What its all about

What its all about

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Hey!

I'm Zach.

This is my page for the restoration of my 1971 VW Bus. Its a Westfalia Camper.

I bought it in August of 2006, and trailered it to my driveway. She barely rolled after airing up the tires, and had no engine. I found her on thesamba.com, in the classifieds section. Bought her out of a barn, covered in dust. The wiring was shot, I pulled a pile of lamp cord and speaker wire out of the dash. When I jacked her up to check the suspension, she had no brake calipers! Her shocks were in such bad need of replacement, the rubber had shrunk and the shock absorbers were hanging beside the lower mounts. Her windshield was broken, and needed a fair bit of welding to the channel in which it sits. After much work, she made it back on the road last Marh 2007.

It has been a great project, and I love driving her in the slow lane cruising the highway. Theres nothing quite like an aircooled Volkswagen!

The VW Bus

The VW bus as a daily driver.
Forget... forever onward what you consider the definition of transportation.

You are about to journey down the path of enlightenment, and learn the curious nature and language of a mechanical being. The Volkswagen is a peculiar beast, fed a steady diet of oil and gasoline it will move slowly from place to place.

Buses mark their spot. They pee on you when you least expect it. Like a foreign customs agent, it takes time to figure out where they want the grease. They take a little tweak here and there, when something not quite right they tell you if you listen.

When you hop behind the wheel of a bus you've got the best seat, as you'll soon experience she's a low flying slow air plane. Flying high enough off the ground to do an oil change, swap master cylinders, and cv joints without jack stands. Head and tail winds effect speed over ground, your steering wheel at speed is more for yaw, in the end she goes where she wants, or doesn't.

Buy her quality parts, or she'll spit them back at you. Your bus is half truck and half home; sometimes a magic carpet to distant places… other times a squatter. Wandering down the road with a smile on her face, the grins and thumbs up from those on the same path make her day. If you wish to show off your wrenching skills, she'll humble you. Trust her, lover her... and she'll be one happy camper.

You've got to love her deep down or she'll leave you stranded, half the battle is the will to keep her on the road. If you don't think she will, she'll know it... scratch her rattles, lube her squeaks. Never forget she’s an aging mistress; her joints aren't what they once were... if its cold it takes a little bit longer to get motivated. One day you will too.

You've had your fair warning. Spend your time cuddling and she'll fire up when you need her, but if you've got other projects you've got to give an offering. When she humbles you, give a prayer to the gods of speed and give the bus in question a shot of oil. Mostly problems come from not driving her, buses get sad… some more than others, and if you don’t drive them they question your love. Miles are the VW anti-depressant.

Give her a pat on the dash and thank her for the trip at the end of the day.