So I have owned this bus for about 5 years now. It's a 1975 microbus which at some point was turned into a camper with a dormobile roof and westy interior, I bought it from Kieft & Klok, after a lengthy paperwork battle got it registered at home in Germany. Since then I have been doing what I have been telling myself is a "rolling resto" - when it is in fact it is bodging things together and basically keeping it on the road. Even though it is tatty it has never let me down and my friends and I (who decided on the name and refuse to change it despite my protests so I gave up and now just call it that too) have been all over europe in it. But this year.... things are going to change. I have a proper garage and am planning a 2 stage complete resto. Stage 1 is get the unknown quantity 1600 engine out, send it to a local specialist to get it re done and sort out the engine bay/rear end in the meantime, plus some wiring inside. Hopefully will get the engine back in time to make a couple of shows and trips over the summer, then come autumn it'll begin a complete strip down, paint etc. Anyway enough talking and on with the pictures.... Engine is out after a bit of a battle. All the manuals etc seemed to suggest the 2 top bolts for the engine to gearbox at undone from behind the fan housing. This was the case for the right one, but the left nut seemed to be missing. Reasoning the engine must have been out before then someone couldn't have been bothered to access this impossible to access nut to put it back on we tried pulling the engine but no joy. Then I checked again and realise it is actually a bolt going through from the gearbox size, with an hex head that is almost impossible to access.! After about 2 hours of faffing the engine is was finally out and in the back of the other car to go off to Mainspeed Frankfurt where it's going to be rebuilt as a 1776
With the engine out time to check the tank out and the hoses. Looking forward to at long last replacing the dodgy fuel sender too. The only problem being there was still 30 ish litres of fuel left in it. After scratching my head for 10 minutes about how to keep 30l somewhere when I only had a 10l tank I realised I was being an idiot and bunged it all in the daily driver 10l at a time I didn't realise the firewall is screwed in not just by the obvious screws you can see but also 2 vertical ones you have to unscrew from underneath! Took my about an hour to work that one out After a bit of a dousing in WD40 the tank strap nuts came off without having to resorting to cutting good tip I read somewhere on here about gripping the end of the stap with mole grips as well. After doing a bit of research I was thinking of getting the POR-15 kit to clean and seal the tank but the inside doesn't look to bad, just a bit of crud??? Not sure what it is supposed to look like so will bow to the esteemed opinion of TLB! Started removing the top panels of the engine bay. Looks like the original stuff in there still, in remarkably good condition, (again no idea if this is normal). Do people generally re-use it when putting their bus back together? Ah that is what clean original paint is supported to be like!
That tank looks pretty mint to me. Mines so full of rust i need to change the fuel filter every 100 miles or so.
Today was "exploratory rear end grinding day". Picked off the rear valance which wasn't so bad, but the inner valance is a bit hole-y so wanted to get an idea of how bad things where from the other side. Also there was bubbling round the batter tray lines on the rear quarters, so I ground down there a bit to see what's what. Not the best photo but it started here: Rear valance spot welds drilled through and the whole thing removed: Looks like someone has had a go at repairing this before. Clearly they weren't interested in the post behind it though... Chop it out... At least the chassis seems ok though. Just found one small ish hole. Wanted to try and preserve the rear quarters as it looked bad only where they met the battery trays but turns out the wheel arch rear was 90% filler so the whole thing fell off in the end Looks like someone welded a new battery tray on top of an old one..... guess it will all have to come out. No idea what the other side it all about! Note sure if the inner valance can be saved. There's quite a few holes in awkward places... thoughts? At this point I confess I am completely new to the metalwork game. Don't even own a compressor or welder... yet. Hoping TLB (along with @brothernumberone 's excellent book) will steer me in the right direction!
Mainspeed Frankfurt have been taking the engine apart... looks to have been rebuilt at some point with a mix of parts, flywheel is from a beetle . Case will be saved, pretty much everything in the bin. New spec will be 1776 with bigger heads, twin carbs, VS exhaust etc.
If you look on page 9 of my resto thread you will see mine was in pretty much the same state as yours in this area, you'll also see all the repairs I did to make it right, I always saved an original panel if I could, even if it took a bit longer than fitting a new piece! My inner valence was repaired up to a good standard despite being rotten.
