A transit van, or three loads in the bay window! Surprising how much will fit in the back of it to be honest. I got all of the doors and a few boxes over in one trip. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I had to weld a splitty once and it was a joy after welding flimsy bays. I could understand why some dub resto workshops only work on Splitties.
Once it’s blasted and in epoxy, it will look a whole lot better I reckon. Just a bit of surface rust innit
Isn't it great when you get yourself a new project Although my workshop is outside my front door, not miles away like yours. I'm looking forward to seeing the progress. I assume you watch Kona the bus. Sent from my SM-G981B using Tapatalk
I think it's up to episode 61 or something it shows full strip and rebuild done at skinner classic. Sent from my SM-G981B using Tapatalk
Front seats acquired for Stevie! The guy I bought these from down near St Ives had a fantastic Belgian sign-written split too.
Every other set I saw for sale were nearly double the price! I would have had to replace the padding on them anyway so these were ideal being just the bare frames.
After quite a few people mentioned that I should get a YouTube channel going for the split restoration I’ve started putting a few bits together. First up a bit of an introduction and walk round the project. This is all filmed and edited on an ageing iPhone so go easy on me!
‘65 Split on the rollover jig to get the last few bits chopped out before I drop it off at the media blasters. Hoping to have another video out in the next week or two.
Stevie dropped off at the shotblasters today for a proper cleanup and coat of epoxy. Hopefully they’ll be plenty left to weld to!
It was originally destined for Bahrain, where they still drove on the left until 1967. At some point it was then shipped to Thailand where it lived until 2009 before being bought to the UK. I’m going to try and track down a little more about its history if I can. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hi Jim, if it’s a Thai bus , some of the later ones had sliding doors into the cargo bay. I’ve got a pal with his own garage and stuff that got one last year, a late Thai splitty with a slider as stock. If you come across anything extra strange, give me a shout and I’ll try and find out for you. Seems like when VW are trying something new, they send it to a smaller marketplace to try it out in real time terms before heading off into full scale production. As soon as I see him I’ll point him in the direction of this thread. He also has saved various busses and cars etc from an almost certain demise Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,,, Looks very very promising
I have the address of the guy that imported the bus so I'm hoping he may be able to shed some further light on it. It was originally dove blue. I think some of the iffy repairs I chopped out were part of a small resto it had out in thailand, but it looked to have been repaired with whatever scraps of metal they had laying about (box section floor supports etc). I've seen a few splitties now with factory sliding doors. The guy I bought the seat frames off had an awesome Belgian sign-written panel van with a sliding door.
I'm still waiting on the split to come back from the shot blasters (it's taken longer than expected as COVID is doing the rounds in their workshop). So in the meantime I've been carrying on with my big workshop tidy up and made a nice big bit of racking to go on the other side of the mezz floor. Slightly sketchy getting it up there though, three ratchet straps and a bit of grunt work got it done.
Continuing to source parts for the project, I've now got a nice set of original front and rear lights for it:
