The Velvet Thread - my '66 21-window bus project

The bus is looking sweet.

Chris asked how big a truck you drove I said Med BIG

My work truck is only 40,000#. It's a two container straight truck, as opposed to a four container tractor-trailer. Easy-peasy, wonderful to drive.

I drove a 28 footer across the country, I bet yours are drives better, faster..

I was really hoping to see Velvet yesterday but I never bumped into either one of ya!

Velvet was at Tony Klink's pits, next to swap meet row near the show. And I was all over the dang place. I got around an awful lot for a gimpy leg... Sorry to miss you!

Are you saying you get around?

I do when it comes to VW events.

And a young guy said to me she is real nice (dawn). So she gets around and popular.

It was a nice weekend, thanks everyone.

Saw the Bus at Bug-O, it was sort of across from where I was parked.

David (type 4): Thanks for the $70! (hmmm, maybe that didn't come out right...) I really appreciate you sharing your space and helping, every bit helps me pay the doctor/hospital/ambulance bills that are flowing in. Next time, I will be better prepared. We have a lot of bus parts, but forgot them in the rush.

David (RuddzRodz): We saw you! Driving by in your race car after a pass. I think the announcer said you were runner up???

It was a tough crowd. Only one person looked inside my car and another peed on the tires. Customers wanted distributors and Super Beetle parts and they were all home. If they looked twice at a part or even better touched it we would find common ground and make a sale. They were sneaking glances and not touching. Sunsofabitches were tight I am telling you.

You are welcome

dsimas wrote:

David (RuddzRodz): We saw you! Driving by in your race car after a pass. I think the announcer said you were runner up???

Actually, I won.

Sweet!!

AWESOME DAVE!!!! GOOD JOB! HOPE IT KEEPS GOING FOR YOU.

Get that man a big sticker for the quarter windows.....JILL

Time for an update.

Velvet did not come with a back bumper. I got a standard bumper (as opposed to a Deluxe) off the samba a while ago, good deal with the overriders and splash guards. The OG condition matches the front. It is pointed, rather than the more common slash style. Well, I finally found some Deluxe trim pieces in the pointed style to "turn" it into a matching deluxe bumper. So, that is complete now. I came out ahead in price to buying a complete deluxe rear pointed bumper, they were only made for two years, and they are very rare. People pull them when they pull engines in and out over the 40-50 years and they get lost. TIP: If you ever see one complete for less than $400, buy it as an investment.

Velvet's front bumper has this sticker:



Robert Skinner (Skinner Classics) said something to me a while back when I said I wished I knew Velvet's history. He said, "Yeah, they all have a story." This is a little clue. The m-code plate shows importation to Seattle, and she was in a barn from 1978-1996 in WA. The guy I got the bus from got it in 1996 as a project and she sat at his place for 15 years with nothing done, near Olympia. That's all I know. Apparently, by the date on the sticker that expires in 1979, the owner before the barn-phase used her as a driver to work with the Dept of Defense...

So, I don't know if I mentioned, but the DMV sent me the new title and it's for a 1967 (she's a '66). They insisted that the VIN# came up as '67. I had to go back and show them that the VIN plate has the date of manufacture at 5-13-66, and the cutoff for the model year is in August, so they are wrong. Plus '67 is 12 volt, she was 6v. Etc, etc, I won the battle, they are issuing a new title.



Here is Cat with her new treasure, Otto, the '69 Automatic Squareback. She got it from Robert Skinner, he got it in an estate sale, one owner all OG. She had a lot of fun finding little clues to the owner and the car's history (ask her!).



Here's Robert's site, he is the Busmaster. The man knows his stuff. He's old school. His first car was an old bus, and like Hugo, he still has it. I think he and I are the only ones.

http://www.vacavilleautobody.com/vwgallery.html



Saw this at BugORama on a bus in the show. LOVE THIS, I want one:



This says it all. I entered this rediculous journey of time and money purely for the love of saving a rarer and rarer OG bus from ending up being parted out. I wish more of them could be repatriated to becoming drivers, like they were when they were young.

I know what you mean when it comes to finding out the history. I know a little about my new bus via the wrecking yard guy. I lucked out and the way they handled the paperwork, gave me the PO's name and address. I am in the process of writing her. I will be sending pics of what the bus looks like now. I asked her a few questions to start off. Don't want to be to bothersome. Who knows, she may not even like that I contacted her to begin with. Hopefully she will be ok with it and either calls me or writes me about the bus.

I'm glad you won the battle with DMV! We just won a battle too! LOL Boy they can sure screw things up! LOL Lost all the paperwork to a truck we were transfering into our name. Started the process in Febuary, and just now got plates, after filling out a statement of facts saying that DMV lost our paperwork! LOL

My 914 was bought in Palmdale and he lives near Bakersfield now. The women two owners before me was a nurse from the Bay Area and had a house in Lake Wildwood. My father bought her house in Wildwood. So we had a few degrees of separation. She commuted back and forth until it died someplace between. It was towed back up the hill and was rebuilt. The guy before me did great work but could not get it to run right. The car also needed smog and was just parked. By the time I got the car the smog was dropped but the tags were never paid. Just moving from Virginia I had not idea California was such money grabbing place.

I should see if I can find him again and send a picture. He might enjoy it..

I remember when you took that picture of the sticker. Have you spoke with Jill about making you one?

I like the sticker also!!

It is nice

On the body shop website the bus "Nose Job" is cool!

Got some major things tackled this last weekend.

Hugo's 28 year old 1600cc motor that Ray built is the powerplant for the bus. It holds like 8 quarts of oil or so. To compensate for HP, we focused on cooling, to balance it out to a fast daily driver. It has a Berg deep sump, ext filter, 78 pass cooler, etc. When we swapped this motor into the bus, we were in a hurry for a Busfest deadline. The oil lines were hanging a bit and the cooler and filter were zip tied in. Time for a permanent setup. The high pressure hoses were braided (from ages ago) and I didn't have the money to do the lowest pressure one, which was still rubber. So, we replaced that one with braided line. And the angles of the hoses coming out of the filter were different than the bug, so Ray put in some brass 90 degree elbows so it all fits tight up against the undercarriage now.

Disassembly:



The lines are up above, rather than below the undercarriage now.







Next, to get her to sit pretty. I don't have the money, nor do I want to change the original setup too much, so I am not going with a bug box, long axles, drop spindles, or a narrowed beam. I just want the camber straighter and the bus to not want to flip when I turn/brake. This bus was rated as a 1 ton! I looked up the codes and I was amazed at the payload she was designed for. So, when not even carrying any interior, the thing is way up in the air and the wheels are tucked too much. I wish I'd taken a before picture from behind, but I didn't.

So, Robert Skinner and Ray agreed: turn the rear torsions a notch and remove some leaf springs in the front to match the stance.

First, remove the shocks and the spring plate from the RGB.



Note the angle of the spring plate when stock, very low.



Removed the cover... oh, this is bad. Sort of what we suspected. Rusted completely solid. No turning this outer spline.



Took it out and the inner ones look great, so we will just turn the inner ones a notch on each side.





The left side was free on the outer end, not as much rust, this is what the other side should have looked like.



Put them back together and look what one little notch did? See the difference to where the spring plate sits on the bottom edge. There's a gap there now, as opposed to the picture above where there was no gap.





Also, while I'm under here (LOVE the rack at Ray's), I just wanted to point out the flanges on Hugo's exhaust. 28 years ago, Ray fabricated these and now they make them this way. Back in that day, they did NOT come this way. They inserted into one another. You can see the weld at the inside of the flange because he put it there. Building cars back in the 70's and 80's was a lot more work because Ray saw better ways to do things and fabricated everything. Now all you youngsters can buy things already built that way repop.



So, now on to the front end. The entire front suspension had to be taken apart and the bad news was that the link pins were shot. Sloppy, wiggly, lots of play. No wonder she wanted to wander.



And when Ray turned the wheel to get a better angle at disassembling, the brake line cracked clean through! No saving that, so he just cut them off, put vice grips on to hold the fluid. The ID of the line was sooooo tiny, no wonder I had to stomp the dang pedal to stop.



Here's the leafs. We removed the 3 small upper and lower ones and left the 3 center ones. It'll have a stiffer ride, but we are hoping the stance will match the back about right.



If it's too stiff, we'll put some back in, or I'll get drop spindles. But this was our first choice and didn't cost anything to try. And the bonus is that the linkpins/kingpins will be replaced and the brake lines, which needed to be done and we weren't aware. The bus will be much better in other ways. But I can't even drive it yet because now we are waiting for parts.

I'll show pictures after this weekend when the front end is back together and we can really see the new stance and feel the new ride.