Stock Bumper Facelift

I will eventually replace my front bumper with something a bike more substantial. The one that came with the van was slightly bent, the rub strip was missing and the chrome was looking a bit tarnished.

 So, I decided to throw a little black satin paint on it and call it good.

However, I decided that I wanted to make it different.   My original thought was to put stainless carriage bolts across the front to give it somewhat of a riveted industrial look, but there's not a great deal of space behind it for a nut. So I removed all the bolts that hold the rub strip on and bought small black plastic plugs to fill the holes.  

After that, I added some grip tape strips to the top so I don't slip off when climbing up to check the cargo space.

Simple quick hack.

Skylight Rebuild

My poptop came from a newer van, so luckily, I get a skylight.  Most of the early model pop tops didn't have a skylight.  Well, mine came with a hole and an actual skylight lens, but no hardware or seal.

I put it off for a while because the weather was awesome and I wasn't concerned so much.  About 2 weeks ago, I knew that I was going to be heading back to work for about 5-6 weeks and didn't want to leave the van with a hole in his top.  So, I bit the bullet and ordered up all the necessary pieces from GoWesty to install the skylight.

You can purchase the entire skylight kit from various manufacturers for about $150ish+, but since I already had the lens, I had to piecemeal it together and order all the small parts individually.
GoWesty kit   or   BusDepot kit

After it all arrived, I laid it all out, cleaned up the hole in the pop top the best I could, opened up Youtube to the GoWesty channel and followed the simple instructions.  All said and done, it took me about 25 minutes and it turned out perfect.  

Pretty simple project if you have old and worn out mechanisms on your skylight.  At the very least, you might consider replacing the seal as they get compression-set and can become less effective with age.

Wheel Upgrade

14" wheels are too small but they work.  Most everyone who owns a Westy long enough will upgrade to a 15" or even a 16".   My van came with 14" steel wheels, complete with rotten tires that I wouldn't trust on a trip around the block.  However, tucked away in the back of the van, was a set of 4 15" Ronal R9's with damn-near brand new tires.  I just needed to get some longer lug bolts/nuts and clean them up a bit.

Ronal has been making wheels for a long time and I didn't know too much about them aside from seeing the name now and then.  I guess they were pretty popular in Europe at least from what I can gather.  I did a little research and finally figured out mine were R9's.  They had been painted and re-painted quite a few times, so I had my work cut out for me.

My typical approach when painting wheels is this:
-Pressure wash
-Degrease
-Sand lightly
-1 coat of self etching primer
-sand
-2 coats of wheel paint (In this case, a satin black on the outer part of wheel and a texturized paint on the spokes since these already had a texture on them).  I use a brand of paint from Autozone, it runs about $8/can.

It took me about 6 hours worth of work, but they turned out pretty good and gave the van a whole new presence.  

Eventually, I'd like to add a more aggressive tire, but that will come after the suspension upgrade.

Interior Panel Rejunevation

Ferdinand is 34 years old and his interior panels are original.  When I bought him, he'd been sitting in a field for 2 years and was missing some windows.  Needless to say, moisture had gotten in and warped some of the panels.  The paper coatings were bubbling and looking bad, but I didn't really care at the time because I knew that I was going to rip them all out at some point and replace them with an upgraded material.

However, once I got him home and started to strip him down to bare bones, I found that most of the panels were still in pretty good shape aside from the paper coatings (I call it wallpaper) coming off.  I left this project off the initial priority list because I didn't care about the aesthetics so much as getting him running and trustworthy.

Well, a few weeks back I was satisfied with the progress and decided to develop a plan for making the interior looking better.  I spent an hour or two peeling and cutting away old paper off the panels before deciding to pull out the heat gun.  Once I fired that up, things really started to take action.  Using a razor blade and a small putty knife, I was able to get all of the old coating off the interior to expose the raw panel in all its glory.

The material had an interesting texture and appearance that reminded me of bamboo or tweed, or a mixture of the two.  At any rate, I kinda like it and for now, I'm leaving it.   When I'm ready, I'm going to be pulling each panel and applying some sort of paint, but I need to decide on a texture, color... or potentially I may decide to try and apply some fabric using a high-heat spray adhesive.

I really like some of the aftermarket interior kits you can buy, but I get more satisfaction out of crafting something on my own, not to mention the cost savings.

Vanagon Geekness: Repair Resources

It's a Vanagon, so unfortunately, at some point in your "relationship", you will find yourself sitting alongside the road trying to figure out why your van won't go.   

There are numerous threads about "what to bring" and keep stocked in your van on road trips, but here's a quick hack that I like as well.

Mobile e-Manual:   Many of us have been in the age of technology long enough to have an old device laying around that isn't being used.  An old smartphone, an outdated tablet, maybe a laptop?  I went online and with a little digging, managed to find a PDF copy of the Bentley repair manual.  I then transferred that PDF to an old Motorola tablet and it gets kept in the van.  It's also handy for just tinkering around in the driveway, rather than getting greasy fingers on those beautiful white paper pages of the original manual.  

If this device has internet access, make a list of favorites or links to manufacturers, repair facilities, Facebook groups like "Vanagon Help" or "Vanagon Owners" so that you have the resources to help you get your baby back rolling.

I also like that you can zoom in on illustrations since my eyesight isn't what it was a few years ago.

Anyhow, just an idea...

Upper Control Arm fix

I've had a few Vanagons now and I'm quite privy to upper control arm bushing failure.  It's an obvious sound and feeling when these little $20 parts go bad and they pretty easy to fix, so I wasn't alarmed when I heard and felt mine rattling around down there on the passenger side.

Because they can really throw off your alignment, it's good to nip them in the bud and swap them out.  I ordered up the parts from VanCafe because I was craving big cookie and I needed the parts the next day (they are only a few hours away), and decided to knock it out the next morning.  

As soon as I got the van jacked up and had the wheel off the ground, I realized that I had a bit more going on down there. The bushings were snug, but the oval sleeve used mount that the upper control arm bolts to, was separated from the frame mount.  Not something I had expected, or seen before.

So, I took a few pics with my phone up in the wheel-well to get a better look (because you can't see the back side of the shock tower) and was baffled as to how I was going to remedy the situation. The area up inside the wheel well is too narrow to get in there with a mig welder and being able to get a good solid weld on there would not be possible even if you could.

So, I called a good friend, also a Vanagon geek like myself, who has a ton more experience with bigger jobs like this, not to mention he's an amazing welder and mechanic.  I shared some pics and he decided to come over and take a look.

As soon as he arrived, we agreed the best course of action would be to get it to his house and cut open the floor under the passenger seat so that we can create an access to the shock tower and upper control arm mount.

So, we removed the seat, drilled some holes and carefully cut a 12"x12" opening under the seat with a sawsall.

We were lucky that the mount/sleeve broke off pretty cleanly and we could see exactly where it was supposed to go.  We then cleaned up the metal and welded the part back in, but not before adding an extra piece of metal to reinforce the sleeve in the inboard side.

After that, a quick re-install of the control arm and we were done.  We eyeballed the alignment and pretty much nailed it, but I'll be getting it aligned pretty soon when I install new suspension components.

All said and done, it was about 6 hours of work, 2 sub sandwiches and the existing bushings didn't even need to be replaced.  

We welded the access port back in and cleaned it up with some good Rustoleum pain and you could hardly even tell we were there.

Rocker Panel Protection

When I purchased my first Vanagon, I was looking for ways to dress it up and personalize it a bit.  I had a short list of things I could do to make it look "better than stock" without spending tons of money.

One of the first things that I did, was to add a bedliner product to the lower rocker panels of the van.  I like the look of it because it breaks up the huge body panels a little and makes the van appear a bit taller than it is.  I've always liked my vans to look a little more "rugged" and this is a quick way to accomplish this.  It also adds a fair amount of protection to the lower section of the body to protect from rock ships, scrapes and eventually rust.

I did some research and asked around about various products and then decided to try out Rustoleum's Bedliner that is available in a spray can. I figured that for the price, I can go wrong and I could always touch it up should it chip, flake, crack, etc.   This is available at most hardware stores, I purchased mine at the local Ace Hardware for about $9/can.  The lower rocker panels on my van took about 3 cans total (one per side, then less than one for the front and rear sections).

Now, for any project that involved paint, you have to know that prep time is usually about 3-4x longer than actual application time. The masking, paint prep and "figuring it out" is always the longest part of the project.

Parts list:
2 Rolls of thin (1") Blue masking tape
1 Roll of the thicker (3") Blue masking tape
1 Roll of masking paper (about 10" wide)
1000 grit sandpaper
Paint Thinner
Clean rag
Piece of cardboard (to use as a shield)
Old towel or cardboard (or something to throw over wheels to avoid overspray)

my '86 Westy with undercoating

The first part if figuring out your masking line.  Do you want it go over the wheel wells or stay below and follow the body line.  Do you want to do the area inside the door and step? do you want to continue it on the front and rear of the van and if so, where?  All things you'll want to consider.  The easiest option is to go online and Google "Vanagon rocker panel undercoating" or something along those lines and start seeing how other people tackled theirs.  You can always add more later, but you don't want to go overboard and then think that less would've been better.  Think it through.

Next, mask off your area with the thin tape and make sure your paintable edge is clean and that the tape is pressed down tight, otherwise you'll get paint under the tape and it'll look bad.

Then, once your happy with the line, use the thicker tape and masking paper to mask off the area/s that could potentially get overspray on them.  This product doesn't put off too much mist, but it will end up finding its way onto the rest of the van.  I usually mask up about 12" or so above the line and just be careful when I paint.  I use the cardboard as a shield for anything else and I keep a rag hand with some paint thinner on it to remove any accidental overspray.

I've used this product on 3 different vehicles now and I love it.  It's strong, looks good, goes on easy and it's affordable.

My '82 before

My '82 after

I unfortunately lost a few photos from this project, but I'll try to dig up what I can and add them into the post.