VW Archives -

Sold the Bus

March 1, 2015 Drew

I started this blog a couple years ago when I bought an old VW bus. I started out clueless, and bumbling around trying to get the thing to work – after two years – I’ve had a lot of fun with it, and have learned a bunch. I’m still pretty clueless, but owning this bus has certainly impacted my life in a lot of really positive ways!

We’re changing our plans with the camper, and starting to look for a more permanent base for our rambling ways. To help with that, I’ve been closing up some loose ends – the bus is definitely one of those ends.

I took about a week to clean up and beautify the bus. I painted and assembled the front and rear bumpers. Earlier, I bought the front bumper accessories and entire rear bumper assembly from Wolfsburg West, and was pretty happy with how they came together. It took some creative ratcheting with a strap to get the things to fit properly onto the bus, but I think they look really good.

I also did a little tuning to get the engine running decently again, and then, posted the ad. Within 5 minutes I had a call. After about an hour and a half, and a multitude of calls and emails, I had the thing sold – to the guy who called first no less!

He came to pick it up, and away went the bus. Two good years of trial and error, fun times, and a few doses of stress and worry. I never thought I would be someone who would enjoy something like an old air-cooled VW, but now I’m not sure I want to be someone who doesn’t own at least a couple. I’ll have to make do with an old camper right now, but who knows, I could see a nice shiny Bug in my future!

We’re getting back on the road soon – headed west for some new adventures.

North Carolina, Road Trip, VW

Camper Regroup

November 15, 2014 Drew

Our camper shakedown cruise is officially over! We completed our round-about circle through the backwoods of North and South Carolina, and headed back to do a little house sitting for the in-laws.

It was certainly nice to have a stationary roof over our heads for a little while, but I’m also really happy with how our first bit of camping experience went. All the systems seem to be functioning properly on this thing; we didn’t really have any major mechanical troubles – sweet!

It was fun to do some catching up with the kitties – we’re very thankful that Norm and Carla are taking care of them while we are on the road!

We also got to do some catching up with the bus. You know… that stupid rotting VW bus that started us on this whole wingdinger of a trip!

I mentioned that I had decided to “outsource” the bus work to a shop in Charlotte before we left for Amsterdam. Unfortunately, they didn’t actually have the capacity to do anything either, so the bus just sat outside for a couple months. I would rant more about car shops and how worthless each and every one of them is, but it’s just not really worth it.

The drive back from the shop went really well – the bus fired right up! I almost took a wrong turn down the on-ramp to I-85 which was fun, it was really cold with no windows, but the thing drove beautifully. We made it an hour or so up the road, and it’s now tucked away nicely in the garage – success! (kind of).

I’ve got a camper project list a mile long, but at this point nothing is critical. We’re planning on heading south next – hopefully we’ll find a beach soon!

Outsourcing

August 16, 2014 Drew

We finally dropped the bus off at the shop on Wednesday. It’s been a good summer, one filled with lots of bus work and time spent with family. At lot of progress has been made, but a lot of work on the bus still remains. With all the additional metal work needed on the bus, working on this thing was beginning to become more of a chore that I originally intended. The solution: outsourcing!

I’m planning on having Monkey Nut complete the remaining welding including the front floor, cargo floor, and rocker panels. They will also fix that big dent in the front nose – sweet! Now that my life has a sudden gaping hole of time and energy (remember I quit my corporate job back in May,) we have decided to switch gears and get started traveling. So… While we wait for the bus to get more work done, we are headed to the Netherlands!!

We are renting an apartment via Airbnb.com in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam for about 2 months. This will hopefully be our first of many different destinations and travel experiences, and I am planning on continuing to log it all with pictures and a few insights into what will (hopefully) be the start of a great trip!

In the coming week or so, I will be updating the site to be a little less about the bus, and a little more about our experiences – stay tuned for more.

Headed to Monkey Nut

August 10, 2014August 10, 2014 Drew

We’re taking the bus to the shop tomorrow! I’ve been on their schedule to get the safari windshields and front floor installed – depending on how it goes tomorrow, we might have them do a little more than that.

After getting the back end looking ok, I shifted my focus to the cargo floor and front passenger wheel well. They are a mess of rusty crusty metal.

Yikes! So after a week of looking at more and more rotten metal, I decided to start getting the bus as “road ready” as possible before driving to the shop. I started by cleaning up the front nose dent (notice I said cleaning up, not fixing up!!!)

That’s a sweet looking stud…welder….

I used a ratchet to gently pull on the front sheet metal – it worked pretty good! I didn’t get the nose finished, but it’s better than it was before.

I also started to re-install the electrical in the dash. I had pulled everything out earlier in my bus destruction phase – I didn’t label any of the wires, and just ripped everything out – idiot!! It took me a day but I got everything plugged back in – headlights work (well only one of them lights up right now), turn signals work (well all but the front right, and they all flash twice as fast.)

Found some decent chrome under the spray paint on the turn switch.

I re-soldered the signal switch to fix the emergency flashers – sweet!

So as of now, the bus is packed and ready to make the trip to Monkey Nut! The engine hasn’t been running that great, and its been stalling when I come to a stop sometimes… but I’m hoping for the best on the way there (and we’ve got AAA in our back pocket too.)

Uncategorized, VW

A Busy Week

July 29, 2014December 20, 2015 Drew

It’s been a busy week of bus work – I’m mentally and physically tired, my body is sore, and I’ve ruined about half my clothes with a variety of automotive chemicals and cancer-causing solvents… but I’ve learned a ton, and by the end of the week, the bus is finally beginning to come together! This post is going to be waaaay too long and the pictures will probably be waaaay to mundane, but here it goes:

I started by primering the completed passenger side from the cargo doors back to the rear engine vents. I then moved on to start body working the back end.

Used the hammer and dolly to work out the dented driver’s side corner, then applied a layer of fiberglass filler on the deeper gouges, and a layer of Bondo to even everything out. Something clicked with me and the electric orbital sander – we became best buds and it made the sanding process much smoother (literally).

Applied a coat of finishing putty and sanded everything feather smooth.

I’m definitely happy with how that corner turned out – now about that other corner…

A previous owner had replaced the passenger corner with a piece of sheet metal (and done a crappy job of making it fit). I decided to keep the sheet metal hack, but work it into shape. I used a dremel to cut off excess metal and give the wheel well side the proper curvature.

Before I could body work the corner though, I had to address the rotting battery tray – bought a new one from vintagewagen.com which distributes the UK AutoCraft replacement parts in the US – sweet! It’s a big improvement over the old one (which had been hacked into place at some point in the past).

After my experience with the other replacement metal, I was worried that I was going to have to do a lot of shaping to get everything to fit – instead the new piece just clicked right into place, Awesome! A lot of work and welding and PORing to get the new tray and wheel well cutoff plate in place. My flux core welder and lack of skill makes for some crappy-looking welds – but they are strong and will get the job done, and the POR layer should prevent rust from destroying these parts in the future.

I’m friggin tired!! (Noelle did get me a water after so nicely taking my picture)

I also POR’ed the back hatch area to prevent rust around the frame.

Finally I got to body working the passenger corner… but sometimes this project gets overwhelming, and I just need to pause for a happy thoughts break:

Pretty flower from Carla’s garden (with Noelle’s expert photog action)… happy thoughts

Pretty rainbow after a rainstorm… happy thoughts

Ok enough of that hippy crap, I’ve got a VW bus to fix! (sometimes I decide to just lay on the ground and work)

Before I finished the corner, I needed to kill some flies – they deserve it… because they are flies…

And here is the culmination of a tough week’s worth of bus work – a lot learned, some frustration mixed with anger/self doubt, followed by determination and ‘F’ it, pull the trigger and weld that SOB so we can get this stupid bus on the road! I think the work looks good – it’s an improvement from previous owners, and it will keep this bus rolling for a few more years at least.

Maybe next week I’ll have more pictures of more work done – yay!