The Bus gets a nice "new" middle bench seat..

One of the things that is hard to come by, is a middle bench seat.
I had a 1967 Split Window Deluxe Bus- the middle seat was impossible to find for under 500.00 bucks. A couple of weeks ago I went over to Eladio's house to pick up some parts and watch him and Corey dis assemble a VW bus that had seen it's better days.
Corey needed a windshield and I needed a middle seat. He said he had one.


2 weeks later he called- and me and Johnny B. went and picked it up.
That turned into an adventure all into it's own.
The seat needs to be cleaned and re stuffed and possibly upholstery.
We'll see. Here's some pix of VW treasure, a 1977 VW middle bench seat.
It's not a 3/4 seat. Which is fine, my bus came with the 1/2 seat.
Johnny B. has a truck, his truck has carried VW doors, tires, rims, bumpers, a rear hatch
and now a middle seat. Thanks Johnny B.

The Bus gets a new floor - a hard wood floor.

So with the inside painted.
It was time to insulate the floor and lay some hard wood floor.


For the sub flooring,
I used this 1/4 brown board.
I bought a 4x8 sheet.
It didn't fit in the van.
(Mazda MPV)









It was pointed out that the
wood would not fit by several
Genius's, including the dude in
the picture.
I had a problem.
How to get the wood to the Bus.








Solution.
Thanks, Scott.
He came to help me.
He gave me a "what are you going to do look."










Here's the floor insulation.
It's foil backed insulation.
The pink side is very thick and fibrous.
It was also easy to cut.
I let it warm, to make it easier to work with.
I'm going to lay it on the floor and attach
the brown board to it. Spray adhesive is your friend here.







I cut the insulation to fit.
I used the adhesive on the rear panel.

The floor insulation is NOT glued to floor.
I want the floor to be removable.









The hardest part of my new
floor installation, is going to be the floor cut outs.
I used the original floor mat to trace the floor
openings in the foil insulation, brown board, and later the hardwood flooring.








Here's the order so far.
1. Insulation- no glue
2. Brown Board- glue on the bottom.
* Spray the bottom of the Brown board and the top of the foil insulation.
Sandwich them together.
The hard wood will be laid down next.







I have 3 boxes of Bruce Hardwood Flooring.
Thanks Dad.
Very nice flooring.
I'm going to lay the floor out to test fit and trim
what I need.
I'll lay the mat over top and trace the floor openings.
I'll cut them out and the lay the floor in place.
I'll use liquid nails to glue the floor to the brown board.




Here's the test fit so far.
The edge will be filled in later.















I'm reallly liking this floor. Hardwood flooring is going to work very well with wood panels.
I'll install them soon.

The Bus- Let there be White!

I painted the interior of my bus White.
Gloss White as a matter of fact. The Gloss White is going to lighten inside.
The wood paneling and Wooden floor should really work off the gloss white.
Light and airy.
That way, when people are roasting in the back during the hot Virginia
summer, they can feel light and airy.
To paint the inside of the bus you must remove everything
and tape everything and cover everything and sand everything.
It is a tedious task.
I'm glad that the summer was over.
I would have sweated like 2 pigs in the bus.
Lots of tape, paper and plastic sheeting is needed to paint the interior.
I used my sprayer and put on 2 good coats. It was well worth it.
Here's some pictures-
Here's what I was dealing with.
Rustoleum red primer on the floor.
The rear has already been coated with
Duplicolor Truck Bedliner. No white for this area.














I started to cover everything. This took
a while. Over two days. Granted I only worked for about 2 hours a day on this. About 4 hours of tape and cover. Painting with the sprayer took about an hour with 2 coats. I let it dry for about 5 days.































The sprayer
is from Harbor Freight tools.
High Velocity
Low Pressure
Electric Turbine Sprayer.
$36.00 on sale.
Quiet, easy to use, no compressor needed and very little overspray.


As far as the paint- Rustoleum Gloss White- 1 pint and thinned 10% with acetone.
Drying time is slower with a 10% mix. I gave it about 5 days.

I'm ready to paint.
I had plenty of ventilation.
Doors open, out side with a slight wind,
overall, good painting weather.
Be careful. Ventilation is good and critical.
The exposed area of hair- was painted white.















Merlin was interested.













Charlie, on the other hand, couldn't
give a crap what was was going on.



























I'll start insulating and installing panels later.














The white really looks better than I
had originally thought it would.
It looks cleaner, newer, better.
I'll be installing the floor in the next week or so.
I think this bus will look nice when it's
finished.
So far, so good.

The Bus can haz a bumper and some cat eyes.

LOL cats are funny. I don't care who you are.
I decided to paint the bumpers and throw on some driving lights.
I picked them up on clearance. Remember- clearance is your friend.
I think the price was right.

These are almost too Fast and Furious to use.
Evidently they are supposed to glow blue when not in use. I bought these a while ago. I thought I would throw them on the bumper.
They look weird. But, for 10 bucks- I'll keep them for a while.








I was thinking of leaving the black stripe
in the bumper. I decided against it.
I think color coded bumpers are the way to go.
All red.
I may put a chrome bumper impact strip in the middle
where the black in this picture is. Chrome is good.



The black would
be too much for the white in the roof.







I apologize for the poor quality
Picture. The flash from my Canon is lighting up the "glow Blue," feature of the driving lights.
I like the all red bumper. I think the chrome headlight rings, along with the chrome VW symbol will be enough to offset the all red bumper. The chrome bumper impact strip may tie it all in nicely.







The lights are going to have to grow on me.
If the lenses were clear, I'd have no problem
with them. I may have to modify them later.







The bus is coming along.
The leaves are starting to fall and winter
is nearly here.
I'm running out of time. I need to paint the interior and get the bus sealed up.

The Bus gets a nice "new" middle bench seat..

One of the things that is hard to come by, is a middle bench seat.
I had a 1967 Split Window Deluxe Bus- the middle seat was impossible to find for under 500.00 bucks. A couple of weeks ago I went over to Eladio's house to pick up some parts and watch him and Corey dis assemble a VW bus that had seen it's better days.
Corey needed a windshield and I needed a middle seat. He said he had one.

2 weeks later he called- and me and Johnny B. went and picked it up.
That turned into an adventure all into it's own.
The seat needs to be cleaned and re stuffed and possibly upholstery.
We'll see. Here's some pix of VW treasure, a 1977 VW middle bench seat.
It's not a 3/4 seat. Which is fine, my bus came with the 1/2 seat.
Johnny B. has a truck, his truck has carried VW doors, tires, rims, bumpers, a rear hatch
and now a middle seat. Thanks Johnny B.

After we got the seat over to the bus, I had to remove all the stuff in it.
I wanted to make sure the bench seat lined up
with the floor track. The 77 bus has three tracks that the bench's legs will line up on.







I threw in a couple of wood panels to get an idea how to place the seat. The seat will be flush against the panels. Normal VW panels are about half as thick as the 1/4" panels we made in North Carolina.








The seat will lock into the floor.
The seat belts will lock into the bench seat.
The seat will sit on top of my hardwood floor.
I'm going to paint the interior white and install some insulation. I'm going to lay the hardwood floor on top of a insulated sub floor.
The entire floor will be removable.
The bus seats, when mounted- will hold down the floor, to keep the floor from shifting.






The seat it self will be cleaned and the metal hardware will be sanded and painted gloss black.
I'll probably cheat and throw the seat in the rear of a truck and hit the car wash. I'll use the car wash as a pressure washer and power wash off all the accumulated crud. I'll skip the wax cycle though. The seat almost looks too low in this shot. I think the large panel (which hasn't been trimmed to fit) is making the seat
look very low. The flooring will raise the seat at least an inch.
The floor has grooves in it and the seat is resting in the groves.
I don't think the height will be an issue when it's all done and said.

I'm excited about the seat. I was thinking I would never find one.
I was going to use a Vanagon seat in it. Those are easier to come by.
Next, I'll paint the inside.
That will be exciting.

The Bus gets some new doors, used and Yellow.

So, after installing some snazzy tires and rims, it was time to hang some doors.
My Bro Scott is a professional. So he was a door-hanger professional.
Swapping out doors is not as bad as you would think.
The main concern it not dropping the door on your foot or head.
Also make sure the doors are of the same year, preferably.
It's also helpful to mark hinge location- the next door may not line
up as easily. Over all not bad, an easy project.
Unbolt some bolts, remember where the stuff goes, tighten and adjust.
No Problem
I took some pictures. Here you go.

Start by removing the old door locks, handles, door glass
whatever you want to keep or install on the new doors.
















The door hardware is easy to remove.
It's easy to drop stuff in the dirt.










After removing the old stuff, transfer it to the new door. It's good to keep the old door intact. It makes for easy reference.











It's good to have a partner to hold the door.
Lining up the hinges can be a pain.














Scott's holding the door, while I fiddle with my camera.
The more I fiddle, the heavier the door gets, the more frustrated Scott gets.














Door is installed.
Color is a little off.
Over all, the doors are straight and not
rusty or dented. The gaskets are in good shape.



No job is complete without a vigorous Thumbs-up!
Good job, Hanger of the Doors.

BUS- The Blue Goose gets a pair of gently used shoes!

I used the Samba classifieds to pick up some rims and tires from
a cool cat named Eladio in Hampton, Va.
5 rims and tires, hubcaps and beauty rings off another 77 bus.
Also picked up two new doors and bumpers.
Here's some pictures.
















The tread is good.
My old tires were dry rotted and I
needed to get some good tires. I'll get new ones
later. Budget constraints....









The hubcaps are in good condition.
Here's a tip-
To shine hubcaps- use toothpaste with a bunch of
paper towels.
Apply just like metal polish- rub in small tight circles.
Let the toothpaste dry. Rinse, repeat.
Final buff with a soft terry cloth towel.



If you have cheap chrome hubcaps-
apply car wax for protection - or -
You can buy Clear non yellowing marine spray paint.
Goes on clear, like water. Dries and provides a protective clear coat.

I used toothpaste and clear paint on
both the hubcaps and beauty rings.
The beauty rings aren't perfect, but they
add to the character of a 30 year old bus.
Shiny chrome is good chrome...







I sanded and painted the rims.
I used the Hyster low gloss paint as primer.
I followed up with Rustoleum some gloss black.
I applied the Gloss black when the Hyster was still tacky. I let the paint dry and then applied
a second coat of gloss paint.
They look snazzy.






Here's a before and after of the rims.
A big difference- I was going to go silver on the rims.
I went with black and I think it was a good choice.















Out with old and in with the "new."













Very nice. Chrome and Black
Good combo.










Here's a new tire and rim versus and old tire and rim.











The bus is starting to look better.
There's something in this picture
that the bus hasn't seen in a long time- a shiny reflection.
White and red look good so far.
I think when I install the bumpers, I'll go red.
The white bumpers will be too much.

So far so good as the bus is concerned.
I'll be doing more coats of paint on the outside and
painting the inside soon.
I'll also be installing the doors.
I'll also be doing a ton of other stuff.
More to come.