The journey of a new 1970 Westfalia owner. The fixes begin.

[wcfvw69]

The effort for a totally stock appearing bus engine continues. I noticed I had a non-oem, original German generator pulley. At that same VW show swap meet, I found a couple of original, German pulley's for $5 bucks each. I grabbed them both. One was a bit rustier than the other. When I got home, I looked at them both and realized one of the pulleys back sides was deeper set than the other. I did a search on this site to remind myself why this was. I then found that one of the pulley's was for a 6 volt generator. Awe...

I threw both pulleys in the blast cabinet to remove the rust and old paint. I then assembled them and spun them to insure they were running true. I then used an etched primer followed by a couple of coats of semi gloss engine enamel.

This photo shows the difference in the original, German made pulley vs. what I assume is an after market, press fit one. Notice the Germans welded the inner portion to the outer on the originals? How many threads have we seen with the Chinese version of this pulley broken or stripped out? Yet another reason why I love to repurpose and refurbish the original, nicely made original VW parts.

Here's what the front side of the pulley looks like with the stamp on it from the manufacture.

And finally, another updated engine photo. I've sourced a 71' bus oil bath as well. What I've found is there is a couple of clearance issues when using the 1968-1970 Bowden cable for the oil bath preheat. The cable sheath can get in the way of the bigger 34-3 carb on the back side and also hit the accelerator pump linkage. I had to re-guide the cable to prevent that. The other issue is where the cable hooks to the extra arm on the cooling flaps. It's tight in the area between the flaps arm and the dual port aluminum manifold.

So, with those issues, I figured it would be better to simply take that cable off and install the 71' oil bath with the wax thermostat.
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[airschooled]

Inch by inch… That engine bay is going to be cleaner than mine soon!

I scoured primary sources for the cable routing, and found conflicting info in several VW publications weather it was routed to the right or left of the generator. In addition, the bug and bus cables are a few cm different in length, so I went to the right of the generator with my bug-length cable. It makes a hard turn, but it would completely clear a dual port setup. Let me know if you find a working thermostat for your air cleaner, I have a potential use for it……

Does your bus have a charcoal canister? Some 1970 buses did, I think it was a California or Canada package. That will also tie in to the '71 air cleaner nicely.

Keep it up!
Robbie
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[wcfvw69]

This bus wasn't delivered with the charcoal canister on it. I "think" it was on the 70' Karman Ghia's though.

I've concluded that the Bowden cable simply wasn't a good fit for the dual port engines with the wide dual port end manifolds. The bigger 34-3 carb also isn't compatible for the cable to run behind it comfortably. Maybe this is why the German's redesigned the oil bath with the wax thermostat in 71.

Someone posted they were able to buy new wax thermostat's from Classic VW parts. They had them in stock. I guess I'll find out sooner or later when I get the new oil bath!

Thanks for the Kudo's Robbie!
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[wcfvw69]

One step forward, two steps back...

I haven't done any work on the bus in a while other than removing a rather heavy shifter extension and handle. I installed a stock shifter knob without the extension on the handle so I could use a cup holder in the ash tray without hitting it w/the shifter handle. I also was procrastinating on a stiff drivers door window that broke two different handles while raising it up. It took all of 5 minutes to fix it. How? I sprayed some silicone in the new glass window felts, let it dry and made sure the felts where fully seated in the door channels. It rolls up like new now. I was REALLY surprised how well that spray silicone worked. It removed all the friction of the glass sliding in the felts.

The "big rocks" that need to be completed still include-

*Repainting the engine compartment and welding up some previous owner hacks inside it.
*Pulling all the cabinets out of the bus and re-laminating them. All the wood panels in the bus need to be replaced.
*Replacing the craptastic carpeted (too thick) plywood floor.
*Repainting the inside of the bus and then the outside of the bus.

When I got the bus, most of the engine compartment sound deadening tar boards above the engine were gone along with a big piece of the reinforcement rail across the ceiling. I'm not sure why a previous owner removed it? The buses sound levels while driving in town are decent with this stock engine and stock muffler. However, when you're on the freeway at high RPMS, it's louder than I'd like. So, I bought some Rattle trap 80mil sound deadening material to see if I can make it a bit quieter. I plan on putting it in the gas tank compartment and on the back of it's cover. Then, above the engine compartment with a tar board on top of it.

I pulled the engine and fuel tank out along with all the engine compartment electrical wiring and the rear lights. The wiring harness needs some love. Lots of overspray on it along with the crappy crimp connectors. I'm replacing all the non-open barrel connectors with the correct ones. I wanted the harness out of the way for repainting purposes.

The rear apron is only held on with two bolts. The other bolts must of rusted to their securing nuts so they ripped them out. I'm going to fix that so there's four bolts holding it in.

The passenger side battery tray is mostly solid. There is one small spot that's rusted through. I'm going to remove only that spot and weld in a metal patch.

Here's where a previous owner cut out the ceiling support cross member. I'm not sure what that square thing is in the middle of the roof or what is was for? Does anyone have a guess? As you can see in the picture, the floor above it is sagging just a bit. I plan to push the floor back up in place and then weld in a new piece of cross member. It will include the tangs to hold the new tar board above it like it was originally. Before I install the tar boards, I'm going to cut some rattle trap and stick it in each section, then install the tar boards.
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[khalimadeath]

Nice work man, I wish I would have taken more time when I was into my engine bay... Then again there is always next time!

[wcfvw69]

[LFL3]

[wcfvw69]

I only wanted to remove the engine and paint the compartment and shove a little sound insulation in.. I didn't think I was asking so much.

After removing the electrical and lights, I looked through the driver's brake light opening and noticed it had taken an impact in it's past. I hadn't noticed the damage to the rear most portion of the battery tray or behind the parking/driving light reinforcement structure. I knew the aphron hanger on the drivers side had been damaged and poorly repaired before.

You can see a 1/4" of bondo in the light opening and the wadded up inner structure.

Here's the drivers side apron holder. When it took the hit, the entire section pulled away from the frame towards the engine. It pulled loose from the spot welds on the back side. It was now bent and bowed and didn't go back up against the frame flush. This is why that gap is there. The very talented (not) body person just pushed it roughly in shape and position and brazed it so it would stay.

This is looking up under the d/s apron holder.

You can see the previous body repair guys amazing attention to detail on the front of the aphron holder where the two bolts on the drivers side go through to secure the apron. Of course, he would of had to actually repair the big hole where the securing nut should of been welded inside.

So, I started the process of removing all the damaged parts. Again, this apron holder should of been spot welded to the frame but the accident pulled the spot welds out. The rest of the spot welds holding it to the frame popped loose when I removed the braise welds.

Here it is removed, showing how wadded up and crooked it is.

This part was also dented up as well. So I drilled the spot welds and removed it to straighten it out.

These pictures are showing the damage to the battery tray and reinforcement rail with some pictures looking up at the drivers side battery tray towards the rear from under and then above it.

I ran out of time this weekend to remove the last inner reinforcement rail on that damaged side. I have about 4-5 hours in this repair so far. The plan is to remove that last reinforcement rail and then media blast all the parts of the rust and paint. Then, straighten them back out. I need to remove all the bondo on that driver's side rear corner by the brake/running light. I can see from the inside that the best body guy EEVVEERR couldn't of been bothered to actually push all the dents out before spreading the thick mud. I'm betting on at least 1/4" of bondo in spots that I'll have to remove.
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[wcfvw69]

Well... crap.. I straightened and media blasted all the damaged strengtheners and reinforcements. The only good news with this hack repair job is that the accident didn't impact the frame.

I heated up this frame section and straightened it out. I also bought another bumper securing nut to weld inside the frame while it's open.

I was able to get the inside of the reinforcement rail back lined up again.

I had to do some more massaging on the lip to get these pieces to all line up correctly.

Then I decided to remove the plastic filler on the corner to see how bad the sheet metal was under all the filler. I wasn't expecting it to be THIS bad.. Talk about a cloud of filler dust. In some areas it was a 1/2" thick. It's pretty screwed. I sat there and stared at it trying to decide what would be the best solution. Ideally, it would be nice to find a nice straight corner section from a donor bus. I just know it would take forever to try and straighten all that metal out. The super body guy stretched the crap out of it in spots as well.

I guess it's time to look around at options for metal to fix this.
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[airschooled]

Getting lost in the vortex.... I love it!!

I don't know if all of Gerson's corners offer the stamped circle for the 68-69 reflectors, but it's always an option..

https://klassicfab.com/klassicfab1/en/401-rear-corners
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[wcfvw69]

Oops, I never posted the picture of the naked sheet metal in all it's dinted up glory.

Thanks for the link Robbie. I'm probing around for a used corner that's not already beat to crap.
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[wcfvw69]

No luck in sourcing a decent drivers side rear corner. The only ones I saw were either rusted out at the bottom or dented galore. No one is re-popping these complete corners for bays yet either..

So, I grabbed all my hammers, dollies, pry bars and the torch and went at the corner to see how straight I could get it. The hack body guy in this buses past absolutely mashed the corner out, badly stretching the metal.

In this picture below, if you look left of the brake light opening and sight the body line, you can see the balloon of extra metal. I was able to hammer and dolly and then pry out all the major dents that had the 1/2" or more of filler in them. After most of it was back in shape, I had copious amounts of stretched metal to deal with. I got the torch, a bucket of water and rag and started shrinking the metal back into position. This also required getting spots cherry hot and hammer and dolly it and then apply the rag to shrink it. This took a few hours to get it all right. What was interesting was the impact the dents and shrinking had on the light opening metal. It would twist or kink until things were back aligned and in place. It still required some shrinking around the light openings as well.

These pictures shows the body line is back in position with the shrinking of that extra metal.

There a lousy patch from the previous repair that needs to be removed and fixed correctly. With the patch out, I can finesse out the rest of the minor dings on the lower rear corner.

As I was hammering away, I thought of how nice it would of been to simply purchase a new quality corner section and replace it. It would of saved me lots of time. Overall, I'm happy with how this corner came out. It will only require a 1/16" skim coat of filler to make it smooth again.
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[wcfvw69]

This rear tub repair keeps going and going and going... Its a good thing I'm not on commission working in a shop. I'd be starving as it's taking me a llloonngg time to fix this.

So, here's where I was at this am. A big dent to the right of the light that couldn't be massaged out as it was so stretched.

I got the masking tape and taped off the areas I wanted to cut out.

The previous "quality" repair bodyman decided it would be easiest to simply weld a patch over the badly dented and rusted lower section near the engine lid. He didn't bother to straighten out the seal channel before welding the patch right over this damaged lower section.

He also folded that patch over the seal channel at the bottom.

Here's his handy work. A patch brazed right over the existing dented, rusted metal.

I cut patches to replace the dented, rusted metal. I wire brushed off the loose surface corrosion and treated the metal with a rust converter/sealer.

I used a piece of copper to try and prevent burn through while mig spot welding the patches in.

This was the section I cut out.

I then patched the lower section where the 1/2" deep glob of filler was. The lower section at the rear below the battery tray is badly stretched as well. It's going to need some heat and shrinking to get it all straight before skimming it with filler.
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[wcfvw69]

I needed to finish up the repair and final straightening of the structure and bracing so I can start welding it all back together. The battery tray took an impact in the corner that wasn't repaired at all after the accident.

You can't push the battery tray back in place due to the inner pillar that is now back in the correct position. So, I cut the damaged corner out so I could straighten it back out and fit/weld it back in correctly.

I then needed to repair the rear apron holder (don't know this parts correct name). One of the securing nuts was ripped out. I welded in a washer then a nut to the back side of it.

I then had to drill holes in the apron holder to spot weld it to the inner corner piece. The spot welds were all ripped loose during the accident.

This was followed by test fitting all four pieces together to see how they all lined up together. I'm going to have to pull the bottom inside corner under the rear apron in towards the front of the bus 1/4".

Once I had everything lined up and after some additional straightening of all the pieces, I drilled spot weld holes where they were originally. I then painted inside all the sections with a weld able primer. I also cleaned the surface rust inside the frame rail and treated it with rust converter/sealer.

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[mpls_ham]

Great work Bill.....Always lurking around on your projects I need to replace my battery tray and patch a small section of driver's floor. Time is the issue for me.
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1970 Westfalia - Evangeline

1973 Beetle Convertable

[wcfvw69]

[wcfvw69]

I got my tape measure out and measured, measured some more and then measured a final time. I had to use a strap and pull that lower corner under the apron back in 1/4" before welding. I then got about 98% of the welding of the corner reinforcements, pillars, apron holder, etc.., back on the bus. It reminded me how much I hate grinding, especially when I don't have small, light air grinders. I don't do this work that much anymore so I have to remember all over again the correct heat settings for the particular gauge metal I'm working on. Doing clean, deep penetrating welds really minimizes the amount of grinding you have to do. Doing this metal repair work really makes me admire the REALLY good sheet metal guys on this site. They make it look so easy.

Here's the corner all welded back up.

This shows the pillar, inner strengthener, and battery tray where they all join and plug welded together. I straightened the crumpled corner of the battery tray after I cut that section out. It straightened out and welded back in nicely.

This bad picture shows what that junction looked like when I started. You can see the inner pillar rolled away. The rear engine lid pillar wasn't really attached to any of the sheet metal.

I need to finish some grinding after I buy some more discs, then do a few touch up welds. I'll then fix the missing reinforcement tube above the engine compartment. I'm looking forward to having the welding and grinding behind me.
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[wcfvw69]

One of these days I'll actually get to degrease and sand and repaint the engine compartment like I wanted to when I started this "quick" project.

I finished up the final welding and grinding of the drivers side corner tub repair. I then moved onto the missing engine compartment ceiling reinforcement crossmember.

I still have no idea WHY one of the previous owners would of removed the crossmember. It's really odd to me. There was rust where the open spot weld holes where in the floor. It appears this crossmember was removed decades ago by the amount and depth of rust in the floor by the old spot welds.

Since you can't buy that crossmember, I decided to make a run at making it with some metal I already had. I mic'd the original pieces thickness still welded to the ceiling. It was close to 16 gauge. I don't have any sheet metal breaks so I used a vise, hammers and lots of patience. It turned out ok but boy did it take me a few hours to make it. That metal is thick and doesn't bend without a lot of effort.

I then fitted it up and held it up in place to weld with a piece of 2x4 after treating the inside with weldable primer to prevent (hopefully) future rust.

The rear floor had a big sag where the cross member was missing.

It looks like the person basically ripped the old cross member out after cutting it with an ax!

I drilled through the floor and spot welded the floor skin to the cross member from the top.

I think it turned out good, all in all. I know it's rock solid now with no flex in the floor nor any more sags. I still need to tack some tar board holders onto the new cross member. I plan to stick a layer of sound deadener up then cover it with tar board like it was originally.

Hopefully the final welding in the engine compartment will be done tomorrow. I need to really clean off the old paint and rust and inspect the passenger side battery tray. It looks pretty solid except for one rust through hole that I can patch.
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[wcfvw69]

It finally feels like I'm working on what I wanted to accomplish when I started this engine compartment refresh. The passenger side battery tray had a hole or two in it along with rust. I wasn't sure if I could save it or not. It felt solid overall.

I started with a DA sander knocking down the big stuff. I then moved to stripped pad on a drill. I finally went down to my Drimel to get into all the tight areas and the deep part of the pressing.

I cut out the rust through and drilled small rust holes a bit bigger and to get to good metal to plug wed. Doing this repair was time consuming, mainly because I don't have a small air powered grinder with the small sanding disc's to remove the rust and paint quicker. I'm sure it would of taken even more time to replace the whole tray, not to mention having to repaint the outer tub afterward.

I then went old school and used Naval Jelly to remove and kill the remaining rust. This is coat one.

This is the final product. I applied three coats. At each application, I let it soak for 30 minutes. I then scrubbed the pan with a coarse little wire brush. I'd wipe up the old stuff and then apply a fresh coat. It really works surprisingly well. The acid in it will burn your skin. I did this w/my 67 bugs original battery pan too. It simply melts the remaining rust. I'm going to use a rust converter/sealer over the top of this bare metal. It will kill any remaining rust and then harden to prevent any moisture penetration. I'll follow that with 2 part epoxy primer and then color coat.

This picture should be in the bay window "rarest of the rare", lol. An actual grease and dirt free bay window engine bay. What a treat that was to clean. Don't waste your time on cleaning products and hot water like me. I quickly moved on from it and then used mineral spirits, elbow grease and plastic scrappers to remove the 46 years of old grease, dirt and crap out of the compartment.
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[wcfvw69]

I reached a milestone on this little project. I was able to put away the welder and torch and focus on the bodywork/paint.

After welding in the straightened piece of the drivers side battery tray, I sanded it down looking for any other rust. The factory caulking was cracked between the battery tray and body. Suspicious, I chipped it away and found some surface rust. I wire wheeled it and then treated any rust on the tray with Naval Jelly until the rust was gone. I also chipped away the loose undercoating under the battery tray and treated the surface rust under it as well.

After getting the rust off, I further straightened the battery tray before applying a skin coat of filler to make it look better.

There were also some spots inside the engine compartment that needed a skim coat of filler as well.

I then moved onto skimming the rear tub corner. I spent too much time working the metal and also had to shrink big portions of it. These pictures are after the first skim coat.

I need to finish sanding the engine compartment, primer it and then paint it. I also need to figure out what chemical will remove the glue from the ceiling that was used to secure the tar boards.

The last use of the little torch was to straighten out one of the apron bolt holders. It was pushed in and angled towards the engine. Getting it cherry red and using a hammer and a slide hammer w/vise grips welded onto it, I was able to get it straight again and mostly pulled back out. It required a skim cat of filler.
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