mangosmoothie 2 ('oem plus' bespoke crossover bay)

[mango-smoothie]

i've been a lurker for a while.

i picked up a 72 westy a while ago and am building it up to match my 356 speedster A replica

Here my speedster:

here is the bay when i bought it:

i know how to weld, but up to this point, i had never done any bodywork before. as it turned out, the bus was not as good as i was led to believe - more on that later.

Anyway - i'm in Canada (on the West Coast - near Vancouver). i decided to build a family camper after seeing some beautiful ones at the Great Canadian VW Show in Vancouver a few years back. The goal was to take all the parts / features i wanted from the whole model line-up and put them together.

big T4 motor,
OEM gas heater,
late bay disc brakes,
wide 5 bolt pattern,
ball joints,
late (bigger) cooling vents,
early front dog legs,
lowight turns,
72 only gas filler with lock,
early rear tails,
early bumpers,
swivel passenger seat,
late bay westy top,
heavily lowered,
etc

big list, i know.

 

[mango-smoothie]

step 1 - learn bodywork:

 

[mango-smoothie]

step 2

disaasmble the whole shebang:

cut out the bad parts:

evaluate the rest:

remove beam:

 

[mango-smoothie]

fix cargo floor with donor metal:

work on swapping to early dog legs:

fab up 30mm beam raise for 100mm narrowed ball joint beam

fix windshield rust - luckily i was able to do spot repairs before serous rust took hold.

strip and cut off nose:

 

[mango-smoothie]

butt-weld everything

then used short-strand fiberglass to make sure no moisture is under the paint

seam sealed behind

this is the crap i was referring to on the first post of this thread:

 

[mango-smoothie]

40mm c notch in the rear with adjust able spring plate and horse shoe plates:

start thinking about getitng rid of those huge rear brake lights

 

[mango-smoothie]

fab up swivel seat for passenger seat. i had originally planned to do both drivers and passenger, but i wanted to keep the drivers bulkhead and i couldnt make the seat swivel with the bulkhead and steering wheel

go back to the tails:

test out some LED uber high watt tails:
running mode:

brake mode: 8)

 

[mango-smoothie]

oem metal:

moved the drivers seat over 2cms to align with the steering wheel

 

[mango-smoothie]

yada yada yada, i finished.

show bus done: Ultra VW Nov 2017

 

[PIEMAN]

Looking good. I have done similar things to mine.
Can't see a pic of the finished article unfortunately ....

 

[Jamiesuz]

Same here can't see the picture either

Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk

 

[mango-smoothie]

http://shop.kelsey.co.uk/issue/View/issue/UVW171/ultra-vw-171-november-2017

i'll upload some finished pics

 

[mango-smoothie]

never mind - found the online PDF

http://magazinelib.com/all/ultra-vw-issue-171-november-2017/

article starts on page 31
https://psv4.userapi.com/c816337/u444493842/docs/67df92055204/Ultra_VW__Issue_171__November_2017.pdf?extra=G8xoKfWlZRByczHvpqSkwXrLFcFjJ6v1-X48xXxnYySAI_YrgVtx0vA8j7wziDhiwFgz7FbZ0wpVibg1EXsd2ka304q2qijoREHrmGoOA9QulOAAZz2_p3pYhY-m8gs_

 

[mango-smoothie]

 

[graysummers]

Don’t muck about do you? Very nice.

 

[exuptoy]

Stunning Rides. Loving the 'stang too.

 

[mike202]

Great mag article read. Nice bus and some good innovations. [emoji39]


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