Designing artist t-shirts is good, mkay

Left my digital camera at the office, so images will have to wait until next week, but I have most of the 73 Bus put together.

This has been a family project — again, this is not a show camper, just something that we want to look moderately cool for camping and taking to skating events, etc.

Since the weather has warmed up, and between severe weather — three events in two weeks so far, we have managed to sand, paint, bondo and repaint the van. Luckily, there was only a few spots of rust, limited to under the battery tray and a weird dime-size hole in the floorboard of the front passenger seat. Nothing that required cutting and welding and nothing other than some light surface spots under the window rubber. The undercarriage looks almost new. This van has not seen northern road salt or the beach. Best guess is it was driven around central Georgia and the mountains.

I was pretty particular about having a solid core vehicle — both mechanically and body-wise. I don’t have time to do any cutting and welding. I recommend anyone looking for an old VW read Richard Atwell’s pages about what to look for — gear noise, problem rust areas (like under the windshield) and the like before buying. Something really rare (this is especially true in places like the coast or north where salt and the elements take their toll) like an old 23-window delux might be worth more trouble than, say, an 83 Vanagon transporter. Since I was looking for a bay window and live in the mountains, plus have little free time — the core of the vehicle had to be in pretty good shape.

Thanks to Samba (and a friend of mine who is a fellow VW freak — kudos Rob) I was able to find an ugly but solid 73 Westy used by a mechanic as his daily driver in Atlanta. The engine was upgraded to the 79, with the FI removed (not the best for performance, but in my small-Southern-town world, we have no mechanic willing to deal with the old fuel injection system) and replaced with dual Solex 40’s, properly balanced and jetted.  It needed a few dings filled, a small kink in the bottom of the nose (not even really a dent), new fabric, a new passenger seat (the one in there was bolted in from an old Chevy conversion van), solid cleaning, new cot and pop-top canvas, curtains, window seals, interior door panels, glove box, shocks, and the stereo moved from hanging under the dash to the radio hole — plus lots of other stuff.

The trend here, is that just about everything I needed to do was a bolt-on project or weekend job — which ended up taking more than a year thanks to eight months with my left handed left arm in a cast after I shattered my wrist dropping in at a skate park (wear those damn wrist guards kids. Tried to buy them that day, but did not have them in my size… damn).

What the bus did have is the back half of the camper interior, table and rear-facing seat. We have the sink and other stuff in now. The lack of bolt on stuff and other missing widgets were easily replaced thanks to online stores like Go Westy, Bus Boys, Wolfsburg West, Bus Depot … links to which can be found on Atwell’s page. Plus the fact that, on Alabama 78 near Oxford, Alabama, a few miles up the road, Bruce Key has acres and acres of scrap VWs. Buses, campers, splittys, bugs, things — you name it.  And he has no problem with people climbing through all that stuff with tools, pulling what they want, then trying to charge them too much (haggle, he likes it. Also, he is a total VW enthusiast, so if you get him talking, show off your ride, complement his, prices are more neogtiable). He also has a top-notch mechanic on site who can either fix it or tell you how. I have used him now for parts on several air-cooled jobs, and highly recommend his lot. Also, it’s just cool to check out everything out there — some of which could be salvaged if you have enough time and money.

He also has a load of old VW’s in running condition for sale — including a hard-top camper now. Where  his parts prices may be a little high, his vehicle prices tend to be on the cheaper side. So if you are looking, take a drive over there.

So, now we have a complete running Westfalia, new paint (actually the undercoating for what will eventually be a wrap-around mural done by the artist wife, probably something surfer is in a deco, Japanese wood-block print style) complete camper set up and rock-solid engine.

And we did everything ourselves. Again, props to the artist wife, who can also apparently work with bondo like it’s clay. I will have more details when I get the pictures up in the next week.

Front license tag reads: All your Bus are belong to us.