Seedy Al's '71 VW Bay Window Bus (Im now a hipster)

[Seedy Al]

Hey guys

Just posting pics for now as need to get back to work

Anyway, its a 1971 Low Light early bay Window

originally from Cali, so is left hook etc

Slam was done By Type two Dectives in England. Which looks like a narrow beam in the front etc

has Air bags int he rear, and did have them in the front but had to removed for import Complaince.

Anyway

Will take better pics once I can

Discuss Here

[Seedy Al]

Ok. The full Story

So yeah, its a 1971 Bay Window.

Was originally A Cali Bus with allt he seats and that Jazz.

The chick who i bought it off, was living in England at the time, She spent ages looking for the right one to buy over in America, and chose this one.

She brought it over to England, where she had the Type two Dectives have a burn on the suspention

http://www.type2detectives.org/

Still havnt had a chance to get it up on the hoist, but the beam has been narrowed by them.

the Lass also has done lots of other work, converted into mild camper, rock and roll style bed seat. Wooden floor, nerw carpet in front, and new interior panels on everything. new roof lining etc.

She also has had the under side stripped and Coated by the looks.

has Air bags in the back currently, and did have them in the front, however it failed when she moved over here and brought the bus with her, as the front bag plates have been welded to the factry cast arms.

I'm not sure at this stage how I am going to over come this, as i want bags all round, but clearly welded to cast isnt going to cut it.

Anyway, Plan is to get it legal again (has been off the road since end of 2009,) So far I ahve noticed the speedo is not working, so will need to find out if its been removed or is just broken.

Then eventually I want this thing fucken boned on its arse, seeing as no-one else IN nz is keen to go all oput crazy on these, and I fucken LOVE slammed Vans.

Which means a bit of chassis notching and tubbing in the fronty to clear wheels.

However, the cert it already has , has notched front chassis on it already, so I can probabaly get away with doing it all with a another recert, although i really should.

Also going to mean a trans and engine lift, however I havnt dont much study on this besides that I may need to change the trans to a type 1 as i assume they dont hang so low,

So I'm still learning the vehicle anyway, will brin in my low jack tomorrow so i can get it on the hoist and see what the suspention really looks like.

Chur!

Also want to get a pin strip white wall done on the tyres, and polish the shit out of the hub caps.

Im in love anyway,

Also, not really a fan of the rack, might try moving it to the back...... but even then I think I\m going to be a bit Meh about it. its too blingy for my liking.

Still want one tho, need to carry my bikes somehow haha

peace

[Seedy Al]

Just another update of pics I get through it

nothing exciting

So looks like full custome T2D front beam, adjustable front shocks and beam adjusters

Has a chassis notch in the front as expected to clear the front steering arms, Looks to be of typical Pomy Qualtiy, pretty shit, but hey its there.

back has custome spring plates, bit of a notch to munt the top of the bags to the chassis.

After market brake master cylinder, not sure why....

And an engine.

Also a patch panel has been dont under the battery, which is all g!

Notch

nicely built beam

rear bags

As for options on getting it lower.

the engine looks like it can probabaly go up an inch, maybe and inch and a half easy, with a small bit of modding to where the selctor connects to the gear box.

Does anyone know why people use a differnet box when doing a engine trans lift?

To me, what looks like the hardest part is where the rear trailing arms connect to the outer spring beam. It hans pretty low, lower than the floor, which is what i am planning on lowering this down to.

Anyone have any sugestions there? i could almost cut it off flat, and ad some extra bolts in other places... but not sure.

As you can see in this pic, the chissis is the piece running horrizontal, and the bit whith the hoist arm sitting on it is a bit lower.

Chur anyway

Hmmm....... looks like I also have a seized speedo cable. balls

[Seedy Al]

ha...... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

hm.......

you fucken wouldnt believe it unless i showed you

Fuck yes, had some time to kill t the end of the day so thought I might head down and change ownership etc at VTNZ, then thought, fuck it, might as well find out what work i might need to sort out on this.

BOOM,

Clean sheet WOF

I am fucken happy as a Kid in a ball pit

[Seedy Al]

Have been using this on and off

Decided to take it for a trip down to welly as I am on holiday

However, on the trip back, shit turned terrible

Started running funny just by levin

Managed to nurse it to dannevirk where it got worse, running on 3 and all sorts

THANKS heaps to Kiwi gasser, who just happened to pull up to the BP station I was parked up at trying to figure out what next.

And then Huge thanks also to Joker for giving me the Tow back to gassers shop.

Anyway, played around with stuff there. thought I had it running all good so said good bye to the guys, after adjusting the tappets after finding out there was no clearance. IE, the valves are wearing into the seats in the heads. Dumb, but I guess expected with a 40 year old motor, and the non leaded fuel we love so much.

Anyway got just out of Danneverk, and it totallty cut out, no igintion at all.

So I called up another Boe from the Hawkes Boe Massive.

FUCKEN MASSIVE THANKS TO OLD NATHAN!!!!

Who loaded up his car trailer and made the trip down to give me a tow back

I now suspect it could be a condeser fault or broken wire in the dissy, so have a whole bunch of new stuff on its way.

Talk about a stressful day, plus I missed my tattoo Appointment, gutted.

Pics

visted Manu's new shack

brken down at the truck stop out side of dannevirk

and just unloading back at the shit

I also ended up buying a complete vw for the motor off one of the guys the Danneverk guys know.

Will replace and build up a fresh motor for this at some point.

FUCK I LOVE THIS COMMUNITY!

[Seedy Al]

Average update

have replaced the spark plugs with new ones,

Have a new set of leads ready to go on.

removed the dissy before and have noticed a bits of the wire from the coil to the pints that has been pinched, so i have a feeling this could be the problem

So will replace the wire and fit new points and condensor also. I'm pretty confident that this is going to fix my problems

I also need to fix the exhaust leak that it has, mainly since jacking up the back of the car on the motor and it moving one of the tail pipes, and then smashing the same pipe loading it onto the trailer due to its slam

Unlucky but thats life, should be easy enough

[Seedy Al]

Right, so after changing all the elctrics etc, it was concluded this has a more seriuos fault other than just that.

So after getting stuck in my trip to wellington, i ahd arranged a new motor thanks to good old Kiwigasser.

Drove the bus over hawkes boes, and basicly it developed a huge oil loss problem, out the exhasut and also somewhere else, so conclusion is it is fucked, well for now anyway. even ran out of oil at one point. woops.

So yeah, pulled the new motor out of the volksrod that it lived in, and just need to get that back to work tomorrow for a tidy up and swap over of parts

And pulled the motor out of the Bus just this afternoon.

you have to hand it to VW, they really make it easy. i had the motor out of the bus in 40min.

However, i forgot it might have a broken engine mount, which it does. this is a set back, as i need to order a new one before I fit the motor. Fucken dumb.

might get it sitting in there tomorrow and leave it till the mount turns up, which hopefully I can get on Saturday delivery

Anyway, average pics

motor out of the volksrod

Motor out of the Bus

and a cunty broken mount

[Seedy Al]

Hah, what shit updates

So I did the engine swap, had to pull the motor out again becasue i fucked up putting the rear main in, leaked like a mofo, second one still leaked but only a little so was ok.

So decided to take it away for new years, and over the break left it with Von Mako in Masterton. Guy is amazing

So fucken happy with his work

No so happy with the fact on the way home last night I managed to heat sieze (or something seize anyway) the other motor

I am not having much luck with these VW things thats for sure

So I now have a sweet looking van with two fucked motors.

I feel so happy. Not.

Anyway, Von mako's Work

I'll get a pic of it on the car when I get a chance to charge my camera.

Also big ups To Uterus for the Flat tow home last night, ladies, give that man a Blowey

[Seedy Al]

fast forward almost two years. and boom. an update.

After having this stored since last time the motor gave up, both in a garage and then on leeboes back lawn, I by chance ran into a chap I knew from when I lived in Napier (where the vw has been living for some time, dead), who happens to know A thing or three about VW's thanks to his old man raising him at a car wreckers. So this meeting happened at Parmy Swap meat, and After a short conversation I proposed maybe he would be interested in sourcing A motor and fitting it, as I had sinced moved to welly and getting it down has proven to be hard work.

So after a few months I got a text, with the words, hey man, tracked down a beetle motor. $400.

Sweet! so after doing something I never ever thought I would do, commission someone else to do something I can do, and given a dead line of a week till Hawkes boes, he towed it to his house with the help of his girlfriend, and went about swapping all sorts of bits etc to get it running.

The result was an untest 1500cc beetle motor sitting in the back of the bus, running. So, hey. no better way to find out if a motor is ok than driving it 300km back to wellington HAHA.

but it was, and I am happy.

the following day I drove it to work, and just as I was going to pop out to grab frappe and a Panini at lunch, the clutch cable broke. Doh, but not the end of the world. better then than on my way back to wellington.

Anyway that was then and this is now. Its been sitting in my olds car port waiting for me to actally order what I needed, which I did today. with some luck, it will turn up tomorrow.

that's another story anyway.

fuck that's a lot of bull shit writing.

Oh so on our way back from Hawkes boes steelies caught some pictures of when I picked it up.

next to its younger brother...... oh and taller at that

And some crap

anyway.

hearts

[Seedy Al]

Oh, what a day!

So anyway, finally been able to get some time on this bus

Firstly, Holy shit I highly recommend Qualitat for your VW bits, I ordered clutch cable and heat pipes on the Monday, two days before chritsmas, With only a credit card.

Turned up next day, with a 20 percent discount. Great service, and cheap as shit.

So anyway, todays mission. First, replace clutch cable. Well, after jacking up van and removing the old cable, I thought this job would be a shoe in, until I found the end was diffeenrty, but only a little, no sweat, nothing a Ziptie wont fix, so after running the new cable through the chassis and all other the place, I finally went to fit the adjusting nut.

Oh Shit, this cable is way to long.

FUCK!

Pulled it back out, yip, after a measure deffinently the wrong one. At this point, I was pretty sour, Not a qualitat, but just in general. But, mind set was fuck it, can try sort out something on Monday for Tuesday (aim is to drive this over to masterton to joes house for new years, ie, Wednesday, which means it meant to go to Alltorques work for a wof Wednesday morning.)

So next step, might as well sort out the speedo as it has never worked since I bought it, and new It came with a new one when I bought it. So, after assessing what the problem was, that the end that goes into the bearing cover that has a square drive in it has worn out. So rummaged through the back of the bus, oh wait, what the fuck is this plastic bag with a cable in it.

Oh shit, its a clutch cable, and the correct one at that.

Boom, so once again, ran the cable and this time everything came up amazing.

I now have a clutch again.

Back to step two. Found the speedo cable, yip works well in the bearing cap, so pulled out the old cable and then used a piece of wire to run the new up up through the front of the van as the heater is all up in the way

Was easy job, test turn of the wheel worked a treat. Finally I can try reach the 120mile an hour limit befoer I have to close my windoews like the EMPI sticker says I should

thrird step. Why on earth have my air bags stopped working. Wll after a bit of tracing I found out why, poor wiring by Britins finest.

So bad, as a result a wire had fallen off the Micro switch that was once installed to the handbrake I assume, and was now sitting down in the front of the van flopping around like flounder. So a bit of solder and wham, I finally have switches for the bitches again.

Along the same lines, my pressure switch has given up on the compressor, Or that's what I assume anyway, as it stopped turning off by it self a while go. So I am going to chuck a switch on the dash to over come this, instead of pulling the main power feed out of the fuse holder for it like I have been. Was going to cheap out and just run a heavy duty switch in line, but thought, that's just being lazy, so Found a rplay in my tool box and went out and bought some terminals and wires and other Junk.

next in line, the lights. Missing LH park light, LH hi beam, ANd RH tail light.

Shitty earth problem with the park lights it would seem.

As for the hibeam, was really scratching my head, thinking it must the relay, fucked around trying to find the relay, had no luck, its hidden up under the dash somewhere.

So pulled the head light swtich out, check some wires with test light, put it back in, oh, ok. they working now.

Then I was like, OK. are my brake lights working. Figured the best way to figure that out would be to apply the brakes hard and see if I can see my hi stop coming on, assuming that even works.

Well, two hard pumps of the brake pedal and the pedal dropped to the floor.

Oh fuck. quick look under the car, Oh I see, the rh front brake hose has ruptured.

well, glad it happened then and there, in my olds car port, than on the test drive that would be coming up soon.

however, a bit of a kick in the crown jewels. As I now have 3 days to try get some brake hoses and have them fit and bleed, and then I still wont know if my brake lights work haha

Wow what a story

So will post some pictures to top this off.

Oh I fit some heater ducting too as I was told by having nothing there to much air an push out of the shroud and that's a possible casue of why my last motor shat it self.

Cool

Ok, see you next time

[Seedy Al]

So, spent today exploring my options on How to fix this split brake hose asap so I can get wof on Wednesday

Resulted in me doing a crap tone of driving around repcos looking at every brake hose they had in stoke.

Turns out Ford mondeo rears were a good substitute

So done and dusted, after a small bit of modification of the horse shoe clip bit, they were perfect.

So I now have brakes again, and took it for a test drive to get some gas, which resulted in three thumbs up, a wave, and some stalking me home to talk about there split window which looks like its had billions of dollars spent on it.

but yes. I have no pictures as I forgot to put the memory card back in my camera.

as a result, here is a picture from hawkes boes 2 years ago.

[Seedy Al]

bus made a visit to Alltorque today

WOF AQUIRED!

stoked.

you fucken moonshiner....

(hearts)

[Seedy Al]

Casual update.

got rego , (shit I love vintage rego, 59 dollars for 6 months after not having it on hold for 1 year and nine months haha)

so yeah, made it over the hill to masterton and back, using all the available stopping bays etc haha

I don't actually remember it being quite so bad on hills, I guess those twin port 1600 motors actally do go a bit betterer than the bettle 1500 lol. will still keep my mind set on rebuilding the original at some point.

was good to be camping in it again, bit more space than a wagon etc.

So the only issue I had, was I managed to gorget to turn my compressor switch off on the way home. now it seems it wont work. was cold when I stopped and figured it out. which I guess means it may have seized up. will pull it out and do some test. fingures crossed that it just has a trip switch I can reset or something.

anyone know where I can buy pressure switches from? I assume just a compressor shop like ash air or something?

anyway. heres a pic of camping spec.

once again thanks to Alltorque for fitting my wof in short notice

[Seedy Al]

So, Jesse P did some shots for me,

He is pretty damn good, and a really nice guy!

Would be rude not to post up some of the frenchmens handy work

RAD!

thanks heaps man