Meet "The Green Bus" (Update - 3/31)

[Westy78]

Wow!!! She cleaned up nice!

You must be higher then all get out from those spores...lick the spore, lick the spore!!!

(We are probably going to buy this one tomorrow, if all goes well.....)
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=432116

(keeping my fingers crossed)

Maybe we can have a 'saved bus' engine rehaul party????

Wow, that's a super clean bus for the money. From the looks of the guys website it looks like the things he did do on it, he did well. Good luck on the buy.

[VWBusrepairman]

(We are probably going to buy this one tomorrow, if all goes well.....)
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=432116

(keeping my fingers crossed)

Maybe we can have a 'saved bus' engine rehaul party????

'78 should have had sliders...this one does not. Investigate...I sure do love '78 buses more than heavy metal.

[Adventurewagen]

Wow!!! She cleaned up nice!

You must be higher then all get out from those spores...lick the spore, lick the spore!!!

(We are probably going to buy this one tomorrow, if all goes well.....)
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=432116

(keeping my fingers crossed)

Maybe we can have a 'saved bus' engine rehaul party????

Heck yaaaaa! That bus is awesome!!! I am partial to Orange since my 71 is Orange.

Dang, I say pay the guy today to lock it in if you can. The racing stripes are pretty dang cool too.

We definately should have an engine gathering. Mine is definately going to be some work, not anywhere as clean as yours.

Hope you get it. Good Luck!!!

[Sylvester]

(We are probably going to buy this one tomorrow, if all goes well.....)
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=432116

(keeping my fingers crossed)

Hey Spiffy, I looked at that one online yesterday. Might be interesting.

[spiffy]

Wow!!! She cleaned up nice!

You must be higher then all get out from those spores...lick the spore, lick the spore!!!

(We are probably going to buy this one tomorrow, if all goes well.....)
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... ?id=432116

(keeping my fingers crossed)

Maybe we can have a 'saved bus' engine rehaul party????

Heck yaaaaa! That bus is awesome!!! I am partial to Orange since my 71 is Orange.


Dang, I say pay the guy today to lock it in if you can. The racing stripes are pretty dang cool too.

We definately should have an engine gathering. Mine is definately going to be some work, not anywhere as clean as yours.

Hope you get it. Good Luck!!!

Thanks man! didn't mean to heist your thread

The guy says that it probably has a thrown rod so might as well drop the engine and check things out and rebuild as needed.

That and fix that big ass dent in the back.

[nakedfrog]

Both of my VWs have their original manuals as well. I want to see if I can find out more about the history of the bus, it seems to have started out in western Nebraska, but it has a (painted over) decal from a dealership in Michigan. It found it's way back to Nebraska, though.

[zblair]

WOW! You did a great cleanup job there brother! =D>

This green bus will love you right back!

I was thinking about the name again, and I thought of the name of the (now defunct) punk club, CBGB.....GB could be for green bus and you could come up with something for CB!

Or stick with Marley

[Hippie]

Unbelievable. That headliner looks new--the seats, too.
Wow.

Rob

[hambone]

Hey Spiff thought you were lookin for an early bay?

[Adventurewagen]

This isn’t the most exciting update but I did include a few interesting shots aside from cleaning shots but I’m trying to stick with the updates and as many pictures as I can. I did a lot on it this weekend between doing the dishes and cleaning the living room for my wife ;) If I don’t keep up on the regular stuff I’ve been told I can’t play with the bus.

I have so many pictures from this weekend and a bunch of “after” pics that I didn’t take yet I’ll have to make a couple of updates. The cleaning is definitely getting boring, but I finished a complete once over for now. The entire headliner is cleaned, all the seats, the dash and the whole pan has been gone through once.

The topic of Mold:
I’ve learned from my buddy who works in a lab and knows lots about mold and similar stuff that bleach does NOT kill all mold spores. So it looks like I’ll have to get a special mold killer solution to spray on the headliner eventually. I’ll of course take pics and post what I got and how it works when I do.

More headliner shots:
One of the most satisfying jobs has been the headliner. It came out just super and has only a couple of small tears in it in a couple of areas. A few of the side parts will need to be whitened if I can find anything that does that, but otherwise it’s pretty dang good for being 28yrs old. Here is what I came out with in the end.





The Pan:
Next on the agenda was cleaning the floor which was an absolute mess. I didn’t get a shot of the foam under the seat, it was too gross. One of the PO’s had rolled up carpet padding and put it under the seat. Probably for sound deadening, but all I can say is that it helped hold moisture, dirt and a lot of other nasty stuff under there. My 71 is spotless under the seat area but rusted to high hell everywhere else. Go figure this part under the seat is rusted where it should probably be nice and clean. I also found in the padding a dead rat that was about 6 inches long! I pulled the rubber mat, the seat and literally hosed out the inside middle pan, what a mess.






Most of the rust on the pan is minimal, not much deep stuff. I’ve gone over everything a couple times now with a wire brush and now the vacuum since it’s clean but eventually I’ll start prepping each of the areas with the Por-15 prep stuff and then hitting it with Rust Bullet to stop it for good. I think if I end up keeping the bus I might get the spray on bedliner over pan. It would be nice to have a perfect pan and repaint it but if I’m just going to drive it then killing the rust and sealing the pan with bedliner would effectively cover all the rust spot imperfections. Here is a shot of the worst of the rust. The seat mount near the door which has had the most weather, since the door sat off for about a year now has rusted through. I guess I’ll have to cut and weld a new chunk in there.



The interesting stuff:
I happened to be reading a thread on this here the other day, but it was about a gas tank access hole to get to the sender without taking out the engine. Sure enough but what do I have but a fuel tank access hole. I don’t think I’d personally cut one into my bus but since I’ve got it I mine as well make use of it. Can anyone tell me if the cover used looks like it’s one of the actual VW ones people talk about? I’m guessing it’s just a regular old cover used for anything you need that is plated on the bus. I think I’ll have to pull it off, clean up all the caulking and think about welding in an actual flange I can seal it to. I’ll just have to figure out how to weld it without blowing myself up!



I also have some really great shots of the dirty engine but didn’t get any of the cleaned up engine so I’ll post those later, but I did work on the nose panel dent last night. The dent luckily didn’t damage the interior much. You can see that it just barely started to push in the main vent tube but didn’t get into it much. I was able to carefully work in behind the panel and punch it out. Definitely not ideal and I could do more, but for now it makes the whole bus a bit more enjoyable to work on knowing the front doesn’t have as bad a dent.

[sped372]

Lookin' good! Keep the updates coming. : )

[Birdibus]

Those are all HUGE improvements! Think of all the cleanup as "the price of cheap".

[Adventurewagen]

Those are all HUGE improvements! Think of all the cleanup as "the price of cheap".

Is that cheap as in cheap cheap cluck cluck

Hey, Thanks! I feel real good about the bus so far. The more grime I clean off the nicer a bus I uncover. I've also found a good handful of coins in the bus, I'll tally up those profits and factor those into the overall cost So far my work tally is 170miles to get the bus, 13hrs cleaning, 20hrs in total and 433 bucks.

I'll also start tallying up bus parts as I get them, but I'm trying to complete most things so I can give a nice before and after or a full summary of what I actually bought and put into the bus. Now that most of the cleanup is done I can start to focus on the mechanics to get it running.

I would love to cover the bus from head to toe with a fine tooth comb, but for this first project I'm going to keep costs low and rebuild/replace only those things needed to get it back on the road and complete. That way I can do a total cost and hours on the bus as my daily driver and not the extra cost and hours I'll spend making it perfect.

My initial scope to get it running includes the following:
-Ignition lock cylinder replacement
-Brake Job
-Engine Refresh/Overhaul (Whatever it'll take after sitting for 4yrs)
-Sliding door

I don't know how involved each will become to get it back in shape, but I will start finding out pretty soon. The brakes could be anything from just bleeding the lines to complete replacement of rotors, calipers, brake shoes, brake cylinders, etc. The mega engine list will come in another post but any additional lists would help me for now. I've been trying to find posts on "running and engine after its sat for years" type threads. I figure general things like fuel line replacement, new fan belt, oil change, new plugs, rotor, cap, plug wires, oil filter, drain the gas and more tubes and hose replacements, etc.

So far I've bought a new set of door handles for 17 bucks, a set of 30 original hose clamps for 7mm FI hose ($17) to replace the hodge podge of clamps and I might have a line on the bottom and middle sliding door rollers for 25 bucks. Oh, and I found and bought an AFM (020, for my federal version) for $20 bucks since reading up on FI and helpful spare parts.

[sped372]

I've been trying to find posts on "running and engine after its sat for years" type threads.

Have you even tried crankin' that thing over by hand yet? It's not siezed is it?

[Adventurewagen]

I've been trying to find posts on "running and engine after its sat for years" type threads.

Have you even tried crankin' that thing over by hand yet? It's not siezed is it?

Nope, not siezed. I've cranked it over by hand, but that's it. The last tabs on it were 2002 and the guy I bought it from said he drove it about 5 miles to his home before he pulled the battery and it sat. The last thing running in the bus were the two dead rats I've found curled up and mummified

I've read most of the threads on what to do with an engine thats sat, at least the ones I could find. I was thinking about accumulating all those posts information and posting them here in one area and then seeing what people thought. I'd rather not drop the engine yet but instead get it in running as quickly as possible so I can then find out if I've got serious problems or not to contend with.