bought me a westy!!

[Wasted youth]

I was able to meet Matt this afternoon and found him with a California import two tone brown 1978 bus. California decals and emissions sticker. Matt will run the M-plate soon, and I showed him where it was and he knew the importance of that information. It had been repainted attractive green and white by the PO several years ago. I thought at first it was a CE-1 because of all the agate brown under the green, but it was apparent that even though the brown is the right color, the top and interior was tan. My 1977 CE-1 was white above the belt rail. Also, Matt's bus had many of the original interior panels and the two front seats. They were brown vinyl, not the two-material tan seats and chrome striped panels of the CE-1

His GE engine seems solid! Well running with apparently all the FI in place and unmolested. Appears to have the correct orange top coil, and all the original VW F.I. parts in place. The exhaust system is trashed and he is missing the muffler, CAT, collector and the heater boxes are pretty thrashed, but at least the bottom tins are there. In my limited experience, the bottom tins seem to always travel the same 'Missing Children' path as Middle Seats and early Baywindow rear bumpers do... always missing! But he has his tins.

The EGR filter is missing, but the mechanical EGR valve is there and functions, and the AFM is a remanufactured unit.

We drove it around the block a few times and I was surprised at how responsive it is and how well it handles. Steering is not very loose, it tracks straight even when you hit the brakes, and it does not drift. Acceleration is responsive, and downshifting doe not create any backfiring or other issues.

Of course, the horn does not work, but all the rest of the electrical seems to function as intended. He let me drive it and I pretty much enjoyed that! The shifter will need to be gone through, and we talked about how to find Reverse, worn out shifter bushings, couplings and loose hockey stick. But, really it was better than expected. The nose cone seal where the shifter enters is bad, and there is wet gear oil tracking under the transmission.

Parking brake is defective, and someone cut a hole for the fuel sender... which still has an issue, apparently. At least they did a clean job of cutting out the hole and left the original piece there. With some craft, a guy can make that look nice and legit.

Rear seats are missing, numerous large holes in the headliner and plenty of door hardware problems.

The real tragedy is the rust. It's pretty bad. Like New England or Michigan bad. Daylight seen through the floor corners where A pillar joins the seat bases, and most of the rockers are nearly obliterated. Several feet of pinhole rust in the main floor area. But the wheel wells are pretty good, the battery tray is solid the roof has no rust. Front floor board has typical rust caused by bad windshield seal. I forgot to look at the bottoms of the doors and the doglegs, but nothing in my mind now sticks out. The rust seems very localized on the outer edges of the floor and rockers.

No real rust around the window sills, but someone replaced the windshield seal, yet it's still rusty underneath... but not as bad as my 1978 bus! Neither one of us can figure out how the body got so much deep rust. There is not any Bondo under the rotted rockers, and the Bondo on the front clip is high enough to indicate it was done because of impact damage, not rust. So it does not seem plausible that the paint shop painted green over rust. It's more like it rusted out after the paint job in 1993. What the hell is so gnarly in Lake Tahoe that would cause so much rust? Yes, I know it snows there, and that snow is wet, not dry like Utah. But this bad? Matt thinks they use salt in Nevada, so it seems maybe the PO drove his bus in the winter and never washed it. Dunno. The spare tire mount does not help the front clip and its cracking Bondo.

Matt brought out a thick... almost half inch thick... folder of receipts, work orders and repair bills from just two or three of the same shops in Stateline, NV going back to the late 1980's so the PO did actually care enough to keep this puppy humming. The PO also recently put mud and snow tires on it, but we think they are passenger tires. Couldn't find the load rating for some reason, but the P195/R14 indicates 'passenger', yes? Just can't recall. Anyway, they are not tiny ass whitewall tires.

It's going to need some real help in the exhaust department before it passes smog, but it seems totally doable to me. Just a matter of spending the money and wrenching in the parts. We didn't open the valve covers and look at valve tip heights, or do anything like compression tests. This was just a casual, introductory visit. But it really seems like a mechanically sound bus! Pretty responsive and got right up to speed. We did not take it on the freeway. In all the discussion about the exhaust and the rust, I forgot to check if the thermostat system was in place.

We talked about getting it smogged and titled. I suggested to see about leaving it in the Nevada title. At least look into it. It might buy some time until a firm decision can be made on the smog check and all the work needed for that.