69 delta green westfalia restoration

[trebor]

Nice job on the front panel I've been thinking of lowering mine but I'm not so sure now. Would it effect the suspension if you just had dropped spindles ? Or was it the lower profile tyres or adjusters that made the ride bad ?

 

[leon]

Thanks for the comments.

Nice job on the front panel I've been thinking of lowering mine but I'm not so sure now. Would it effect the suspension if you just had dropped spindles ? Or was it the lower profile tyres or adjusters that made the ride bad ?

Nothing wrong with the ride quality, as long as you're on a nice flat freshly tarmac'd road. It's the not being able to drive over speed humps, and watching for the potholes/raised manholes that were the problem, especially when fully loaded. It was just too low. Mildly lowered is probably the best compromise in my opinion. Although it did look cool lowered.

 

[trebor]

When you say mildly, 3 1/2" maybe ? That's what I was thinking.

 

[leon]

Long time no see! 8)
Well, i've finally got a bit of time and money to spend on my bus, so I decided to do a long overdue job. I finally got around to sand blasting the underside of my van. 10 years in the UK has started to highlight and exaggerate rust from when it first arrived in the UK. Surprisingly it has faired a lot better than I was expecting, with a couple of small repairs needed before I paint it.

On her way to be blasted.



and a couple of sneeky bare metal shots of the underneath





Also, I paid the boys at Midland Paintwerks a visit, and the have very kindly lent me their rotisserie to help with my job of painting the belly. Cheers



I'll post more pictures of my progress as i go along. Camperjam is the deadline, so busy busy.

Finally, I convinced my boy to join the world of air-cooled ownership. He turns 17 next month and he bought and I picked up a 1966 1300 beetle for him to learn to drive in.
8) first car. Can't wait to borrow it.
Surely that should be the other way around :msn4:

 

[*Sam*]

Great stuff mate and great first car for your lad.

 

[leon]

Great stuff mate and great first car for your lad.

Yep, he's worked hard for it, cheers sam.

I've put this repair off since i first got the bus as it was never a MOT fail. Lazy boy :roll:
Done now.

 

[leon]

Moved on to the ill fitting kloggen ploppen corner panel. Thought about patching the main areas that needed attention, but decided all the other panels were good except the corner, so just replaced the lot.
Scholfields arch finishing panel.....spot on, heritage said same panel was for 69-79, but wrong width!!(beware, apparently they've never had one back!!!)
JK's preservation panels........spot on. Battery tray and rear arch piece.
Klooken shitten corner panel.......complete bag of pants!!! :evil: NOT EVEN THE CORRECT GAUGE METAL :roll:
Any way pics

Because of the poor fit and alignment, i noticed the welds were pulling a nice 'V' into the seam. Wasn't the gap, as it was spot on.





Tacked it all up and knocked the shape back into it.



No return edge on the corner, so had to weld one on. The seam isn't greatest, but will have to do under the circumstances.



Ground all the welds down, but made sure I didn't grind the surrounding metal. Time consuming, but keeps the strength apparently.



Thanks for looking.

 

[leon]

Battery tray in. Started to Epoxy prime the underneath. ****** job!

 

[leon]

6hrs later.

 

[mike202]

looking good, pity about the ***** fitting panels but well done for making it all work

 

[midlandpaintwerks]

Good work Leon , great use of a ruler to make sure your panels aren't warped ,every welder should use one, epoxy paint = no rust in the future.
Midlandpaintwerks

 

[leon]

Cheers Mike, they really are bad panels.
Thanks MPW, I get a lot of my hints and tips from following your Facebook page. It's nice that you share your skills. If anyone else is interested in learning from them https://www.facebook.com/pages/Midlandpaintwerks/144882895669437?fref=ts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Had a really good father's day with my boy and his bug, and my van. Now his exams are done, he has started to get her ready for MOT.



It's going to need a bit of welding, but nothing that will phase us.

Also i finished all the welding on my corner, and cleaned it up, and today I've seam sealed all the joints/seams/welds under the bus. My MOT station aint going to know what hit them 8) Hopefully i'll be painting the top coat tomorrow.

 

[leon]

As satisfying as fitting bling is, this has got to be the most satisfying job I have done on my van so far by a mile and not a bit of bling in sight! Hopefully this will help it last another 40plus years.



Hopefully I'll get time to fit this bad boy NOS rear bumper before camper jam, but i very much doubt it. 8)

.

Got to paint the front 1/3 of the underneath of the bus now.

 

[leon]

All done and ready for camper jam. Even managed to do rear bumper and overriders. Shame about the primered panels, but I had to get it on the road for the show. Clean it all tomorrow and pack.

 

[DeeDeeTheBay]

nice paintwork you've done there Love that your son is into his vw's aswell, super cool! Hope he gets the results he wants from his exams 8)

 

[leon]

It's been a while. i stopped visiting when i had problems with photo bucket, but seems it's all changed here.
Ive done shed loads on my van since i was last on here. Mostly a complete restoration. Ill be putting it into paint early next month, heres a couple of pics of how its looking at the moment.i'll add more later on when i start rebuilding and its in paint.
Thanks for looking

 

[leon]

Before i decided to restore

 

[Fernando Palmela]

Beautiful....................

 

[gninnam]

Great work - coming on nicely

 

[leon]

Thanks Andy, thanks fernando.