My not so New Camper!!

[burns808]

Hello,

After lurking around on here for a few months I have at last bought a camper

It will hopefully be delivered this week if all goes to plan. Its a 1970 ex USA Westy with a couple of minor rust holes in the cab floor, crappy yellow blow over paint job but more importantly no engine, rear valance or rear bumper!

The plan of action will be to get hold of a 2nd hand std 1600tp engine, clean the engine bay/gearbox, renew the brake/fuel lines, new shoes and brake cylinders all round general tidy and then get through the MOT to enable me to get it registered. Getting an engine is the most important thing first off as I will need to move it up and down my drive and obviously cannot do this on my own, so has anyone a complete engine for sale or can anyone recommend a breaker ( near to the midlands area if possible ), I am going to need the full tinwear and engine support bar.

I last had a Beetle in 98 so while not new to the aircooled vehicles in general I will be asking a lot of (probally stupid!) questions so I apologise in advance

As soon as it arrives I will post some detailed pictures up.

Thanks

Nick

 

[ant]

congrats and welcome, just keep an eye out on ebay and vzi an engine will show up soon i'm sure

ant

 

[Cali_bay]

Welcome, looks a great project .. keep the pictures coming

 

[AxlFoley]

Hello

Welcome to the forum, that looks like a nice bus.

Mark

 

[vesp]

Hello and welcome. I had alook at that bus when i was searching for one. In fact that was the bus that got me to karman konnection in the first place, but their 72 westy caught my eye instead. Nice bus.

 

[burns808]

Thanks guys - have been checking both vzi and ebay for campers for the past few months so will keep at it.

I should have taken some more pictures yesterday as I keep trying to remember what it was like!!!! I am trying to put to the back of my mind the spider situation! :shock:

 

[maybee]

welcome to the forum !! sorry font of all knowlege lol

 

[gninnam]

The plan of action will be to get hold of a 2nd hand std 1600tp engine, clean the engine bay/gearbox, renew the brake/fuel lines, new shoes and brake cylinders all round general tidy and then get through the MOT to enable me to get it registered.

Hope you are right with your list - these vans, whether from here or sunnier climes, tend to hide surprises :roll:

 

[burns808]

I am 100% positive that there will be hidden surprises that catch me out - just hoping that there are not too many.

 

[cyberdyne systems]

Looks like a nice straight van, should be exciting getting everything together, please take lots of pics for the forum!

Gareth

 

[burns808]

The eagle has landed!

I was'nt quick ( or composed! ) to take a picture before I had got it up the drive way.

From behind -

Drivers side -

Passengers -

Inside at the back -

There is a strange arrangement with the ignition :roll: -

Will need to get that sorted. But all in all I am pleased - more so after having another look round and checking the parts I had missed from the weekend. Will have to sort out the curtains ASAP as they look like something that Rod Stewart would have up!

The hunt is still on for an engine because I cannot push this on my own. Have emailed a couple of places but no luck yet.

I was lucky as soon as it had turned up the guy across the road came over and let me know that his wife was now very jealous as she has always wanted one!!

Next thing is to have a good poke about at the weekend and start listing up what parts are needed and see what welding needs to be done. Will get more pics then.

 

[gninnam]

So - not even one horse power then :roll:

Glad you got it on the drive OK - hope the list doesn't end up to high

 

[burns808]

Ok, Started off the weekend and had a poke around the engine bay and started to give it a clean down - Only took one picture but will get some more -

As you can see the gearbox is suspended by a piece of wood and wire - I am not sure if there is a bracket missing or if this is just to keep movement down to a minimum while being transported?? Have looked at pics on others threads and checked my Haynes manual but cannot see anything obvious missing. Will post in the tech forum.

After this was done I got the misses to help clear out the cab of the carpet and grime that was there -

As I already knew there were a couple of holes in the cab floor. Drivers side -

Passenger side -

Nothing that looks too bad.

The rear luggage area had a sheet of fiberglass insulation under the bed cushion which looks like has caused this surface rust - again nothing major at all. However I did find the flare wedged behind the cabinet!!!!

I also found the mosquito net for the rear hatch and the front curtain with the poppers - which was nice!

This weekend coming I want to take out the cabinets and clear out the rest of the interior.

Just got back in tonight from picking up the following -

Very pleased - still on the engine hunt!!

 

[junkyardjim]

Hi Burns808

Nice van, a true early!

There is no bracket missing for your gearbox this is how they are, the gearbox is
supported by the engine/support bar at the rear, which i see you now have!

On your search for an engine make sure you obtain the correct piece of front(by front
i mean nearest the front of the vehicle) tinware that goes above the the gearbox bell
housing if your going for a twinport with a doghouse fan, as these are hard to come by
and are often missing from second hand (and new) engines.

Good luck keep us posted, hope to see you at a show next year!!

 

[burns808]

Blimey, I knew it was a while since this was updated but September 09 is ridiculous. Anyway, periods of nothing happening, some activity, nothing happening then lots happening have resulted in this -

:msn4: taken this morning.

Plus lots of piles of parts to put this back together. I am hoping to get the van back in the next month or so and I will be back to give a full and detailed update on what I have (and have not) been doing for the past 28 months (makes it sound even worse !!!!)

Nick

 

[Jailed up]

Nice one! what colour is it going to be??

 

[burns808]

Savannah Beige. Not seen too many westie's this colour - don’t think it was an original option for a westie (happy for anyone to point me in the direction of any pics!! )

I would have preferred to keep it og paint, but the yellow that had been blown over (and white above the swage line) was not able to stripped back and was nasty (rubbed it hard and it turned your hand yellow!). There are lots of white westies so thought I would try something different. If you can call a std vw colour different!!! :lol:

Had a bit of welding done, complete re-wire, t2d spindles and spring plates and loads of little parts to bolt on when its back. Got complete new seals to replace.

Will post up more details and pics soon.

Nick

 

[Barkafer]

Nice one, just round the corner from me I like the Savannah 8)
If you need a hand any time just give me a shout
Chris.

 

[burns808]

Ok, so things have taken longer than I had hoped, but we are now getting there. First off a bit of history on the past 30 or so months!!
First off I removed the interior

That’s the rubbish that I found under the bed. There is a driving permit but cannot make out the persons name, but I kept this in the ‘history’ file.
Only had a bed and wardrobe so not much to do. This was then stored in my shed from Sept 2009 until March 2012.
I had gotton hold of an engine a couple of weeks of having the bus.

This was stripped down, tinwear painted satin black, new heat exchangers, exhaust, pushrod tubes etc etc. Picked up an original distributor to replace the 009 that was fitted and various bits of tinwear that was missing. Also picked up what seemed like a million and one other bits to put the engine back together. This was done over the winter of 2009/10 in my garage.
And there it sat on my knackered workmate, in the way until last October – but more of that in a bit.

 

[burns808]

When the weather turned warmer I decide to find out how bad the rear corner was as I knew the battery tray was kippered and I could sense filler
Bit of digging and…

I had also picked up a small welder and a couple of panels from Schofields at Volksworld 2010. Yes, I was going to fix this up with no problems at all!
Cut the corner off and replaced with new. I thought I had photos of this but cannot find any now. I was reasonably happy with the corner. I replaced the battery trays on both sides – main one had rotted away and the other was buckled. Think that the rear closing panel had hit something and bent round pushing up the middle of the tray.
At this point I started to have a poke around underneath and everything was solid with the exception of the heater tube!

A combination of corrugated metal tube, bean cans and jubilee clips.
Hacked this out and replaced with new.