I finally find time to complete the story of building the rock and roll bed in the back of our kombi: The bench-bed-combination was already built in summer 2012 (complete thread here). Already a year ago, in July 2013, I made the bench and backrest covers: I bought this beautiful plaided material from bus-ok.de (part number OK60072). It comes in two different color combinations, one of them this yellow-and-green one that is pretty close to what Westfalia would have used in sage green VW buses like Taiga Lily. It is a reproduction, but very thick and stable material. Useless as curtain material which I had hoped to use it for as well, but looks very durable as bench seat cover. I measured carefully the dimensions of the different mattress pieces in an original late bay Westfalia camper (many thanks to Reini for letting me check out your camper!). The 8cm-thick-foam pieces were purchased from Weissbach in Berlin – not cheap, but we could test-sit and -lie on them, they cut them on the spot to my measurements, and they also had the zipper and the sewing machine thread for the covers. With help from DrJ I got the sewing machine running to sew the seams in the corners. Finally I tuckered the new covers onto the wooden bench and backrest. Particularly proud of how well the lines in the pattern on the seat and on the backrest cover – have a look at the photos!
My very first steps with a sewing machine – exciting!
Also added two fold-out feet from Reimo under the seat board for extra stability, see the fotos at the very end. No time at that moment to sew the cover for the mattress piece above the engine bay. I just cut that piece to adjust it to the asymmetric rear side walls and covered it, for the time being, with an old duvet cover. The time being lasted another year – more in the next post.
Campervan Crazy 
Hello your work is sensational, I also have the brackets rock and roll bed and I have to install on my T2, I wanted to ask you if you still have the measurements of wooden boards?
Dear Luciano, thanks for coming by my blog and for your comment. Very happy you like it! Someone else recently asked me about the measurements and I added them provisionarily in a comment (below “Part 2” of this series of blog posts on the rock and roll bed). I do not have my original drawings at hand any more, but just re-measured them for that other reader (cut and paste from that other comment reply):
(1) Front board: width x hight x depth is 155 cm x 36 cm x 1,5 cm. So it was cut out at a DIY market from a 1.5 cm thick plate of birch multiplex wood, and probably at the beginning a bit wider, e.g. 160 instead of 155 cm, because you then have to adjust the left and right ends to follow the curve of the side walls of the kombi. It will be best to re-measure all these values in your bus, because the exact width will e.g. also depend on with what kind of panels you have covered the side walls. (2) The side panels: Again 1.5 cm thick birch multiplex wood, two boards cut in the DIY market, 36 cm (hight) x 33.5 cm (depth). You will have to cut out the curve for the rear wheel housing (see the photos in the blog post from 26.7.2012). (3) Bench, sitting board: w x h x d = 136.5 cm x 49.5 cm x 2.1 cm, so here I used the next stronger version of the board to make sure it will not bend when one sits on it. (4) bench, back rest board: w x h x d = 136 cm x 45 cm x 2.1 cm. At the end of the German manual (http://zingerle.org/anleitung/schlafbank.pdf), there are a few pages where the exact measures are given. Some do not fit to mine (their overall width of front board, bench and backrest all seems to be 10 cm wider than what I used in the end. But if I remember correctly I followed most other details quite exactly. Especially with respect to the exact placements of the holes needed to attach the hinges to the side walls and to the sitting board and backrest board. Hope this will help to get you started! Best wishes, Roman
[…] The foam cushion is 4 cm thick and was bought from the same mattress shop in Berlin where I got the cushions for the back bench. I cut and sewed the material to form a sleeve that slides over the lid and the foam cushion from […]
Hallo, Ich bin gerade dabei eine T2b zu restaurieren. Allerdings ein Halbkasten. Ich möchte auf der Rückbank 2 Personen mitnehmen können. Hast du da Erfahrungen, ob der TÜV nachträglich angeschweißte Gewindeplatten akzeptiert, wenn die genau an der Stelle der originalen Aufnahmepunkten sind. (Die “Old Lady” ist ja auch ein Halbkasten oder?) Und hast du ein Gutachten für die Rückbank für den TÜV benötigt, oder kommt die ohne Probleme durch den TÜV? Vielen Dank für deine Hilfe.
Grüße Simon
PS: dein Blog ist wirklich SUPER! Tolle Bilder.
Hallo! Freut mich sehr, dass Du den Blog und die Bilder magst! Also, die Old Lady war mal ein ganz geschlossener Kastenwagen. Ich hatte dann 1995 die Rückfenster eingebaut (Reimo), ca. 1997 die Bett/Bank-Kombination hinten eingebaut und ca. 2007 die Trennwand zur Fahrerkabine ganz rausgenommen und damit einen Durchgang geschaffen. Für die hintere Sitzbank hatte ich damals hinten zwei Hüftgurte eingebaut. Dafür hatte ich bei Reimo die Gurte samt Befestigungsschrauben inkl. aufschweißbaren Muttern gekauft. Ein Schlosser in meinem Bekanntenkreis hat diese Muttern dann auf drei großzügig geschnittene dicke Bleche geschweißt, mal ganz grob geschätzt 15×15 cm für die beiden äußeren Befestigungspunkte und 15×20 cm für die Platte in der Mitte mit den beiden mittleren Befestigungspunkten. Weiss gar nicht mehr, ob das damals verzinkte Bleche oder Edelstahl war. Diese Platten wurden dann auf der Außenseite unter dem Bus auch nicht angeschweißt, sondern nur durch die Schraube, die die Gurte hält, festgeschraubt. Verteilen dann im Falle eines Unfalls die Zugkraft auf eine größere und stabilere Fläche. Das hat der TÜV damals bei der Besichtigung des Wohnmobilumbaus alles so akzeptiert. Für die Rückbank brauchte ich da kein Gutachten. Der Prüfer hat eher alle Einbauten auf Wackeln und Stabilität hin kritisch angeschaut und war dann zufrieden. Hope this helps!