoughout.
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70 Ghia Black convert-9/69 build date-stock w/133k 1600 SP-barn find now with a rebuilt tranny and engine
77 Westy 2.0L w/Ljet, Camper Special engine-95hp and with LSD!(sold)
76 Porsche 914 2.1L L20c, 120hp Djet (sold)
87 Syncro Westy Titan Red 2.1L 2 knob 100k miles

[Abscate]

You arent so far from me with my large heated room with lights and warmth that you couldn't dry your Bus in my facility now that growing...i mean painting...season is slow.

Thats a gorgeous colour and will make you wiser too.

Keep it up!
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.ssS!

[Busbodger]

I have considered brush painting the inside of the gutters and then top coating them when I paint the rest of the bus.

[smitty1976bus]

Welp..... Painted the bus last Sunday... and it did not go well.. It started off good, but then I ran out of green paint. I thought I had sprayed enough on to be ok, but was wrong. So one panel came out light green...

Then, when I was spraying on the clear coat, a wild thunderstorm came rolling through. It blew up dirt and sand onto another panel of the bus, peppering the clear, and ripping up some base coat..... and to make it all even worse, my spray gun malfunctioned (my fault) and 3 fly's flew in the path of my spray gun, getting stuck in the clear coat.

I should have taken your offer Abscate and just towed my bus to your nice heated, no wind, paint room, haha.

Anyways... Here's what I had:

I tried to wet sand and buff the panel were the wind and bugs got to it; I sprayed on so much clear, hoping it would mask the imperfections. It wasn't a bad idea, because it did buff out to a nice finish:

But... I couldn't live with it. I took hours and hours of prep, and sanded them away:

I'm really ticked off, but I know I can do better. So, I ordered some more green paint... urgggg. and will do these two panels over again. The rest of the bus seems to be in decent shape, so it should be ok, But since these two panels are the biggest, they'll get the most attention, so they need to be perfect. Well, at least a B to an A- . Not the D+ to C- grade they were in.

Thanks for all the support guys, and we'll see how this repaint turns out. Fingers crossed!

Smitty

[Schwing]

Smitty you are doing an awesome job. You have a lot of heart and your project shows it! I know the kind of nights you're having out in the cold, the dark, when everyone else is sleeping. Give yourself a pat on the back!

Please don't take this the wrong way but two things jump out at me with your welding. 1)you need a better ground. I like to take a c clamp and clamp that as close as possible to my work area on fresh bare steel. Then I clamp my welder ground to the c clamp. 2) I think your wire speed is too fast for your voltage.

Loving this build, I've been fighting my Westy all summer too and I can say your paint turned out waaaay better than mine. It's an art!

[smitty1976bus]

Schwing wrote:

[Spike0180]

Nicely done.
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Brutis Patches Izabich: 1970 VW Transporter - 1776cc DP
Current State: Projects never truly end...
Location: Grosse Pointe, Michigan
Other cars: 2003 F150, 2003 Jetta GLI vr6-6sp

Sambastic: adj; the quality of being nit picky, elitist, expecting everyone to do things the way they believe is best with no regard to situation, "sambastic"

[smitty1976bus]

Began wetsanding the finished paint job at the beginning of the week, and just finished up this morning.

I went out and bought some 3M cutting compound too. Figured since evertyone swears by the stuff, it must be worth spending some $$$ on. I picked up the #1 bottle today, but the store had to order the #2 for me, should be in on Monday. Everyone says I wont need the #3 bottle, so I didnt order it.

Here's the bus after buffing with the #1:

There is still a ton of swirl marks in the paint, so I'm really hoping the #2 compound takes those out, or I'm not sure what to do. But, the paint, for the most part is done. Now I have to start re-assembling the bus. Doors, hatches, weatherstripping, roof, etc. The fun part, seeing it all come together!

Smitty