How I built my Interior units for my '72 Bay. FINISHED!!!

[cotswoldiver]

Probably one of the best reasons to go to Volksworld this year ... more superb work and really useful tips

 

[Hotrod]

Hi guys,

Just a short update at the moment. I received a telephone call from Carl at BeetleBank yesterday saying unfortunately it doesn't look as if we can make the Volksworld show as there are still a few issues to be addressed with the bus before it can go for the final prep and paint. Once such issue was straightening the gutter line around the bus. Most gutter lines you look at are slightly wavy but on my bus it has to be 100% arrow straight. This entails approximately 3 days intensive work which proved to be extremely difficult and time consuming. Carl now tells me he's done the driver side, the back and is now coming along the passenger side. Because of this issue taking unforeseen time, plus a few other last minute adjustments and repairs to the doors, it has slightly slipped in the time scale. I can't ask anymore of Carl, he has been on 7 days a week for a numer of weeks now and doing long 14 hour days to try and keep to the schedule so we have taken a number of items to Lee to be trimmed so at least that will be progressing and hopefully when it goes to Lee which is probably going to be in 2 weeks time, we may be able to pull some time back and still make the show but at this present time it is in doubt. None of us are prepared to sacrifice the standard and quality of work that has gone into this bus so far by rushing it for the show. All 3 of us are sad about this but at the same time we're optimistic and we can only do our best.

This is some of what Carl has had to contend with over the last couple of weeks:

The repair to the bottom of the drivers door had to be finished off. To acheive this, Carl had to scratch build a complete underside of the door, from the curb section running up to the corner and also fabricate the corner which then runs up to the lock area which is approximately 200mm long. To do this it had to be made into four sections and I'm sure when you look at the pictures of the finished job, you'll be amazed that it could even be done by hand but this is typical of Carl, there is no second best, it's got to be 100% correct.

Also the passenger door was slightly different at the bottom where the bottom of the door meets the footwell where the step is. On the drivers door there is a lip that profiles all the way around the door where the door card fits into so it borders the door card, but on the door we aqquired for the passenger side, it had a different bottom in that area and the lip didn't run completely round. Fortunately I had a scrap door I could cut this section off of which Carl could then scarf in to the new door so that both doors were then identical. I have pictures of the work completed up to about 75%.

I myself have been busy. I had some Just Kampers brackets for the table which are made in brown plastic. They work really well but I was quite happy to put the plastic clips onto the table top because you can't really see them and most of the time the table top will be stored away, out of sight, but the brackets which the table top clip in to would be fully visible at all times because they're screwed onto the panel facing the sliding door. I wasn't happy putting brown plastic clips on because it would let down the finish we're trying to acheive on the interior, so I decided to make some from billet aluminium. I have included some photos of how I did this. This entailed lots of cutting and filing and eventually polishing and the total hours spent making these two brackets was approximately 10-12 hours in total. Really pleased with the way they've turned out, hope you are too.

I'm going down to Devon to see the bus this weekend, so I'll have lots more pictures to put on next week.

Pictures:

This is the bottom of the passenger door. You can see that the lip down either side doesn't run across the bottom.

Here you can see Carl has cut away the section from the door and scribed in the new section ready for the tack welding. You can clearly see the lip returning round the bottom now.

Here you can see Carl just checking everything before he welds and leaving the corner until he finishes off.

Here it is all tack welded in ready for the last piece of the corner to be scribed and fitted. This is as far as I've got with the photos that Carl has sent me, I will take some photos of the finished door bottom on the weekend. For those of you that have looked through the whole of this thread, you'll see there has been a colosal amount of work that has been done on these two doors to get them identical and 100% solid.

This is the bottom of the drivers door which Carl had to fabricate from scratch. I'm sure you'll agree with me, it's a work of art and is a tribute to Carls skills as an all round Volkswagen restorer and customiser. You have to remember that the whole of this corner and the underside of the door is literally made by hand.

Here are some pictures of the process for making the brackets. Hopefully it all makes sense:

Once again, thanks for looking. Hope you like what you see and comments always welcome.

 

[dubdubz]

awesome work - I like the brackets, please don't think my comment as negative, but why not buy 2 import doors surely the hours spent on fabrication would have been more. Again just an observation.....

 

[gninnam]

Great work yet again :mrgreen:

 

[BO JANGLES]

Those brackets are very nice Steve

 

[Hotrod]

awesome work - I like the brackets, please don't think my comment as negative, but why not buy 2 import doors surely the hours spent on fabrication would have been more. Again just an observation.....

Hi,

Thanks for your comment. I love when people ask a question.

The doors that we've been working on were replacement doors as the original ones were completely rotted away. I managed to pick up the drivers door for £20 which was in extremely good condition apart from the area which Carl repaired. The near side door I also replaced with an import which had a slight crease in it. When myself and a friend of mine replaced the front arches, we hung the doors and put the arches in to suit the line of the doors so that they were all lined up correctly. When the bus went to Carl, he then looked at the nearside door which had a crease and said it would take too much time and effort to get the crease out so I then found a NOS door which turned out not to be as good as I thought it was when it was cleaned up. There was slight rot in the corner of that door so it was lucky that I still had the door that was creased so I could cut the corner out of that for Carl to replace into the NOS one. It was then that we noticed the two doors had different finishes at the bottom. This is always worth looking at when replacing your doors to make sure you get a match pair. We also realised that the NOS one had vents in the front edge where the drivers side didn't. This is why there has been so much work done to the doors to get them the same and both in sound condition. Again when Carl hung the NOS door on the near side, it again changed the line of the front wheel arch so that then had to be cut and realigned to suit the outer skin of the door. This is the reason we've had to do so much work on these doors to get them identical and 100% sound. We did replace a pair of doors on my friends bus with californian imports which cost alot of money and also had dents which had to be addressed so just because they're imports, doesn't mean they're perfect and will require work.

Hope this answers your question and once again thanks for asking.

Regards.

Steve.

 

[dubdubz]

ahhhh attention to detail - very good, more trouble than most would go to - so credit to you seeking the perfection

as I said I hope you didn't mind me asking, there wasn't any bad vibes meant...I was actually thinking if the doors didn't need all the fabrication the bus may have made VoWo show !!

I don't have the patience or the income to achieve such standards - so I'm please someone does, as it's nice to see a really mint bay in all it's glory. But please I do ask that it will get used and not squirrelled away........ :lol:

 

[andewilson]

love the effort on the bracket mate. fantastic. wish i still had the time to put into my bus as it is amazing what can be done with simple tools and a bit of thought. i remember building my beetle at 20 years old and not having a hacksaw, so cut every bit of m10 stud work and metal conduit i fitted the seats with with a half round file :shock: as for the doors mate. that is one set of extra doors now back on a van. save as much as you can. throw nothing away.

 

[Sausage]

Loving the brackets, may have taken a long time but they look absolutley tip top and the devil is always in the detail!

 

[Hotrod]

Hi guys,

Went to Devon to see my bus and check on the progress on Saturday 12th. Karls made a super job of the gutter straightening, it really is arrow straight. Unfortunately we deffinately won't be able to make it to the VolksWorld show because of these final adjustments and finishing off the shell for paint. Also Karl and I had forgotten all about prepping the fibre glass section of the pop top roof which again Karl has made a super job of.

I received a call from Karl on the 17th to say he was ready to mix the black and add the red fleck to it to paint the roof, pop top and the bumpers and to ask how much red I wanted in the black. After a brief chat, we came to the conclusion that the only way to get this right was for me to go to Devon again on the weekend of the 19th/20th which clashed with DubFreeze. So off we went again on Friday evening, leaving at half 5 after work and arrived at 10.35, just in time for a pint in the pub so it wasn't all bad! Met Karl on the Saturday morning and spent all Saturday experimenting, adding the red to the black and then adding more and more then taking some away until we got it right! If you put too much pearl in then it will start to turn the black to red so we settled on 8%. If you stand back, it still looks black and then if you get really really close you'll notice the red specs so shouldn't be too 'blingy'.

I have spoken to Karl this evening and he tells me if everything goes to plan, the bus should go to the paint booth for the final top coats and laquer on Monday 7th March so fingers crossed. Once painted, we then have to polish the laquer on the roof and refit the fibre glass base of the pop top and then the bus can be delivered to Lee so we can then fit the headlining, carpet and finish the red of the interior work.

I had another call from Lee last night to say he has now finished trimming the parcel shelf and he is working on the centre console. Once he has completed them, he will then send me some pictures. I really can't wait to see these as it will cheer me up after missing the show.

In prepping the fibre glass pop top skirt, Karl has given it a coat of black gloss just to double check it is absolutely perfect. I got really excited seeing some gloss paint on a part of my bus after nearly 3 years, even though it was only a guide coat to check everything was right but it looked amazing. The pictures don't do this justice as there is a lot of dust on the surface but I think you'll be able to get an idea of how good it is.

Karl has also condemned my original rear bumper as it wasn't up to scratch so ordered a repro one from Heritage. To keep this looking original, we cut off the orignal ends of the condemned bumper about 100mm long and then cut off the ends of the repro ones because they're the same as the split bumper. When finished off it should look really good and you won't be able to tell the difference.

Here are the pictures:

We had a trial fitting of the Blue Bird full width rock'n'roll bed which we have had blasted and powder coated in satin black to match the rest of the interior. It came with the handle which you can fit to either side that helps you flip it back into the seat position. The idea of the handle is you life up the base of the seat from the bed position, hook the end of the arm onto the head of the bolt and push down which should then return it to the seat position. On trying this out we found that you had to lift the seat so high that it failed on the sides of the bus! Has anyone else had this problem as it'd be interesting to hear if you have. We went to great lengths to get the bed set up correctly, making sure everything was parrallel and square and making sure the kick panel frame was at 90 degrees to the floor as it should be. We soon solved the problem by removing the curved handle, re drilling the pivot hole approx 50mm further down and then replaced. This then worked fine. We then only had to lift the front part of the seat up to about 35-40 degrees for the arm to sit in the correct position. We then didn't like the angle that the handle finished up in when the bed was back in the seat position so we then cut through the underside of the handle through the original bolt hole, removed a small wedge shaped piece and then folded the handle back down to close up the gap. This then brought the handle in line with the base of the seat frame which is much more neater. We then found that the nylon roller was fouling on one of the arms and just kept the seat base off of its mounting plate on the back by a couple of mm so we removed the arm and put a neat half round notch in the arm and bolted it back together and everything worked perfect. So now the arm and the handle have got to be powdercoated again.

Here you can see the new modded handle. If you had this fitted to your bed you'd be able to see how much we have altered this by.

Here are some pictures of the roof cap:

Here are some shots of the gutter:

These are just a few of the engine bay now it's all prepped:

Here's a couple of shots of the new bumper with the old ends fitted:

If anyone is interested in the remains of my original bumper in reasonably good condition but not to Karls standard. So if you've a damaged or dented bumper with good ends then it could be put back to original with the remains of my bumper and the ends of yours if anyone is interested. If you are let me know by PM and I can send a picture and arrange to bring it to VolksWorld. I'm also going to be selling a brand new wood rim steering wheel which is a 15" which came from Midland Wheel Company. There current price is £81 plus the hub which is £32. I am selling the rim without the hub as I'll be using this, the wheel is straight out of the box, never been used and I'm looking for £60. Again I could put pictures up on request and could post (for a fee) or bring to VolksWorld if easier.

Once again thanks for looking. All comments are welcome and appreciated. Hope you like what you see.

Steve.

 

[gninnam]

Steve,

As usual, well written and your descriptions are very clear

The GRP skirt in black looks very good with an excellent mirror finish 8)

Well done to the guys for getting it to this stage :mrgreen:

 

[Hotrod]

Hi guys,

Just received these pictures from Lee the trimmer. They are of the parcel shelf and of the work carried out so far on the center console. Really chuffed It's all really beginning to come together now.

Here they are:

Can't wait to see the lid finished for the centre console.

The parcel shelf has just got to have the centre section where the handbrake passes through wrapped in black vinyl and the aparture on the left hand side is for the fuses. I haven't yet given Lee the cover to finish it off.

Hope you like what you see. Any comments always welcome.

Tomorrow night I'll be adding some pictures of my other toy.

Regards.

Steve

 

[gninnam]

Steve,

Those units look fantastic 8)

Won't be long before you are fitting them in the van :mrgreen:

 

[BO JANGLES]

Lee works some more of his magic, Steve ...................... & what other toy ?????

 

[Hotrod]

Hi guys,

As I posted the other evening, I thought you might like to see some of my other toys. I know these aren't Volkswagen but I've seen other people on the forum posting various topics of their other hobbies which I think is quite nice so here are a couple of mine.

Here is my John Cooper Garage Works S. John Cooper bought 25 Mini Coopers from Rover in 2000. They were then converted to the Works S by fitting a new exhaust manifold, Ratio rockers, Stage 3 cylinder head, different air filter amongst other mods.

On the interior, it is fitted with aluminium door trim, pedals and gear knob all with the JCW insignia. The interior is full leather with an engine turned aluminium dashboard complete with magnolia gauges.

The car came with a JCW garage plague on the glove box stating number 14 of the 25 run which is also on the number plate. The car has only covered 37,000 miles from new and is 90bhp and has a 0-60 of 9 seconds.

Here are some pictures:

This is my other main hobby when I'm not playing with VW's. I build pre 65 Triumph Trials Tiger Cubs. The one you'll see in the pictures below is a 1961 Triumph T20T which when I bought it from a guy in Cheshire, was an absolute wreck! It took me approximately 3 years to build. They only made approximately 630 of this model and it was a 1 year only range. It has got a few mods on from when it left the factory such as aluminium rims and tank but the seat is original (and took me 3 years to find) as are the frame and forks. The engine was built to the full factory spec with lots of NOS parts.

I'm presently also building one for my son and also I have a 1961 SL Sports Cub which again is only a 1 year model which they made approximately 1800 of. The engine for the SL is now fully built with NOS parts and I've just got to refit the cylinder head. These two bikes won't be finished until after the camper has returned. I've been doing this hobby for approximately 12 years. They have now gained a very popular following in the world of pre 65 trials and spares are now getting quite scarce but fortunately I have a good stock.

I've also got a 1966 Triumph Bonneville T120 UK model and a Vespa PX125 disc model which I bought for £40 which now has a race crank fitted and a ported crank case and a 180cc barrel kit fitted and goes quite well, really fun to ride!

Hope you like what you see. Comments always welcome.

Steve.

 

[gninnam]

A man of many talents I see 8)

Love the mini - would love another one, but get the van on the road first.

Love the bikes also - would love another one, but get the van on the road first (see a common thread appearing!!)

Keep us posted on the bikes as I like to see what you come up with next (not looked at Tritons yet??) :mrgreen:

 

[Guest]

mental restore. so many class custom touches, love it! 8)

 

[BO JANGLES]

Lets see the Bonnie Steve 8)

 

[froggy]

Love the Mini :mrgreen:
The van has future 'best in show' written all over it and is definately a magazine cover shot waiting to happen

 

[Hotrod]

Love the Mini :mrgreen:
The van has future 'best in show' written all over it and is definately a magazine cover shot waiting to happen

Hey,

Was good to meet you at the weekend and chat to John. Hope to catch up with a few more of you in the summer when the bus is finally finished.

Glad you like the Mini and thanks for the very kind comments about the bus.

Regards.

Steve