March 22, 2010
Continued the slow process of paint removal this weekend. Got a little sloppy and scraped away to bare metal in a few spots. Also had the middle seat fall apart when the icebox moved while making a turn. I took the icebox out and built a middle seat for use until I can refurb the icebox.
I really need to get some glass in those windows.
March 19, 2010
For the past few weeks I have been scraping away the top layer of silver paint/putty and making slow progress.
It appears there is the silver -> putty -> color paint job -> original Pearl White
I’ve been scraping kind of randomly and decided to do some work on the nose. I got a lot scraped off quickly, and then decided to use the aircraft stripper again.
The stripper was working pretty good, so I tried it on the passenger door with no razor blade.
I think I am going to continue using just the stripper and not waste my time with the razor.
March 19, 2010
Our 1965 VW EZ Camper came with two lap belts on the front bench seat, but no seat belts in the rear compartment. With our four little ones riding in the back, we needed to figure out something to do. There are a lot of discussions and a lot of varying opinions about seat belts on thesamba.com , but on the most helpful was this one. Someone on the site mentioned four point harness belts by Wesco Performance.
These seemed like they would work out good for our kids, so I bought four of the chrome lift lever ones with mounting kits. When I placed the order I included a note that I thought their shipping price was a bit high and I was pleased to see on the invoice in the package that my credit card had been credited $8.80 back towards shipping costs. Good service.
I first removed the plywood middle seat to access the bulkhead.
I marked five holes equally spaced across the bulkead and drilled them out. For some people this is a no-go, but the bus is obviously not pristine, and safety is more of a concern.
I mounted the belts with the washers and bolts on the front side of the bulkhead and put everything together.
The back was a bit more difficult. I removed the wood from the rear seat and located my five holes. I had to climb under the vehicle a few times to make sure I was not going to hit anything. One the bolts had to go through the wheel well.
I then had to crawl underneath the bus and put the bolts through the holes from the bottom and mount the belts (with the help of my beautiful bride). Then I put everything together and did a test fit.
I think they should work out great!
March 17, 2010
Did my first tune up last Saturday. It took a lot longer than I remember it taking from when I was in high school. First I adjusted my valves, then gapped my points, then checked my timing. I then drained my oil. I then added in my new oil and we all went for a quick ride to fill up the gas tank. That night I changed all the spark plugs out, I had to lean into the compartment to get the back ones out.
The next day I moved the installed a new fuel filter and changed the location from in between the pump and carb to in between the tank and pump. After all was ready I got everyone in the bus to go for a ride and…it wouldn’t atart. I stood around perplexed for awhile, and figuring that the only two things I had changed were the plugs and filter, I put the filter back in the original location, and put the old plugs back in. Still nothing. After an hour or so of knocking my head, I finally noticed a loose wire on the PO addition of a terminal block on the left side of my compartment.
I plugged that back in and it fired up, but didn’t sound that good and would die every time I stepped on the brakes. I spent another hour so screwing around with the carb and then took a break. I decided I was going to go through all the modifications that the PO had made and undo them to make it stock. While diagramming all the wiring I noticed another unattached wire and pulled up photos of the engine from when I first got it. I figured out where it was supposed to go and after attaching it the bus fired up and didn’t die when I applied the brakes. I readjusted the carb and took her for a 15min ride.
March 9, 2010
I got a chance to clean off my engine code, and, surprise, surprise…it’s not the number listed on my bulkhead. It’s actually H743U577 (the best I could read). The “H” series is actually the right one for my year, but I still have some questions about this particular engine.
Not sure why the voltage regulator is on the generator, don’t think that’s right.
Not sure the oil bath cleaner is the correct one.
The oil filler tube has been modified in some way.
Not sure the distributor or carb are the right ones.
March 1, 2010
I’m trying to figure out some info on my VW engine. I’m pretty sure it is a 1500cc, but I do not know if it is original. There is a sticker on the bulkhead that says “ENG NBR DH5275470″ that someone added at some time, but I cannot find that code in any of thesamba.com technical info.
February 25, 2010
The EZ Camper is kind of…ugly looking. It has what looks like a silver rattle can paint job over a thick coating. When I first saw the bus I thought that it had just been painted too many times, but a guy at a gas station told me it looked like trailer home roofing paint. After looking at this post at thesamba.com I began to have hope that maybe there might be something decent under all that thick stuff.
We bought generic oven cleaner, steel wool and aircraft stripper. After a few tries with the oven cleaner and a thin film of the aircraft stripper, nothing was happening. I then applied the aircraft stripper on thick with a brush and began to see some action. I had to use a scraper to remove the thick putty-like coating, and took at least two coats of the stripper. After most of the putty stuff was gone, I could apply the oven cleaner and use the steel wool to remove what was left. Underneath the putty coating was a thin layer of blue, and then what I thought was the OG pearl white paint. I have my doubts now, because the white coating was thin and looked like it was applied with a brush.
This will take a very long time, but if I can get rid of this nasty silver coating, the bus will look a lot better, even if its patchy.
February 23, 2010
OK, so here’s the update:
Just bought a 1965 EZ Camper, so I need to do some liquidation.
I have the 1600DP in the 1972 Transporter, and we have had it running, but that was a while ago, and now I can’t get it to catch. I believe it is fuel delivery related. If we can get that one running, it could probably be a daily driver. I will either sell that one, or maybe keep it for a cruiser, depending on what happens with the 1971…
I will probably part out the 1971 Westfalia, which is kind of a shame considering all the time I put into it. I was trying to get another 1971 so that I could just transfer the parts, but then we found our 1965 Camper. I will try and sell all my new parts and then start parting out the old parts and then sell the shell.
If anyone wants one of the buses or needs a specific part, email me at schoolftrout -at- gmail.com
September 8, 2008
So it was a bittersweet day. I traded away the life of one VW for the life of another. I sent my 1969 Westfalia to it’s certain death, in order to save a 1972 transporter. Brownie, the 1972 VW is in much better condition than the westy and appears to have a fairly complete engine, which is way more than could be said for the 1969.
Here she is:
November 20, 2007
So with everything out and disassembled I set about refurbing and getting new parts. I bought some rubberized undercoating and painted the wheel weels. What I should have done was painted them with a rust inhibitor first.
I then cleaned, bench ground, and then painted my torsion arms and steering knuckles with black caliper paint.
I ended up not doing anything with my tie rods, even though I ordered new ones. I’ll save that for another time. So on to the reassembly.
First thing I did after all the painting, etc. was lubricate my front axle with a multi-purpose (non-lithium) grease at the five points as shown in Bentley. (more…)
