Itinerant Air-Cooled

Howdy!
I am new to this forum and look forward to participating and keeping our Papa's 79 Westfalia in good condition!
In 1979 our Papa flew us kids to Germany to pickup his Westfalia for a tour of our country of birth, France.
We were grumpy 17 and 14 year olds, who ended up having wonderful memories of the tour and I now own the Westfalia.
The Westfalia was shipped home to the USA after the tour, and Papa used it quite regularly. The bus was never stored indoors, so it has some rust issues, dings and dents and faded paint. However it is 100% original and complete. The interior is remarkably good, as is the pop-up top canvas. I believe his regular use of the bus is what preserved it. Had it been abandoned, it would not have survived.
My goal is to keep the bus in its original condition and prevent further deterioration by carefully weighing the pros/cons of any repairs or reconditioning against the risks of damaging any original parts or trim.
The bus has very high mileage and is on its second motor. It runs well, does not burn oil, and seems reliable.
My goal is to breath new life into it so that my wife and I can take long camping trips until it is time to pass the bus on to our Nephew. This will be a slow project, taken on in bite-sized portions in order to keep it on the road and running.
I will be trying to identify the main issues that need to be addressed for reliability, safety, handling and preservation.
We are selling our home and retiring to a small desert town, and I will have my own shop within a year or so. I have restored motorcycles and do enjoy performing maintenance and I look forward to participating here.
Please pardon me if, I don't seem to participate frequently at the moment, we are currently transitioning into retirement. As the bus project ramps up, I'll be around more!
Cheers, KosmicK1100

Beautiful looking bus. Should clean up nicely.

Replace the fuel lines, the brake fluid, the transmission gear oil, and check your brake pads and shoes. New engine oil and filter too if it has been a while, even if not that many miles on it. Fuel filter as well, I suppose.

Soon, you will start down the path of changing spark plugs, checking compression, valve adjustments, etc, etc. All good.

Cheers, Satchmo

There's two schools of thought with VW buses and roadtrips...fix it perfectly, pack your tools, and fix it along the way, or, don't fix it, pack your tools and fix it along the way. :) Sounds like you've got a very solid base, so do some maintenance before hitting the open road, and that will help keep it preserved.

On a side note ... what kind of motorcycles have you restored?

Troll and Satchmo, thank you for your words of wisdom! I'd better figure out what tools to pack, and be ready for some troubleshooting. As far as motorcycles go, I have been around Antique American motorcycle since I was a teenager, and have restored some Indians and a Harley. I've also worked on vintage Japanese bikes and BMW and Moto Guzzi. I run a humble little motorcycle forum as well. Later this year I will spend a couple months in France on a 1990s BMW which is stored in Munich.
Cheers, KosmicK1100

Nice bikes!

My 'daily' (as daily as you can get living in the Midwest and have a sales job) is an 04 Softail, but have a soft spot for the old UJM's - have an '83 'Zuki 850 GS that I went through last year, look forward to putting a few more miles on it this year. Also have a rigid frame shovelhead project that's collecting dust in the corner.

As far as tools needed, VW's are fairly simple and do not need a lot of specialty tools. You will want a set of metric box wrenches and socket set, feeler gauges, assorted screwdrivers, dwell meter and timing light. IIRC, I think the CV boots have a tork fitting? It's been a few years since I had to replace one...and I know the replacement bolts that come in the kit are different than the originals, but it escapes me what type. I would also include a quality torque wrench that's capable of inch pounds up to about 30 ft lbs or so.

Speaking of CV joints, if you are going to take it on a long journey I'd spend a Saturday afternoon repacking them. It's a really messy job, but well worth it. Check the boots for dry rot and cracks. If they are good reuse...many of the aftermarket ones are junk, and split after just a year or two and few miles; the originals are made out of much higher quality rubber.

EDIT: You may, or may not need feeler gauges, as it is a '79, and those came stock with hydraulic lifters (although they do need to be adjusted on occasion). That said, you mentioned the engine's been replaced, and many times people opt to go back to mechanical lifters, so you will need to check.

Thank you Troll! The 80's UJMs are pretty neat, lots to like there! Harleys are cool too, I used to have a 60 panhead that was my most modern bike for quite a long time. I got pretty deep into Adventure Riding and it was a refreshing change!
I am pretty sure I'll be repacking wheel bearings, replacing shocks and greasing the CV joints, and doing a general tune up, checking for loose fittings, nuts and bolts all around the Westy. It will be done in small steps, learning as I go.
Cheers!

I rotated the front seats, so the more worn driver's seat is now the passenger's seat.
The seat bottoms are still quite comfortable, however the seat back stuffing is toast, soon to be replaced with horse hair style padding from The Bus Depot.

I cleaned and greased the seat slider rails, and the passenger seat turret, old hard grease!


The bus would randomly quit running, and I traced it down to a bad spade terminal on the positive side of the ignition coil, which feeds the breakerless ignition at the distributor. After replacing the spade connector, we camped.

Nice fish! Was that dinner, or did you release it back?

On a different topic... I never thought 'modern' and '60's and "Harley" would all be used in the same sentence. ":)

Wow, what a great thread, thanks for joining us and posting here! My "Papa" would have turned 85 tomorrow, and certain photographs show the resemblance…



(Cheers for beige 78-79 buses!)

Your bus looks great for its age! And more importantly, it seems to behave well too. Congrats on keeping these cars alive; you and sunnydog have the greatest stories!
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewt ... p?t=528538

See you on the road,
Robbie

Howdy Troll,
For the most part, I practice catch and release and the 60 panhead Harley was quite reliable. I never had any problems with it other than being very finicky about the starting it under certain conditions. I did grow tired of the primary chain oiling system and the pool of oil left behind!
Asiab3, thank you for welcoming me to the forum and its nice to see another person carrying on the family Bus tradition!
Cheers, KosmicK1100

I replace the seat backs with new "horse hair" style pads from Bus Depot. The new pads fit the frames fairly well, but not as perfect as an OEM pad would fit. The original seat covers were a very tight fit over the new pads and pad cover, and some stitching repairs were need to the covers.
Disassembly:


The driver side seat back original materials


Ohhhhh the Horror!! The passenger side seat got lots of water, perhaps from my wing window that wont close?


The new pad;


The original cover over the new pad and new backing material.


Voila!

I tackled the bus sun visors today, by slitting them open, and putting new padding inside them.
My wife sewed the seam back together with clear nylon thread.
Before:


The slitting.


Old foam filler.


New filler.


voilà!

When the Westy's headliner vinyl parted company with the plywood, Papa tried to solve the problem with liquid nails. Time to clean this up, and prep the plywood for new vinyl!


A hair dryer softened the liquid nails enough that I could remove it with a putty knife.


The dark blotches are the liquid nails.


Some sanding was in order as well.


I've installed the headliner for the time being, since I don't have time to install the new vinyl. I have to remove the headliner again anyway to pull the rooftop carrier for restoration, and I'll apply the vinyl at that time.

Cheers!

Welcome KosmicK1100!!! Looks like you have a beautiful, solid Westy there and are diving right in!

On a VW Bus Facebook page I frequent, a member just lost his fuel-injected Bus to fire. Please put the project of replacing all of the rubber fuel hoses in the engine compartment high on your list if this has not been done recently! The fuel pressure is around 35psi so things can accelerate quickly if a leak occurs. If you send your fuel injectors out to someplace like Cruzin Performance for cleaning and service, their short rubber hoses will be replaced also. https://www.cruzinperformance.com/fuelinj.html

KosmicK1100 wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:09 pm

I tackled the bus sun visors today, by slitting them open, and putting new padding inside them.
My wife sewed the seam back together with clear nylon thread.
Before:

This is a close match to the unobtainable late bay green carpet!