1963 Panel/Camper

[williamblanda]

Here's my Bus. It's a 1963 Turkis (My favorite VW color) panel van that was turned into a camper and will soon be turned back into a Panel!
My plan is to strip the respray, weld shut the hacked in windows, sort out the brakes and drive it!
Here's some pics of the paint stripping so far..
Before

During (The entire rear is done except for the belt line and part of the decklid)



It's rough but tolerable...Hello touch up paint!
As of last night


-Will

[mannys66]

do you have pictures of the windows?

[Glenn A]

Damn that respray didn't look half bad . Who did this conversion ? Was it a aftermarket company like EzCamper or sundial or a homebrew ? X2 lets see the windows . Either way that thing looks nice and solid .

I'm not sure if Ez was around in 63 .

[williamblanda]

Damn that respray didn't look half bad . Who did this conversion ? Was it a aftermarket company like EzCamper or sundial or a homebrew ? X2 lets see the windows . Either way that thing looks nice and solid .

I'm not sure if Ez was around in 63 .

There wasn't anything left to give a hint as to which company did it. As with the paint, if you got closer you could see that it was prepped pretty bad and surface rust was popping up in little spots every where.
.....and to fancy your hardware store needs, Lowes trailer windows!

You wouldn't believe how much caulking was behind them to get it water tight!
I'll post more pics if ya' want them
-Will

[bbus]

How are you stripping the paint?

[williamblanda]

How are you stripping the paint?

Mainly razorblades to scrape off the first few layers of paint down to the primer then Easy Off and steel wool to remove the primer. To get the hard to reach spots like the belt line I used Klean Strip, which was in a spray can, and scotch brite pads. I did the left corner first and the bus tricked me into doing the whole thing with a vision of clean paint, I guess it's time for some self induced "Patina"
Klean Strip and abrasive pads actually did a good job for the removal of Bondo. So, In a way i'm ridding my Bus of Bondo. Yay!

[Glenn A]

I'll post more pics if ya' want them
-Will

Sounds good. Post some interior shots. Looks great. It looks like so much work to strip back to OG paint. There is some bad body work on My drivers corrner I might have to strip and redo one day.

[williamblanda]

I'll post more pics if ya' want them
-Will

Sounds good. Post some interior shots. Looks great. It looks like so much work to strip back to OG paint. There is some bad body work on My drivers corrner I might have to strip and redo one day.

Thanks, after using clean strip the bondo just flaked off, Hell yeah!

[williamblanda]

It feels good to work on the Bus! Still a long, long way from being finished, hopefully I'll get the brakes done soon!
Spent the better part of yesterday and today cleaning weird crumbly under coating from my spindles and sanding away excess filler to get it ready for touch up paint.
Got the nose and rear in primer to cover up the bare metal spots and finally painted my emblem white !



Now it's not so distracting to look at!
Does any one recommend any decent touch up paint for the turkis?
Thanks!,
-Will

[Raj]

looking good bro!