64valiant

camping was legit.

we cruised on up the motor way and done a few stop offs on the way up. had to deliver some rx2 carpet and beth wanted to stop in at her Auckland office.

we made it to kai iwi lakes and got a sweet photo
 

set up camp and got straight into it
 

a nice photo of @Mrs 64valiant happy to be camping in a kombi with a wof, reg and insurance.

with our newly acquired fridge our battery we purchased for our house side of thing wasn't quite cutting it. So i ended up having to go for a drive each day while we were camping. this wasn't really much of an issue for me due to really enjoying driving the kombi and wanting to explore what we have to offer in nz. so one day you probably saw in spam i took @sentra for a drive to a romantic beach.

old @manlymanman and @Mrs 64valiant 3rd wheeled our cute date.



we also went on a group adventure up to Opononi and to see Tane Mahuta.

bloody hippies in there old cars
 

 

old Tane Mahuta is a pretty large tree!

Liv was kind enough to get a couple of cool pics of the kombi driving through the Waipoua Forest

Beth and i had a rough work out on how much gas the kombi is using on our way up to kai iwi lakes. i think it worked out to be around 9.4kms per letter which is what my subaru out back does on a average day. gets to about 11.5kms per letter on the open road but not as much smiles per miles thats for sure.

while we were away we decided if we wanted to stay in one location more than a day we would need to go for a drive or we should get a solar panel. that comes to todays purchase. 
 

done some online looking and worked out that if we wanted one it would probably be better if we got one that was fixed to our kombi other than another thing we have to pack and unpack which is on the bottom of my list of things to do. 

my main reason of going with this one was the size and the fact i got it today.
 

it fits perfectly inside out roof rack spot on the kombi. cant be seen form standing at grass height unless you are tall unlike me but also means i dont have to go drilling holes anywhere and having the possibility of water leaking in.

so with wagnats approaching very fast ive got 3 days to mount this in place and wire it up so i can still service it or get to it when i need to.

well thats me for now. we will see you later 

Hi everyone. 

Its been 4 months since the last update so explain whats been going on.

thought, no point getting a wheel alignment with fucked ball joints so i removed these.
 

and well, just go buy new ones
 

it was the most scary drive of my life driving to the wheel alignment shop. obviously i didn't get it as close as i thought i did.

the day before my 30th i went to get gas for the kombi i found myself underneath it tapping the starter motor, thinking it had shat itself after about 3 months of use.

it was the ignition barrel that i had brought instead. so we by passed some wires and my i have a cool push button ignition.

from here i was egar to actual put a wof on this car and get a few things sorted. one was my tail lights on it. seemed to have been a bit weird.

well turns out i had a normal indicator stalk on the bus. mine should be a U.S one. turns out they made new ones, which are shit so that got returned and i ended up getting a 2nd hand one from a mate in Thames.
 

put that in but the ring that gets tight on the center shaft was a little flogged out so i made a spacer so it would tighten up.
 

all sorted and my tail lights and everything works well now.

next up i decided i wanted to upgrade from points
 

CB performance magnaspark 2 is legit. im not going to try explain the brains of it but if you have 2mins just watch this
 

we went on adventure to whitianga for a vw catch up, which was cool to see everyone.

 ended up doing some on the side of the road repairs.
 

the light was staying on so i just removed the power and pushed it back in its hole.
 

Ice Creams
 

Kombis
 

All of the bugs

I was using it for a work car quite a bit and just getting good use out of it.
 

It was getting close to xmas now and i was pushing Beth to go away in the kombi over our break, but she was pushing back to have the rust done. 

so i talked to a mate and he got busy doing the jobs he felt comfortable doing.

everything out!
 

turns out i don't have any photos of what he done but look what i done.

actually here you can see some out riggers on the other side done and painted grey.
 

rust be gone
 

brought this channel from the vdub shoppe along side a few other peaces.
 

had to cut and bend it for some reason, cant remember now. 

the U channel was welded in 1st and then this
 

these panels came with the kombi when we brought it so i kinda knew what i was in for.

looks something like this
 

ohhh i remember why the ends of the U channel were bent. they go to the inner sill which you can see here in the above image and in the below image. 
 

you can also see another out rigger welded in close to the hoist arm, and above the hoist arm is another one that needed to be welded in. got that from the vdub shoppe also. The inner sills came with the kombi for both sides.

the inner sill was welded in place in the above image and we then placed the outer sill replacement panel on, put a scribe in the white paint and then i went about cutting the amount off that we no longer needed.
 

came across some bog
 

pretty standard for a car of 50 years old that was probably worth scrap value at some stage.
 

nice straight line.
 

outer sill tacked in place waiting on a @bobby1930 to tig it up.
 

put the front and rear section on as well.

i went through and plug welded the bottom of it all in place while i was able to get away from work.

the following night bobby came over and tiged it all up and i was able to take it home while drew was away on holiday, allowing me to finish the rest of the rust.
 

it was good to have it home. i managed to get away for two days over new years and came back to work on the 3rd. so we didn't make it away in the kombi but we made progress.

on dads anniversary of 15 years i stopped working and had my day to myself and got this kombi water tight. went like this.
 

old mate @Geophy came over with @Beaver and i put him to work.
 

well actually both of them went to work. they both had large help with me drilling the plug weld holes to the I and U beams that were under the floor
 

floor all welded up.

well now it is after adding these other peace's of steel
 

prior to all this i saw @oftensideways put a bunch of sound deadening in his little kp starlet and hit him up to see what he was using. Turned out the brand was kilmat and it was a crap load cheaper than dynamat.

for example there is a dynamat kit on trade me for 369 for 3.3 square meters so around 110 a square meter or you can get kilmat for 43 a square. Or I paid to have it fast freighted and it still only cost me 58 a square.

I ended up ordering this just before xmas and it turned up on the 7th of jan while i was doing the floor.
 

this is now the day after dads anniversary and i really just wanted to get this stuff on. 
 

boom all done.

for reference i got the 50mil stuff (lighter) they do a 80mil one but not in 50squar feet so that's why i didn't go for that one. i will probably use the 80mil stuff in the front half of my kombi.

link : https://www.amazon.com/Kilmat-Deadening-Automotive-Insulation-dampening/dp/B0751G6TMV


back to work i went. old @Bistro and i went shopping for some rubber grommets for his car. He brought a couple of different sizes which one didnt fit his car but man what a great fit it was to my kombi.
 

i was now aiming to reach kumeu car show but i didnt quite get there. so i just went hard out on just getting the kombi sorted for @Neds birthday week away at kai iwi lakes.

so straight to it. time to do the upholstery before everything else goes back in.
 

 

 

ahhh whats that little black thing for greg you may say. well.
 

 

 

 

 

it turns two lights on and the fridge. what you have a fridge?!

well i didn't at that point but Beth came across some money so we splashed out on a 49 letter fridge 

ohhh i now needed to do my headlining before i could get a wof.

as you see i dont have one here but you can see the new LED interior light 
 

foam down 1st to pad it out.
 

help with sound deadening as well. i also filled the pockets on the side you can only just see two done here.
 

boom we have a headlining

wanted to paint the side of the van where i had done the rust repairs, so i done a botch job on that.
 

and painted it white.
 

now you can see how bad the bog is.

oh i also added a house battery to the kombi to power the lights. i got this sweet gadget from super cheap which allows the charge to go the 2nd battery but wont drain the main car battery when we are camping.
 

back to upholstery.

put some black carpet down in the back
 

then covered with with a bed.
 

a rock and roll bed that is
 

now that was in time to move on to installing the fridge and cabinet. 1st part was to sort out the sink.

hole in the floor and it now drains in the center of the bus
 

now that is done the fridge can get screwed in 
 

perfect fit. now back to more upholstery, here is a before hand of my drivers seat.
 

a during
 

and a after
 

not bad for 1am upholstery.

made Beth a little holder in the cabinet 
 

we also put shelves in there the weekend we went to whitianga 

shit i still had some more rust to do before a wof
 

but we did get a wof
 

beth likes to pull the sheets up and just keeps pulling them when we are in bed. been the kombi doesn't really have anything to tuck the sheets into i sewed a buckle to the bottom of the sheet and the quilt.
 

which goes around some brackets under the seat
 

ready for camping
 

 

yeah saving money and putting money into other things is adult but yeah dads ap5 will never leave me and the mother in law told the wife that we are not aloud to sell the kombi what ever it comes down to.

so looks like those will stay.

also if it means im closer to owning another fc in the super long game I'm happy.



18a rx4 for the fred