Pumpkin the 1977 Westy

[Karl Kombi]

Bravo!

[TRL]

So, I have heat! It needs refining in places but it works! I was pleasantly surprised when I reinstalled the Blower fan that the everything worked correctly. I’m not happy with the fitment of the blower tubing down to the heater boxes. Need to work on that a little or find other tubing. I ended up using some of the original broken tubing to piecemeal it all together. Underneath the bus, I installed the new heat control flaps and hooked up the heater cables. When It came to flexible heater bellow tubes. I pulled some original ones apart. Removed asbestos seals and hand washed the insulation to removed years of dust. Reassembled and reinstalled with new silicon seals on each end. Original bellows are much better quality then repop ones.

Still need to fiddle with a few things like the directional flap box underneath the middle of the bus. Happy to have some warmth!

[Marla]

Heat is always a good thing.

[chuckspence]

Heat in a bus is overrated, nice exhaust & heat exchangers, way to stick with the og triangle flange units with the F & U pipes! Did you change all that schmangled engine tin?

[Dual Port]

I'm a freeze baby. Both of my buses have great heat and I wouldn't have it any other way...

[TRL]

Small improvements along the way. Installed a beautiful new thermostat from Awesome Powder Coat. My favorite addition has been these nice Fox shock absorbers from Gowesty.com. They really help the bus cope with bumps, body roll, and wind buffeting on the freeway.

[Marla]

Nice upgrade!

[TRL]

Sliding door has needed attention for a while. Pulled the door and inspected everything. It took a few hours to clean up the old icky grease in the track rails. As well as clearing away the old glue from the door seal. There was some surface rust hiding in a few places under the seal and rail track. As well as Rust converter paint touch ups from the PO. I cleaned a lot with a wire wheel and applied POR-15 rust converter and paint. Then spent some time cleaning and servicing all of the mechanical parts of the door. Re assembly on the next post.

[TRL]

During my sliding door refurb and door seal replacement. There was crusty surface rust especially underneath the door seal. Wire wheeled, treated, and POR-15 coated the bad spots. I also POR-15 the sliding door track. Which ended up being not the greatest move. The paint is a little soft and not the best for a roller bearing moving across it. May need to readdress later. But door is on and works.

Next project is re-mounting spare tire onto the nose. The spare normally lives in the kitchen cabinet on this style Westfalia. I want to use that interior space for more storage.

At some point in the past. The spare was on the nose and the holes were still there and just plugged with plastic caps. Used some Riv-nut inserts to bolt up the tire mount.

Installing 12v camping batteries and accessories soon.

[Marla]

Glad to see you got that tire out of the kitchen. Now you need a good tire cover on the front.