1968 Campervan conversion

[joaonar]

and the front:

soon we are going to assemble all the westfalia roof in place to make the last holes.
The work in Hugo's bodyshop is almost over (I hope!).
:mrgreen:

 

[gninnam]

Lovely to watch the change Hugo has been making over the last few months 8)

I bet you are getting more excited now

 

[joaonar]

yes I am..... 8)
finally I'm begining to see some light at the end of this tunnel

 

[joaonar]

[...]

[...]

After seing this picture in the new Gadget Boy thread, I need some help. Gadget Boy got this replacement panel from Alan Schofield shop.
I've already sent some emails to them when I was looking for the rear corners but shipping them to me was far more expensive than parts being shipped from Justkampers ou VWHeritage... I really don't know why but it was the same as both replacement panels.
So, I need someone from this forum to get it for me and shipp it to me using regular postal services.
Can someone help me?
Thanks in advance

 

[joaonar]

still waiting for the part I need to finish the task. Unfortunately the part came to Portugal but they didn't find Hugo's bodyshop so the postal services sent it again to London...
Maybe I can have it next week.... :evil:

Meanwhile, I started working on both pop tops I have. One is the poptop I'm going to use and the other one is for selling.

after a lot of sanding, I applied some layers of spray filler:

and with lots of sanding in between....

and as a finishing toutch a final layer of high-build primer:

when the primer dried out, the final result was excellent:

On the interior, I want to leave this one as it was originally.
So I had to take out all of the old lining.
For that I tried some tinner and some acetone.
Acetone is far more quicker to react:

and a couple of hours later, the task was almost done:

I also started to cover the poptop wooden frame with fiberglass top coat, but there's still a lot to be done here....

 

[joaonar]

regarding the one I'm going to use, i decided to make some reinforcements on the fiberglass, since those areas where already fragile on one side and broken on the other:

(2006 pictures)

and where the inner handle was bolted:

.... and now, 2010, after fixing all the holes on the fiberglass properly, I then decided to make the reinforcements using small pieces of sheet metal. I painted them all with Por-15 and covered them with some layers of fiberglass:

and after some sanding:

in the end, no one will notice that they are there

 

[joaonar]

Since I had it already prepared for receiving a fiamma skylight...

... making a wooden frame (because the pop top is curved and the skylight is flat) I decided to make it as if it was a part of the roof....
For that, I bought all the necessary and correct materials, since I started to making what I had in minf using fiberglass filler but soon I realized that was not the best way to make this:

So with the help of a grinder, I took it all out :mrgreen:

 

[dubscum]

i love your bus and i love slammed ones, but really happy this one is staying high, it just suits it so well 8)

 

[joaonar]

so, using the correct materials, I started again:
First, we cuted a piece of cardboard to use it as a mold:

and on a piece of special foam, we drawed the contour of the wooden frame:

 

[joaonar]

and for the corners, I use a plastic cup:

in the end, all the cutting lines were drawed:

... we just had to start cuting the foam.

 

[joaonar]

with a small knife and a piece of wood, we started the task of cutting the foam

 

[joaonar]

 

[joaonar]

and already in place, the final cuts:

 

[joaonar]

I then glued it to the poptop using some resin.
After it was glued in place, I started sanding it untill it reached the shape I had in mind:

and after the first layers of fiberglass, it was looking like this:

in the end, this was the result:

There's still a lot to be done in here also. In the end, it will look like it has always belong there.
Not bad for a first time doing these kind of tasks.
:mrgreen:

 

[gninnam]

Any news Joaonar - been a while since you popped an update on here, hope all is OK :?:

 

[sonylr]

Nice work to make a roof hole

 

[joaonar]

Thanks sonylr.... there's still a lot to be done in the poptop but in the end, I hope it will look nice and work properly 8)

Hi Andy. Sorry for this late reply to your post. Everything is cool here, thanks for asking . Although you're probably getting some bad news from Portugal, some of us are still trying to get this country back to an upright position :lol: .
The project stoped during the Autumn and Winter because what's left to do in Hugo's bodyshop is to protect the bus against future corrosion (or at least, try to) and fix both cabin doors. But both tasks need some sand blast and there were no weather conditions to use the sandblaster. However and although the weather keeps being very instable with lots of rain in some days followed with some very warm ones, a couple of weekends ago, I went to Tondela and we made some progress .
So, here are the pictures

As it was a warm weekend I decided to start protecting the roof. But there was already some superficial rust in it so I used the sandblaster to clean it:

(some minor superficial rust)

 

[joaonar]

A couple of hours later, all the roof was cleaned....

... but there was still a very small hole in the rain gutter (probably made by a nail) and we decided to fix it. So we pushed the bus inside Hugo's bodyshop.

There was still some weldings to be properly grinded....

After, I decided to use Por-15 Marine Clean. After some minutes I washed it and we dried the roof with the help of compressed air and a hot air pistol (or blower )....

 

[joaonar]

once dry, I started treating it with Metal-Ready but this time I used a new botle 8) :

I decided to use a brush instead of a sprayer:

 

[joaonar]

After we let it to work for 15/20 min's, we then washed the roof again and dried it completly once more.
Once dry, we started painting it.
Using the right method, we prepared some Por-15 paint for the task.

... and once everything was ready, we started painting it.
I used a brush in the rain gutter while Hugo was using his paint pistol.

In the end it was looking good.
I just hope it works as well as they say it will :lol: