busy weekend!

We put the nice recovered door panels in yesterday! Looks good with the paint.

I realize that the colors used in the Cab are entirely different than the colors I am using in the rear. That's because I decided to give my Westy the feel of having more than one room. Trey and I decided we have four rooms. The Cab, the Rear, The Side Tent, and The Pop Top! I didn't expect to own a four room home so soon! :P

I sanded, primed, and lay down Reflectix in the hatch. Primer does a good job of holding the insulation down. I also sanded and primed one of the side walls.





A friend of mine built the power box into the panel over the ex-fridge, the picture is a little dark but its next to the spray bottle. Now we have outside power! I hung the valances up but haven't secured them in yet. They look great!


It's really coming together. Yesterday afternoon while sanding it began to rain, so I just closed the doors and hung out in the Van while it POURED. And: NO LEAKS! I mean it really poured and I checked around everywhere to make sure no water is coming in. Looks like we have a watertight vessel :) At least when the water is coming from above!

Today I am going to work more on the interior and maybe head to Lowes Hardware to get the pipes for the sink. I should be getting my water pump in the mail this week along with my Pop Top Canvas! Yaaaay!

Cab area

Today I primed and Painted the interior door with blue, a small portion under the dash with purple and primed the outside panel underneath.




And I covered the panels with the Ikea fabric. I used spray adhesive and along the backside I used wood glue because I lacked the stapler I needed to adhere the fabric that way. But I'm sure its good this way.


Office supplies made great tools to hold fabric in place! I used all of my paper clips to hold the fabric in place while the glue dried.


It's coming along!

Westfalia Pop Top and Solar Power?

I ordered the water pump for the sink & the pop top canvas from Bus Depot this week. The water pump was only $35 but the canvas was $229, a lot cheaper than at GoWesty for over $300, and their water pump sells for $50. Putting the pop top canvas back on will be the last pain in the butt for a while. This weekend I hope to get the furniture in place, panels in and a the wiring mostly complete. I may try to get some vinyl tiles for the flooring so I can go ahead and knock that part out and get the furniture bolted in. I'm going to have to go out of town for the foam, so it may be a while before the bench seat is completed. I also need to find materials to cover the flooring in the cab. I wanted to steer away from carpet because it's hard to keep clean, especially in a camper. But it looks like a cheap and easy to find alternative. Besides, I have a almost new brown carpet in my bedroom begging to be cut up for the Westy. :P
I bought an awesome colorful Duvet cover from Ikea yesterday for $20 because I want to use the fabric for either the bench seat or the interior panels in the cab. It doesn't really match the mushroom curtain colors so I'll probably end up using it in the cab area. Maybe that will give my Westy the feel of having different rooms with different color schemes. At first I wasn't going to use the swivel for the passenger seat, but I've grown to like the option of having it.
I didn't get to look around too much at Ikea but there are definitely some storage items I need to take a closer look at next time.

I also bought several cans of spray paint and primer from WalMart the other night. I'm going to sand the paint a bit, make sure there's no more rust spots anywhere, prime the entire car and use the spray paints to paint it. Later on when I have more funds I will get a good paint job for it. But for now, that's the least of my worries. It can be a true hippy van for now. I bought two cans of Aqua, one teal, one royal blue, one green, and one plum. We'll see where that takes us.

I was reading through some classifies for Westies and I noticed someone had a solar panel fitted on the "luggage rack" or what Trey and I call the "hat". I want one. Solar Cells are cheap on Ebay when you buy broken ones. And This link tells us exactly how to utilize broken cells for maximum output. I mean why not? I looked into Solar Power when I first bought my Westy but I decided to do it "in the future." Well looks like I'd only drop at the most $25/30 on some solar cells. After that is just a matter of generating the power from it into 12 volt. Now is the time for clean energy, and I am going to do what I can to use it. i love my earth. My Westy has a charger/converter... I wonder if I can use this to convert the solar power. Because I won't be using an auxiliary battery, so this part is now sitting useless. I am going to look more into this idea right now!

Getting things done!

Trey was able to finish the fuel line last week. Luckily a guy here in town had some 7/16 FI hose that we needed & only charged us $5! A friend of mine came over Saturday and helped me get the flooring in. We sanded/cleaned the interior, primed, covered with Reflectix, and lay cut plywood down. We had to work with 2 awkward sizes so the floor is made of a few pieces rather than just one. Once we lay the flooring down though, you'll never notice. :P


We also put up the crazy side tent. This side attaches to the sliding door of the westy when it's open: creating a little room. It's pretty cool and even has a floor to it! It took some time to figure out how to put it up. But with some searching we were able to figure it out. Crazy German engineering! But I found the website Tents for Breadloaves- because VWs sort of look like bread loaves... Trey and I have notices this as well. But overall the tent is in great condition. The screen part of the front "door" was ripped, but I sewed it up:

And here's the crazy striped "front door":

Its crazy but I love it anyways! It has some mildew spots that I have to clean and one more tear I spotted yesterday that needs to be sewn...

I'm almost finished recovering the upper trim with the fabric I bought from Goodwill (picture below: the off white fabric with orangey designs/frill) And the Mushroom fabric I bought for just $4/yard will be the curtains. I'm slacking on sewing them but I figure I have some time to do that. This evening after work I plan to get the trim in, so I'll take some pictures and post them soon!

Westy comes home!

So, Trey got most of the fuel line replaced, except one tube that runs from the fuel filter to the pump- it's 11mm as opposed to 7mm for the rest of it. And no store in the area caries metric sized tube... So we are going to have to figure out somewhere to order some. So, we just had the Westy towed home yesterday. Cost about $70 but it will be worth it. Now we can work on it at our leisure without the stress of getting everything together to work on it, only to find we left something important back at the house.

Today I washed out the interior pretty good (lots of dust and dirt everywhere) and I need to sand/prime a few more spots of the interior... Here's a preview!


lovin' the yellow :)

The Van is coming home!

Last night Trey got the headlights working! It's coming together nicely! In the picture you can kind of see what an AWESOME job Marc did on the front bondo! That body line that goes around the headlight is close to perfect. Tomorrow we plan on replacing the fuel line (hopefully: if the part finally comes in) and driving our Westy home. We bought a tarp that I'm going to have to cover the front end with since we have yet to put the front window seals in (waiting on those to come in as well)... Trey told his Dad today about what we have been working on (I have yet to tell my parents! eep!) When asked how it went, Trey responded in a lovely Haiku:
he said it was awesome

said it made his day

he took it pretty well

and he said to tell you hey

lol! I think I am going to tell my mom & dad tomorrow... Wish me luck!

Not so good at deadlines

Now we are hoping to have the Van up to the house by Thursday. That way we can work on it more and easier. Sunday a friend I found on craigslist to help- Marc, did a great job on the bondo work! I didn't take a picture yet, but it's looking good. Last week I sprayed the cab floor with truck bed coating, here's a pic:

-An improvement!

Tuesday Trey and I are planning on doing some work on the van and some the boxes of parts up to my house. I want to work a little bit more on the bondo/ especially on the sliding door. The bottom has rusted through in some spaces. We plan on patching it now. Later in time the bottom will definitely need to be cut off and a new piece welded on... Trey is hoping to have some help with the fuel line Thursday, if not I can help after work. We want to replace the fuel line, because we aren't sure what kind of condition its in. We don't want this to happen to us!! So once that is done, hook up the lighting assembly, throw a seat in it, a plate on it and drive it the 7 somewhat miles to my house. Followed closely by someone else of course! I'll have to buy a tarp to cover the front because I haven't put the seals around the front windows yet.

But I need a tarp anyways because, well tarps are just good to have, and I saw this great idea for a Westy. See Photo?! I would be able to keep that window open to vent the van even when its raining. Plus it gives me a semi/dry area to store things when I am camping (again to keep out of the rain). If I can find the website where I saved that picture I will post it here. Have to give props for this great idea. And I am waiting on the Vent window seals to come in from Bus Boys. Bus boys was the only place I could find those particular gaskets, the man on the phone was nice (too nice...) and they don't have online ordering. You have to call or fill out a form and mail it. Pretty old school, but I like speaking to someone to place an order.

We will have to prime & paint it... We are going to try to paint it here outside of my house on less windy days. But the last few coats I will have to garage it so dust and whatever doesn't show up. Anyone have a garage? :P

M- Plate decoded!

I decoded my M-plate today. It was located under the dash on the driver's side, facing upwards. It's pretty hard to see, some people will lay paper on it and rub a crayon over it to create an image. Alas, I did not have a crayon, but i was able to get it.

I typed it into the M plate decoder at www.alltheprettybuses.com

Decode Results:
Production Date: July 25, 1978
Exported To: Indonesia
Designation: VW Campmobile
Engine KW (BHP): 51 (70)
Transmission Type: manual
Engine: *
Transmission Code: -
Extras Code: 609

Paint / Interior
Paint Scheme: Mexico Beige
Paint Codes: LE1M
Paint Notes:
Interior Scheme: camping brown beige
Interior Material: cloth
Interior Notes:

Options
246: Windshield free from import-duty for USA
D03: Code Group: 0127,067,073,102
P27: Westfalia interrior type P27
005: Heater outlet in seat box of rear bench seat.
227: Detachable headrest in cab

Indonesia? Hmmmm

Type P27 -Westfalia interior type Campmobile Deluxe with pop-up roof, folding spare tire, combined gas/electric refrigerator (1976-79) Note: your '75 might not have the combined gas/elec fridge - book is not clear on this

Coming together nicely!

Sorry again with no pics, but I will be taking more of them this week I am sure.

Saturday:
put rear windows back in with their new seals
Put windshield in & cracked it on the Driver's side (dang!)
rewired the audio system
prepped bench seat for upholstery
fixed new seals onto "bay" windows

this week:
finish up wiring (with Paul some evening after work)
get him on the road (with Trey's friend who has worked on VW engines A LOT and could "take apart & rebuild a VW engine with his eyes closed", who's relatives own a plethora of VW parts) score!!
Putting the bay windows in

this weekend/next week:
Finishing up the bondo work & maybe starting the paint job (with the help of my online friend, yay!)

After that it's just a matter of putting everything back in where it goes!