Hi once again,
Went to see my van this weekend at Beetle Bank in Devon and have taken a few photos but there's not much to see at this point in time but hopefully my next visit there'll be a bit more progress to show you.
I've owned my bus for approximately 8 years and have always liked VW campers. My wife and I were on holiday in Devon with my son and his friend when we decided we would buy another vehicle. My wife then suggested buying a camper, my youngest son then turned round and said "You needn't think I'm getting in one of those" so the wife and I looked at each other and decided we were definitely getting one. So for the rest of the holiday, whenever we saw a camper, we'd stop to have a look and talk with the owners. We spoke to one chap in a car park and asked him what to look for when buying one and he replied, "Rust, rust and more rust!". We then went out for the day to Minehead where they had a small car show on the sea front and whilst walking along we found a guy with a Type 2 Bay window so we got talking to him and asked what to look for and he echoed what the previous guy said. He also mentioned that there was a big show coming up called Vanfest in about 2 weeks time (in 2002) so we decided we would go to Vanfest, talk to as many people as we could and look at as many buses as we could to get some ideas and then begin our search.
After coming back from Vanfest we had more of an idea of what we was looking for and what sort of money we would be paying, so the search was on. Fortunately we didn't have to travel too far, approximately 500 yards to the corner of our road because there was a Bay window Devon conversion pop top on an L reg just sitting there which never seemed to move very often. Fortunately my wife knew the owners father to talk to so we made inquires to see if he would be interested in selling it and a few days later the answer came back... Yes. We spoke to a mobile mechanic friend of mine who owned a camper himself and he came and gave it the once over and said it looked quite good. Paintwork wise, it had a really bad orange peel red spray with a white top but a full Devon interior including bunk beds. It had a reconditioned 1600 engine in the rear and ran quite nicely. After a test drive around the block a deal was struck and after parting with £1900 we were the proud owners of a Type 2 bay window camper. I still didn't really know much about these vehicles but I learn fast.
We used the camper for approximately 3 years in the condition it was in when we bought it in which time it had never given us any trouble and I'd had a good chance to look underneath. This bus was in remarkably good condition underneath. It only required small amounts of work to be done on it. I then asked one of my friends if he fancied doing Vanfest with us and his two children which he said yes as it'd make a nice weekend away. We hadn't even got half way there when he decided he wanted one too so the search was on once again when we got back. Within two weeks we had found another Devon pop top camper on ebay which was an MOT failure which he won for £1250. Fortunately my friend who is also called Steve, is an extremely good welder having been a coach builder by trade and a very good fabricator.
After 2 1/2 years of completely rebuilding his bus from the chassis up we started on mine, all that was required to be done was two new rear corners half way up to the rear lights, two new battery trays, two outer sills and one front off side jacking point. At some stage in its life it had a new front panel fitted which was rather poor quality work so we decided to take that off and replace it. We'd already done this on my friends so we knew exactly what to do. My friends bus was a 75 model which we converted to a low light with a step bumper. My own bus was a change over year but I always preferred the low light model so we did the same conversion with mine. The bottom part of the steps on the front wheel arches had the usual filler in but the rest was solid but decided we'd remove both arches completely which we did by drilling out all the spot welds so we could then remove them without any damage to the rest of the bus. We then hung the replacement doors on and realigned all the front wheel arch gaps to make sure everything was spot on before welding it all back up. It turned out to be a really good job thanks to my friends Steve. I then turned my attention to taking the bellypans off so the middle section unbolted and we took the air hacksaw to the outer panels and removed those and to my amazement it was absolutely pristine, you could still see the factory colour which had a minor oily look to it. The only little repair we had to do was a small repair patch to the inner sill at the front on the near side. The bus was extremely straight down the sides with no visible dents when all the interior was removed, but it had had some shoddy work done in its previous life apart from the front, someone had put the two rear corners over the top of the existing ones and to make it worse, had gas welded them on hence loads of distortion and it had just been skimmed over.
The bus has always been a work in progress bus but now it was time to find someone to prep and paint and finish off the jobs which I'd run out of time doing. My friend was fortunate enough to have a really good workshop which was his companies which allowed us to do the majority of the work on the buses but the business moved to Suffolk so we ran out of time to finish off the work on the underneath of the bus which consisted of fitting the rear lowering spring plates and new back plates, wheel cylinders... etc...
I spent near on 3 years looking at peoples work and talking to them. I spoke to quite a few which promised to do this and that but some never came back with an estimate. I looked at others works and decided that it wasn't for me. I then read an article on Beetle Bank in the VW magazine on a beetle restoration project. As the company was based in North Devon and not too far from where I have a caravan we decided next time we were down we would go and have a chat. Carl was the first guy who spoke common sense and didn't do the sales pitch and just literally told me what he would do to the bus and I liked what I heard. We then went away to think about it all and in the mean time spoke with people who Carl had done work for and visited him on a few more occasions and was told exactly the same thing which I was told the first time and so decided to place my bus with Carl at Beetle Bank. It has had to sit in line for a while because there was a beetle plus a splitty in front of me but now the work has started in the last few weeks hence not too much to see at the present. During the course of waiting for the work to start, I decided to add a few extra pieces to be done. We never intended for the pop top to be removed but always knew in the back of my mind that once the bus was finished it would look the business until we put the pop top up and then the bellows would let it down so we decided to have the roof completely taken off and new bellows fitted which turned out to be a blessing because Carl found two holes rotted through the roof underneath the fibre glass skirt which wasn't visible until the top was removed. This is the only part of the bus we have never seen so it was a good job it was removed.
Here are a few of the photos that I took at the weekend just to show you the stage it's at at the moment and how solid the bus is. Every single piece of paint has been removed from the exterior of the bus and at the moment it is just in etch primer. Carl has been busy seam welding the rear corners and other areas where new panel work was fitted. There are two small patches still left to be done in the rear wheel arches, as can be seen in the photos and a couple of seat belt mounts in the front and some small repair areas to the door shuts. I was fortunate enough to find a NOS near side front door but wasn't cheap but was the right way to go. The sliding door was absolutely perfect as was the tail gate but have replaced the engine lid.
This is under the front wheel arch. I cleaned off all the under seal and it came back to bright orange paintwork which I have given a coat of black hammerite smooth at the moment.
The rear floors are perfect.
You can see how clean the interior is.
Small amount of repair, approximately a couple of inches to be done on the lip of the rear wheel arch just before the curved area. Carl is giving it a thin skim of filler which he will then flat back so it is perfect.
This is a shot of the underneath. You can see how solid it is.
These are the only dents on the bus.
You can see the small repair to be done. This will be cut out and a new section welded in.
Carl's very tight for floor space at the moment so some of the stuff has had to go in the bus.
This is the patch which Carl welded in the roof after removing the pop top. Note how neat his welding is.
Hopefully Carl will be emailing pictures throughout the project and I will be visiting again in about 4 weeks time so more to come then.
After being in the bus scene for about 8 years now, I can't believe my luck that I only had to go to the bottom of my road to buy such a solid bus compared to what other poor devils have to go through.
Hope you like what you see. If you do, leave a comment.
Regards
Steve
Went to see my van this weekend at Beetle Bank in Devon and have taken a few photos but there's not much to see at this point in time but hopefully my next visit there'll be a bit more progress to show you.
I've owned my bus for approximately 8 years and have always liked VW campers. My wife and I were on holiday in Devon with my son and his friend when we decided we would buy another vehicle. My wife then suggested buying a camper, my youngest son then turned round and said "You needn't think I'm getting in one of those" so the wife and I looked at each other and decided we were definitely getting one. So for the rest of the holiday, whenever we saw a camper, we'd stop to have a look and talk with the owners. We spoke to one chap in a car park and asked him what to look for when buying one and he replied, "Rust, rust and more rust!". We then went out for the day to Minehead where they had a small car show on the sea front and whilst walking along we found a guy with a Type 2 Bay window so we got talking to him and asked what to look for and he echoed what the previous guy said. He also mentioned that there was a big show coming up called Vanfest in about 2 weeks time (in 2002) so we decided we would go to Vanfest, talk to as many people as we could and look at as many buses as we could to get some ideas and then begin our search.
After coming back from Vanfest we had more of an idea of what we was looking for and what sort of money we would be paying, so the search was on. Fortunately we didn't have to travel too far, approximately 500 yards to the corner of our road because there was a Bay window Devon conversion pop top on an L reg just sitting there which never seemed to move very often. Fortunately my wife knew the owners father to talk to so we made inquires to see if he would be interested in selling it and a few days later the answer came back... Yes. We spoke to a mobile mechanic friend of mine who owned a camper himself and he came and gave it the once over and said it looked quite good. Paintwork wise, it had a really bad orange peel red spray with a white top but a full Devon interior including bunk beds. It had a reconditioned 1600 engine in the rear and ran quite nicely. After a test drive around the block a deal was struck and after parting with £1900 we were the proud owners of a Type 2 bay window camper. I still didn't really know much about these vehicles but I learn fast.
We used the camper for approximately 3 years in the condition it was in when we bought it in which time it had never given us any trouble and I'd had a good chance to look underneath. This bus was in remarkably good condition underneath. It only required small amounts of work to be done on it. I then asked one of my friends if he fancied doing Vanfest with us and his two children which he said yes as it'd make a nice weekend away. We hadn't even got half way there when he decided he wanted one too so the search was on once again when we got back. Within two weeks we had found another Devon pop top camper on ebay which was an MOT failure which he won for £1250. Fortunately my friend who is also called Steve, is an extremely good welder having been a coach builder by trade and a very good fabricator.
After 2 1/2 years of completely rebuilding his bus from the chassis up we started on mine, all that was required to be done was two new rear corners half way up to the rear lights, two new battery trays, two outer sills and one front off side jacking point. At some stage in its life it had a new front panel fitted which was rather poor quality work so we decided to take that off and replace it. We'd already done this on my friends so we knew exactly what to do. My friends bus was a 75 model which we converted to a low light with a step bumper. My own bus was a change over year but I always preferred the low light model so we did the same conversion with mine. The bottom part of the steps on the front wheel arches had the usual filler in but the rest was solid but decided we'd remove both arches completely which we did by drilling out all the spot welds so we could then remove them without any damage to the rest of the bus. We then hung the replacement doors on and realigned all the front wheel arch gaps to make sure everything was spot on before welding it all back up. It turned out to be a really good job thanks to my friends Steve. I then turned my attention to taking the bellypans off so the middle section unbolted and we took the air hacksaw to the outer panels and removed those and to my amazement it was absolutely pristine, you could still see the factory colour which had a minor oily look to it. The only little repair we had to do was a small repair patch to the inner sill at the front on the near side. The bus was extremely straight down the sides with no visible dents when all the interior was removed, but it had had some shoddy work done in its previous life apart from the front, someone had put the two rear corners over the top of the existing ones and to make it worse, had gas welded them on hence loads of distortion and it had just been skimmed over.
The bus has always been a work in progress bus but now it was time to find someone to prep and paint and finish off the jobs which I'd run out of time doing. My friend was fortunate enough to have a really good workshop which was his companies which allowed us to do the majority of the work on the buses but the business moved to Suffolk so we ran out of time to finish off the work on the underneath of the bus which consisted of fitting the rear lowering spring plates and new back plates, wheel cylinders... etc...
I spent near on 3 years looking at peoples work and talking to them. I spoke to quite a few which promised to do this and that but some never came back with an estimate. I looked at others works and decided that it wasn't for me. I then read an article on Beetle Bank in the VW magazine on a beetle restoration project. As the company was based in North Devon and not too far from where I have a caravan we decided next time we were down we would go and have a chat. Carl was the first guy who spoke common sense and didn't do the sales pitch and just literally told me what he would do to the bus and I liked what I heard. We then went away to think about it all and in the mean time spoke with people who Carl had done work for and visited him on a few more occasions and was told exactly the same thing which I was told the first time and so decided to place my bus with Carl at Beetle Bank. It has had to sit in line for a while because there was a beetle plus a splitty in front of me but now the work has started in the last few weeks hence not too much to see at the present. During the course of waiting for the work to start, I decided to add a few extra pieces to be done. We never intended for the pop top to be removed but always knew in the back of my mind that once the bus was finished it would look the business until we put the pop top up and then the bellows would let it down so we decided to have the roof completely taken off and new bellows fitted which turned out to be a blessing because Carl found two holes rotted through the roof underneath the fibre glass skirt which wasn't visible until the top was removed. This is the only part of the bus we have never seen so it was a good job it was removed.
Here are a few of the photos that I took at the weekend just to show you the stage it's at at the moment and how solid the bus is. Every single piece of paint has been removed from the exterior of the bus and at the moment it is just in etch primer. Carl has been busy seam welding the rear corners and other areas where new panel work was fitted. There are two small patches still left to be done in the rear wheel arches, as can be seen in the photos and a couple of seat belt mounts in the front and some small repair areas to the door shuts. I was fortunate enough to find a NOS near side front door but wasn't cheap but was the right way to go. The sliding door was absolutely perfect as was the tail gate but have replaced the engine lid.
This is under the front wheel arch. I cleaned off all the under seal and it came back to bright orange paintwork which I have given a coat of black hammerite smooth at the moment.
The rear floors are perfect.
You can see how clean the interior is.
Small amount of repair, approximately a couple of inches to be done on the lip of the rear wheel arch just before the curved area. Carl is giving it a thin skim of filler which he will then flat back so it is perfect.
This is a shot of the underneath. You can see how solid it is.
These are the only dents on the bus.
You can see the small repair to be done. This will be cut out and a new section welded in.
Carl's very tight for floor space at the moment so some of the stuff has had to go in the bus.
This is the patch which Carl welded in the roof after removing the pop top. Note how neat his welding is.
Hopefully Carl will be emailing pictures throughout the project and I will be visiting again in about 4 weeks time so more to come then.
After being in the bus scene for about 8 years now, I can't believe my luck that I only had to go to the bottom of my road to buy such a solid bus compared to what other poor devils have to go through.
Hope you like what you see. If you do, leave a comment.
Regards
Steve
