My 1966 Split Window Bus

Kids :^).

Took an hour or so to check the rear end for original paint in between family visits. So far so good.



Also pushed the nose out a little. I tried the Football trick and I did not get it to work. I bought a tube for a lawnmower tractor and slide it in there. Probably could get it out a little more but the tube exploded and that ended the fun.



Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Phillip

Nice. If you ever need an extra set of hands, give me a heads up and I'll swing by.

I spent nearly all day on the rear end stripping the poor repaint. I was not as lucky as I have been on the rest of the bus. The rear lid had an area that was down to primer with no paint. I will have to touch that up. Overall I am pleased that was the only spot exposed. Now I can focus on other projects on it.
I showed it to some family and they all kept asking when I was going to paint it.I had to explain over and over that I wanted to keep it original as much as possible and I have two restored cars.
At any rate a before shot of the back. I pulled the dents a little while I was back there.




I am very impressed with how well the corners have turned out.

Wow. Can't believe the difference in this bus so far. Previous Owner would probably be sick...

Yeah I have been suprised at how nice the OG paint is under there. I will get a better pic in the morning. The rear looks ok aside from the worn area.
I am going to Tractor supply tomorrow to buy A Welder. Was on the fence between the Lincoln 140 and the Hobart handler 140. Going with the Hobart, almost bought it last year and have been drawn back.

Glenn if you want to swing by one day for welding tips I would be game, my welding skills need work. I am determined to do this one on my own or with minimal help. I was going to weld on the 914 (did a couple of hidden spots) but my buddy (he is in Iraq now) that was helping me was short on time so I had him do as much as he could since he was so much better than me.

Nice progress. I can't wait to see this bus.

If there are welding lessons going on, I want to come over too. I bought a new welder this year and haven't even fired it up yet!

Brandon

I am game for welding lessons, I am by far not the one to give them though, I am hoping to get better on this thing. I took a couple pics in some light today. Also got a shot with the new toy, hopefully this will make my welding skills better. Spent some time in the basement practicing on some 911 parts down there. Also in the process of building me a welding cart.

No work on the bus but some investment time for some real repair in the future. Fixed some Porsche parts that had holes in them as well to sell for VW money. Built me a Welding cart painted to match the Bus.

Nice!

OK, today I started the real work and Need some advise.
I started stripping the rusty cargo floor out of the bus. Aside from some stubborn spot welds and taking forever everything came out pretty clean.
The bus came with an all in one Cargo floor, rocker, inner rocker set up to replace the floor. I had read where the WW(I assume this is theirs but Only can find a Part number) did not match up well. I wound up taking it apart as I have no idea how you could fit this in one peice. The Inner rocker and Outer rocker are actually OK. The contour of the outer rocker is actually dead on. I am concerned about the floor though. The stamping does not seem correct. On my factory floor the ridges are squared off at the top and this one is more of a rolled look. I am thinking of using the Inner and Outer rockers and Buy the floor from Gerson. I have to get the short rocker from him anyway (have factory replacement Sea Blue wheel wells coming from a Samba member ) What are your thoughts on using his floor? Or would you just suck it up and tack this one in? Also any pointers in knocking this repair out? I plan on welding in the inner and outer tomorrow.
Also I am not a fan of the step but did not plan on breaking it getting it off. I broke one mount, can you get just the mount?

Here are the pics.
First shot with the spear off.

Great progress! Always scary making those first few cuts knowing there is no turning back now. Sucks the floor patter isn't matching up. You planning on putting any kind of carpet or flooring over the metal floor? If so, nobody will ever be the wiser. But....if you are already having to place an order for some other Gerson metal, now would be the time to get the correct floor piece if it's one of those things you think will stick in the back of your head.

Sucks about the step! I actually love the look of those things for some crazy reason.

So Eric votes slap that baby in!. I am on the fence. I honestly do not care, just figured I may as well order. I have to make an extension on the C pillar as Mine is gone below the floor.

It's your bus. With that said, If it were mine, I would run the one you have if it fits. The ridges will not be seen until some one wants to buy it from you, and only the diehard stock junkies would care if it wasn't squared off at the top. Everybody else will look to see if it's rusted out. Just my .02 worth.

I think I will roll with it.I have a blue mat that will go in.
I really do not care about the ridges, but It has these cutouts (like flanges) at the B and C pillar I did not understand. After looking at other floor parts the others are cut square. I think once I trim that out this one will drop right in. Part of the fit problem was hitting the C pillar and it woudl not move forward.
Still need a few part from Gerson but I think I will roll with the red floor. It does have some heavy duty flanges for the doors which I did not see on other replacement parts.

After doing metal work to the Jolly Rancher, I must say that Gerson has the best after market stuff I've seen. If you really want it to fit well and be workable, I reccomend you use original donor parts or Gersons stuff. I got my wheel arches from WW and, while they worked, they were also a pain in the butt because the metal was a slightly thinner gage than OG. What happened to me is the welder would tend to work perfect on the original metal but would pop holes in the thinner stuff from WW. The other stuff works but it takes a little more finesse.

Yeah, I will use OG Wheel wells and from here on I will order from Gerson. I am almost ready to tack the floor so I have got it to fit pretty good. Hopefully some pics tomorrow. Had to fab some parts for the B and C pillars.

When I went down to Bulli Brigade last year I was given a tip for doing the tack welds on a bug pan. He would fill the holes and hit it with a hammer while the welds were still red hot. He said it cut down on grinding them flush later. Don't know if that proper technique but it sounded pretty cool to me and the result looked good. Don't know how well that would work on the corrigated floors of a bus because missed blows might put dents where you don't want them.

Glenn,

I did tap a few while they were hot and it flattened them out a little.
I was able to put a little time on the floor this weekend. I had to make a little room in the garage to work on it late into the night. Since it gets dark so early I was running out of light.
Like I said before I had to seperate the floor repair part as I would like to meet the guys who can put those in in one shot. It took about 5 hours to fit the floor portion alone.
The lower portion of My B and C pillars were gone so I fabbed a new piece for both.
I ordered the Short rocker from Gerson so I did not tack the rear part of the rocker,C Pillar, or floor back there in case I need to move it around to match.I have a deal with a member for wheel well patches in Sea blue that I can not wait to install. Just need him to ship them.
Here are a lot of pics of the past 3-4 days.
Getting ready for surgery.

Got the inner rocker fitted and started plugging in to the frame.
You can see that I set the interior part behind the drivers door. I think I will flatten it out and clean it instead of making a new panel as it does not as forgiving as the door panels were.

Plug welded.

My B pillar was shot on the insede. I had to fab a part to move on to welding the outer rocker. I have a few pin holes on the close out part in the fender well so I will have to make a small patch there later.




I think Hans needed 45 more spot welds to be certified so he did them all here.You can also see where I got a little trigger happy with the air hammer on a couple of spot welds that would not give. Had to weld those spots up.

My Camera acted up so no pics of the outer going in.
Here is the front of the floor after the first pass and some grinding. Still have some pin holes and grinding to do.

Back side. The hole is actually a drilled hole so I will take a unibit and round the new floor to match

Playing with some paint to see how much more grinding I need to do. Love grinding welds.

Looking in from the rear. Now you can not see the ground so that is a good thing.

Made some room in the garage for now.

Gettin at it. Looks good. Keep up the good work.

Nice work man. Lot of spot welds eh.

Looks good! I can't wait to see it. I hope you make it out to the sonic!

Thanks Bryce,

I should. I think I can make that trip on dry rotted tires even if I have not secured a set of 15's.
Yeah tons of spot welds. Was so much fun drilling and grinding.

Can not get the guy with the wheel well patches to respond so I hope he is on Vacation. His price was too good to pass up and those cut wells are the biggest draw back to me on this one. After that some drop spindles will be needed.

Well I can flip your spindles if you are going to sub them out! $100