82 WestyRabbit Restoration

[82westyrabbit]

One more take on putting Town and Country seats in the front of a Vanagon. I started out - taking the tracks off of my old seats and following the directions of FRX in the Town and Country Forum. There is no question in my mind that if you are driving a tin top this is the easiest and best way to do it, and that sets your seats at exactly the same height as the newer tin top seats. Unfortunately, part of the reason I did the swap is because I had the later model tin top seats on the swivel bases on my Westy, and it just plain puts the seats too high up. So with my van being an 82 with manual steering, it is just too difficult to get in and out of the vehicle with the seat at that height. From there, I mounted the Town and Country seat right to the swivel base like C2MRDALE did, but I can never do things the easy way.

In my case, I just made two brackets out of 1 1/2 inch steel. I made them long enough so that I could put the back two bolts right through the swivel base and the front two bolts bolt to the front of the swivel base. Like C2MRDALE, I had to narrow my swivel base.

I didn't cut mine back as far as C2MRDALE. I cut it back just to the point where I can still use the stock seat, but I narrowed it up.

There is only a little more than 1/8th an inch clearance between the inside of the upholstery on the seat and the swivel base.

As you an see, the seat is sitting right on the carpet. It is as low as it can possibly go. I may go ahead and put some small 1/8 or 1/4 inch spacers just to give me a bit more room between the seat and the carpet.

Picture of the seat installed. Although the cloth seat may not go perfectly with the dark brown carpets and the door panels, it completely matches the Westy cabinets. So I feel like it is a really good match to the van.

I now feel like I have more space between the seat and the steering wheel than I did with the original Westy seats, and it would be very easy for me to adjust it higher if I felt that was necessary. Now getting in and out of the van is not a problem. John

[82westyrabbit]

I installed a new 11 inch High Crew vent fan. I went with the 11 inch fan instead of the 14 inch fan that most people use because it fit completely within the raised section of the Westfalia roof and I decided that would make it less likely to leak. This option is only possible if your van does not have a preinstalled roof vent from the factory. The holes for the preinstalled vents are too large for the 11 inch fan. This was really a fairly simple job.
Where I started.

There was enough of a lip on all 4 sides that even though it overhangs some front and back I was able to just use some heavy duty sealant all the way around. So far it has not leaked.

On the inside, I had to shorten the sides of the vent so that the ring would fit a lot closer up to the roof. I was personally unwilling to make the big trim ring for the 14 inch fan. I fear if my van ever makes it back to the same state that I am in, it won't fit into my garage with this vent in it. That would mean that I need to take it out and put a factory vent in. I like this vent better. I hope it fits into the garage. This fan has a rain sensor that closes it if it starts raining, and a heat sensor that opens the vent and turns on the fan if it gets over 110 degrees in the van. They work. In Dallas, if I leave the fan on low, when I get out of work, I find the inside of the van is the same as the outside temperature.

[Vanagon Nut]

Nice work John.

My '81 would benefit from something like that.

Is this the fan you installed?

https://www.amazon.ca/Hike-Crew-Roof-Vent-Fan/dp/B08GRD4CS5
_________________
1981 Westy DIY 15º ABA

1988 West DIY 50º ABA

VE7TBN

[82westyrabbit]

Yes and no. It is the same fan but mine has the rain sensor to automatically close it and the heat sensor to automatically open. That adds $50 to the price. John

[Vanagon Nut]

Thanks John. I really like the built in light.

Neil.
_________________
1981 Westy DIY 15º ABA

1988 West DIY 50º ABA

VE7TBN

[82westyrabbit]

Wow! I can't believe it has been a year since I added anything to this post! (I think my tech department was on strike) I have driven the van over 30,000 miles since I finished doing most of the fix up work.

Typical camping trip without the Van. Three of the four tents in our group got blown over the first night. Everybody ended up in a hotel after a severe thunderstorm went through. This was actually three months ago.

Just so there is some Vanagon content.
One of the two Vans I saw at the show; I was never able to track down the owner to chat.

This pretty bay window, I am pretty sure did not arrive under its own power as the transmission was sitting on the passenger side floor.

The Van would not have blown over like the tents did, but it was a lot faster getting there in my friend's airplane.

[82westyrabbit]

Quick trip up to Townsend, Vermont for West River Westies this weekend. I was Van #79 to arrive. I am guessing they had north of 100 vans by the time they were done.

It was a great weekend for camping, a great ride up through southern Vermont, and very friendly people. Lots of dogs and kids in attendance.

[82westyrabbit]

The Van has not been sitting still over the last year. It took several trips from New England to Dallas and back. I had a job change, so it is permanently in Massachusetts again. Most recently I replaced all of the 4 inch speakers with 5 1/4 inch Sound Ordinance speakers,
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_777P52B/Sound-Ordnance-P-52B.html

I installed a Blaupunkt SQR 46 DAB radio https://www.crutchfield.com/p_423BREMENS/Blaupunkt-Bremen-SQR-46-DAB.html

I really like the Blaupunkt radio - not so much the price. It fits the karma of the Van. I was going to install a Jensen floating screen display but when I held it up to the Van, I just couldn't take the way it looked. It also didn't fit. The shifter would have hit it. I bought a powered sub-woofer and parts enough to put in a second battery, but work has been busy, and I haven't had time to install them.

Hopefully, in two weeks I will be driving the Van out to Oshkosh, Wisconsin via Niagara Falls, up through Michigan, across the Upper Peninsula, and down. Then on the way home to visit relatives we will go south of the Lake to visit family in Chicago and Columbus. I have a couple of big projects I have to finish at work, if I am going to be able to get the time off to go.

[82westyrabbit]

I’m about a month late on this, but drove the van to the Vintage Weekend at Watkin’s Glen Speedway.

A typical teenager on a road trip.

On the way out driving through the middle of New York State

My son said he wanted to sit in a Bugatti. I don’t think this is what he thinks of when he thinks of a Bugatti.

My son waiting to take the van on the VW’s 4 laps around the race track.

My son about to do a hill takeoff with the van He’s ok with the clutch in my Toyota pick up truck and in my Miata, but not so much on the van. I wasn’t going to let him roll it back into someone else’s van. Look close to see the wheel chock on the left rear wheel.

All the vans lined up and waiting for their laps on the track.
Overall it was a fun weekend.

[82westyrabbit]

The van’s Christmas present

Four new shock absorbers and cruise control from Go Westy. The shocks are replacing some KYB gas adjust shocks I installed about 100,000 miles ago. I was happy enough with the KYBs but theses Bilsteins seem to be what people here were recommending.

I won’t get to drive the van until the salt goes away in the spring. They have to be better than the worn out KYBs.

I started on installing the Go Westy cruise control.

As I suspected I ran into problems because my speedometer is too old to accept the speed sensor. I haven’t figured out what I want to do about this yet. I really don’t want to replace the speedometer. Where most people want to document low mileage, for me it’s more about flexing my mechanical perseverance by bragging about how many miles it has on it.

These are the brake and clutch shut off switches installed. Maybe I will get the main servo installed next weekend.

I have a subwoofer to install under the driver’s seat and stuff to install an auxiliary battery, but I just haven’t been able to bring myself to cut out the driver’s side swivel seat base to make space.
John

[82westyrabbit]

Finished up most of my winter projects on the van. I finished up the cruise control. In the end I put the GoWesty speed sensor on the CV joint. That's an easy enough project. The hard part is I was unwilling to do anything other than zip tie the wire going forward to the main wiring harness. This required me to lower the fuel tank so that I could access the wiring harness where it goes over the top of the tank. If I had been willing to route the wire in some other way, this would have been a quick project. Like most projects, I can always figure out a way to make it take a lot longer than it should.

I just could not live with my rear seat any longer.

I purchased new covering from SoFine. The new foam and the fabric for the seat cover seem to be made of very high quality materials. My plywood was in excellent shape, so I just recovered the wood I already had.

This was an easy afternoon project.

I'm pleased with the results. The people at SoFine were very easy to work with.

The last thing I was going to do before putting it on the road for the summer was to check all of the tune up parts. (It's hard to believe I've put 30,000 miles on this project since I finished it.) Unfortunately the distributor cap was cracked - not a surprise as it had developed a skip in the rain. So now I am waiting for new tune up parts before I can start using it for the summer. When I installed the TIICO engine I printed up an owner's manual with all of the service information for all of the different parts on the TIICO. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced the binder that had all of the part numbers for everything in the TIICO kit which makes getting tune up parts difficult. The TICCO engine is a mutt - It is all standard Volkswagon parts, but you just need to know which ones go where. John

[82westyrabbit]

It's been a hard summer for camping trips. Too much rain and too much work. It just poured the weekend I was going to camp at Sentimental Journey in Lock Haven, PA (where the Piper J-3 Cubs were built). I ended up having to work the weekend of West River Westies a few weeks later. I have talked to several people who said that they had a great time that weekend in Townsend, VT. My first camping trip of the year was minus the Van. I Flew to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the EAA airshow.

Not my airplane, but I spent the winter helping the owner fix it up and get it airworthy.

The only van on my whole trip to Oshkosh was parked at an airport in Fremont, Ohio.

I was told that the owner had flown up to Oshkosh, but I wasn't able to connect with him.

Then my Van went camping without me. It went to Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, now in Goshen, CT

Once again I had to work so my family went without me. (I went and helped set up camp the first afternoon, and then I came home.) We drove past an interesting Volkswagon repair shop in Northwest Connecticut on the way there. The lot was just packed full of 80's and 90's VWs. A bunch of Vanagon campers in various states of repair, some Eurovans along with some other interesting stuff.

I went to a local Cruise Night that had a VW theme.

Some interesting mid 60's convertables, a split window camper van; and bunch of American cars showed up.

[Vanagon Nut]

That black convertible bug is super nice. Reminds me of my first car. '58 black bug.

Neil.
_________________
1981 Westy DIY 15º ABA

1988 West DIY 50º ABA

VE7TBN

[82westyrabbit]

It’s hard to believe that it’s seven years since I started this and five years since I started driving it again. Now it’s time for another round of maintenance. Changing the fuel lines again of course (I did the timing belt and a tune up last year). I don’t like the way I installed the sun roof so that’s getting redone. It’s getting the Wilwood big brake kit from small car and sub woofer under the driver set and some front end work. It will probably get an auxiliary battery installed as well. John

[82westyrabbit]

The first of my projects before it goes back on the road for the year is done

The roof vent is apart. I am making wooden doublers that will get fiberglassed in
To stiffen up the roof so it won’t leak. Then on to new fuel lines. John

[Kdj]

Do you have a picture of how the caliper brackets mount to the early spindles? I just can't get my head around how they do it

[vanagondan]

[82westyrabbit]

The way the calipers mount to the spindle is one of the reasons I went with the small car’s brakes. Like Dan said they mount to the machined surface like the factory brakes. All of the other kit mount to the unmachined surface on the the brake disc side of the spindle. If you have questions Dan at Small car’s is vary helpful. John

[Kdj]

That makes total sense now. I just finnished my DIY and had to machine the back sides to allow a flat surface to mount G60 calipers. While a lot of work, I'm hapy with the results. Much better feel and stopping power.

[82westyrabbit]

Kdj. I was looking at your pictures. It looks like you did a great job. I thought about doing that but it was more than I was up for at the moment. I don’t have a milling machine so I would have had to do the work in a friend’s shop. I took the path of least resistance in this time. The Small car’s kit looks great and just bolts on. John