68 panel - a long story short ish

[Abscate]

Enjoying this build. Ive forgotten the function of the 'bulge' in the rear of the front wheel well - does it make space for something inside or is it to stop spray into the top of the well?
_________________
.ssS!

[metz]

I've no idea, Abscate. I've always thought leg room.

On another note: woop!

Totally thrilled to have it back from paint. The colors are perfect and the job is well done. It's no show finish, but it's gonna be a bus that will be used, so I don't mind.

[TDCTDI]

Dayum! Dats purty.
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[wcfvw69]

That looks nice, very nice..
_________________
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**
**Restored German Pierburg fuel pumps for sale or I can restore yours**
**Restored Porsche fuel pumps or I can restore yours**
**Restored Porsche distributors or I can restore yours**

[metz]

Cheers guys.

One question: Should this hole be closed off with seam sealer or left open for drainage?

[Reverend]

This looks absolutely fantastic! Where in Norway you live, i plan to drive around there as soon as i get some holidays. Greetings from Finland

[Trashman]

BEAUTIFUL!
_________________
Bagged 1968 Neptune Blue "Deluxe"

[metz]

@reverend: It's on the right track now. Still a long way to go. I'm in Oslo, but the bus is bus i about 1,5h south. When it's up and running I will bring it home, though.

I found the seats and gave them a good clean. Still, gonna need new upholstery – they're worse from the other angle and I want another color.

A couple of weeks earlier found a guy doing treatments of metal. I gathered the bits and bolts I'd taken off, gave theme a rough blast and handed it to him.

Then I got this back. Zink plated and like new

And of course I had to get a reward from all the hard work, and mounted a few shiny bits.

[metz]

Next up was gathering the parts that hadn't seen the bus in a decade. Found almost everything. Then starting to freshen up bits to get them ready to be mounted back on. Time consuming stuff – like everything else on this project.

Got boatloads of these kind of photos, but I'll try to do decent selections so it won't be too picture heavy.

Like you can see, I decided to overhaul one of the driveshafts. The complete one in the picture had decent CV joints and boots so I let them be without opening them, the other one needed some work. I'll cover it in the next post.

I don't know what's most time consuming or expensive – bying new parts or fixing old ones – but I'm trying to stick to the latter unless it's obviously better to replace.

[metz]

Struggling to catch up with posting of the progress, but I guess that's a good thing Having four weeks of holiday and I'm putting in 5-6 full days a week. Feels like the progress is slow because it feels like everything I'm doing is running into new issues. But I guess that's no shocker when putting together something that has been in parts for a decade. Anyhow...

As the mounted steering box was no good, I acquired a better one back in the days. But it was covered in goo so it was up for treatment.

And the drop arm too (yes, it was a pain in the ass to get off and I almost gave up).

Then I painted it all along with some other parts.

Got new boots and one new CV joint for the last drive shaft. I'm no mechanic, so of course I had to do it a coupe of times to get it right.

But finally I think they're all good now.

New gear rod coupling should improve the shifting.

And how about this mint ashtray?

Cleaned up nicely with a blast and some zink primer

[orwell84]

Great work. Thanks for posting the money shot photos...

[metz]

Tedious work ahead. Even though I'm getting a new narrowed adjustable front beam, I decided to keep the one i have stock to have two setups available. But it was filthy and with busted ball joint boots and shocks. So took it off, which also gave me the chance to do some cleaning up underneath.

Spent too much time cleaning up and to some epoxy priming. I proceeded to top coat it black, but forgot to take a picture.

Took off the braking cylinder and gave it the full spa treatment.

Old paint and rust on the front beam mounting surface.

Cleaned up and epoxy primed. Also went over with seam sealer. Same behind the steering box.

Beam after a rough scraping.

And after some more cleaning.

Aaand filthy black stuff back on in the wheel well and the beam rattle canned. I did this inside in a tent of plastic. Can't really recommend that if you have a nice garage. Messy stuff and the dust was everywhere afterwords.

[Tcash]

You may want to put a couple of tack welds where the coupler meets the cage.

Link

[metz]

Good tip. Is it the same manufacturer, though? I got mine through CSP.

[metz]

Taking less and less photos and getting closer and closer to real time. One of the following pictures was actually taken today

Old drag link had torn boots and bad joints, so got a new one.

Here's a before of the steering box and rubber coupling.

Clearly needed a new coupling. It was all dry and cracking at multiple places.

I did my research here and found what I believe is a good quality replacement. Cleaned up the rod, painted and mounted the new coupling.

And all mounted on the bus! What a pain in the ass to get that horn earth wire installed correctly.

Drop arm and drag link too.

Pedals, hand brake, steering and shifter going in.

Front bumper on! Needs some adjustment. But nice to not see that ragged lower edge anymore.

And something completely different, fixing up inner door handles. Before:

A quick blaster later, and one polished for 10 minutes. Not too bad!

[metz]

Progress is still slow, but steady. I feel like every single simple task turns into a project. There's always something broken or missing, but I guess that's how it is when you let the years fly by.

The sliding door was a chapter of its own. I could not find the rear and lower hinges anywhere. They were completely gone, so after I while a managed to find some parts off a guy. I picked them up for cheap and fixed them up. Blasted and painted the U-thing and everything. Then, when I'm about to mount it I realise it's missing one of the two hooks on the rear hinge securing the door when opened fully. Putting that aside, after a couple of days, Jon calls and says he just remembered that he's got an early bay sliding door sitting around somewhere. He gets the rear hinge out door project could continue. It even had the chrome finish of the early models which the previous one didn't have.

With all the parts cleaned up and the new rubber fitted, we could lift on the door. Nice to have a sliding door again, it's been a few years!

The fit isn't perfect, but I guess that was to expect. The top plastic "wheel" doesn't turn. It's new but it just sits too well on the metal rod. I sanded it a bit bigger, but it didn't seem to help much. Any tips? It is supposed to turn, right?

For even more encouraging work, we fitted the rear window. New seals on.

The old man helping out from the outside, while I had pulled the string from the inside. A bit nerve wrecking when it got tight on the upper corners, but it worked a treat.

It's in!

Decided to fresh up the old steelies. Quickly blasted, sanded and primed.

Then 2k top coated with cloud white mixed to a can by the local paint shop. My poor masking meant the nice black rears aren't that black anymore. Well, still better than before with the beat up rusty finish

And whoever says that you need to sand stuff up to 800 and 1000 grit. This was sand plasted, primed and top coated only. Only!

[Sloride]

Wow! Really nice job on the bus.
_________________
1972 Westfalia - 1.8 VW in-line h2o conversion
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Link to the engine swap:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=565304&highlight=

1964 Ruby Red Beetle

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=705757&highlight=ruby+red

[SamboSamba22]

Absolutely stunning bus!!! It coming along very nicely, and you are making great headway.

You have also verified that I without ANY question, need to purchase a blast cabinet.
_________________
The Bus Barn Ltd. Co.

Oct. ’67 Double Cab (’68 Crew Cab)
[url=http://www.vw-mplate.com/mplate-44412.png]Click to view image[/URL]
March '69 Delivery (Panel Bus)
[url=http://www.vw-mplate.com/mplate-44414.png]Click to view image[/URL]

[metz]

Well, just as I managed to catch the thread up with real life progress, I didn't have it in me to keep updating. I've seen a lot of threads lacking updates in the final phases, and I guess mine is no different. I started taking less and less pictures, but I did take some, so here we go again.

Starting work on the dash was actually quite enjoyable - especially when everything is as nice as this:

Ashtray slotting in nicely. Very glad it put in the extra hours welding holes, sanding rust and fixing dents in the dash before sending it to paint:

Knobs cleaned and fitted:

Dash going in for the first time in a long time - and luckily, it still fits:

Starting to hook things up. One of the wiper spindles was 68 and one was new, and the old one was beat up. So I got a hold of a complete wiper motor with new style spindles:

New glove box. Starting to look like something...

[metz]

Time to find the old fuel tank. For once, a part in OK condition! Could not see any rust inside. But it did need a proper wash.

Before:

After:

But before putting it in, I installed seatbelt mounts. I realized I should've bought four too late, so installed the two I had. Probable never going to drive with three in the back anyway.

Then I put in some sound insulation. It's the semi cheap stuff you get at the local store. Made to insulate boat engine bays and stuff. 10mm thick and adhesive on one side:

Tank neck ready with new gasket:

And in goes the tank:

Also notice the nice, new Bilstein shocks in the back