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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2021 2:59 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Been starting to put some miles on the bus, but it has been idling too high, so yesterday we adjusted the throttle linkage and idle. Feels much better now. Gotta keep it going for a minute when cold, then it purrs along nicely at 1000 after that.
_________________ 68 panel
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2021 1:27 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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I’m off!
_________________ 68 panel
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TDCTDI Samba Advocatus Diaboli
Joined: August 31, 2013 Posts: 12818 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:13 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Sweet.
This is where the fun begins, good luck. _________________ 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. |
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:28 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Thanks mate. The trip was great. 500km and not really any hickups. We parked at a friends farm and took our bikes from there for an eight day trip around the mountains. Great way to start the summer holiday.
But, something happened only a few days before this. I've been hunting another type of car for a while, and as some of you might have catched – I ended up with a 911 SC last year. That has been fun, but maybe not the right car for me. So when this popped up locally, I had to act quickly.
Safe to say I'm pretty super excited. It's a 64 with original paint roof, 1915 and discs on all four wheels. Needs some love here and there, so I will focus on that the coming winter. Keeping the bus, of course, and will sell the SC next month. _________________ 68 panel
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:50 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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_________________ 68 panel
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TDCTDI Samba Advocatus Diaboli
Joined: August 31, 2013 Posts: 12818 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2021 10:10 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Truly a thing of beauty, glad to see you out & enjoying it. _________________ 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. |
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KentABQ Samba Member
Joined: September 11, 2016 Posts: 2406 Location: Albuquerque NM
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2021 4:06 pm Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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X2!
That makes allllll your hard work over the years worthwhile.
Congratulations! _________________ -Kent-
1976 Riviera, 1.8l FI chrome yellow VAN - "Chloe"
"I must say, how can you be in a bad mood driving this vehicle full of vibrant color.
Cars of today are so bland in comparison. It's like driving a celebration!" ---WildIdea
Bus ownership via emoticons:
---williamM |
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SamboSamba22 Samba Member
Joined: August 06, 2015 Posts: 2772 Location: Benton, Arkansas
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:28 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Cheers guys! There's still a list of jobs to do, but definitely feels good to properly use it. I'll just plug away on the interior when I feel like it. Did install a Wheelskins wrap that I ordered. Forgot to take a picture of it, but I really like it. Gives a little bit more premium feel when driving.
_________________ 68 panel
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2022 9:12 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Been a while. Not much has happened since last time, but got two new tires for the bus. Mazzini Effivan 195/80 that I put on the back and moved the 185/70 sprint classics to the front. It looks and drives better. The increase in rolling diameter is most welcome to slightly lower the RPM.
Hopefully I'll get around to finish up the interior before taking it on a trip this summer. _________________ 68 panel
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Earl Bay Samba Member
Joined: October 26, 2015 Posts: 91 Location: France 38
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2022 5:35 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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looks like the rear bumper is still missing.... but that might just be me |
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:17 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Earl Bay wrote: |
looks like the rear bumper is still missing.... but that might just be me |
I'm sure it's not just you, but at the moment I'm most happy with it up on the wall :) _________________ 68 panel
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2022 1:25 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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I thought I did a post previously, but I guess I never submitted it. Anyway, planning to do a week long trip this summer, so my gf and I did a little test some weeks back. We drove an hour out of Oslo and found this super nice spot where we could park right by the water.
Things went pretty smooth and we really enjoyed it. Here's even a rare picture of me in the bus.
Of course I ended up with a long shopping list and an even longer list of what I need to get done in the garage. If I can manage half before we leave I'll be happy
It is quite noisy driving the bus (nothing new there). Not having a headliner doesn't help, but I was keen to see if I could reduce the noise levels before finally getting around to addressing the headliner. Engine and gearbox is really where issue is. Wind noise is actually not that bad.
To not only rely of how loud it feels I used a decibel app on the phone and placed my phone with the mic up from the ashtray (great phone holder). Then I did a baseline:
Idle 12-1300 rpm: 74-76 db
Cruise 70 kph: 86-87 db
Cruise 90 kph: 88-89 db
Accelerate 70-100 kph: 90-95 db
If you've followed the build you'll know that I have a tuned 1776 with straight cut gears and a VS exhaust, so the engine isn't exactly whispering.
I removed the r&r bed. Previously I've sparsely been applying some bitumen patches as seen here:
I forgot to take a picture, but I proceeded to roughly double the amount of patches by addressing the areas that still had quite a bit of resonance when knocking at them.
Then I bought an extremely expensive piece of mass loaded vinyl (MLV). I've done a fair bit of research on the subject and for me this seemed to make most without building much stack. Here is a picture from halfway:
I'm also missing a picture of it finished right now, but the bed is ready to go back in.
Haven't driven it yet, but I've done db readings on idling and it hasn't changed much. So that was the way I realized that I'm all kinds of stupid. See, the rear corners with the nice paint is a single steel layer leading down to the engine (the air intakes), so making everything else super-duper doesn't really help much. Of course, if I can solve the corners, the end result should be really good.
Does anyone have examples of reducing noise from the rear corners? I guess westy's solve it with cabinets, but I got a full-size bed.
I've also been tinkering in the front of the bus. Last night I installed bamboo trays. It is the proper bamboo kind and I took time to paint the hardware black. Looks quite nice with the color matching the paint, and I think it will be very useful. Also installed a seal on the glove box lid to stop it from rattling and adjusted position of the shifter so it doesn't conflict with the e-brake.
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 1:26 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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It's been a while, so time to get up to date.
I got a lot crossed off the list before my gf and I headed out for a week long trip. We were quite excited, and the bus was just perfect with upgrades like mosquito net in the back, carpet installed, leveling blocks, a new stove and a lot of other camping related stuff.
Norway is a nice country, so the first night we just drove to a random lake 220k from Oslo and free camped there.
The next day we drove down to the coast and took the ferry over to a small island that is a nature reserve. We'd booked two nights on the campsite there to see if we enjoyed that. Also nice, but of course not as scenic packed in with others.
The remainder of the week we just roamed around and visited my hometown before heading back. Then I had a night at home before packing for the annual weekly bikepacking trip. Again, the bus performed flawlessly up and down to the family cabin in the mountains that we used as base
All in all super stoked to reap some rewards from all the hard labor. I think I put 1100 km in two weeks, and no problems at all. The new big rear tires makes cruising a bit nicer.
Don't worry, in the next post I'll be back in the garage. _________________ 68 panel
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:24 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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So, back in the garage I wanted to get a lot finished up before the annual SCC meet – The Scandinavian Cal-look Classic.
I've been dreading making the wooden headliner for years, so naturally I postponed even more by starting with the sliding door that you rarely ever see the inside of.
Pretty straightforward job, but I was happy that I took my time with it. Used some body glue to fixate the skin to the frame, which reduced rattling quite a bit. Then I used the felt pads that you normally put under furniture the make sure the door lock mechanism didn't have any room to rattle about at any place. That was a complete gamechanger. Now the door shuts with a nice thump like any modern car. Huge difference.
At that point it was just a week to the meet, so no more mucking about. I've been looking at all the nice wooden headliners here at The Samba, but realized that the ply sheets you use are 5x5 feet. Here we only get them in 122x244 cm, with 122 being the bendy direction. That's not enough. I was not keen on changing material since I wanted it to match the walls, so I designed a center bar that could hold new lighting as well as splitting the width of the headliner.
Time to get stuck into it. First I had to remove the fixtures for the old cab headliner. Drilled out the welds and gave it a coat of body color.
Then I got some aluminum U-profiles and cut of most of one side. Drilled holes, painted in the fixated it to the car with screws. That would be the new support for the plywood over the cab doors.
Next I had to make a block for support since 244 cm is just short of being long enough.
Finally, the center piece.I bought three 12v LED lights and cut holes for them. Then, to get the right bend and also have something to push the main panels up towards, I bent the center pieces to the curvature I wanted then glued and screwed some thinner strips of plywood to it. When releasing them they pretty much held their shape and could be installed with a few body screws.
With supports on both sides I could start cutting the main headliner sheets. Spent two evenings on that, including setting up the light with an inspection panels and a switch. I had to cut a couple of profiles for each sheet to support them from above. Without them it was a little too much freedom to move for the bendy material.
Anyway, super happy with seeing it all done!
As you can see I also made another seat. Got some more foam, cut out the backs in ply and handed it to an upholsterer along with some leftover fabric from the bed. Then I made a box with a rounded corner to finish it off. Very practical to have some more storage space that is easily accessible. Still have to fixate the back of it and also the box itself. That also need a couple of coats of Osmo.
I also have some more small projects for the interior, but that will have to wait for next year. Now I'm just happy to have it looking pretty much complete on the inside. _________________ 68 panel
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:31 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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A few snaps from the meet. Should've brought my proper camera, but I wasn't really in the mood for anything but relaxing and enjoying the meet after a week with little sleep to get it done in time.
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2022 12:24 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Finally got around to take some proper photos.
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panel Samba Member
Joined: December 02, 2001 Posts: 1090 Location: Victoria B.C. Canada
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Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2022 9:18 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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What kind of license plate light do you have ? Looks bright !
_________________ My '65-Subaru EJ20 Turbo conversion |
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:46 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Just the stock one cleaned up. _________________ 68 panel
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metz Samba Member
Joined: March 31, 2005 Posts: 278 Location: Norway
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Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:51 am Post subject: Re: 68 panel - a long story short ish |
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Got some marks when I went to the MOT inspection, which I've since fixed:
* License plate light (what a coincidence) – Was an easy fix, just bad connection in the bulb holder.
* Brake light – Turned out to be a dead switch on the master pump. Got bummed when I read in the manual that all four corners needed to be bled. But I ordered a new one, jacked up the bus on one side and did a super duper fast change to not get air into the system. Worked like a charm and no need to bleed the brakes.
* Park brake left side too loose – Easily adjusted.
* Wheel bearing left side – Tightened the nut a quarter of a turn and it was good. I have bought new wheel bearings for both sides, but that'll be a job for future me.
* Windscreen washer not working – I've actually never had fluid or pressure in this system, so I filled it with a some water and pumped it up to 40 psi. That nicely squirted onto the roof, so I adjusted the washers and jobs done. A few days later it was out of pressure, so it probably needs some new parts, but I pumped pressurized it before going to show it, so all good there. I don't use it anyways.
* Battery not secured properly – Been using a clamp that doesn't really fit, so I made a new one and gave it a coat of paint. Looks stock, huh?
Just showed it again and all good for another two years. _________________ 68 panel
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