82 WestyRabbit Restoration

[Vanagon Nut]

[82westyrabbit]

It made it's first camping trip. It's still far from done. I am working on getting the interior back together. I need to get all of the camper stuff working. I drove it to Vermont for Westies on the West River.

It is a lot quieter when it is loaded with bedding and camping gear. I won't have much time to work on it before the next trip, but hopefully I will get the water system up and going. I am waiting for a new pump. I also need to complete the refrigerator delete project. I Just finished re-wiring the 120 volt system and changing all of the water lines today.

[jimf909]

[Vanagon Nut]

[82westyrabbit]

Hello
It's been a couple of weeks since I have been in the same state as my van. Today I installed new Blue Sea power ports in the fridge vent.

I also replaced the radio. I was quite bummed when my AM-FM cassette deck died. What am I going to do with all of my cassette tapes now?

These were both too small projects to feel like they were worth much documentation. I really would have liked to have left the old radio and installed a blue-tooth amp because my old radio looked right in the dash board and actually had an on/off switch that modern radios seem to neglect. According to Crutchfield, the radios with CD players don't fit because of how deep they are. I am pretty sure I could have made it work, but I just installed a radio with AM/FM bluetooth instead since it was quick and easy.

I test fit a new bus depot awning in preparation for a camping trip this weekend.

I had plans for making my own awning, but I clearly wasn't going to get that far this summer. So once again, I went the easy route. My wife saw the Bus Depot awning when we went to Westies on the West River, and decided we should have it before our next camping trip.

When we used to camp in this van a lot, there were only two of us. We are still trying to streamline packing now that we are a family of three. It doesn't help that the interior is only 3/4 back together.

John

[jimf909]

Awnings are probably on the universal top-three van enhancements list.
_________________
- Jim

[82westyrabbit]

I received a big box from Gowesty today. I didn't have very much energy so I picked a couple of small projects. I started by installing the steering wheel skin from Gowesty

It was a very nice product It was easy and fun to install. Lacing it up sort of reminded me of stitching fabric on to an old airplane

I also installed LED headlights from Gowesty. I ordered the cheap ones that they are closing out. My budget just did not allow for the $360 headlights. I know that I could have gotten LED headlights for less money on Amazon but the Gowesty headlights do not look as out of place in an old van.

The headlights were as easy to install as just replacing the old sealed beam headlights. They seem much brighter than the old sealed beams. The primary reason for why I updated to LED headlights was to take the load off of the electrical system. Even though my van has Jay Brown headlight relays I wired my headlights to stay on when the van is running. I wanted the reduced load on my electrical system even though my van will not get driven much at night. I won't be able to drive it down the road at night to test the new headlight until this weekend, but I will report once I have done so.

I got tired of my rear table swinging out as we went around corners so I made a hooky thing so I can put in a small bungie cord to hold my rear table in place.

It is just a 1/4 inch eye bolt. I removed the existing fastener that held the cabinet in and replaced it with this. I don't think that the table will swing anymore but that is yet to be determined next time it gets driven.

[Vanagon Nut]

[82westyrabbit]

Yes I moved the parking light wire so that it now gets its power from the load share relay. Now I can just leave the headlight switch on all of the time. When I start the van the headlights and the parking lights and the taillights come on. When I shut it off they all turn off just like my Toyota truck. It is just too big a safety feature not to have the lights on all the time in this day and age. John

[82westyrabbit]

Hi everyone. I drove my van tonight with the new led headlights. I feel the lighting is as good as it is in my Toyota pick up now. Witch is much better than it was. Nobody flashed their lights at me so I don’t think I am blinding other drivers. There might be better led headlights out there but I feel theses are a great upgrade for $140. John

[Wasted youth]

Just noticed your build thread. I skipped around quite a bit, but just wanted to congratulate you on your progress. Really cool to see the amount of prep and undercarriage work you did!

My back table swings out, too. I decided to sandwich a pillow between the cabinet and the table underside. Works pretty good, but I like the lanyard idea you did.

Too bad about the tape deck. Maybe surf eBay for a replacement?

[82westyrabbit]

I dove the van about 600 miles this weekend to westys at watkins glen. camped of a couple of nights at waltkins glen state park.

there were about 10 westys at the state park and probably another 20 at the speedway.

it was great time with my family I'm still doing battle with intake noise and various rattles
from loose baffles in the muffler but other wise the van performed perfectly. John

[82westyrabbit]

I finished wiring up my rear view camera. I had installed all the wires when I had the interior apart.

I have it wired so it is always on when the van is running the picture is not as good as having an actual mirror but the field of view is much better. the screen just clips over the old rearview mirror the camera doesn't seem to mind looking through the glass we will see how that works out in the long run. so far I like it and it is easily reversible if I change my mind.summer is my busy session so I have do small projects when I can. The Back up camera is a ply 7200 that came from Amozon for $36. john

[82westyrabbit]

I got tired of all the noise from the k and n air filter. I had a day off when I was on a business trip in South Carolina so I went to a local pull-a-part I got an air filter assembly from a 97 ford escort, one from an early dodge caravan and one from an Oldsmobile cutlass.

Then I started cutting apart the escort air filter housing and the caravan air filter housing and fiberglass them together to get this

I dinomatted the air filter housing witch was probably not nessasary but I read someone else thread that said it helped and the Dinomat was leftover from a different
I replaced the hose for the snorkel just because with some stuff from Auto zone.

I have kept the old k-n air filter as a spare
The hole thing goes in to the left compartment behind the left tail light
[img]https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1853021.jpg[/img
I don’t like my mouting bracket. I will have to revisit that after I have driven it to see where the noise level is

It’s good to start picking things of the list again. John

[Vanagon Nut]

Nice air box combo!

btw. Really enjoying using the rear table mod you posted. It has held up well so far.

Neil.
_________________
1981 Westy DIY 15º ABA

1988 West DIY 50º ABA

VE7TBN

[82westyrabbit]

I got to test drive my van today. I was pleasantly surprised at how much noise reduction I got from the air intake work. Now I have to fix’s the shifter rattle the next most irritating noise to fix. John

[82westyrabbit]

I decided to re-key all of my locks so that they match the ignition key. So I watched a couple of youtube videos. What could go wrong? I collected all the door handles. I had 6 of them.

Hey these didn't come apart like the ones on the Gowesty video. if I even looked at them to take the pins out, the pot metal would crumble and fall apart. So I ordered 2 new door handles from Gowesty. I took them apart thinking that I would be able to rekey them to match my ignition key. Nope. The after market key is different than the original VW key. No problem, I'll put my old lock cylinders in my new handles. I have 6 of them so I should be able to salvage at least 2 of them. Nope. The new lock cylinders don't fit in the aftermarket door handles.

The top of the cylinders is too large which just required a small amount of clearanceing with the Dremel motor tool. I had to grind a small amount of material from the bottom of the lock cylinder stop, and I had to drill the hole on the bottom of the lock cylinder a little bit bigger. Now finally with the tumblers out of 6 lock cylinders, by trial and error, I was able to get all the locks to match

The sliding door handle and the tail gate lock just came apart easily and were the easy part of the project.

In the past I never cared weather the locks worked or not because I would pop the top and leave the sliding door open and my alarm system would sit in the driver seat and nobody would bother the van. But society has changed, and my replacement alarm system is not as reliable as the old one. It might wonder off.

Thanks for listening, john

[dobryan]

Great job!
_________________
Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[Vanagon Nut]

[82westyrabbit]

I promised myself that I was not going to spend the money for light truck mirrors.
I was really hot on the jeep mirrors for a while but I didn't like how much you had to modify the van to install them. Somehow I just was not into the Land Rover mirrors. Installing the light truck mirrors was really easy like only fifteen minutes a side. I spent more time trying to find directions then actually installing them.

Next back to pulling out windows to check for rust under the seals.
John