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:

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. They did not ooze out of the torsion openings as I expected, but as I found out later I had plenty in there. Next step was to install the torsion arms. NOw the manuals (and forums I would find out) weren’t much help to me at all when it came to reinstalling the arms. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but it was not easy.

Bentley pretty much says, installation is the reverse of removal, but I don’t think it was.

First off, there are five set screws, or grub screws, that you are dealing with. One on each arm, and one in the middle of the lower beam. It wasn’t real clear to me wether they should be in and tight or not on the arms. I didn’t even know there was a fifth one (on the beam) until after my trouble started. Not really understanding how the spring leafs and torsion arms work together I at first tried to put on the lower arms with the set screws tight, as someone on thesamba.com had told me to do. So I lubed up the arm and shot some grase in the opening and slid it in. I started one arm and then went to the other, as everyone has said to do – engage them both so you don’t screw things up – check. When they were both engaged, I lightly hammered one in all the way. Easy as pie. Went around to the other side and hammered that one in. Wow, this really is easy. Went back to the other side and saw that it had backed right out. Hmmm, what am I doing wrong?

So I look in Bentley under removing the torsion arm (I thought) and see “Loosen the locknut on the set screw. Then remove the setwcrew” and it refers to a picture of the setscrew in the middle of the beam. Hmm, well I didn’t do that when I removed the arms, but I guess I was supposed to (later find out this is referring to torsion bars, not arm?). And since the installation is the reverse of removal, I guess I am supposed to start with the setscrew out. So I go under and remove the setscrew. Then I put on the arm and hammer it home. Go to the other side and do the same thing. Come back and the arm has popped out again. And now the weld holding the spring leafs has broken and they are all over the place. What the heck?! S

o I go on thesamba and ask about the setscrews and the same guy says, don’t touch the middle one (too late) and that the ones on the arms are supposed to be in and tight. So I go back out and am a little suspicious about all this. I try to line up the center hole in the springs and set the screw, but can’t really find it. I then examine the indentation on the end of the springs/bars and decide to pull them out, put an arm on the end and tighten the setscrew in the right place. Then I hammered it flush with the axle, as I figured that that should mean the springs are lined up. Then I go under the bus and tighten the setscrew on the torsion bars/spring leafs. Next, I go on the other side, and because common sense tells me so, I remove the set screw from this arm. As I whack it on, a whole mess of grease comes shooting out of the setscrew hole. There was just to much pressure from all the grease in the beam and the setscrew on one of the arms had to be off to relieve it. So put one arm on and secure it, then put the other on and secure that one. easy.

You’d think I would have figured it out then, and the upper arm install would be easier, but it wasn’t. Just make sure your rubber bump stops are removed from both sides, and don’t replace them or lift the arm up until both side have been pushed in till they hit that little protruding arm with the stops. Only then can you lift them up with the pry bar (which I have now done myself four times-it is not a two person job).

This was about a four hour job, and was very messy. I had to take quite a few cool-your-head breaks so as to not get too frustrated.

Here’s the link to my samba post: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2635135&highlight=#2635135

Ok, so what’s it look like?

Before:

After:

I also replaced the rubber brake lines, but as I was tightening the driver’s side hose, the metal line broke. So it looks like I’ll replace all the metal lines also.

I have been working on the bearings, and once I get my new ones installed I will put the wheel assembly back together and tighten everything up.

After I removed my old brake calipers and front discs I knew I would need all new components.

First thing I got was a new set of ATE calipers with pads.

I got a can of red caliper paint from autozone and put on three coats, waited a week, and put on another two.

I also got two new Sebro brand (German) discs from aircooled.net.

I also took the old brake pad plates and ground them down on the bench grinder and painted them with black rustoleum.

I of course used my Bentley manual, thesamaba.com and type2.com for assistance. Here is a compilation of a couple posts with some details on the job (I’m sorry no credit is given – if you are the author please let me know). My comments are in italics. Pictures are after the details.

The upper torsion arm can be easily raised up if the lower torsion arm or the steering knuckle has already been removed. push it straight up with a piece of wood on a floor jack (this did not work for me or others that I contacted, it only lifted up the vehicle). And it is easier than raising it up by the lower torsion arm if they are still connected. Because you are only working against 1 torsion spring and not 2. I tried yesterday to put the upper rubber stop back in with the steering knuckle installed and It would just raise the bus. When removing the upper torsion arm the only way I could do it was, like previously mentioned, raise it high enough to remove the rubber stop, then let it down as far as you can without it resting on the stop holder. Tapping on the side of the torsion arm helps work it out. Dont try to pry it out from the end of the beam where the seal is. It would be real easy to damage the seal and the seal holder.

It’s all a fairly tricky and difficult job. Including getting the springs back in the beam or the arms back on the ends of the springs. The small weld bead on the ends of the springs to hold the leafs together had come off making it difficult to stab the holes. But eventually it all got accomplished. But a lot of it seemed like it was borderline. As to whether it could be done or not.

Also use some rust penetrant on the clip holding the pads before you try to pull the clip out of its engagement.

here is what you need for the whole job:

1) jack
2) 19mm socket on a breaker bar – for lugs and caliper bolts
3) 6mm hex key – for wheel bearing locknut and rotor fixing bolts
4) hammer and screwdriver to knock free the hose clip
5) 11mm -to free the backing plate.

6) 27mm wrench – ball joint nuts
7) large 2 arm puller – for lower ball joint (I used a pitman puller)
8 ) small gear puller – for tierod end
9) thin 36mm wrench – for eccentric bushing hex , or large slip joints.
10) 8mm hex key- to free torsion arm grub screws
11) hammer and screwdriver – to knock out the clip for the upper snubber
12) 5 ft of 1″ pipe – to lever the upper torsion arm off its stop
13) hammer and screwdriver to remove sway bar clamp
14) hammer – to remove the torsion arms from vehicle.

\Getting everything apart was not the hardest part for me. Soak everything in PB Blaster the night before to loosen up all the hardware. The hardest part was prying the torsion arm up and removing the rubber snubber. There are two ways you can do this: I used a long section of 1″ black plumber’s pipe to pry upward on the torsion arm while my buddy removed the snubber. Some people have luck by simply jacking the torsion arm up from below with a floor jack. In my case, this just resulted in lifting the whole front of the bus, but your experience may differ….this is certainly the easier route. As to removing the rubber snubber, you will also want to soak the little clip that holds it in place with PB. If you wind up like me, you will break this clip upon removal and require a new one. Mine were rusted in place and I had to clip a pair of vise-grips to it and whack the vise-grips with a hammer. I picked up some back-ups from my local VW dealer. They swore up and down that they didn’t carry them, but they do…you just have to be persistent! I think that they were $2.50/ea.

With the snubber removed, you can let the arm slowly drop back into position. Then you will be able to whack it with a mallet (or a hammer and piece of wood) until it drops out. Make sure that you have the lock nuts and set screws turned all the way to prevent binding.

END OF PROCEDURE

Ok, I started with the upper ball joints. I took off the bolts with an impact wrench, and both joints loosened from the steering knuckle.

Next, I used a piece of barto pry the upper torsion bar off of the rubber stopper.

The rubber stopper has a sort of pin that sticks through a hole and is held in place by a retaining clip. I put a vise grip on the clip and yanked it out. Then the rubber stopper come out of the hole. While holding up the torsion arm pull out the stopper.

You can buy new stoppers, but I just cleaned mine up on a bench grinder.

From here you can lightly tap the torsion arm out, but alternate side to side with the tapping. In other words, you’re not supposed to take one out first, and then go do the other (over my head as to why).

Ok, the lower joints gave me a lot more problems than the top. First I used the impact wrench to remove the bolts. The steering knuckle did come off of one.

On the other I had to use my pitman arm puller to get it to separate fromthe knuckle.

Then I tried for a while to remove the sway bar clamp, until I read that I would probably need to replace this anyway, and it’s not that expensive. So I used a cutting disc and cut it in half.

Then I just removed the sway bar, and did the alternating tap thing on the lower torsion arms and got them out.

I bought new ball joints and brought them to a VW mechanic where he swapped them out for $15 each.

With the dust cover pried off using a claw hammer, I was able to remove the nut from the end of the spindle and then remove the hub.

I then removed the hub, bearings, and brake splashield.

I also took a little time to clean up my gas cap on the bench grinder.

I was then ready to move on to removing ball joints.

First I removed the luggage rack and worked on that, since I didn’t really have anything else I could do, and I could bring it home.

The bars had already fallen off, but I used the Bentley and Westy manual to find the locations of the rest of the screw I needed to remove. Put them all in a baggie and labeled it. Will try and replace all hardware with stainless when I can.

OK, brought the rack home and washed it first with Simple Green and then a 50/50 bleach/water mix (looks like I mostly supervising).

After cleaning:

Applied first coat of Rustoleum Glossy Enamel:

I then lightly sanded that and applied one more coat, then brought it back to the bus.

While I was still working on the luggage rack, I took off the main poptop and brought it home. Once again used Bentley and Westy manual to take apart the top. I needed a very small screwdriver to remove all the screw holding the canvas to the top of the camper. Of course there was once that was stripped, and so I just ground it off. Removed screws attaching hinges to the top and had a helper pick it up with me and put it in my truck.

Brought the top home and set in the backyard. Again, first thing was to wash it with SG and then bleach mixture.

We then ripped out all the old canvas (fun for the kids!) Next, we flipped it over to pull out the tacking strip and remove all the staples. Also removed all hardware including hinges and the front stabilizer thingy. I am going to try and polish these high with some high grit sandpaper. I also noticed that some wood was rotted and would have to be repaired.

After cleaning the inside with a bleach mixture, I brought the top into my garage for the wood repairs. First I had to cut out the rotten, which was not easy due to the tight space. I ended up using a cutting disc and chisel. Then I chipped away the old fiberglass where the new wood is going and scuffed it up.

I then cut out new pieces of pressure treated wood. They had to be cut a slight angle to fit right.

Then I fiberglassed them into place. First a laid down some epoxy with a brush, then set the wood in place, and then laid down a strip of glass mat connecting the wood to the top.

That’s where I’m at for right now. I am planning on painting the topside soon, haven’t decided wether or not to paint the underside.

9/17/07

Removed the dust cover (was stuck and I had to seek help on earlybay.com) using a claw hammer. Then removed disc, hub and bearings. Put them in baggies and labeled. After I got the rotors and hubs off. I removed (6) 11mm bolts for the brake splashshield.

I also stopped by A&J (old VW shop close to my house) and made a deal for him to cut off a rear deck from another bus and sell it to me for $100.

Here it is:

It’s from a ‘72 so the ribbing is different than the ‘71. I’ll have to do something creative to make it work.

I also finally got my linen closet and rear cabin shelf removed. Needed the Westphalia manual to figure it out. There was a wicked snake skin on the top shelf of the linen closet.

I also disconnected and labeled all connections to engine.

Removed rear luggage rack of poptop – see later post.

I jacked up the front end and placed it on jack stands. Then I removed both front wheels. I then removed both brake calipers using the Bentley manual.

Looks like I’ll probably need new ball joints and shocks, so I’ll add those to the list.

I wire brushed and degreased as much of the front end as I felt comfortable doing.

I had to go and buy a 6mm hex driver for my wrench so I could get the rotors off. They were also in very bad shape – add to the list.

So I guess I’ll get started by re-doing the front end. As good a place as any to start I guess.

Begun work on dissassembling engine. Took out air bath cleaner, removed 2 pieces of rear engine tin, and drained oil – which looked pretty good.

I also sanded down the rear corners and found that they were mostly filler as well. Will probably replace both of those.

After prying open the stuck erar hatch I also realized the extent of rust damage and was a little troubled.

Shot of engine

9/1/07

The kids and I pulled the ‘71 into the warehouse at my office and began the poking and prodding to determine the extent of restoration needed.

I removed the engine lid, rear engine valence and the rear lights.

I then took off the front wheels to inspect the brakes and wheel arches. Looks like arches will need some welding and the brakes will need to be totally re-done.

I also found that most of the front nose is actually filler, so I will probably be replacing that eventually

.

The chasis was a little rusty, but solid.

There’s also plenty of smaller areas that will have to be patched.

Going to be lots of work!