Das Volks Vintage Volkswagen Gruppe

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

do you have pictures of the windows?

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 .

Glenn A wrote: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

How are you stripping the paint?

bbus wrote: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!

williamblanda wrote: 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.

Glenn A wrote:

williamblanda wrote: 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!

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

looking good bro!

Yesterday I replaced the rear wheel cylinders! The first one took me two hours to do and the second took 20 minutes, Guess its a learning experience! The P.O used an old German cylinder and paired it with a new Varga, vargo, whatever, anyways the pair didn't like each other and braught everything to a standstill.
After taking out the shoes I found that they were toast, It makes me wonder what else is screwed up on the Bus...
Nasty Shoes:

that is the best looking brake pad I have ever seen dude!!

mannys66 wrote:that is the best looking brake shoe I have ever seen dude!!

save that shoe for manny, he can rock that from his necklace.

mannys66 wrote:that is the best looking brake pad I have ever seen dude!!

That's a brake shoe?

you sure?

I have never seen a brake shoe that bad in My life ! Where You driving this bus ?

Manny would carefully hit that with a touch a brake cleaner and be on His way

I once had a scraping sound coming out of the right front wheel in my white bus, I took the drum off and one of the springs was broke and the meat on the shoe was split in half across the center, I changed the spring closed up everything and got two more years out of the busted up break shoe.

Note to self: Don't let Manny follow you.

mannys66 wrote:I once had a scraping sound coming out of the right front wheel in my white bus, I took the drum off and one of the springs was broke and the meat on the shoe was split in half across the center, I changed the spring closed up everything and got two more years out of the busted up break shoe.

You're scaring me

Glenn A wrote: Where You driving this bus ?

Hell Yeah!! But with the safety features of a Bus I felt totally safe.

williamblanda wrote:

Glenn A wrote: Where You driving this bus ?

Hell Yeah!! But with the safety features of a Bus I felt totally safe.

that a was a rear break, rear breakes on busses dont work anyway.

williamblanda wrote:

Glenn A wrote: Where You driving this bus ?

Hell Yeah!! But with the safety features of a Bus I felt totally safe.

HELL YEA ! Spoken like a true type II guy !

Will,
I have family in Whitney Point, Windser, Endwell and a son at Syracuse. if you need anything from the island let me know as i frequently ride up there. My next trip is Tuesday to take my sone back to school.

Love Hale Eddy. Every time we drive by we all yell EDDY!!

Ken

Ahhh! Awesome! I pretty sure I don't need anything from NYC, but, hey, thanks! Feel free to stop in if ya' want to. Just remember... "Right across the river and to the left"....

williamblanda wrote:Ahhh! Awesome! I pretty sure I don't need anything from NYC, but, hey, thanks! Feel free to stop in if ya' want to. Just remember... "Right across the river and to the left"....

If not this trip then the next!! Thanks

williamblanda wrote:Ahhh! Awesome! I pretty sure I don't need anything from NYC, but, hey, thanks! Feel free to stop in if ya' want to. Just remember... "Right across the river and to the left"....

Just to clear up a minor point , we're not in NYC ,we're on Long Island .