Another syncro Doka arrives!... or "WTF did I just do!?!"

[WestyBob]

OP -- I restored a Vindic canopy many years ago similar to yours. Used fiberglass compound also to fill in holes and cracks -- worked well. Painted the hinges pewter/gray.

Anyway, if I understood your earlier question correctly, where the two rear Vindic legs meet the truck bed there should be a couple of dimples in the metal -- that's the drill spot because underneath there are two captive nuts. You can open the top or back engine hatches (or remove the rear lights) and reach up there feeling around to confirm. The main thing when drilling those holes is to not drill out the nut threads To the best of my knowledge all dokas and sinkas had those captive nuts

[Alaskaberrys]

[WestyBob]

The captive nuts will be under and attached to the bed inside, not outside. They should line up with the two lateral plate points of the leg triangle.

Try locating by hand the c-nuts, then see it there's a dimple above for drilling. If so and any holes in the leg base don't line up, maybe time to drill new leg base holes.

Yes, all dokas/sinkas I've seen already had the pre-installed bolts on the two fronts. The ones in back will have a similar pattern.

[tarandusVDub]

What a great doka! Updates? How's everything working?
_________________
1990 Syncro 16" DoppleKabine 2.1 DJ 112i
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Sold: 1972 Bay Campmobile; 1984 Westy, base model, 2WD.

[Alaskaberrys]

Ha! Was just thinking I should update this thread ...only a few years behind...got a gizzilion photos to sort.

Admittedly I was pretty depressed with all the rust I was having to cut out - but did finally get most all of it and started driving it summer of 2019. Still have to deal the front trans mount frame area rust - pretty daunting that one.

Recent work. Replacing wheel bearing that ground out after our road flooded - playing in the mud with a leaky CV boot

Redline CV-2 turned brown - not much sand in there fortunately.

Will update with the saga....thanks for the prompt!
_________________
'91 Westfalia, Bordeaux Red Pearl 2.1L 2wd Auto
'91 T3 Syncro Doka, Escorial Green 1.9L TD AAZ “Gremian” (to provoke, irritate, exasperate, vex...)

[tarandusVDub]

Thanks for the update! Looking forward to seeing what all you've been dealing with. So you found a lot of rust that wasn't evident from the outside it sounds like. Was body work done that you didn't see, or just the usual weird rust places on a doka? Do you feel like the pre-buy inspection should have picked that up? Still is a beautiful truck!
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1990 Syncro 16" DoppleKabine 2.1 DJ 112i
________________________
Sold: 1972 Bay Campmobile; 1984 Westy, base model, 2WD.

[Alaskaberrys]

[0to60in6min]

@ Alaskaberrys...

hey hey hey... the green bro of my red Doka...

we came of the same boat didn't we?...

I will put up some pics of mine once it's out of the shop...

[Steve M.]

Is that red Doka stalking you?
_________________
This free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.

There are seven days in a week. Someday is not one of them.

[0to60in6min]

[Alaskaberrys]

****Continuation from Jan 2018...(about 10 years ago in 2020 time)****

Since then, I mounted the refurbished Vindic Canopy, ran wires to the OEM third brake light and mounted the flood lights that came with the doka on the Vindic crossbars facing rearwards. And a slew of other additions. I will post some photo’s of those installs in the next post as I’m digressing from the 16 months of pain…rust abatement and repaint…one panel at a time.

Admittedly after first exploring the rust bleb on the drivers door and deciding to take a good hard look at the other 'signs' I'd been willfully ignoring, I rapidly sunk into a bit of a depression…there were little rust holes everywhere. All jack points, in wheel wells hidden under a 1/4” thick layer of body protection (looked factory - super thick VERY tough and hard to remove), lower seams, basically everything from the banding down. Found no rust on the top of the cab (just dents).

I managed to clean out all the frame rails with wire brushes, hosed with water, compressed air, and sprayed the whole underside down with Ospho inside and out - left it sitting in my shop to dry thoroughly (and in my way!) then sprayed about 10 cans of Waxoil into everything and walked away for a good six months. There was just a shit ton of rust areas that HAD to be dealt with SOON or this thing was gong to melt away for good and it really took the steam outta my doka sails (wife and I enjoyed a really nice trip down and later up the West coast in our NICE rust free Westy in the spring and fall of 2019 - that did help…)

So, Mark learns to weld.

I started with the bulging and cracked paint at the drivers belly seam. The rust remediation the PO had done some years prior was either not 100% effective at removing all the rust or he regularly ran it through the surf. The bedliner undercoating that was sprayed on first popped off with a putty knife everywhere rust was showing up. Plus there were layers of bondo to explore under - applied like a drywaller would throw on drywall mud.

(trigger warning; the following pictures are not for the faint of heart ) (especially experienced welders!)

Exploring;

Quicky turned to stripping;

Lotsa bondo on this doka;

The PO had cut out the vertical seem on the rear of the cab drivers side and welded a plate in its place. Some little blebs were in this area so took it down to metal - that turned out not to be rust but just less than smooth finishing fortunately.

At this point I decided the best course is to keep the work to one side at a time so I wasn’t overwhelmed by the task - start at the front, find rust, cut out, weld in new metal, sand and grind, mover to the next spot, after making it to the back prime and paint that side. Move to the back. Repeat. Move to passenger side. Repeat (fortunately not much rust on the front….just removing the liner underpaint that was poorly bonded).

Got into the jack mount areas - each had lots to cut out. Pass rear;

Pretty new to this, so not great patch job;

Covered in urethane after priming;

As I progressed I got a bit better at welding, but still a long ways from proficient at it. By the time I finished the find, cut, weld program I found myself wanting to go re-do the first few patches as I relied on fiberglass filler to smooth things out early on. Except by that time they were under primer, paint and clear coat…. Next time. I have a feeling owning a rusty synchro is a bit like painting the Golden Gate bridge. Job security.

Chest floor area exploring;

And cut, cut, cut;

Patch, patch, patch;

As each side was separate start to finish and I got better and faster as I went - mostly some confidence allowed me to cut more aggressively and not waste a bunch of time trying to auger out just what a HAD to cut out. Just cut plenty;

The local paint shop in Juneau could mix rattle cans of auto paint for me and the match was excellent. Followed that with can of clear coat and Raptor liner along the banding. I didn't take many photo's of the repaint;

Before I put the wheels back on I did remove both trailing arms and remediate. Chance to replace the old bushing with new T3 bushings;

I still have one area that needs to be dealt with - front syncro frame mount area. A common area for rust and a bit of a daunting task as will be some major welding/fabbing….perhaps next winter.

I had a further set back or two - preformed a really stupid move trying to “walk” my new 60 gal top mount compressor into position and it fell right onto the nose of the doka (stupidstupidstupidstuipd!!!!). Story here - https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=708608&highlight=

Once I finally finished up prodding every inch on a rust seek and destroy I started to get my head back into the project. It started to be fun again, I'll get into that next.
_________________
'91 Westfalia, Bordeaux Red Pearl 2.1L 2wd Auto
'91 T3 Syncro Doka, Escorial Green 1.9L TD AAZ “Gremian” (to provoke, irritate, exasperate, vex...)

[dobryan]

Wow! Good on you for keeping at it. You and 4gears4tires could be brothers.
_________________
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

[4Gears4Tires]

^ Hah! Hopefully he has no engine problems along with his rust repairs.

Great work man. Very familiar stuff, even the shitty welding at the beginning. The end result really looks great.
_________________
'87 Syncro
Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition

[Alaskaberrys]

[4Gears4Tires]

Might as well start cleaning and PB blasting all connections now though. Just regularly hit everything (brake lines included) with PB blaster. Your future self will thank you.
_________________
'87 Syncro
Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition

[Alaskaberrys]

[4Gears4Tires]

Haha exactly!
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'87 Syncro
Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition

[Alaskaberrys]

*The following mods are not in the correct order of hair pulling but for ease of getting this story along I'll just add them willy nilly.... *

I added a rearview mirror with backup camera. With this and the rear lighting (coming soon) there is little backing uncertainly. I really wanted to see how well these gadgets worked - I want to install one in our westy, but don't want it to be lame. Having to glue it to the windshield and covering the OE mount is less than appealing to me. Can't quite get used to a strap on type either...

So practice on the dorka!

I bought a cheap previously mishandled mirror from the classifieds as I wasn't going to ruin a perfectly good mirror if this mod went south. Chopped the stem off and belt sanded it smooth, painted black and mounted the base back into the OE hole. Not a horrible look - just needs a purpose. Perhaps mount the big red "eject" button there -

AUTO-VOX T2 -

Spare tire partially obscures the view, but a pretty good picture (when not covered with mud)-

This was the basic model of the AUTO-VOX lineup and it has some poor qualities - while the backup camera has bright lights and floods the area well, the screen is super bright at night and I have to wait a bit for my eyes to adjust if I've been driving in the dark, says its has "auto adjusting brightness" but after 20 min of dark driving it took me 10 seconds to be able to see anything but a bright square. You can disable it temporarily by pressing the power button (not much help at night), so if we do install a setup in our westy I'll spend the money for one with more configurable settings - night mode, rear view on demand (this one is only powered in reverse) and perhaps the forward camera for insurance purposes.

Being somewhat old fashioned I wasn't going the wireless route so routing wires took awhile - tapped into drivers reverse light power, fished under rear bed, over chest area, into rear bench, up "c" pillar and popping out near the headliner to be fished to dome light and then on across headliner to center of windshield. Had to pull the connection to the mirror back into the headliner after connecting it up - slight lump is hidden by the visor -

I used superglue to stick the unit up as kit did not come with glue. Fell off dangling by its wire twice before I ordered in some glue made for mounting mirrors. Has held fast through year and a half of bumpy roads so far. Takes the rain and mud fine - just have to remember to clean it off on the way to the cab.

Amazon link

Next up - bumpers...
_________________
'91 Westfalia, Bordeaux Red Pearl 2.1L 2wd Auto
'91 T3 Syncro Doka, Escorial Green 1.9L TD AAZ “Gremian” (to provoke, irritate, exasperate, vex...)

[erste]

[Alaskaberrys]