Milly the 1979 Westfalia Berlin Deluxe Bay Window Camper Van

[chrisradioman]

The front bra is really good quality & my misus said they were very helpful & good to deal with:-


http://www.volksheaven.co.uk/vunderbra/

[chrisradioman]

[chrisradioman]

Started work on the cab area today fist of all I cut out the rusty seat belt plate:-

Driver side:-



Passenger side:-

[chrisradioman]

This area was very tight, the rubber mat wouldn't sit in there nice, it turned out Volkswagen had spot welded trough to the outer skin. I gently ran a slitting disc through & separated the seam without destroying the metal, it just needs a bit of dressing of the metal now before painting:-


I've got most of the glue etc out of the cab area now, luckily there is no other rust or nasty surprises. there are a few high spots on the steel though so Volkswagen must have made them like this its never been hit from the underside:-

[chrisradioman]

Some better closeups of the seat belt areas, I didn't have any charge in my camera earlier & used the Go-Pro:-

[chrisradioman]

I'm thinking of possibly getting bit of steel the same dimensions as the hole I cut but the total thickness of the whole assembly inc the captive bolt. I can then get it milled down to the same shape as the whole assembly. That way as it is one piece of steel, there are no future rust traps. I've looked at the repair panels from various suppliers & they all look rubbish to be honest. No where near as good as the original. I think that you should either make it as good as the original or better.


Worked on Milly again today, removed the old metal from under the wheel arch & cleaned it up. Luckily its all good under there:-



You can see here the piece that came off, I had to cut through the spot weld, the metal is good with only a very light surface rust:-


Underneath the under seal the original paint can be seen:-


I took the next photos for reference:-

[chrisradioman]

Here you can see I have cleaned the paint from the edges ready for welding:-

[Pine]

Wow Chris, this is an unbelievable thread - well done!

[jolas]

Thats a huge amount of work in progress ! Are we in the present now or are you still catching up with this thread ? Again, thanks for the detailed pics - you must have a lot of patience uploading this lot ! Cheers

[chrisradioman]

Wow Chris, this is an unbelievable thread - well done!

Thanks pal. Keep reading loads more to come.

[chrisradioman]

Thats a huge amount of work in progress ! Are we in the present now or are you still catching up with this thread ? Again, thanks for the detailed pics - you must have a lot of patience uploading this lot ! Cheers

Cheers I'm now up to the beginning of Jan 2013 so nearly up to date.
I love the van & love telling people whats been done.

[chrisradioman]

The prep on the cab area is nearly finished:-

[chrisradioman]

Had another busy day today on Milly, fist job I did was to trail fit the seat belt bracket:-




After comparing pictures on-line of how the bracket fits I drilled the low hole:-


I don't like the idea of screwing self tappers intoi my nice newly painted bus so I've now drilled all the holes out to 5 mm so I can fit rivnuts with 3mm threads to the van:-

[chrisradioman]

Nearly all the glue is off now just a few more hous=rs of prep & I can paint the cab floor:-




I asked Mike to make me a seat belt fixing point repair panel, trust Mike its better than VW ever made:-

[chrisradioman]