A Pick-Em Up Truck Tale - 1968 Double Cab

[SamboSamba22]

Super excited, overwhelmed with joy and truly grateful to now own a Bay Double Cab.
All of my years attending VW shows, I’ve never seen a bay version. With the immediate sadness of selling my ‘59 single cab last year, I vowed to replace it with bay version. Well, after a road trip with my dad, nearly 11 hours in a U-Haul pick up, we dollied home a ‘68 Doka from Mississippi.
The m-code states this guy became domestic through San Diego, but with a title and inspection sticker on the windshield, it lived most of its life in Oklahoma.
Now, in time, will be cleaned, fixed, and painted it’s original colors once more, to be used for my business, weekend cruises, and exactly what it is, a utilitarian truck.
Let the generic photos commence:

Rockers are rough, front pan is basically trash. Doglegs are more or less solid, Gates are really nice. Back decking, rear cargo floor, bulkhead, and all the pillars are pretty nice. Needs a battery tray, some hammering, and as Zeppelin said, “A Whole Lotta Love”
_________________
The Bus Barn Ltd. Co.

Oct. ’67 Double Cab (’68 Crew Cab)
[url=http://www.vw-mplate.com/mplate-44412.png]Click to view image[/URL]
March '69 Delivery (Panel Bus)
[url=http://www.vw-mplate.com/mplate-44414.png]Click to view image[/URL]

[richparker]

Awesome!
_________________
__________
’71 Westy build
Adventure thread
’65 Deluxe Build
’63 Deluxe Build

[SamboSamba22]

[outcaststudios]

nice score! whats your first step going to be?
_________________
'88Doka JX td
'69 westy
(rip)couple bugs
(rip)three type III"s
(rip) '81 vanagon
a bunch of french stuff,and 9 motorcycles.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=2573791

[notchboy]

Looks like its been slapped around a bit. But has some good bones. Nice score brother.
_________________

[JoinTheRukus]

Awesome find! Looks like a great starting point.

[Wasted youth]

Man, that's great! Cool to see the headliner is intact. Can't wait to see how you cut in the fiberglas battery access door.

Nice going, Sam! Super cool.

[wcfvw69]

Congrats Sam!

Looks like a great new addition!
_________________
Contact me at [email protected]
Follow me on instagram @sparxwerksllc

Decades of VW and VW parts restoration experience.
The Samba member since 2004.

**Now rebuilding throttle bodies for VW's and Porsche's**
**Restored German Bosch distributors for sale or I can restore yours**
**Restored German Pierburg fuel pumps for sale or I can restore yours**
**Restored Porsche fuel pumps or I can restore yours**
**Restored Porsche distributors or I can restore yours**

[SamboSamba22]

[SamboSamba22]

[SamboSamba22]

[SamboSamba22]

Nothing like getting up at 5am for work, getting off and working in the shop until midnight on your newly acquired machine

As I mentioned, pulled the windshield last night to assess windshield lip, and to have clear overhead access to the wiring and fuse box.
The bus has the ignition switch bypassed and has a generic powered off the ignition coil currently, that shit has to go.
It isn't supplying power through the ignition switch to the fuse box, so I don't currently have any of my indicator lights, dash lights, etc...


One thing that is awesome, the '68 bus wiring schematic fits on one page in the Bentley. The un-awesome thing is that it's fairly apparent some knucklehead moved wiring around, adding a stereo, pulled wiring off the fuse box and taped up the connectors, fortunate that they didn't cut the wires, but simple removed them.

What I began with:

That's what I worked on correcting last night, using my Bentley, I first disconnected the battery and began to wipe down all the wiring, removing dirt and dust to see the coloring.

It's a great blessing that I have some experience with this, VW schematics are not too bad, have references makes a huge difference as well, so thanks to everyone who uploads information into the technical forums.

I have three wires that I'm stumped on, one being a reddish/brown wire coming from the turn signal switch.

The second, a black/white wire running from the turn signal switch to the main harness.

The last, is a green/black wire spliced (factory connector) into a black/green/white wire, coming from the turn signal switch to the main harness running the length of the bus.

The last wire is a little red one that I identified to be the interior light, so we're getting somewhere.

Overall, the truck electrically isn't horrible, no excessive corrosion, just wire brushed the tabs and connectors, wiped clean and applied my dielectric grease.

The madness continues later today.
A money shot in the shop yesterday afternoon.

_________________
The Bus Barn Ltd. Co.

Oct. ’67 Double Cab (’68 Crew Cab)
[url=http://www.vw-mplate.com/mplate-44412.png]Click to view image[/URL]
March '69 Delivery (Panel Bus)
[url=http://www.vw-mplate.com/mplate-44414.png]Click to view image[/URL]

[jtauxe]

What an excellent project!
Good on your for bring that puppy back from the brink.
I find with these jobs that it almost doesn't matter where you start. Just start somewhere, and if you run out of steam on one bit, move to another and come back later. Lots of work to do...
_________________
John
"Travelling in a fried-out Kombi, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie..." - Colin Hay and Ron Strykert
http://vw.tauxe.net
1969 Transporter, 1971 Westfalia, 1976, 1977, 1976, 1977, 1971, 1973, 1977 Westfalias,
1979 Champagne Sunroof, 1974 Westfalia Automatic, 1979 Transporter, 1972 Sportsmobile, 1973 Transporter Wild Westerner, 1974 Westfalia parts bus, 1975 Mexican single cab *FOR SALE*, 1978 Irish 4-door double cab RHD

[busdaddy]

Wow, that's one mighty used looking truck, exciting!

I don't see the 9 terminal flasher relay in there anywhere, all those green and white striped black wires connect to that. Are you sure the "reddish brown" wire from the signal switch isn't just brown?, there should be 2 brown wires from the switch, one has a stripe of some color on it, the solid one goes to the ground star on the back of the speedo, the striped one goes to S on the headlight relay.
_________________
Rust NEVER sleeps and stock never goes out of style.

Please don't PM technical questions, ask your problem in public so everyone can play along. If you think it's too stupid post it here
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

Слава Україні!

[SamboSamba22]

[SamboSamba22]

[SamboSamba22]

Pulled the bumpers, rear apron, engine, door panels, and continued to wipe all the wiring down throughout the truck, underneath and the engine bay.

I played complete hell removing the engine from the transaxle because....theres a damn late bay transmission on this thing!

Like the redneck ingenuity?! Yeah me neither, I mean creative, but this is getting addressed. I read that 68 had a one year only transaxle, what is a good route for me since I will be finding a different unit?

The engine bay and engine were both filthy, so for starters I decided to clean up the engine bay.
Before:

After:

As far as the front end goes, removing the bumper revealed the rot.

I really really don’t want to replace this whole front clip. Looking at current reality having to cut and replace the lower front valance and lower windshield lip. As far as the rest of the nose, its hammer and dolly and filler.

Plans are in the works to buy a media blast gun and disassemble the bus (remove glass, interior, gates, etc) and blast the shitty repaint and rust off for a clean slate, to assess bad spots, have nice meat for fresh welds, and the canvas I want for some epoxy primer.

My full fledged plan is to have this bus back together, running, working correctly with primer and paint by the end of March.

Stayed tuned, I sure do need lots of help along this journey, so to all of those tagging along, always feel free to chime in, opinions and tips, are most welcome. It’s going to be fun wrenching on these bus.
_________________
The Bus Barn Ltd. Co.

Oct. ’67 Double Cab (’68 Crew Cab)
[url=http://www.vw-mplate.com/mplate-44412.png]Click to view image[/URL]
March '69 Delivery (Panel Bus)
[url=http://www.vw-mplate.com/mplate-44414.png]Click to view image[/URL]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

the "68 only" trans is a 002. it had a goofy way to set preload on the diff. you can identify the 68 trans by the diff side covers. they had acorn nuts holding the bearing retainers in.

late 68 early 69 they moved to the adjustable nuts that thread into the trans case, and kept it that way for the life of the 002 and into the 091
_________________

[busdaddy]

Wrong relay, nothing will work with that unless you upgrade to the mid 69-71 9 terminal hazard switch, to use it as is you'll need one of these: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1302854
*not endorsing the seller, just showing you the part you'll need.*

How many ribs on that transmission you found in there (hopefully 3), it may be a useful upgrade.
_________________
Rust NEVER sleeps and stock never goes out of style.

Please don't PM technical questions, ask your problem in public so everyone can play along. If you think it's too stupid post it here
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

Слава Україні!

[SamboSamba22]