LEAKOIL Forum

Amazing!!!

Great Job Bruce...

So did you just end up selling the green and white one in the original pic?

You should be proud. Great work

Beautiful! I still can't wait to see it in person.

News flash! I worked on the F'ing BUS today! For the first time in nearly 6 months .

I installed the gas door latch ,

"restored" the church key Sean gave me, installed the license plate light,


primed the rear overriders 'cause Chuck gave me a hard time last night, and started looking at the radio. The frigging radio looks more like a Radio Shack build-it-yourself kit than a car radio......


I dug up some of the beltline trim and started looking at it. Maybe if I look at it hard enough it will jump onto the bus by itself.

2 hours, 952 right now.

OK, back from Brooklyn and back to the Bus. My work will be slow the next couple of months so I can concentrate on the really important stuff.

I prepped the rear bumper overriders, mixed paint and shot them. After wet sanding and buffing, I bolted them on, they fit surprisingly well for being aftermarket.
I see some suppliers have rubber seals/grommets that go between the pieces. Were they that way from Wolfsburg?
Next, interior lights. I bead blasted the inside, buffed the outsides, fixed the stupid little 3mm screws for the wire attachment, and installed them. Finding the mounting screw holes through the new headliner required a bit of patience.

I wanted to try something different for lights like LEDs so I bought these from a guy on Samba for $10/pair. This is the backside showing the circuitry, they are polarity sensitive.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... id=1718433


Not only do they not generate a lot of heat that might melt the lenses, but they only draw .09a (90ma) so they could run for days without killing the battery. I didn't check a stock bulb but I'd guess it about an amp (10 times as much).

Ta Da! Let there be light.

On to beltline trim. First, straighten the piece using a block of wood and a beater. If it's kinked or dented badly a brass punch might be needed from the backside.

Then put a 2x4 in the vise and screw the piece to it with drywall screws. Be gentle, snug is fine, if you tighten the screw it will bend or kink the trim. Now take a file and smooth out any ripples or high spots.

Then some 240 in the air file to get rid of the corrosion and file marks.

Then some 1000 grit wet/dry with water to get rid of the 240 marks.


Then for a little ride on the buffer to bring out the shine.

Before and after:


Screw them onto the bus using SS screws. Careful, SS is soft and it's not hard to strip the threads off the screw if you gorilla them. Most of the holes lined up but I did have to redrill a few. I did not put the end caps on but may in the future.

Use a heat gun and a plastic gasket scraper to install the center beading

You can see here it's close to a mirror shine, you can't see the imperfections that the camera shows.

Right side is done, still need to do the rear, left, and front "V" sections. It went much quicker than I thought, maybe 4 hours for the right side.

958 right now.

Nice job Bruce. When I get back in the "split" game, I'm going no trim Captain Kirk dove blue primer!

This bus is unbelieveable! One of these days i'll start coming around and will look forward to seeing it in person! You've got some mad skillz, sir!

Beltline trim and the front bumper trim are done, it was tricky to process that stupid 10' long LR trim piece without hurting it or bumping the bus and scratching the paint. To buff it I had the small door open in the shop and it hung outside. I had a hangman setup rigged to hold the opposite end while I started screwing in on, while using a blanket and magnets to protect the paint on that end.

The bumper trim must be a different alloy of aluminum as it polishes like chrome immediately when it hits the buffer. My hands are sore from pushing the frigging rubber into the aluminum, even when heated. The bumper trim rubber takes a gorilla to install, I actually cut the backside groove deeper to make it more flexible, and trimmed the one edge a bit so it would cooperate.

972.

Got the stereo installed, one of the most time consuming I've ever done. Making the brackets fit is a real PITA as it's not a direct fit but more of a make-your-own. Cut, drill, bend, cut some more, shorten the shafts, etc. BS, solder all of the connections, run 2 power feeds, etc. It looks and works fine after it's in, but I have the better part of a day in it. It's got USB, MP3, Ipod, R2D2, and some other acronyms I don't recognize, and a frigging remote control too. I have a pair of baby Bose sitting behind the front seats and a pair of cheapie Magnavox bookshelf speakers under the back seat. The f'ing Magnavox speakers (which I spent $2 for at a garage sale) sound better than the Bose. I changed the seatbelts, too, to a better pair I had laying around.



980

Fits like a glove and has an aux in.



Add this adapter box and it has iPod and Bluetooth for about $30 in parts.