Refurbishing my '77 Westy Campmobile

[Cap10323]

I am also having some issues sourcing OEM German made ball joints. I ordered some that claimed to be German made, but the rubber felt super thin and chintzy.

Since these OEM ball joints have zero play, I may look into re-booting them if I cannot find anything good.
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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[Cap10323]

I'm having an absolute hell of a time removing the old ball joints from this beam.


I've tried my 30 ton hydraulic press, but I became scared I would seriously damage the arm around about 25 tons of force.

Unfortunately, while I was trying to press out the ball joint, The inner part of the joint exploded and fell out, leaving the outer sleeve jammed into the arm.

I have tried slitting the sleeve, heating it up to a dull red, and pressing it again, but It wouldn't budge at 25 tons.

I'm seriously considering just buying a set of rebuilt arms off of the classifieds section at this point, I've spent almost a week just trying to remove this one joint. At this rate, I'll be at this all month.

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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[busdaddy]

Wash out the grease and run a big heavy hot bead of weld or two around the inner periphery, preferrably with a stick welder. It'll likely fall out once it cools.
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Rust NEVER sleeps and stock never goes out of style.

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[Cap10323]

Thanks Busdaddy! I'll give it a try.
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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[Cap10323]

I ended up having to saw both sides off of the joint, heat it up a bit, and then pushed my 30 tonner to the absolute limit. Eventually the joint yielded with a massive bang. Presto!

Did the passenger two tonight, ended up having to cut the retainers for the anti-roll bar. They were rusted anyway, so I'm not too upset about it.

My new German joints and shocks just arrived a few hours ago, so hopefully tomorrows task will be pressing in the new ones.
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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[Cap10323]

I'm still working on the beam, hit a snag when I couldn't find sway bar clips.

In the meantime, It was time to tackle the exhaust. It's been loud since I bought the bus, but more recently, it had gotten to the point where I was considering earplugs on the highway.

It seems that as they rust, the small gaskets in-between the "U" bend pieces expand, pushing the flanges apart until the force of the exhaust is enough to blow the rusted gasket out. Thus essentially making the bus open-header.

I was really afraid of breaking off an exhaust stud inside the engine, but everything came off without a hitch.

I had to cut the entire exhaust system apart, then it was a matter of bending the flanges back somewhat flat, and sanding each flange as flat as I could on my big belt grinder.

New gaskets, coupled with new bolts and Permatex should stop any leaks for a long time.

I also finally found a high quality replacement muffler.

Last thing to do is to paint the entire thing with black high-heat paint. But it's memorial day, and the stores were all closed. I'll do that tomorrow.

In the process, I discovered the housing for the little *door* mechanism that controls the heat to the cab (what is this called?) was completely rusted out on the passenger side, and getting pretty crispy on the drivers side. Does anyone sell these repro? or is it time to go junkyarding.

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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[busdaddy]

[Cap10323]

Well, I feel like an idiot

My heaterboxes are leaking internally, and as a result, the exhaust is still obnoxiously loud.

To top it off, I broke an exhaust stud while tightening the bolts up.

I'm seriously considering just ditching the entire heater system (not damaging anything though, so it could be reinstalled at a later date) for a better, simpler, higher quality exhaust system.

Thoughts?

Also, Busdaddy. This isn't an EMPI muffler, it's one of the fabricated ones from JustKampers. I bought an empi one and it felt like it was made of tinfoil.
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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[Cap10323]

I've been neglecting this thread, but I haven't been neglecting the Bus.

Finally got all the parts for the beam swap gathered, new German OE ball joints purchased and pressed into the cleaned up arms, shifter rebuild kit, as well as new shocks.

Aaand, up we go.

I was dodging raindrops through this whole ordeal.. I wish I had a garage tall enough to jack a bus up inside.

I removed the Beam without draining the brake system, which was a little bit of a challenge. More on this later.

I was incredibly impressed with how easily everything came apart. I didn't use any air tools for this project, and I didn't encounter any stuck bolts or nuts. The tie rod/steering rod joints were a bit of a pain. But a little bit of heat got them off no problem.

I saved disassembly wherever I could. Hey, less to put back together, right?
Removed the hubs as one assembly (making note of camber setting) including rotors, removed entire steering linkage assembly as one unit, as well as the shifter.

The cardboard duct literally crumbled when I tried to remove it, so I ended up cutting it off. It's not being used anymore anyway, not after my heaterbox delete (mentioned in another thread). If I decide to add a gas heater, or repro heater boxes in the future, I will replace it.

I got a friend to help me with the final drop, mainly just to spot me, and to call 911 if I dropped the beam on myself.

Here comes the fun part, as I mentioned earlier, I removed the beam without draining the brake system. I have personally not seen this done before, but as someone with a hatred of bleeding brakes. I got creative.

It was actually pretty straight forward. I removed all 4 bolts from the booster, removed the brake rod, and unbolted the master from the booster.
Now, as I lowered the beam, I just rocked it forward as it came down. Voila! The master popped out of the booster and hung from the brake lines. No mess, no fuss, an most importantly, no need for bleeding later. Even though the master seems happy to dangle, I held it up with a ratchet strap.

Now for the scary part.
As I was removing all the bolts that held the beam the frame, I had one bolt that was extremely hard to turn. So I finally broke out the small electric impact, and goosed it, hoping to just wind the bolt out. As the impact wrenched the bolt out, it must've snagged on the outer, thin sheetmetal of the beam cap. This caused the already weakened beam to just crumble apart. Developing a new hole, and several serious structural cracks I hadn't previously seen.

I am just so glad I removed this beam when I did, If it had crumbled like this while driving, I'm genuinely not sure if it would've held together.

I pried the beam apart even further, and discovered that the inside of the stop mount was completely gone, and was literally just holding to the sheet metal.

I'm hoping to get the new beam fitted up sometime early next week. I ordered a new clutch cable, as I think I damaged the end of mine while removing it. (plus, it was already super stretched out).

_________________
-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[Cap10323]

Okay, I need some help.

New beam is in. So much easier than removing the old one. Everything is re-connected underneath, so it's down to the sway bar, and the spindles.


That's where the problem starts.

I can't get the [@*#&!] sway bar on. It started with the clamps I bought being cheap aftermarkets, and not fitting well. But even now with new T-Bolt clamps (per RatWell's article) I still can't get the damn thing to bolt up. It's as if it's just a tad too short.

I eventually just moved on to the spindles, since it's not that big of a deal to install the sway bar with the bus on the ground.

But I can't get the blasted spindles on. I can get the top ball joint/camber nut into the hole, or the bottom. But I can't find a happy middle where I can slide both of them in at the same time.

Swore at it for about 4 hours today and gave up. Everything up to this point has been a cakewalk. What gives?
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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[thewilly789]

Today i actually bolted on my sway bar on my 1978 Wesfalia.I reused an orginal vw clamp since wasn't rusted too bad.I attached the end bolt an clamp 1st to passenger side.Then tried to attach the end bolt on drivers side.The end hole was not lining up on drivers side.So alittle hammering 1st to line it up was needed before i could install that bolt.Got it aligned an was able to pound bolt thru to sway bar.May help you or not.Advice is get those end bolts in then do the clamps
after.
For installing spindle -did that yesterday.Think i installed top ball joint 1st.Then was able to put another small jack under lower arm,raise it up.Pry bar top arm up more an get that ball joint end into swindle lower hole.Carefull in lifting bus off of jack stands.Didn't pay alot of attention to my precedure since i ran into no problems there.Not like trying to get it apart.

[Cap10323]

Thanks TheWilly,
I'll try that today and report back.
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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[Abscate]

Yeah - we weren't kidding when we said that beam was unsafe. Rust is always 3x worse than it looks. 10x if you have rose colored glasses on.

That Bus was a small amount of metal away from the body collapsing onto the front wheels - God knows what happens at speed if that happens.

I welded two stiff plates into my 1970 Westy front beam back in 1979 and my NY inspector still wouldn't pass it.
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.ssS!

[Cap10323]

[Cap10323]

Finished the bus up Yesterday. Got the sway bars on, brakes, and tires. And took it for a spin.

I can't believe how nicely it drives with the refreshed parts. The ride is fantastic, if a bit firmer than I'm used to, and the gear shift feel is so much better with the new bushings.

Really pleased with how it turned out.


Also, while I was oiling the spedometer cable, I noticed this strange box connected inline.

There was a plug next to it, but it wasn't plugged in.

I plugged it in when I put it back together, but I can't figure out what it does.

I thought it could be some kind of cruise control? But I never noticed anything in the engine bay that would allude to that, nor do I have the module on the turn signal stalk.

_________________
-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[ivwshane]

[LazyLightning75]

Hey, cool thread and thanks for posting the pic of the little black box (EGR box). I saw that the other day in my bus and though what the heck is that? Kinda looked like an afterthought or random after market part just tossed down by the kick panel. I learn something new everyday!
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1975 Riviera 1.8L FI

[Cap10323]

That's really interesting, I had no idea they were installing maintenance interval counters on vehicles this far back.

It was most likely unplugged when then P.O. Deleted the EGR. Sometime in the 1980's.

I'll leave it plugged in, and see how long it takes it to illuminate either the EGR, or the CAT light. For a fun little experiment.


I also found a RatWell article detailing the process of modifying this to turn it into an oil change reminder. With might be a fun project.
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-Ian

'77 Westfalia - 2.0 F.I

[ToolBox]

[Abscate]

It trips an inspection litght for the OXS if I remember right. 30k is the interval.

That’s a bit long for an oil change. Needs mod.

Memory fail
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.ssS!