Aircooled VW South Africa

Great work Sean !
i like the backing plate idea on the long side sill. i will suggest your idea to Gerson it makes a lot of sense.
looking great ! don't forget to blow air on your welds...specially the long side !
the panels have arrived..i think they were cleared today and should be here in PE tomorrow....will keep you posted !

Warwick-Lowlight wrote:Sean Congrats

You are now officially the leader of the Cape Rat pack
Love the work that you are doing
Splittbusaholic had allot to say - only good things of your progress
You are the Man - going where we all want t0

Ain't that the truth - good progress Sean - was cool to see your bus in the setting of the workshop and not languishing in the rain under that tree in your yard sitting on it's belly - it's a whole new bus

Nice Progress there mate well done

What a find!
I wish I could get one shipped over here it would be the only way I could afford a splitscreen combi as they go for silly money.
Seriously some guy I know personally has sold his crew cab split for £20,000!

Some more progress...

Test fitting the outer front valance.





Outer front valance fitted with test fitting of the front bumper. All the mounting points on the bumper lined up beautifully, but unfortunately the bumper is going to need a bit of straightening, the farmer obviously towed it by the bumper and hence it’s a bit twisted.



I should be able to post some nice progress pics after next weekend.

As these panels have worked so well and have saved such a huge amount of time, I ordered a few more items I previously thought I could get away without. Gave Splitbusaholic a call and these stunning items arrived today.

The lower nose repair section, jacking points and the left and right cargo floor repair sections.



This hideous rust hole still awaits for this weekend....

Nice work, nearer the end each day...

Herman

Don't fix the roof. It's an africa shaped sunroof!

Some more progress again.

I started with the lower nose repair panel this weekend, this was a job I thought would be a little tricky, but it didn’t turn out that bad. The only difficult part was to try line up the “V”, I started from the middle and worked my way out and in the end it lined up quite well.

Here it is before the lip has been folded over the front valance.



I was also a little hesitant with this job of folding this lip over and uncertain of a tool, but made this effort from some bar tube and a handle and with this tool slowly worked this seam over. I was amazed at how well it actually worked, it took forever and felt as if my arm was going to fall off from swinging that hammer so many times, but did a damn fine job in the end. I made a second version of that tool to finish off with a much smaller square shape to give the lip a nice tight fit.



After lip folded over.



I am really stoked at how well this nose section fitted. I just can’t find faults with these KlassikFab panels.

I moved over to the cargo floor repair sections too. It’s quite a job drilling out all the spot welds; my Fleetline for some reason was much easier to remove, I just folded the floor over and hit the hell out of it which broke the spot welds, not on this German bus though.

In the process of removal.



Trial fitting floor repair sections.



Since this pic I have tried straightening the middle part of the floor since it was seriously wobbly from loading over the years. I managed to line it up with the new sections but it isn’t great. I am going to carry on next weekend with this job.

Lastly I was a bit gatvol from the back braking work inside so opted for underneath. I tried to see if I could blow the brake lines clean, but didn’t have any luck. I then decided to remove them and it showed why I had no luck. They are completely rusted, basically everywhere where it went through the chassis sections.

Here’s just one part. I will send these in to have some new ones made up.



The clutch and accelerator tubes were also rusted beyond repair, I cut the old ones out, bent up some new ones and welded them in.

The accelerator tube was relatively easy as the pipe was quite bendable but the clutch turned into a real bastard. As the pipe was too ridged I had to bend it in the pipe bender beforehand and then try to fit it through the chassis rails.




With the floor sections out and before I welded them in I made sure all the sections were clean from all the years of dust and mud. I made use of the air gun which worked well, but it turned the entire factory white and covered me head to toe in dust, what I hideous job.

Nice progress here!

This is fantastic progress man alive, thanks for taking the time to post the story and pics, all this hard work will be worth it in the end - eish - falling way behind on my '59

Hey man great Job. You feel chuffed seing the things coming together.
Keep us posted. Time you set up a tour...

looking great Sean !!

sean wrote: it turned the entire factory white and covered me head to toe in dust, what I hideous job.

should have done that outside rather...
that must have been quite funny from the pic it looks like you are working in the mist ! Gorillas in the mist....luckily there were no staff at work !

Bushpig wrote:Hey man great Job. You feel chuffed seing the things coming together.
Keep us posted. Time you set up a tour...

You welcome to make a turn Bruce. I should be there all of next weekend again. I managed 12 hours a day this last weekend, so any time of the day should be good.

Other members are also welcome if you want to come have a look. Just drop me a message.

Cool, can you send an address Please