Spring has sprung

The weather is getting nice, the trees and flowers are blooming and the bus is rolling down the road!  Lots of fun to be sure.  I have driven the bus a couple of hundred miles over the last two weeks.  It has been running excellent.  I have 70 little rattles, and two big ones lefts to work out.  The reaction of people is priceless.  Lots of smiles, many waves, several peace signs, and a few questions from parking lot on-lookers. " Are you a Hippy?"  How long were you a Hippy?" "Do you live in it?"  Lots of fun.  I am really looking forward to getting it painted.
I received my new rear window seal from Wolfsburg west a couple of days ago.  I am hoping to install that soon. 

I made up the curtain tie backs last week.  I used some pieces of scrap leather and cut it into strips.  I attached them to the body steel with snaps so they can be easily be released so the curtains can be closed.

I spent some time adjusting the steering box.  I have concluded it is just plain screwed up.  They are a weak link I understand.  I can buy a re-manufactured one for $350 or so.  I cant imagine that there isnt a way to re-do a few parts inside to improve the function.  It isn't a show stopper, I can drive it without fixing it, it is just a bit more work, you have to "drive it" all the time, the steering slop increases the driver work load imensly.  The next thing that has to go in, is a cup holder!  I didn't realize how much I miss a cup holder until it's gone.

So far, so good.  I am very happy with the way the bus is running.  My confidence in it's reliability is getting higher every day.  I still need to add a fire extinguisher as well.
I have started work on a wood panel for the electrical outlets under the table, and I have a flip out table/storage rack in process for the back of the passengers seat.  Pics to come soon.

First Ride of the Year!

I picked out some felt at the fabric store for covering the seat "pedestals".  I cut, shaped and glued the felt to the steel and tucked the outboard edge into the metal tuck edge along the door on each side.  I left a flap on the bottom a the floor so it would lay under the carpeting.

On to the kick panels.  I used the original press board panels as templates.  I traced out the shapes onto a couple of pieces of the FRP and cut them out with my, now extremely dull, saber saw.  I sanded the edges and pupped them in.  They looked pretty good.  The white was a bit stark, so I scuffed them up with Scotch-Brite and painted them with some gray paint.  When they were dry, I just slipped them into place.

Next up was to re-install the seats.  I touched up the black paint on the tracks and mounting brackets and bolted them in place.

After the seats were in, I took the original rubber floor mat and traced out the shape into some carpet to make a new floor mat that matches the back carpet.  After a couple of attempts, this is what I came up with.

I scrubbed up the rubber mat that fits between the front seats and put that in for now.  It doesn't look very good, so I will have to make a replacement for that soon.
I had placed all the seat belts into a bucket and set them in the corner of the garage until I was ready for them. I looked in the bucket and decided that the seat belts looked just plain nasty dirty.  I poured about a cup of really powerful cleaner and about three cups of water into the bucket and started scrubbing the belts.  It wasn't long until the water turned the color of coffee!  Nasty.  I scrubbed them up for about 15 minutes and rinsed them with the hose.  I set them in the sun to dry.  While the belts were drying, I installed the glove box and my new sun visors.  It's nice to have a new clean set up there.  Once the belts were dry, I bolted the front belts back in and it was time for a little test ride!

The big day.  I started it up , let it warm up for a bit, and headed out down the street.  A quick lap around the block and return home to be sure everything was functioning properly and I was off.  I drove around for a half hour or so with a big smile on my face and the windows rolled down.  It was very good to get it out.  Being couped up in the garage all winter makes for pretty boring scenery.  After I got home, I decided to give it a bath and put it away.  It was a very good weekend for my old bully.

Blog Title?

Several people have asked me about the title of this blog.  Specifically, What is a Bulli?  Were you a Bulli?  Nooooo, little guys can't be Bullies!  Well, one of the guys I work with; a very talented German industrial designer, and a V-dub fan, took an interest in my bus.  He would ask me at times, "Hey, hows the bulli coming along"?  I thought, maybe I can't hear well, so I just said, It's doing great...  After about the third time, I asked him; Arne, are you saying Bulli?  He said, "yes, it's an affectionate German slang term for a VW bus.  I thought that was a pretty spiffy name, so I started using it.  Thanks Arne!

More interior projects

To finish off the edge of the carpeting by the slider door, I decided to install a piece of anodized aluminum carpet edge trim used in houses.  This nicely trims off the edge and keeps the carpet from getting hooked or snagged as you get in or out of the bus.

I attached it with a few screws.  The only tricky part is the screws that end up being right over the slider door track.  These needed to be trimmed for the slider to operate nicely (at all!).

The next little project was to replace the nasty looking edge treatment on the "wooden" cabinets.  These cabinets are made from plywood with a cherry colored wood pattern laminate of some sort.  The edges/corners that show exposed plywood were originally trimmed out using a cream colored vinyl insert.  Well, after 40 years, this vinyl gets a bit nasty looking and can no longer be brought back to it's original appearance.  Over time, the plasticizers leach from the vinyl making it very stiff.  When this happens, it shrinks and no longer fits the original opening.  To fix this, I decided to remove the original vinyl and install a wooden corner cap that I stained and varnished to match the cabinet color.

I attached this to the cabinets with my pin nailer and filled the nail holes just like doing the trim on the inside of a house.  There were three places I installed this material.  I was able to do all three locations with one 8 foot long piece.

On to the curtain rods.  I had a few curtains already made and, if you remember, I was using a bungie cord for a curtain rod. well, this just didn't cut it.  It was not tight enough and would sag between the attachment points and the curtains would look horrible.  I decided to try a piece of metal fence wire that is coated with a vinyl covering.

I stripped off the covering at the ends and looped the metal wire around a mounting screw.

The next problem to solve was the tension.  The bungie, of course, tensioned itself, albeit not tight enough, but the wire would not.  I came up with a turn-buckle mechanism to tighten the wires.  It worked great.  This also enables a re-tensioning down the road.  You must be a bit careful not to over tighten the wires, the turn-buckle and wire are strong enough to rip the screws right out of the body steel!

I positioned the turn-buckles at the "fixed" end of the curtains (the end that doesn't need to slide along the wire.) and they seem to be working out great.  Next job here is to make some tie backs for the curtains.  They will spend 99.9% of their life in the open position, at least they should look nice that way.

Next up was the interior lights.  The OG lights were pretty nasty and the switches and lenses were just plain bad.  I found a couple of lights from a 2002ish. GM Suburban.  They worked great.  I made a hole template from a manila folder and taped it to the headliner.  I cut out the holes using my Dremmel with a fiber cutting disk.  Worked great.  I reached behind the headliner and fished out the wires and soldered them to the lamps.

Nice new lamps now.  I need to remove the lamps and paint the housings white to match the headliner next and that is complete as well.

I have been struggling with the front door panels for sometime now.  I made the upholstery covers for these three times and each time I was disappointed. Anything from plow through stitches, to contrast stitches, to addition bolsters in vinyl and cloth and it all looked like crap.  I finally settled on a foam back knit fabric in gray with a plow through stitch to simulate a bolster area.  I am pretty happy with the outcome.
Here is how I did it:
First, using the original door panels as patterns, I traced out the shape onto a piece of 1/8" tempered Masonite.  I cut them out using the saber saw.  I them clamped the new panels behind the old templates and drilled out the attachment holes right through the covering on the original panels.  Worked great.  I then sanded the edges and cleaned up the holes with a small file.

Next I laid the Masonite panel on top of the back side of the fabric and traced out the shape of the panel onto the back of the fabric.  I added about an inch of fabric material all the way around the perimeter of the panel for gluing surface, and cut out the fabric to the shape required.

After this, I made a simulated bolster templates (upper and lower) from a scrap of cardboard.  I traced the "bolster" shapes onto the fabric with white chalk and added the horizontal lines with a straight edge and chalk.  I then stitched on the lines and trimmed the threads.  This gave a nice plow through look in a nice pattern.  I used a matching thread color.  The contrasting thread just was too much.

I then flipped the fabric face down and placed the Masonite panel onto the back side.  I sprayed the edges with 3M Spray-90 adhesive and folded the edges.  I cut out the door remote handle, pull handle and the window crank holes using a piece of steel rod heated with a propane torch.  Lots of smoke, but no loose threads or fraying fabric. 

Nice and clean. Reinstall the clips and pop them in place.