1978 Westfalia restoration project

[the blob]

Hi all,

Greetings from central VA! My brother and I just bought a 1978 Westfalia Type 2 to restore. I wasn't looking for one, but it caught my eye on Craigslist as I was looking for firewood. This bus found me, as they say. My brother and I don't have any experience working on aircooled VWs, so this is going to be an adventure for sure!

The bus has been parked since the mid 90s and the PO got it from some guy who had a bunch of old cars just sitting around on his property. No keys or batteries and a couple parts are missing in the engine (starter and distributor cap/plug wires from what I can tell so far, but there could be more since I don't know what I'm looking at ). We can't even find where stuff is supposed to be to see if it's missing yet. From what we can tell the engine still turns and the bus rolls and steers, so that's a start.

Relatively little rust on the exterior and almost no rust on the bottom/rockers. Small rust hole in the front door corners and rear right panel, but other than that it seems to be mostly surface rust from what I can tell. Original Dakota Beige paint is mostly intact and interior and seats are all original and in mostly decent shape. Only thing missing is the radio, speakers, and table. Pop top still works but will need a replacement canvas.

I've already bought The Idiot's Guide and Mark Paxton's "How to Restore Volkswagen Bus, Enthusiast's Restoration Manual" and also have replacement keys on the way (cut from sliding door lock code - hopefully that's all I'll need) from Baughman Locksmith (https://www.baughmanlock.com/).

I've been scouring TheSamba reading all I can the last few weeks, but am still really new to this so appreciate any beginner's tips, videos, or threads I can learn from! I'll only post a subset of the pics here but you can check my Samba gallery for more.

Step 1 is figuring out how the engine works and what parts I'm missing so I can see if it'll turn over. Then it'll be on to stopping the rust while we get it back in working condition before we decide how intense we want to get with the body restoration.

Wish us luck!

Bus in my driveway:

Bus with the firewood I was looking for on craigslist:

Rear shot:

Front shot:

Engine rear and top:

Popped top:

Interior:

[scubasteve321]

Relatively little rust on the exterior and almost no rust on the bottom/rockers



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1971 Campmobile Tin-Top
1971 Campmobile Pop-Top
1974 VW Bus

[the blob]

Also forgot the engine code (looks original to the bus):
GE032166

And M Codes (factory pick up in Germany!):
82 128 586
982646 D52 P27 073
20 2 7481 UT 2319 61

[the blob]

[busdaddy]

Wooooo...!, European spare mount on the front, I want to see the M plate! (click links below).

[67ctbug]

Now that is something you don't see everyday here. The euro spare tire mount.
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'67 Beetle L41
'74 Westfalia
'69 Plymouth "Adam-12"
'63 Ragtop
'73 914
'73 Dodge W200
'72 Dodge Wrecker
Go Cubs!
World Series Champions 2016

[jlrftype7]

[wagohn]

Congrats on the new ride. You will need fuel injection appropriate vacuum hoses too. See:
https://www.ratwell.com/technical/VacuumHoses.html
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1976 VW Transporter, 2.0 FI Engine

[my59]

You also need some FI parts. S boot, AFM, air cleaner/filter, and it looks as if someone took out the FI computer (it would be in the vertical rectangle hole above the battery ground strap)
Fun project!
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my59: Well son, my grandfather died before I got to drive it, so does that answer your question?
our79: sunroof bus w/camper interior and 2.0 FI
Other:'12 Jetta, '77 Benz 300D, and a 74 MG Midget.

[the blob]

Thanks all for the comments and advice. That fuel line diagram will be really helpful.

[busdaddy]

[the blob]

Oh great! Thanks, busdaddy. I was looking at busdepot. I'll remember to check the classifieds next time.

Thought I'd post pics of the different booklets that came with the bus, too.

Manual:

Other booklets. All are in good shape except for the owners manual insert for tourist vehicles in Europe:

The warranty and maintenance booklet has stamps for the factory service up until the 30,000 mile maintenance, then it stops. Based on the odometer and title records it looks like this has engine has 146k miles on it:

[SGKent]

my advice would be to title / register it as non-op in VA and make sure you can get a valid ownership before investing anything in it. Then get with someone like Robbie AirSchooled, or Colin The Ice Cream Bandit to have them go over it and make you a list of what needs to be done. Better set a budget too - I allowed $15K in 2010 and it turned into double that. That is a common issue, especially if you want cosmetic repairs. A pristine Westfalia restored to factory quality is about $60K worth of work.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[Ceckert64]

Awesome project and documentations! It looks like mostly surface rust, and not heavy frame rust. The interior should clean up nice! That will be fun once its done!
Good luck, Aiden
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1964 sunroof Beetle Restoration "Herbie"
“Joann” 1970 Elm Green Squareback
1972 Sierra Yellow Tin Top Westfalia Camper
“Fitz” 1971 Westfalia Poptop

[SGKent]

shine a light down in the spot where the ECU goes on the right side of the engine to see if they dropped it in there. If you see eyes looking back then you have another issue to add to the list.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[busdaddy]

I'll bet it got sick from a big vacuum leak and was taken to a shop, the "expurt" there said "it's the compooter" and pulled it out to send off for repair or replacement and it got lost somehow, after sitting at the shop a few months it came home to sit forevermore.

Still want to see that M plate.
_________________
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!

[SGKent]

[Ceckert64]

Here it is http://www.vw-mplate.com/mcode.php?lang=EN&id=45830 it was already showing someone else had put it in when I did it.
_________________
1964 sunroof Beetle Restoration "Herbie"
“Joann” 1970 Elm Green Squareback
1972 Sierra Yellow Tin Top Westfalia Camper
“Fitz” 1971 Westfalia Poptop

[busdaddy]

Interesting, so the spare was added afterwards, maybe they stopped by the Westfalia shop while they were in Germany?
_________________
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!

[the blob]

Thanks Aiden and SGKent.

I'm definitely expecting to invest a fair amount, but I'm not planning to get it quite back to factory original shape so hope I won't have to put quite 60k into it. Hoping to put 10-15k more doing most/all of the labor ourselves (with the exception of painting (if we do paint at all this budget would only include touch ups) and maybe some of the welding on the tricky panels). For now I'd to make a weekender that can reliably make it 2-3 hours at a time in the spring and fall (or in the summer mornings). Don't think it'll be taking any cross country trips in the foreseeable future. If I fall in love with it on the way maybe I'll make some fancier upgrades, but I'm not committing to that yet.

The soonest I could get an appointment at the DMV was mid-January, so won't know for sure on registration until then. In the meantime I'll probably focus more on the labor heavy but not price heavy parts like stopping the rust and cleaning the interior.

I'll take a look in the computer hole tomorrow and let you know if I find any critters down there.

I checked the M-Codes on that site after buying it, but I couldn't tell much about it besides that the paint and interior fabric were original since I didn't really know what to look for.