Transformation of Battlebus to Arthur!!

Hi all,
Well been looking at all the posts on the forum, getting ideas and lots!! of help from people (thanks all) to get this project going and as I'm a fair amount of ways into it, but still plenty of work ahead I thought I'd start this thread now and can add things as it progresses.

So, a bit of background, many years ago now, around 2007/2008 my brother and I wanted to get a VW camper, love the look of the splity but now way we had the money for one of those, so we were on the look for a Bay. Not being part of the scene at that time, and not really knowing a great deal of information about the different versions that were available but we knew enough i.e we loved the look of them and that's what matters I think if you like something, doesn't matter what other people think!! So we did the usual, surfing around and looked at a couple of different vans, 1 lovely black bay, I think was all black and was down the road in Kent somewhere so not far so we looked at and it was nice but a bit too pricey for us at the time,

So the search continued, till I found a camper that looked perfect for us, running not a great deal of wor to be done (little did we know, as mentioned before) Checked it over like you would a normal car, but as I said didn't really know the pitfulls of these great machines have. The rot and rust it comes with being in the Great British Weather. Took it out for a test drive, fell in love it driving like a dream. Still does make me happy to drive around. Convinced my brother this was the one for us and so we bought it for a fair price. Sorry didn't take any photos of it at that time, didn't know about these forums and the attraction of photos were at the time. but it was a RHD '79 2lt twin carb. Devon conversion with pop-top painted in a lime green up to the swage line and white from there up.

Drove it home no problems, as I said it drove great and so we thought it was a winner but little did we know that come its first MOT a couple of months later when it was at the garage and the guy is underneath checking for structural weakness or whatever and he just keeps poking hole after hole in the floor and the jack points and outriggers etc most of the structure of the main compartment was rusted through or close to.
So not surprising no MOT issued at this time.

In the meantime we had found a local VW company, CoolAir, in Erith just down the road and had been in there quite a few times checking for items/ideas etc. So when it came to finding someone to do the work for us, neither me or my brother have ever welded before so wasn't going to find out how on this amount of work that was needed. CoolAir knew a guy locally, so off it went for all the work. A few weeks later went and picked it up.

We decided we didn't like the green it was painted and as there were rust spots coming through the paint and paint bubbling etc we decided that we would take it back and treat the rust etc and change the colour while we were at it.
Well that's were the project fell into its pit of trouble. We found more rust than we expected and no expertise to fix it all or the cash to get it all repaired who knew what they were doing. So we did some research and found some other people had rollered they campers so we decided that was what we could do, so we treated the rust and then we covered it rust proof primer and then for good measure put a couple of coats of white hammerite to give it UV protection as the rust proof primer was UV resistant.
It sat like that as a totally white camper for a while till we decided what to do with it. Then father in law suggested a camo paint job, which we both disagreed with at the time but later on maybe for lack of a better option decided that was the way to go, but again money being the factor we got hold of do green, brown and black paint that we put on with rollers and paint brushes and to blend it all in some rattle cans for good measure.
Which is stayed from about 2009/10 till now. we pulled out the original Devon cooker and side cupboard as they were rotting and the rock and roll bed needed some attention so quickly replaced them with Plywood. We used it a few times for WOMAD music festival and BugJam a few times and it was great, then as usual other things come up and get in the way and so the camper was sorned and garaged since 2012.
That's its history with me, now for its present day.

Here it is as Battlebus,


So this my little boy is coming up to be 3 in December and so I decided to get the camper back on the road so next year, me the misses and the little one can go off for weekends away and my little boy would have some fun memories of the camper when he gets older, and maybe get into it all as well.

So after giving it a wash, I sorted insurance and done the usual MOT checks for it, it went away with a good MOT and no issues, so thought it was going to be fine, but the years had brought a few problems nothing major, but a couple wiper blades and arms later and changing of the rear light clusters.
I booked it in for MOT at the end of the week, dropped it off in the morning and left it with them, get a phone call later its failed the MOT, so immediately I'm thinking its rust underneath or something major, going to cost loads and take an age to fix, but no luck was on my side and it just needed a new tyre on the passenger front wheel, so they changed it the following day and I promptly went and picked it up with a big smile on my face
So what to do with it now, so did some research and again money being the holdback and wanting to do as much of the work myself I decided that the roller and Rustoleum combination was the route to go, with instructions and videos read/watched many times.
So broke out the sander and some elbow grease and set to work on the body and get it prepped, here we have the cab which we have decided to repaint and to paint the dashboard and the roof liner in the main compartment was just disintegrating so that had to come out. Next is the passenger side where there was some rust and the usual repair panels from PO on the sliding door and rear, so just trying to get that as straight as possible.

Here we have the drivers side and front again some more rust patches to sort and straighten up. The top half of the camper and the rear hatch (which i'd previously replaced are all sound and just needed to be scuffed up ready for paint and this is it with the first coat of rustoleum and a chance to see what the red and black would look like together.

My brother and I decided that we wanted something different with the colour and didn't want a single colour so that's why we went for it.

 

Hopefully that first part isn't too long winded for you, let me know if it is I can waffle for days if left alone and so my fingers just follow when it comes to the internet.

 

So after some long days of sanding and filler and then some more sanding and then a little bit more filler I finally getting there with the panels decided they were as flat as I was going to get them, I decided to make the decision it was time for the first coat, the beauty of this rustoleum is I don't have to mask up everything, just the bits like window rubbers and other little bits like that, the windows I didn't bother with as suggest in the instructions the paint comes off easily with a scrapper on glass, so why waste the time. So here we have the first coat on the majority of the camper, only bit that's not done is the front panels as I haven't removed all the lights etc and done the final filler on it yet but as you need a week between coats I decided not to waste time and get the majority of the bus started at least.


So while I'm waiting for the paint to dry and the weather to be good, I decided to make a start on the electrics, deciding what accessories I want and where to put them and how the wiring was going to go and to tidy up the engine bay and to fit a dipstick temperature sensor and gauge. Also to sort out the towing electrics so they were tidy and out of the way as well,
here the end result,

I also am starting to sort out the heating of the bus as we have had no heating since we bought it, so its very cold to drive if its overcast or raining. Which I started to address a few years ago when I managed to source so new heat exchangers cheap but got no further as the parts I was missing like control pods and heat risers etc are expensive so at the time decided that an extra jumper was the better option. But now have decided as I'm doing all this work on Arthur that heating should be part of that. So a few ££s spent, but thanks to the forum and discount at JK and CoolAir was less ££s than it first started out to be. In the picture you can see the air hoses connected to blower but in another thread of mine I mention that the other end of the left one (as we look at it from here) I am struggling to connected to the heat exchangers, so anyone with the same setup if you can take a photo of it all so I can see if I'm missing anything that would be great!!
That's where I'm up to so far, waiting on the paint to dry on the cab interior so I can get the dash back in and fit the carpets and and seats back in, then on to the second coat of the red and black if the weather OK.

 

Great choice in the colours, its going to stand out from the rest. I have seen 1 or 2 splits in this colour combo and they looked good, but not a bay.

 

It's nice to see your vans nearly back on the road, your little boy (and you) will have some fantastic memories once he starts going out in it.
I'm very interested in how the rustoleum experiment is going as I'm seriously considering doing it on mine, the pictures are a bit too small to see much detail though.

 

Excellent write up, cheers , love the 79 moonrakers ,got one myself

 

Thanks for starting the thread. Great write up

 

Seconded

 

Nice story so far, 10/10 for the words but 4/10 for the photos

 

That's what we thought and then saw one in a mag a few days after choosing the colours. Lol

 

I'm here following the followers, LOL. Great work.

 

Thanks for the feedback. How do I get bigger photos uploaded???
Hopefully I can get some with it outside when the weather decides to play ball and stop raining. But what did I expect for bank holiday weekend.

 

Put them on facebook or photobucket then copy the link and paste it into the icon that says picture when you hover over it

 

Ok will do.

 

hope this works better

 

heres some more

 

not sure how the giraffe got in the garage but you never know these days!!! note to self check the photos that are highlighted to be uploaded first.

Had to redo the photos as the link changed

 

Did some more work the van today, flattened back the lower half of the van ready for 2nd coat and managed to just about have time to put the 2nd coat on,
some pics for those who love the pics!!


the 2 above were after I had applied the second coat

the 1 below is of the side after flattening and before the second coat been applied.