Aircooled VW South Africa

The pop top is ready now to be removed it only has 2 of the rear bracket bolts left in place, this will be removed today. It took ages to get all of the little screws that hold the canvas down off.

Today I plan on stripping the passenger door down & taking both front doors off, then its on to the slider & finally the front screen, I'll have to remove the dash top again because of the heated screen.

Went up to Custom Classics in Barry again today, got the drivers door removed, the sliding door stripped & removed & the passenger door stripped ready for removal:-

I must be going mad, I thought I'd pulled all the trim clips off but it turns out I have a few left to do, I've found no hidden nastiness in the front doors or the sliding door all the window channels are good too. Hopefully I'll finish the stripping tomorrow.

Spent the whole day at Custom Classics in Barry. all the doors are of, the dash top is off, the roof lining is off, the rear wardrobes are out, the mats are out & the front section of the pop top is off:-

Not been to Custom Classics today but I have made a shopping list of the parts I need:-
Sliding door Westfalia wood panel
Tailgate Westfalia wood panel
2 upper bed cushions in brown plaid covers
Rock & roll bed brown 2 plaid covers
Side brown cushion covers
3 meters of brown plaid material
Brown curtain set
large Westfalia table 2 piece wood laminate
Westfalia sink & cooker top laminate
I need the two front cab door outer scrapers with chrome trim, I want the shiny trim not the brushed aluminium ones
I need the inner cab door scrapers
Felt window channels & clips
Rear screen deluxe rubber & chrome insert
Side window deluxe rubber & chrome insert
Side 3/4 window deluxe rubber & chrome insert
Cab door step rubbers
Under front seat cab floor mats
Rear light seals
Front indicator seals
Wiper spindle rubber seals
Westfalia roof rubber seal
Westfalia original quality tan canvas
New window winder handles
New door card bungs
Front kick panels & washer bottle cover
New washer fluid pipe work
New sun-visors
New cab roof lining plywood
Grommets for door lock pull
Door handle, tailgate & engine lid grommets
Corrugated heater tubes, rubber sleeves & clamps.
There are probably other parts I haven't thought of.

My parts storage area is growing:-


I pulled all the masking off my quarter light & the new paint showed up the old paint so I've re masked it & rubbed it down with 600 & given it another coat.

Went to Custom Classics today again, Milly is now fully stripped:-


Loads of crud on the roof, but luckily no rust:-




The foam stuck to the seat area is not from the mats I've just pulled out but the original set that are long gone:-

There is evidence of dirt & water getting into the headlight bowls, luckily they have a good coating of wax so no rust:-



There is no rust around the windscreen but there are a few unbroken bubbles in the paint, when burst water comes out of them, this can't be a good sign so a good clean up to investigate further is needed:-


A few action shots of me cleaning off the old foam & glue:-




Shock horror, the previous owner has smoothed over the seat-belt points with filler, this has blistered through & it will need cutting out and new metal welding n. I could easily clean it up & put more filler but we all know that that's well dodgy, in an accident that seat-belt point is critical, there is only one way in my book & that's the right way:-

Finger filed a section of the windscreen surround, it seems in that in the past it has had rust on it, its been filled over, its not rusty at the moment but I can't risk it breaking out in the future, the only way is to shotblast it all out & lead load it, If I find any holes I'll need to cut these out & weld them up:-

After lots of prep, paint, light rub down, more paint, unmasking, seeing a blemish, re-masking, more prep, more paint, I'm finally happy with the finish, It would have been easier to strip it all down & powder coat the frame. Never mind its done now & since the pics were taken I've bladed the glass down & removed any over spray. Its now ready for refitting:-

Another visit today to Custom Classics in Barry. There is a Late Bay at the yard with factory deluxe trim installed, I used masking tape to make a template of the bulge marked the holes & transfered this to my Bay:-






I had six clips on each corner, there should only be four. Only one clip on each side was right the rest were wrong. I had to drill 4 new holes & so 5 old holes will need welding up.

A couple of sneaky ones of me in action:-




The black lines where they intersect is where the holes should be:-





The circles are the new holes the crosses are the old holes that will be welded up:-

Got some VDO gauges I'm going to try & squeeze in somewhere:-