Author: Drew

Well it’s been a pretty slow, tough week for bus progress, but we’re getting there. I’ve doubted myself quite a bit with this whole “body work” thing.  Every time I look closer at this stupid bus, I see a panel that has holes, or some hack job from a previous owner – it seems like a mountain of work!

Basically everything on this bus is slightly cribbled – It’s sometimes original, sometimes hacked, sometimes rusty, or sometimes a mixture of all three. Nothing really seems to come together very easily at all. I mentioned how I was starting with the “easy” cargo door project, but this devolved into peeling away thick layers of bondo and realizing the full extent of the rust issues.  After a few episodes of freaking out in self-doubt and project anxiety, I got to work figuring out this welding stuff.

“This thing is junk!”

It works best if you assume the correct position (I was going to crop this pic, but kept laughing every time I looked at it – I feel like it’s important for people to see me in all my bus working glory!)

Ok now we got this thing working.

Welded a piece of sheet metal over the heater tube – also finished wire wheeling the floor – whew a lot of work.

Finally, after a week of running back and forth to various tool stores (Harbor Freight is my friend) and fumbling around with welding grinding (and then repeating that process over and over and over) and body hammering and fiberglassing and Bondo-ing and sanding (and then repeating the process over and over and over)…. yeah I’ve decided I like working on mechanical stuff like VW engines… but a love of auto body restoration I do not have!

Before

After

The door looks great now that its welded and primered.  I feel great; I’ve learned a ton this week; I’ve gotten over all of my doubts, and now its just a matter of time before we around out there getting lost and breaking down in the beautiful American countryside!!

 

 

We dug too greedily… too deep…  and found out that the bus is hiding all kinds of past scars under layers and layers of body filler!

I decided the face of the cargo door needed to be sanded a little – we knew there was at least some Bondo on the thing because it had cracked over the winter. So I start sanding and sanding with the new electric DA sander (another Harbor Freight purchase).

After a lot of sanding, the Bondo was all still there… so I got out the grinder and went deeper… a lot deeper!

Turns out there is like an inch of this stuff, but it almost falls right off.  It looks like some previous owner decided to cover up a huge dent in the door without doing any body work, and without even grinding off any paint!  I’m brand new to all of this, but everything I have read and watched says body filler needs to be applied directly to the sheet metal; if it’s not, it won’t grip the surface at all.  I even read it in the 1989 “Haynes Automotive Body Repair and Painting Manual” that I randomly found on the shelf at O’Reilly – the fact that the Internet wasn’t around is no excuse!!

I start chipping away at it with a hammer and screwdriver.  At one point, I opened up some hidden reservoir of moisture – the bus started bleeding – just great!  This is going to be a lot more work that I thought.

Noelle gets in on the sanding action.

Its a VW Bus Bondo Inkblot – tell me, what do you see?

So after clearing most of the thick body filler from the passenger side of the bus, its clear that it has been sideswiped and gouged at some point in the past.  The rear cargo door is now fully bent in and there are multiple deep dents.  Time to get out the tools!  I bought a hammer and dolly set a while ago, and rented this slide hammer thing from Autozone (only $180… yikes! Better not lose it).

After pulling and banging and freaking out and then calming down and then getting somewhat violently mad and then calming back down again, we had worked the door back into its original shape.  It still needs a little work, the dents aren’t as big now though, and at this point I think I can check ‘work auto body sheet metal back into place after a wreck off my (huge) list of things to do before I’m out!

We then started on the rear corners – could tell there was a lot of filler, but each corner represents its own version of a nightmare..

So… I’ve got a few more metal replacement pieces to buy (which I’m sure won’t really fit that well anyways!) We are going to check out the local VW place Monkey Nut VW to see if they sell what we need… Progress!

 

 

Well they definitely didn’t say this would be easy… and they ain’t lying! This post will document the last few days of work – by the end of this bus project, I will either have failed miserably, or will have so much confidence I won’t know how to handle it!

We decided to start with something “easy” – replacing the rotted out lower cargo door pieces.

Cut away the old.

I fit the new piece on, except it doesn’t really fit – it seems like the panel is too long and doesn’t match the contours of the original door supports at all… so I start to tweak it and hammer it and pretty much smack it around for a while.

This is after a day of messing around – it kind of looks like the original, but is way out of alignment.

After a lot more hammering and tweaking, and yanking with pliers here and there, I got it to kind of fit.  I know they say you always have to do a little bit of work to the replacement panels, but this seemed excessive, and these pieces aren’t cheap – the repo parts are better than nothing, but it doesn’t do much to help my already way too cynical and generally ‘pessimistic towards anyone who sells anything because it is all crap’ type of attitude!

To cap it all off, right before I call it a day on fitting the part to the door, Noelle suggests I try to close the door… well of course the frickin door doesn’t close!  It is getting wedged onto that weird platform thing that some previous owner slapped onto the edge of the floor… perfect.  Looks like I’ve got some more work to do before welding this sucker back together!

We bought a canoe today!  Saw this thing on the side of the road, and bought it right then and there.

We had just been talking about wanting to stick a sweet old canoe on top of the bus when Noelle saw this sitting in a field with a for-sale sign.  I slammed on the brakes and whipped the car around to take a closer look.  The current owner, Dwayne, came out; we chatted about how cool the canoe was, and we struck a deal – Sweet!

Turns out it is a 15 ft. Grumman aluminum canoe made in Marathon, NY that probably dates from the late ’60’s – in other words, it is the perfect canoe to sit on top of a ’67 VW bus!  It is in great shape, no rust at all, one minor dent, but extremely well built.

The next post will hopefully document my slow, but continuing progress on getting the first piece of replacement metal welded onto the bus.

I jacked the bus up today and went to town with that angle grinder.  My goal was to remove the front bumper brackets that had been welded on by a previous owner.

Started by grinding down the welds, careful not to remove original metal.

A little bit of muscle.

A little more grinding and cutting…

Whew this is a lot of work! (thanks to Noelle’s paparazzi like camera work)

Finally got the two brackets out – they look pretty good, and I won’t have to buy replacements – Success!

I also cut out the cargo area heater tube.  This is the one permanent non-stock hack that I am making to this bus – we are turning it into a camper, and that space will be needed for storage.  I will weld a cover plate over the hole, so that hot air can still make it up front.

 

Going to work on the cargo doors next!