Getting the old kombi ready for winter

I finally got around to clear out the old kombi and to start getting her ready for winter storage. Over summer, the Old Lady was abused as general storage room while I was working on Taiga Lily. And in July I had taken out her nice dashboard to implant it into Taiga Lily, but then never got around getting Taiga Lily’s old dashboard into the Old Lady. So yesterday I finally cleared out all the rubbish and put the dashboard back in. And how beautiful she looks again! Will need one more day to get the instrument unit back in and then need to ship her to the garage.

July 2011 - gutted cabin after dashboard was removed

Nov. 2011 - Dashboard back in place

Living room/kitchen area accessible again after tools and rubbish have been cleared out

Getting ready for the winter break

No chance over the last couple of weeks to get anything done on the buses. Baby daughter kept us busy. On the plus site, I managed to find a winter quarter for both buses. Lockable underground double garage. Dry, warm and safe, and not too far away from our flat. I brought Taiga Lily here today. The older bus is not registered any more, so I still have to organise a truck to carry her to the new place.

Inner roof panels finally started

We finally got the inner roof insulated (2 layers of Reimo Xtreme mats) and covered with plywood panels. The old originally white ceiling cover was torn in many places and so yellowish that it made no sense to recover it. What is still missing is the cover above the driver’s and passenger’s seats, with an opening for the radio in the middle, above the rear view mirror. Has to wait another few days.

A late summer afternoon spent on Taiga Lily.

Original ceiling cover.

Reimo Xtreme insulation glued in with double sided sticky tape.

Plywood panels screwed on top of the insulation mats.

View from windscreen. Section above driver's cabin not yet done.

Kombis as food vans

Project Taiga Lily is on-hold as project birth-of-our-first-daughter started 10 days early and is now in full swing. Here is something to bridge the gap: My sources in Barcelona report on an article in today’ issue of the newspaper Vanguardia. The article is about a T2 food van caravan on the fair Feria Mistura de Lima in Peru.
PS, added January 2012: This is an interesting bus: Most likely a T2 built not too long ago in Brazil. These more modern T2s are also called T2c, and differ from the T2a (1967-1972) and T2b (1972-1979) in a number of details, like here the more modern plastic wing mirror and the air intake vents in the back (which are actually still in the position as they were with the much older T1s). These T2c buses are still being build in Brazil and even imported to Europe, see the blog entry from November 21, 2011 (click here).

Taiga Lily slowly getting complete

I originally wanted to built a new bench which can unfold into a bed. But there is not enough time at the moment and I need to get the car presentable to register it as a “historic vehicle” – older than 30 years, in contemporary condition and roughly complete. Like not lacking a bench in the back when the papers say the car seats five people. So I cleaned the original bench, removed some rust from the metal feet and repainted these patches in black. And at two in the morning I finally put it back in its place in the bus. One step closer to completion…

Some long time ago when Taiga Lilly arrived...

Taiga Liliy getting pretty: Bench back in and new plywood panels on the wall.

Sliding door interior completed

Now the interior of the sliding has been cleaned from engine oil, the lower insides have been re-sprayed with wax and filled with Xtreme insulation mates, and the new plywood cover is fixed in place.

Inside of sliding door cleaned from dirt and oil.

Insolation mats glued in with double-sided sticky tape.

Plastic foil taped on as moisture barrier

All closed with the new plywood cover panel.

Wall panels remade from plywood

This weekend I bought 4mm poplar plywood and remade the old wall coverings. The seven pieces have now all been cut to size and sanded. Tomorrow night they will be painted with wood glaze.

Inner wall pannels remade from plywood

Kombis in the dark

4. Berlin VW Bus Festival

We made it in time for the festival. First camping weekend for DrJ and myself with Taiga Lily. Great time with 432 other busses. 3 relaxed days, mostly sunshine, including a 1/4 mile race (the fastest bus needed around 11 seconds), 4-wheel drive trials and show & shine competition. Great show!

Taiga Lily's first camping weekend!

Westfalia camper with the same pop-up roof that I have still laying around...

New Windscreen

Today we got the windscreen back in again. After another three hours, the dashboard was in again as well, all instruments were re-connected and Taiga Lily looked like a functioning bus again. The only thing not functioning are the windscreen wipers. We will need a bit of a break in today’s slight rain to make it over to the VW Bus Festival where we are meant to be tonight.

Taiga Lily with new windscreen.

Floor finally in, and roof rack installed.

Things are moving forward. They better be as the 4th Berlin VW Bus Meeting will start in 2 days and we are meant to be there tomorrow night to help preparing everything. So what has happened: The roof rack was sanded and repainted and put on the bus, together with the box (Fig. 1). Unfortunately Figure 1 also shows a distinct lack of front screen. Due to a mix-up between VW Classic Parts and UPS the missing rubber seal for the windscreen was in the mail for 9 days and will probably be delivered only tomorrow. To make sure we can actually go to the VW Bus Meeting by bus, a guy from VW Classic Parts delivered a second copy of the seal tonight to our door. Made me very happy. Now we can put the windscreen in tomorrow morning, then put the dashboard back in, and hopefully everything works and we can drive Taiga Lily to the meeting tomorrow night…

Figure 1: Taiga Lily for the first time with roof rack and roof box

As a basis for the bed-bench construction and the kitchen block in the back, I put in a layer of insulation mates and on top a board onto which I had glued a lino-like floor covering yesterday (Figures 2-4). I also started to fill in polystyren boards and polyetethylen insulation mats (Reimo Xtreme) into the wall opposite the slidung door (Figure 5), and started to clean the oil-covered interior of the sliding door (Figure 6).

And a first test with the radio showed that all wiring and connections to the speakers and antenna worked! I still need to build the board for the radio above the driver’s seat. But it is good that everthing works.

Figure 2: Floor of main room, newly painted last August.

Figure 3: Reimo Xtreme insulation mat in place.

Figure 4: Board with lino-like floor covering in place.

Figure 5: Insulation of side wall in the making.

Figure 6: Sliding door interior, left half already cleaned.