Casa mundillo - 1977 T2B Camper preparing for the panamericana

[lofy]

Hi there,

i wanted to introduce myself and my current project. I'm Daniel, 38 years old from Munich/Germany, married to my lovely wife and i'm currently working in the music industry. I had three bullet points on my bucket list that i decided to put a checkmark on:

• learn to speak spanish
  
• learn to play the guitar
  
• be the owner of a Bay Window Bus
  
• travel the panamericana
  

Most of the countries along the panamericana are spanish speaking places, while travelling i will have enough time to get to know and learn their culture and even find the time to learn to play the guitar. As Bay Window Buses where produced in that region until a short while back, it wont be to hard to find some parts and someone to help if you have a technical breakdown with a VW Camper. Pretty much all i needed expect the right vehical to kick off this project.

I was looking for a van that would help me to pass through the american continent and found a 1977 T2B Westfalia Berlin camper in sunny California december 2017. As you can imagine it was in a really horrible condition but... challenge accepted.

The plan was to restore the van completely in a 9 months timeframe in order to be able to start my trip around september 2018. If i would start later, i might cross central america during the rainy season.

This is the first pictures of the van when i decided to offer him a second chance and named him by the name Vantoshi, wherein "toshi" is the japansese word for old as well as related to the founding father of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, satoshi nakamoto:

The first step was to bring the van back to germany and rip it apart to see what we're really up to:

Once we managed to get rid of all the interior and loose parts of the body, vantoshi received a sandblasting treatment to reveal all the whole mess:

We quickly realized that we needed to get some new metal as a lot of vantoshis body did pretty much vanish completely:

Finally we could start to rebuild the chassis, let me tell you, it was one hell of a welding job. the black color comes from a anti rust treatment, so the sandblasted body will not start a new rusting cycle while we rebuild the body:

On our way over the american continent we'll be challenging very different conditions, hot/cold tempratures, high altitudes, so we wanted to have a reliable engine that will have the resources to handle all the obstacles. We decided to totally rebuild it:

With a lot of love and care, the original type-4 2.0 litre fuel injected 79hp engine got boosted up to provide enough power even while crossing the Atacama desert or being stuck on a sandy beach.

• 2x Weber 40 idf dual carburetors
  
• modified cylinder, cylinder heads etc. to enhance the engine displacement to 2.1 litres
  
• performance camshaft
  
• performance tappets & valve springs
  

This way the engine provides 100-100hp with increased torque and should always be able to master most of the pan-american challenges around the next corner.

If you wanna hear the beaut in action, here you go:

Link


Meanwhile, vantoshi got prepared for his new makeover by applying a primer to the whole body:

I personally didnt like the 1977 bumpers, so i decided to install T2C bumpers onto my van. As the T2B and T2C bumpers are different we needed to do some changes to the front part of the body. "Luckily" the deformation element in the front was rotten away, so we could just weld in a T2C deformation element, that fits with a T2C front bumper perfectly. For the rear bumper there is mounting brackets available, but unfortunately they where soldout pretty much everywhere on the planet, i found one pair in south africa, but they didnt wanna ship to germany. So the only solution was to build them ourselfs and do the fitting on the 1979 of a friend of mine, as vantoshi already departed for his paintshop:

I pretty much like the color yellow, so it was a no brainer for me to go with a mix of RAL 1021 for the lower part and an original L90D white for the upper body. And boy, i do love the results...

In order to travel with style, i decided to get one of the nardi classico steering wheels, which arrived a couple of days ago:

This is pretty much the current state of my project, i hope i didnt spam too much, i already tried to only post the most important steps of the project.

I got a lot of questions about my project from my friends and family and they wanted to get updated about the progress of vantoshis resurrection and my trip over the panamericana - so i recently opened up an instagram account to keep them in the loop and even get in touch with other travellers when on the road:

Casa Mundillo @ Instagram

i will also update my website my website and post further steps of the restoration process in this thread here. Feel also free to get updated about the project on [url=]my facebook page[/url], the fragmentation of social media made me to also open up a facebook page which will be a mirror from my instagram account.

Until two weeks ago it was just a restoration project, then i quit my well paid job and now i have about 100 days left until i will ambark on the journey of my life. I am really excited and looking forward to the adventures i'm about to experience with my wife and vantoshi.

Cheers,
Daniel
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/casamundillo/
Web: https://casamundillo.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/casamundillo/

[williamM]

nice-- only thng I saw a little sketchy was your choice of engine case sealer. Beautiful bus- good work.

learn from others- "hasta Alaska" aka "kombi crew" is a good read. They are in Jersey(the island) right now waiting the return of "boomerang"- their 73 high top van on their way to Australia- having already gone from Chile to the arctic circle. and back to Arizona. then on to NYC to ship the bus.

The unbelievable pounding the pan am roads gives your suspension must be planned for .

If unfamiliar with the nooks and cranys of the T-4- find the "TCash" list of things to watch out for.

Have a great time and enjoy every minute of it.
_________________
some days I get up and just sit and think. Some days I just sit.

opinion untempered by fact is ignorance.

Don't step in any!

[CarlosZ]

Suerte mi amigo.

[KentABQ]

[williamM]

maybe a better air cleaner set up- w snorkel.

I sanded a new motor running Australia's outback.-
_________________
some days I get up and just sit and think. Some days I just sit.

opinion untempered by fact is ignorance.

Don't step in any!

[Tcash]

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