The Champagne Imposter - My '70 Westy Refresh

[Spike0180]

[advCo]

I made some progress last week and over the weekend. I bought the Klok rear corners and rear wheel arch pie slices. They suck. I had to move the flanges on the rear wheel arch section inward to get it to fit properly, smooth out their crappy tuck shrinks, and properly shrink the flanges to fix the profile. Its not perfect yet but it'll work.

The rear corner is another story. They don't bend the flanges on either end, and the engine bay side needs two flanges to be spot welded into the seal channel for the decklid. I am going to see if I can get the flanges in there without totally messing up the profile. If not I will just throw this in the scrap pile and shell out the cash for the Gerson corner.

Not a great pic of it, but I bought the WW battery trays. Autocraft I believe. They fit great so far, seem to be really high quality pressings. Might need a little smoothing out around the outer corner. I was considering using panel adhesive to install the battery tray but haven't decided yet - anyone have an opinion on that?

Need to make a repair piece for the rear pillar (D pillar? E pillar? ) so that'll be the first bit to get addressed before this can all go back together.

In other news, my long search for a rust free, straight decklid finally came to a close. Found this in the classifieds on Thursday last week, and got it yesterday for a great price. Its damn near perfect, almost a shame to cover up that OG Sierra Yellow.

Side note, this thread has definitely turned into more of a resto than a "refresh," as is the usual style for my projects
_________________
"He pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac ‘cause he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back"
'68/'70 Ghia Coupe Project
'70 Westy Project - Champagne I Wannabe
A bunch of vintage Japanese motorcycles
"Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity." -A. Bennett

[WithTheFlow]

Nice work!! Diving right into the rabbit hole!

I recommend getting some weld thru primer to spray on the backside of panels you wont have access to once you weld them in. If you're going in this deep, might as well preserve your work. Of course clean area around weld to bare metal.

Do you have access to a paint gun?
SPI Epoxy has really served me well throughout my restoration. You can brush it on as well

Most of the Wolfsburg West stuff I bring to bare metal. Klassic fab I scuff really well with 80 grit. Then I paint it with epoxy (much easier to get good coverage when the panel is outside the bus). Stickers come off well with wax and grease remover and a razor blade.



In fact SPI sells W&G Remover too. It cleans well. Any area where you weld, use filler or paint should be cleaned with Wax and grease remover. I clean until my paper towel no longer gets dirty.

_________________
The fastest thing you can do is slow down.

“The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better."
-- The Alchemist”

[advCo]

@WithTheFlow: thanks for the tips. I'll look into the SPI Epoxy. I have some Eastwood I bought a quart of just to sample it, but I haven't sprayed any of it yet.

Last week and this weekend I made the push to finally finish my "rotisserie" or tip-over thingamajig. I don't have a great space to work on the bus so I needed to be able to roll it around and tip it on its side to facilitate the work on the undercarriage. When we restored our '64 I did the undercarriage on the ground and I'd rather not do that ever again.

I had a buddy come over on Saturday to help me get the bus up in the air and everything bolted on. Its WAY high up with the big casters, which is pretty awesome for working around the entire bottom of the Bus.

Yesterday my wife and I pushed the bus into the carport. Took a few hours fighting the muddy ground but we got it in place. I'm pumped to have the Bus under shelter now, and we promptly removed the windshield and two rear windows.

Just about as rough as I thought LOL. I bought a donor nose from a dry western bus that should be here pretty soon. Rather than replace the inner lip, outer lip/beltline, the lower inner and outer valance and then still have to spend a ton of time pulling the wrinkles and dents out of the nose, I figure it will be cheaper and faster to do the whole nose clip.
_________________
"He pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac ‘cause he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back"
'68/'70 Ghia Coupe Project
'70 Westy Project - Champagne I Wannabe
A bunch of vintage Japanese motorcycles
"Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity." -A. Bennett

[WithTheFlow]

Nice!! I would sand blast the bottom and spray in epoxy. It’s a huge milestone and makes everything work with. Some guys build a support before cutting majority of the front off.

_________________
The fastest thing you can do is slow down.

“The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better."
-- The Alchemist”

[advCo]

[WithTheFlow]

You won’t regret blasting it!
For the bottom sand should be fine. For the body panels and thinner metals people use baking soda. Although I used ultra fine sand on some body panels. As long as you know how to control heat and prevent warping you won’t have problems.

I think I went a little over kill with my bracing. You won’t need bracing from a pillar to b pillar unless you were to cut off your dog legs as well
_________________
The fastest thing you can do is slow down.

“The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better."
-- The Alchemist”

[WithTheFlow]

SPI epoxy all day everyday. It awesome. You can use it as a sealer. It has been compatible with every other product I used. Pot life is 3-4 days. You can apply body filler within 7 days without sanding it. It lays super nice. Its a 1-to-1 mixing ratio so you get two sprayable gallons. Their wax and grease remover cleans way better than others I have used too.
_________________
The fastest thing you can do is slow down.

“The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better."
-- The Alchemist”

[advCo]

[advCo]

Small package arrived yesterday

_________________
"He pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac ‘cause he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back"
'68/'70 Ghia Coupe Project
'70 Westy Project - Champagne I Wannabe
A bunch of vintage Japanese motorcycles
"Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity." -A. Bennett

[advCo]

Retaining Strip removal: Over the weekend I was preparing to remove the sliding door but got stuck. I removed the 3 screws from the sliding door cover, loosened the retaining strip tensioner screw and gave the screw a good few whacks with a punch to "drive the retaining strip toward the back of the bus."

So the screw on the retainer naturally broke off, and I can't get any purchase on that retaining strip to drive it backwards and "unlock" the cover. I can't see anywhere else exposed on the retaining strip that I can get a punch at to drive it back. It seems to be rusted on there pretty well. Any advice?
_________________
"He pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac ‘cause he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back"
'68/'70 Ghia Coupe Project
'70 Westy Project - Champagne I Wannabe
A bunch of vintage Japanese motorcycles
"Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity." -A. Bennett

[Kirk]

That bus is sure lucky it found you. Great work!
_________________
MAKE FORUMS GREAT AGAIN

Bear
Coble
Super
Oppenheim

[advCo]

Thanks Kirk. I get satisfaction from bringing these old cars/bikes that have been left for dead back to life.

Been slowly chugging along on the passenger side rear corner. Going to save up some pics from that project and try to post them all at once so it makes more sense. Meantime, I met up with fellow local Samba member honestcharlie56 over the weekend, and he let me do some cutting on his rusty parts bus that conveniently had some sheet metal and other bits I needed. Thanks again bud!

_________________
"He pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac ‘cause he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back"
'68/'70 Ghia Coupe Project
'70 Westy Project - Champagne I Wannabe
A bunch of vintage Japanese motorcycles
"Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity." -A. Bennett

[advCo]

Managed to get the interior cleaned up, the rest of the Westfalia bolt on stuff removed and the slider cover/drivers side cover removed. Those covers gave me a fit, especially the slider cover as the darn retaining strip was rusted so badly it was basically fused to the window sill. The other side is pretty rough as well but definitely better than the passenger side.

I think I am going to have to drill out the spot welds and remove the retaining strip in order to fully repair the sills. Its roached pretty badly Has anyone done this before and have any pics to share?

Still chipping away at the passenger side rear corner. I was going to leave it, but the inner wheel well panel was a bit rusty and mangled at the end where the wheel well attaches to it. So I cut that bit out and fabricated a small piece to replace it. If anyone sees this and needs to do the same, they plug weld the absolute crap out of this portion of the inner wheel well to the air cleaner stand. I'm talking like a 3/4" diameter weld. It was an absolute pain to get out.

Sunday I made a repair section for the "D" pillar ( I should clarify I have no idea if this is what its actually called but I'm going with it). I dont have the tooling to stamp the raised section into my piece, so I left it out. I think its only purpose is to help with alignment when they were fitting the panels at the factory, so I didn't see the need to build a stamping die for it. Came out pretty well once its been ground down but I think I needed some more heat on this particular area. Just have a few pinholes to touch up and I'll be ready for the corner.

Switching gears a little, I moved to the package tray over the engine. I replaced a quarter sized rust hole on one of the ridges, and after spending the time finishing it out I decided to just look for a really dry section to replace this entire clip, rather than patching it in small sections like I originally planned to. Either way the patch came out decent and it was good practice.

_________________
"He pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac ‘cause he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back"
'68/'70 Ghia Coupe Project
'70 Westy Project - Champagne I Wannabe
A bunch of vintage Japanese motorcycles
"Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity." -A. Bennett

[advCo]

Last night I cleaned up the ugly welds on that D pillar repair and filled in any spots I missed. Some of these repairs are pretty challenging to get good welds on in situ. Forgot to take pics as it was getting dark when I finished.

More time into these crappy repair panels. The rear wheel arch repair section had the wrong profile and a 3/8” too short flange for the seam when it came. I’ve already got a few hours into adjusting the wheel arch return, and I tried to weld a thin strip into the inner flange. Well I put too much heat into it and it turned into a mess, and then I discovered that the profile wasn’t exactly right.

So I cut off the botched flange altogether and hammered the profile to match the new rear quarter. Cut a couple of strips out of 20ga and welded them onto the corners. Much cleaner and should make welding the seam go a lot smoother. Note that the notch at the bottom is actually how it should look from the factory, not crappy fitment.

Before the corner is ready to install, I still need to drill or punch the hole near the decklid, and bend up the other side flange and stretch it to match the profile of the D pillar. I really want to get the corner ready to install, so I can mock up it together with the wheel arch section before I weld that in. I need to weld in the wheel arch section so I can weld in the rear wheel well section I made, then battery tray, then finish out the corner. Inching closer to getting this corner done!

_________________
"He pulled the mirrors off his Cadillac ‘cause he doesn’t like it looking like he looks back"
'68/'70 Ghia Coupe Project
'70 Westy Project - Champagne I Wannabe
A bunch of vintage Japanese motorcycles
"Much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more profitable and amusing than much money without ingenuity." -A. Bennett

[Tbob]

On Feb. 19, you asked if anyone had taken off the retaining strip(do you actually mean the sliding door middle track?). The British wrestle with rusty sheds that make your bus look new! I have seen that repair documented, and IIRC, it was in one of the two British produced "how to restore your bay window" books. I am 600 miles away from my library, and I won't be back there for a week, but you may be able to search for that repair on google or something. Lacking that, when I get back to the frozen white north I can look up the reference for you. Boy, you are tackling a lot! good luck!
_________________
1969 Deluxe, owned since 1973
1973 Westfalia, owned since 1983
1980 Westfalia, watercooled conversion
1985 Westfalia, stock!
1986 Westfakia, Audi I-4 conversion
A couple of trucks and a couple of Jeeps

[Tbob]

On Feb. 19, you asked if anyone had taken off the retaining strip(do you actually mean the sliding door middle track?). The British wrestle with rusty sheds that make your bus look new! I have seen that repair documented, and IIRC, it was in one of the two British produced "how to restore your bay window" books. I am 600 miles away from my library, and I won't be back there for a week, but you may be able to search for that repair on google or something. Lacking that, when I get back to the frozen white north I can look up the reference for you. Boy, you are tackling a lot! good luck!
_________________
1969 Deluxe, owned since 1973
1973 Westfalia, owned since 1983
1980 Westfalia, watercooled conversion
1985 Westfalia, stock!
1986 Westfakia, Audi I-4 conversion
A couple of trucks and a couple of Jeeps

[honestcharlie56]

Lookin great! I should have done alittle more metal work when mine was apart....
_________________
1982 Vanagon Westy
1974 Transporter
1971 Tin Top Westy

[advCo]

[honestcharlie56]

I might get frisky and do a couple floor sections. Then again, it might take frisky and drunk to start the project. I'll practice on the donor when it comes time to cut it apart.
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1982 Vanagon Westy
1974 Transporter
1971 Tin Top Westy