'62 Panel....the bush busser - further progress

[FrankenCab]

sweet vid andy and nice find , bugger about the oil cooler

[kombi1976]

we just found your new avatar andy....

As instructed.
As for the cooler I think it'll be ok for the moment.
It's just been nasty cold here in the mornings and I wasn't careful enough.
Thanks to Travellinbob I now have room in the garage for the '62 so from now on the '67 stays under the carport avoiding the deeper cold of frost and gets a proper warm up too.

[Dasdubber]

Nice vid Andy - a great way to remember the thrill of the purchase and the excitement of getting it home. I'm sure your little boy would have had fun on the bumpy trip down the hill as my son would have!

Wonder when you'll get your first "when are you going to finish it?" question.....I am thinking those stickers I saw at valla "Its finished dickhead" will be particularly suitable!

Al

[warb]

http://tinyurl.com/2entn6p Andy, you need one of those for your primer painted bus!!..

Al,.. didn't catch you at valla, was a whirl wind weekend for me!.

[kombi1976]

That's what I like, a little subtle product placement.
We'll definitely talk on that one.

[Dasdubber]

Al,.. didn't catch you at valla, was a whirl wind weekend for me!.

Likewise warb - same with Andy - I saw you at a distance once but was talking to others at the time and couldn't get over to say g'day. Was a busy weekend (especially chasing my 2 year old around the whole time).
Al

[kombi1976]

Ditto on that Al.
And ditto on the 2 yr old.....
As Jeremy Clarkson said on TopGear the other night:

This car is like a 2 yr old....most of the time they're a pain in the bum but if someone tries to take it off you you'll kill them.

[slowlearner]

when are you gonna restore it?











sorry, couldn't resist.

re bias ply tyres... you have to be kidding right?

you'll have raised, nasty old tractor suspension as is. give it half a chance of handling. there are HEAPS of different options for 4wd and offroad tyres. try and opposite lock or ARB store and ask them what they have. sure it might not be in stock at the local Kmart auto, but if you look around you'll find something to fit. with the numbers of yuppies trying to make their Kia softroaders look tough you are sure to find something that fits. 16" rims would help...

Hang on, I've already given you one 16" rim. just go find another 4.

Oh just one more thing. that'd hoon with an EJ22...

[i've got 10 minutes to get out here while they all let their aircoolers warm up properly]

[kombi1976]

DOH!!!
You're right, you gave me that Prefect rim.
Time to find some more.
There are some ok 15" tyres out there, the Firestone ASR 205/75R15 probably the pick, but some 600-16s in bar tread would really rock.....so long as they fit in the guards.
The consensus is that they will.

[slowlearner]

anglia actually. but it is probably a little narrow at 3.5" or whatever. what you want to do is find a steel outer rim off a new 4wd from a wrecker that will fit the old VW centre in it. you'll need a tape measure and some time. there is bound to be something that will fit. something cheap is the ticket. Kimm G had anglia centres in NewBeetle outer rims but the NB rims are EXY and probly a little wide for what you want.

p.s. if you really wanna go offroad, coming up with a simple sort of locker would help you out a lot when you get one wheel up.

[Jockster]

Great find Andy.

Loved the video and the story leading up to it.

[kombi1976]

After what seems an eon (moving house/end of the year/Christmas/NewYear/hols/etc) I've finally got around to doing some more work on the '62. We moved the Panel over one day to the new garage with the wonderful services of Goulburn Tilt Trays, the guys who picked it up from the farm. It was either $80 + deposit for a trailer from Kennards or $50 via tilt tray for 15 mins work. I'll go the 15 mins when it's fully insured and fast.

So today after moving furniture inside the house I decided to pull the bad furniture OUT of the Panel, or at least start. Here are my helpers Bryn(7) and Rigby(5).....and I use that in a broad sense:


Actually to be fair, Bryn, apart from his domestic blindness, is a good helper. But then a few people here know Bryn so they wouldn't be surprised by that. But I digress. Here's the cab and back before I stripped them.






For the record that's a Mini Minor engine block, manifold, bell housing, etc in the back. First thing I did was pull the front seat and have a look at what was lurking there. Bryn hard at work again:


There were tons of funny little things in the cab. The seat itself is a "hump" seat. I think that's the term. Whatever the case it's in stellar shape, no big tears just the odd little hole and only on the sides out of the sight and range of small questing destructive fingers. Even the matting underneath looks ok and thankfully no redbacks or white tails. In fact none at all so far in the '62.




Paradoxically there was a length of wood wired across the back of the upright and it broke when I tried to lift the seat out holding on to it. Hope it wasn't important - it certainly wasn't stock.
There were tons of little pieces of paper and other paraphenalia in there. Here are the interesting ones.


Instructions and warranty to the old Clarion Radio/Cassette which sadly is gone. It wasn't stock but it would've been cool. A very cool notice saying "THIS VEHICLE IS NOT FOR SALE UNLESS A DEALER'S NOTICE IS ATTACHED". Gonna try and clean the dirt off and use that one at shows. And some sort of weird hook, I think used to hold the seat in place. Then there's the VW wheel bolt and the rubber guard off the steering column bracket.


Here are some pieces of trim. Goodness knows what from. Also a piece on repairing aircon (bizarre?!) and a tyre iron. But these other 2 are a tad cooler.


THAT would make a cool logo Panel, eh? But St Agnes is still in business and I think aspire to greater things than a dirty old VW, especially after looking at their current website. Still, a great talking piece.


And an Aussie 5c piece from 1970. Not long after decimal currency. Pretty old, eh? It's staying in the ashtray for.....well, I don't believe in luck but I do believe in nostalgia.

Then there's the cab itself.



There's the Shell & Shandy radio sticker spotted earlier from SA. And then there's this cool little medallion.


I thought it was of an Aboriginal man to begin with but it seems to be a hiker or traveller carrying a child. I'll have to unscrew it and check out the back. There's also the cool little service sticker near the ashtray....


And the period NRMA stickers. There's one here on the passenger screen and another on the driver's quarter window. Unfortunately no old rego sticker to see when it was last roadworthy.


Oh, almost forgot....Tudor period seatbelts. They still work too although I'm not sure they'll stay. They're a bit dry and dirty to pass muster.



It's a pity about this broken drivers sunvisor. Any thoughts on how to fix it?


There's also the cool spotlight switch mounted on the top of the dash to operate the Lucas Flamethrower spot......which has a broken lense! But I have an idea about that. And the rear vision mirror is not standard but it's quite cool. I also was SURE I took a pic of the colour sticker in the spare wheel well (Gulf Blue of course) but it seems to have disappeared.

So I started on the cupboard behind the bulkhead. They were bolted through the bulkhead and seemingly easy to remove. However there was another bolt through the wheel guard that was hiding and they'd screwed a length of timber to the top of the bulkhead to nail the tall wardrobe tight. But with a hammer and some gumption it all came out.....eventually.

What really pisses me off though is how people decided they should add obviously unwise things to cars to make them "more comfortable". Let me be plain.....friends do not let friends put pink insulation like this under lino on cargo floors:



Otherwise this happens......


Where there was no pink insulation under the cupboard the floors are almost good enough to buff. Under the freakin insulation there's rust, even small holes in places. I'm tossing up whether I should replace the whole floor or just patch what needs doing. It depends what's hiding under the bed. There was also this patch of rust on the panel obviously seeping in from the inner sill:


You can just see it at the top of the previous pic. It's not terrible but, well, any rust is annoying. I also spotted the little bit of rust in the wheel arch when taking out the bolt. One cool find was the curtain on the wardrobe which I hadn't looked closely at before. It's pure late '70s/early '80s style. Pity there isn't enough for curtains. I'm going to wash it gently and see what can be done with it. Here it is hanging from the gutter on my '67:


Anyhow, enough silly pics. I'll try and rip that bed out in the next couple of days and take some pics of what lies beneath it and the front cab mat.

[Ian 68]

Very very nice, your a lucky man.

The little medalion I think is a "St Christopher"
St Christopher is the patron Saint of travellers,more info if your interested here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher

[KombiCam]

Awesome bus. Yup St Christopher. My nan had a similar one in her Galant.

[winerot]

wow talk about "don't judge a book by its cover" the inside looks great & by the by humpback seats are very uncomfortable i will buy them .
have a sun visor bracket you can have it andy.