12 posts from 2006

Cargo doors (right)

Anyway it looked like the right side C pillar was about 15 to 20 mm too close to the left side. So I cut what was left of the pillar bases and the sill out and began to fab up the pillar bases and hinge mount boxes out of used parts, while  forcing the C pillar out to the general position  with timber (yeah! dodgy).  Apart from wooden gluts, vice grips are the tool of choice for this type of work , cos there is much repositioning needed.
I will remind you that every expense was spared on this project in the search for used parts. Even to the extreme of sourcing rusty vintage mig wire.

Click on images to enlarge.

Last year went to visit my bro who participates in the Japanese culture quite heavily.
And what a culture to visit. Absolutely the most multi leveled society I have witnessed.
On one night we went to an underground bunker in the sub basement of an office block in Ame-mura (American town, in the city of Osaka where we stayed) The venue was called PIPE 69 and was a hard core punk night. What a scene of slam dance and cigarette smoke. Totally blew me away how these reserved and uncontrollably polite people of Japan can turn into these punk rebels and smile all night!
Many bars only open at 8 or10 pm and most will stay open all night if anyone is sitting at the bar. Some publicans actually have their bar in their apartments front room. Totally freaky way to live but it works for them.
The Japanese are hugely fashion conscious and a style can come and go in a matter of days. One thing however that is very secure , in Osaka at least is Louis Vuitton. The multi level store on one of the main intersections down town has the highest turn over of any LV store outside Paris, so I hear. Apparently Japanese customers are not allowed into Paris stores cos they clean the places out.
I think I stayed in Osaka with my brother for a month and it was no where near long enough. We drank every night many times till after dawn. At the end of the evening we would ride home with out a care as cyclists have absolute right of way in Japan, even above pedestrians. The food is great the beer is excellent, the people are superb and the scenery , landscapes and city scapes have only to be seen to be believed.
We could all learn much from these people and this culture.
As a friend once told me when I was contemplateing going to Japan for the first time. "Just do it" she said, "if you have the chance go, you wont regret it" . She was so right. Now given any chance, I will and have gone back. Back to visit so many interesting and friendly people, to see far out wacky art and to eat the fabulous food and to drink way to much beer!

Cargo Floor
Onto the Cargo area. Firstly I thought I could just patch the original floor section. But after his wash, the old fella was lookin' a bit porous in the middle, so we fired up the 9 inch grinder and delicately removed it.
With the help of my whopping 2 metre crow bar, the floor section dropped out without too much resistance.

Now some of the nightmares of the Outlaw Barndoor were plain to see. Both inner and outer sills were gone, the top hats were pretty mangled and rusty, but probably mostly salvageable. Of coarse the damage from the left side shunt he had had at some time in the past, was gonna need a lot of massaging and new metal patching to make him all square again.

So the birth of this mammoth project started with a bit of a bath. The old VW bus recieved its first wash in possibly decades.Removing many years of bulldust, wasp's and rat nests . After  the wash and a quick towel down it became clearer he was in need of some major cosmetics. So we rolled him back in side and tried to work a plan on this old fella barndoor.
From the pics you can see the rear left corner is majorly thin and rusted through, the rear right is half cut off. At some stage he has been wacked in the nose pretty bad and has rubbed something weighing much more than himself down the right side.
The history of this microbus is quite sketchy and I have heard  a few varied tales just recently. One thing I am pretty sure of is that after a thorough sand blasting he was relegated to the outside elements for at least seven years.

Day 2 we will fire up the nine inch and dig deep into his bowels and find even more of his nightmarish past!

The other weekend , pressed for time as usual , I squeezed the outlaw outa my shed and onto a trailor for the trip up to Burswood for our annual show and shine here in West Oz.

The epic buildup, to this stage, will follow shortly and a little of its dark past.

Heres a couple mpegs I took at the classic this year.
Just getting used to usin this new camera by now.
That Barndoor of Jays from Rustbox is a killer.
One of those Columbian buses that have surfaced recently. You can see its pretty gnarly and way different sheet metal than on other barndoors ive seen. I dig that bus!

Well ive been resting on my laurels this week after all the back slappin and hand shaken of the week end.
So I thought I should do a bit. Decided on the Steering box. I raised it 50mm previously so I thought just to be different, Id shorten the column 45mm. Yeah dont ask me why I did that. While I was in there I put some new bushes through it and a seal and massaged the worm a little.

You know how it takes about 10 washes till a tee shirt is good to wear?

Well we found out it was finally summer on sundy. So did my armpits.
Definitely a good day if you've got a DC with a pool in it.
Not so good if you got no tree to stand under and no pool.
Good turn out of splitties though. Was a shame Kieran couldnt find the time to wash his Samba. Slack arse!
I must say that is a rockin Barndoor..

  This was my second visit to the Classic at Irvine, amongst the rolling hills and orange groves of Southern California. But today as I cut my way across the OC in the early hours of this Sunday morning, through the   mist that covers most of the West Coast in the am, I could not see any orange groves, my mind was not on any boring old citrus. I was heading towards, what many VW fiends believe, is the epitome of static VW shows on the planet.  In the eighties where once oranges grew in abundance, now out of the desert grows concrete freeways, business parks and strip homes. I guess even So Cal has to house folk somewhere and there really is nowhere else for them to go, This is the west coast, they aint heading any further west.  With all this development, Orange County however is still miles nicer than the area surrounding my digs up on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.     Arr Sunday morning, the freeways that cross LA County, actually work. But this is 7am, in another 2 hours, state freeway number 405 which motors through Los Angeles County’s south land and joins Interstate 5 into Orange County will become, yet again, a carpark!  As I am joined by more sleepy eyed drivers on the Interstate, I start to see the odd aircooled VW, south bound, along with me. At one point I am doing 65mph and 3 splittys zoom up and pass me on the right. Damn they drive fast here in Los Angeles! 

   Before I know it, the signs are saying “Irvine next exit” and then the “Amphitheatre”, where we will all line up patiently, on the slip road, that is the one and only entry and exit point to this large facility, and then, the show will begin. As usual with the Americans though everything is organised and we all get through the gates quickly and park up.  The first thing on my program is of coarse, the swap meet and I am in luck. I’ve parked directly in front of it, good for many quick trips back to the trusty Toyota to unload the booty. I am here for splitty bits and as was the case in Sacramento a couple weeks previous, there is slim pickings. I find the Californians pretty helpful though and I manage to source some much needed parts for my current project and at pretty reasonable prices.     Many would know that the US market was and to a large extent still is, a major market for German auto manufacturers and the cars that do go there and the VWs that arrived there in the 60s were all high spec examples, where mostly the VW’s that came to Australia were bare bones low specification, I imagine to try and save on import tarrifs applied buy the Ozzie government to try and make the local   Holden’s and Falcons competitive. But that didn’t happen, even a paired down Beetle or Kombi was and some will say still is, a nicer form of transport.  So it goes, that all the little extras we didn’t get here on our buses and beetles are not so scarce over in the US. Unfortunately however, the mass of swap meet bargains are just not there anymore, as they were in the eighties or as I remember they were. Where once every vender had an assortment of deluxe clocks and pre 63 beetle pop outs, today you gotta focus and ask and search and then if you find it, you better watch out. The North Americans have the Internet now and they know how to use it, to check market status. Used bus parts were particularly scarce and for me, this was a bit of a bummer.  But hey, all the big name retail suppliers were set up next to the swap area with their latest products on show. So I decided to spend my povo Australian dollars up there. It’s amazing to visit the retailers and check what’s new. It seems every week they are bringing out new parts, mostly with better prices and better quality. It’s quite unreal, when you compare prices of things in the 70’s and 80s to today, many things have not increased in price and usually quality has gone up. Of course allot of the bits are made in Taiwan and China, but much is made in the US and as usual the quality is first class. In such a cut throat market that So Cal is, a shoddy dealer selling second rate parts just wont survive. Its such a tough market even the good dealers sometimes fail.     So then it was onto the show area and the line-ups of every air-cooled VW known.  Cal Look is still big news in its homeland and the Rat Look and Hoodride styles were pretty well presented. I don’t think I saw any full on German look cars, a style, which I hear, is making its way into the US. I was fortunate not to see any fibreglass body kits on sedans and thankfully no pastel paint.      So all in, it was a great event, and so like they say, if you ever get the chance, buy yerself a ticket and get over and check it out!