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Life in the slow lane or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the trip

18K views 146 replies 40 participants last post by  Andy 
#1 · (Edited)
It seems that every vacation glosses over the whole travel aspect. Most people hop on a plane and boom they are at their destination, or if they decide to drive they go well over the speed limit to get to their destination. This project is going to be the polar opposite. The vacation is the trip. This car won't go over 70 ever and its cruising speed will be around 60mph. Why be in a hurry?

After 2 years of searching every day for my project car and after many many getting sold from under me or sold before I could even find one, I have finally scored my car: A 60s VW Bus. Tomorrow morning I am heading out to trailer the car home and to start getting to work.

Plans are to get the car drivable, safe, and comfortable enough to be able to go camping and cross country road trips. I thought my 1.6 miata was slow but this bus on a good day has less than half the horsepower that my miata does and it weighs a good 500 pounds more than the miata. Oh what fun.

Pictures will be coming tomorrow and I plan on documenting every aspect of the build. At the moment the brakes don't work, there is some rust that needs to be addressed, doors don't open, sliding door is rough, speedometer doesn't work, needs a full interior, seats are beyond recognizable, I don't think it has seatbelt, pop top needs a new curtain, hideous wheels and hideous cb antennas on the front.... But let me say what is awesome. The engine and trans are great (and by great I mean it shows every ounce of 50 whp that it might have), rust isn't really that bad and only surface in some spots. It has new floor panels in both the front and back seat area.


 
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#2 ·
im truly, deeply sorry you thought this was a good idea.
 
#3 ·
Never once did I say it was a good idea, but neither is staying out late to party when you have work or class the next day. This decision wasn't made lightly or quickly, it has been the plan for a long time in the making.

Keep on groovin.
 
#6 ·
Please, please get a license plate that says BANGBUS.

Although, being in Florida, I'm sure that plate has already been taken.
 
#10 ·
I wanted the license plate to say "groovn" but the car currently has the original license plate from 1969. I'm seeing about talking the owner into letting me have it so I can register that plate with the dmv as a period correct plate.
 
#9 ·
It should be. It has both the pop top and weary interior. I need to get the original sink / refrigerator tomorrow when I pick it up.
 
#25 ·
Ever see that thread on m.net from the Canadian guy who drove his 93LE all over the US? I want some of that.
This was Laurent and his journey was epic. He crashed a couple of nights at my place and we put on a big cruise (27 Miatas) while he was here. That car was also close to rusting in half and well abused.

Andy... congrats! You have a queen sized spare bed for my wife to sleep on while we cuddle if you ever make it to the opposite corner of the contiguous states!
 
#11 ·
In for bong hits and late night pizza runs... Something about a VW Bus just brings a smile to my face.. They have the same nostalgia as Jeep Grand Wagoneers. I love those things too..
 
#18 ·
Ugh. I made it home at about 8pm. I made it safe and I am extremely exhausted. A full write up of the trip will happen tomorrow.
 
#21 ·
Dude.

You found one!

I has a mass happy hard on for you. Take it how you will. Preferably not in the mouth ;D

Okay I will stop the dirty jokes now.

Seriously cool project man!
 
#23 ·
We loaded the bus up yesterday to the trailer and then had to drive out to the owner to process the information to do the deal. The story is that the owner is not in good health and none of his kids wanted the old family camper van. He had a few people offer him money before but in both his and the mechanics opinions they seemed to want to flip the car on thesamba.com for more money, so they never made a deal with those people. Both he and the mechanic really liked me and were glad that it was going to me to be restored and used for its intended purpose. The owner gave me a few extra period correct license plates that I can get registered for the car. The mechanic gave me a 46mm matco impact socket to remove the rear axles if I ever need to. 46mm is a huge socket. Biggest one I now own by a large margin.

The bus had the original owners manual with quite a bit of service history from a dealer in Central Florida. The bus has never left the state for good but I did hear of stories going to the Smokies to go camping and Tennessee. The owner made it very clear to me that this bus on the title mentions MH for motor home. It is considered a motor home and qualifies as such. This doesn't really mean anything except that the owner was telling me if there is an open container of alcohol in the vehicle it isn't a problem since it has different restriction than a passenger vehicle i.e. you wont be arrested but you will be hassled. This would be cool to just about anyone else but me. I really dont drink at all, its not my thing so I guess that perk will go un used.


The trip home was interesting. Our vehicle that we were using to tow is rated to be able to pull both the trailer and the bus on it. That sounds fine in theory except that in June/July summer heat trying to go on the highway with the ac on made the car start to over heat. The bus we were towing was just so un aerodynamic and it was so hot (car indicated 97 outside) that we didnt want to risk it. The needle was already higher up than normal. Thankfully we found a Uhaul about 2-3 miles away and we rented a uhaul truck to trailer it the rest of the way home.

This is where the story gets more fun for lack of a better word. At the Uhaul we had to unload the bus from the trailer to swap the trailer over to the uhaul truck. The bus drove fine getting up the trailer but going to start it at the uhaul place we realized it now had a dead battery. We had to push it off of the trailer just barely and then ran around the parking lot with the bus trying to push start it. It was like a scene out of Little Miss Sunshine. Meanwhile this bus has no brakes at all. We finally got the bus started and had a few issues but no serious ones getting it back on the trailer. It is extremely weird putting it on a trailer and the front wheels are behind the driver.

We made it home no issue other than unloading it from the trailer and putting it in our driveway. I mention again. It has no brakes at all so getting it to stop on our rather steep inclined driveway was interesting. I had to match the clutch with the gas to hold it just right while my dad was scrambling to chalk the wheels.

This was all day one.

 
#24 ·
Somebody was asking me why I towed the bus with the rear wheels down if it is rear wheel drive.

The rear wheels are fine to be towed on the ground as long as the car is in neutral. I thought about turning it the other way but that would make the front wheels which would then be on the ground in my opinion too light, if for whatever reason my door opened they would be ripped off, if the pop top for some reason came loose it would fly off... It made more sense to tow it with the rear wheels on the ground and bungee cord the shifter to make sure if it popped into gear that it would pop out. It never popped into gear. We made it just fine and it drove fine once we made our 250 mile journey.
 
#26 ·
Plan is to go on a cross country road trip eventually and hoping to make it to the pacific north west. I was planning for one year from now but the size of this project might make that 2 years from now. We will see.

It wont be fully restored any time soon but restored enough to be drive able and have fun camping. This wont be a show bus, that is for sure.

Thanks for the offer.
 
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