Took the bus to a friend’s house today. He’s got a big garage and a sweet car lift so I was able to check out the underside of this thing.
Overall, I would say it’s some good and some bad. The underside of this bus is definitely crusty – the cargo floor will need a full replacement, the front valance and A pillars will need replaced. One cross beam looks pretty bad, but the big frame pieces are solid.
The front beam and steering components will need to be replaced eventually – I’m looking into getting a new front suspension built, and upgraded w/ disk brakes.
The rear set-up is in a little better condition. The bus has been lowered w/ a Beetle transmission and straight axle kit. I’m thinking that I want to replace this at some point with the stock bus reduction gear boxes and “freeway flyer” tranny from Rancho.
After checking out the underside of this beast, we took the bus to another guy’s house – John is retired and has worked on VW’s/ Hot Rods for a long time – he checked out my engine/ carb work and got everything running really well. I had it running ok, but he got it running real sweet!
