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We started taking the bus apart! By the end of the day, I’m super stoked to actually dig in and get started getting this thing fixed up – at the same time, I’m partially terrified at the work ahead.  I know it seems like a lot now, but we are going to keep plugging away one project at a time until this bus is up and ready to go.

We started by taking the front window frames out – the windows are supposed to slide open, but are rusted shut.  Like everything on this bus, the frames were only held in by 3 of the 6 screws/ bolts.  The two outer screws were so rusty I had to drill them out!

The pop out window ledges have some rust holes that will need a fixin’.

We pulled the seats and got started wire wheeling various areas to see what type of replacement metal I need to be buying – fun times!

I also pulled all of the dash electrical out.  I’m going to attempt to restore the speedo and all of the switches – hopefully I can put everything back together…

This is plan F… load up the chairs and roll ‘er out as she is!

Went to the Omaha Summer Arts Festival today – bought some sweet VW art!

The event had tons of booths with different artists and food stalls from all over – and a random Dish network booth whose sales person sauntered over and asked Noelle “Who’s your cable provider Ma’am” to which my awesome snarky wife replied with a smirk on her face “…None of them”

One of the booths housed Michael and Mary Ann, a couple of VW enthusiasts with a passion for their Karmann Ghia. They had a bunch of really cool pieces, and we couldn’t resist the blue and white splitty!  Check out their work at www.michaelholmesart.com!

I’ve always wanted to see what lies beneath the green paint on this bus. Today, we started stripping down the back hatch – the goal is to see if we can get it back to original paint.

The top layer of green falls right off with a little scrapping from a razor blade.

The underlying primer is much more difficult – we tried a bunch of different combinations of scrapping, scrubbing with acetone and paint remover, and a little elbow grease.  Turns out what worked best for us is a healthy paper towel rubbing of Motsenbocker’s Graffiti Remover on the primer, then another healthy rubbing on the dark brown respray paint with no-scratch dobie pads.  After lots and lots of scrubbing, the original paint starts to shine through.  Yay!

Unfortunately, it takes hours to get even a small spot visible – and, as we uncovered more of the back hatch, it became clear that the original paint had been heavily sanded when the bus was repainted that hideous dark brown at some point in its history.  This means we won’t be able to just strip the bus down to OG paint – oh well, we will re-paint it back to that color anyways.

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.  The high-level story is that I’m in the process of quitting my very stable and safe corporate job to fix up the bus and drive it around the country!  Noelle has been building up a graphic design business, and we’re planning on taking a year or so to work remotely while we travel around the US (and maybe beyond!)

For the time being we’ve moved to the sunny hills of western Iowa, and into my parents’ basement (classic millennials). The bus is all set up in their nice detached garage, and I’m really looking forward to tearing it all apart.  The plan is to get going in earnest on restoring and turning this thing into a camper – I’ve also started a build thread on thesamba.com to glean as much info as I can from that amazing resource.

We’re going to get started taking this thing apart so we can really see what we are working with!

Thankfully, this isn’t a picture of hail damage on the bus. It is a picture of hail damage on my real car… but at least that has comprehensive insurance!

Crazy storm rolled through on Tuesday night – of course I had driven the bus to a friend’s place for a friendly game of poker…  It started with a few rain drops while I was slowly but surely giving away all my precious poker chips.  I thought to myself “hmm might be driving home in the rain.. won’t be the first time”  Then all hell broke loose – huge chunks of ice start raining down – biggest hail I’ve ever seen.  I’m freaking out, Noelle is calling me… she’s freaking out.  The poor bus is sitting entirely exposed in the parking lot!!  I run out into the storm, hail smashing down around me, fling the cargo doors open, the sound inside the bus reverberating off the sheet metal was deafening – I grabbed the blanket that covers the rear seat, flung that up on the roof – grabbed the thick rubber floor mat, hefted that up on the roof.  I got most of the roof covered and ran back inside completely soaked!

Fast forward 10 minutes, I dominated the newly restarted poker game, and decided I better get that bus back home and safe in the garage.  The bus definitely took care of me on the way back – pouring down rain, massive wind, flooded out roads, and hail, more hail – we drove through it all; the roads were basically empty, and I roared that thing all the way home.  The engine was strong, the bus felt solid, I pushed it hard. Finally pulled into the garage – safe!  I did a cursory check of the roof – definitely some paint chipped off, but it doesn’t look like there’s any real damage – whew!  My real car wasn’t so lucky…

I spent some time Wednesday airing out the bus and garage – glad we survived the storm!