1978 VW bay rot box camper

Discussion in 'Restorations' started by liam_italian, Feb 27, 2012.

  1. Evening all

    Thought I'd start a thread on my latest restoration project, now that my Mini restoration has finished I can finally start on the camper

    It's a 1979 Volkswagen T2 bay window camper van which I purchased from a local magistrate just over a year ago. Sadly during it's life one of it's 8 previous keepers thought the best way to deal with the rust was to use chicken wire, newspaper and filler to repair her. As you can see from the pictures below this cowboy approach to repairing the camper has turned her into a bit of a rot box!

    The camper is mostly complete and original with only a few aftermarket bits and bobs being added, no idea who the conversion is by which I'd like to try and find out. My plan is to strip her down and replace or repair any panels that need doing and return her to nearly standard, although I will add a few tasteful mods to her. I plan on stripping the interior out of the back and building my own out of MDF etc.

    Here are some pictures of "Lottie" before I started stripping her down

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    Scuttle area looks rather bad and will need replacing If I dont change the complete front end
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    The bottom of the front arch was made entirely of a massive lump of filler and chicken wire!!! Both door are rotten at the bottom aswell but they are repairable and will no need to be reskinned.

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    Looks like the outrigger and possibly inner sill will need replacing

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    The sills are totally nackered, can't say I'm suprised the newspaper and filler repair didn't stop the rust!

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    Whilst I was trying to remove the battery the tray and rear corner disintigrated into dust!

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    The bottom of the boot doesn't close flush with the hinge panel for the engine hatch, on closer inspection it looks like the camper has been shunted from the rear at some point and the hinge panel pushed inwards slightly. On the plus side the cycle carrier still works :)

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    More rusty panels

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    The passenger front arch is also shot and will need replacing

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    The sills on the passenger side ain't much good either

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    Sadly the front panel is nackered, whoever fitted the front spare wheel mount made a right pigs ear of the job and the wheel has pushed the panel in leaving a massive dent and also created a water trap that's resulted in a massive rusty hole. Looks like I'll have to fit a new front panel :(
     
  2. dog

    dog Tea Boy

    the front panel is almost always dented when there's a spare wheel on it, i think mostly from front end shunts!
    lots of work to do there buddy! good luck, looking forward to seeing your progress :thumbsup:
    oh and welcome to the site!
     
  3. i like a good barn find!

    78/79 vans are always the worst, i think VW gave up by then as they'd shifted their focus to the T25 so these model years rust in front of your eyes.

    Good luck mate - that's a big job but good to see someone saving another
    :)
     
  4. Hello and welcome
     
  5. great to see another new resto thread :)

    I'll be looking forward to seeing it in paint in about 2 years then ......hope you got a big over draft ;D ;D ;D

    looks like a great project, looking forward to updates

    K+ for posting
     
  6. Thanks for the warm welcome.

    @Diddymen - I'm hoping it wont take me more than a year to do, it took me almost 4 years to finish my mini!!! I'm hoping to keep the costs down as I'm able to do most things myself and I'll get the old man to paint the bus when it's ready for paint. We painted my mini ourselves in our workshop and it came out well considering me don't have a spray booth, although it did help that the old man use to be a panel beater/sprayer by trade.
    [​IMG]

    Well tonight I started stripping inside the cabin. It' proved rather interesting to say the least. Trying to remove the prehistoric DVD/sat nav system is a nightmare, I've never seen so many wires for such a small amount of kit before. Also found that a 6 disc changer has been positioned under the passenger side of the dash on a shelf made from an old washing machine panel!!!! Anyway I'm staring to make a bit of headway with it now.

    [​IMG]
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    The back is still full of rubbish so can't really see much of the interior.
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    I'm also planning on rebuilding the engine as the last time I had it running it sounded like a bucket of nails being rattled about and then left a nice pool of oil under the van :(
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    I'd appreciate any tips etc or thinks to watch out for when restoring the van especially how to go about changing the front panel.

    Thanks for looking

    p.s I've also made a small spreadsheet in open office to try and keep track of how much I spend on the camper as I soon lost track of how much I spent on the camper. If anyone wants a copy Pm me.
     
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  8. Birdy

    Birdy Not Child Friendly

    Nice find. Good luck with the resto.
     
  9. MorkC68

    MorkC68 Administrator

    Welcome aboard bud, good luck with your project, keep the piccies coming!
     
  10. looks like there's a good bus under the rot, hope there aren't many nasty supprises when you start digging into it.
     
  11. Well not much progress this evening as I spend the day in the hills with the misses and the dogs.

    Anyway managed to finally removed the miles of wiring and headunit from the camper. Believe it for not there is more wiring for the audio than for the entire camper.
    [​IMG]

    I'm still trying to identify what type of conversion the camper is, I've had a good look around for any build plates etc but I can't find a thing. I've been able to identify from the M plate that it was originally a panel van when it arrived in England so it didn't leave the factory as a camper. Any ideas?
     
  12. foe

    foe

    Hello

    Good luck with the resto and keep at it :thumbsup:

    As for the conversion the roof looks like a westfalia one, as for the interior it;s hard to say. Most non factory conversions i.e. home or other garage tends to be a bit of a mix of other conversions.

    I have a Danbury pop top, but a dormobile interior which I customised ;)
     
  13. Hello. It's a Holdsworth. I had an earlier version of the interior in a van I restored last year. Good luck with the resto, make sure you bag and label everything as you take it apart. ;D
     
  14. here you go, found a picture. it's in a Devon van, but the interior units are Holdsworth from the early to mid 70's. Your's look the same but with the late 70's laminate :D and a diffrent door handle. You can't see the overhead locker in this pic, but it had the same handle as yours.
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  15. Thanks brothernumberone for the info, has a look on google and found some info about the company out of wikipedia.
     
  16. Well the strip down continues..

    Managed to get alot stripped out last week and the last major items to be removed are the engine and gearbox.

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    Found a nice little suprise whilst I was removing the spare wheel panel aswell. Whilst I was marking the spot welds with a punch I heard something bang inside the engine bay. I was a little worried at first but I soon realised it was this
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    At first I thought it was a geocache but then I saw the symbol on top and realised it contained these
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    Shame I previous owner didn't know about them as when I originally bought the camper there wasn't a key with it and so I ended up braking the steering column outer pipe to free the steering lock. Eventually I found half a key in the camper and took it down to the locksmith who cut a new key which fitted the ignition.
    It would have saved me alot of farting around and repairing if the previous owner hasn't forgotten the keys where hidden in the engine bay!.

    Well I successfully managed to dismantle the drivers cab door today, and it sure does look in a sorry state.
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    The bottom of the door is proper rotten and without finding a decent repair panel repairing it is going to be a real pain. But I am determinded to repair the doors rather than buy replacements.

    I was also hoping someone might have a picture of this part of the door that I could use as a reference to repair mine.
    [​IMG]
     
  17. Looks like you've got your work cut out there.
    Are you seriously considering repairing the cab doors? :eek:
     
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  20. I repaired the drivers door on my westy. Not too bad a job but there is a bit of distrortion. :(
     

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