Or maybe not! 1977 Westfalia Helsinki 2ltr Type4 Left hooker Bought this for not a lot of cash with minimal interior Now after a fair bit of cutting out by my resto guy And a personal favourite of mine :-( It's worse than even he thought it was going to be and as you may well see been bodged for years. To quote him" the only thing not used to repair this was plastercene or net bags from oranges" So tomorrow night I have been summoned for a talk and told to bring tissues. I need to be realistic here and where I know he can fix anything does it make sense. I suppose if it's going to cost way more than its value then probably not but I hate to give up on it. If I call time on it what do I with it, not as if anyone else would buy it now and there's not much metal left! Not to mention having to try and explain to my better half that I've just flushed some of our hard earned down the tubes, she won't be pleased. A lesson learned, take someone who knows what he's looking at with you!
It really doesnt look any worse than my pickup did and thats just passed its MOT, lot of hard work but doable.
What are the front panel, door bottoms, steps, cab floor, rear corners, gutters and window surrounds like? And how much does it need mechanically?
From memory the front panel had been previously replaced, the gutters and doors looked good. Not sure about cab floor and think the rear bottom corners are gone. Should get the full picture tomorrow evening.
I'm kinder than your resto guy. I think it's pretty poor to rip it to bits (past the point of no return) then tell you it's fooked. I would have told you before I started and advised cliff-over-push, and buy a finished one with the resto money. If it really was "not a lot" of money to begin with, this is probably still good advice. Paying to have a van restored is more expensive than buying a good one even without the initial purchase price of the "minger" so you can afford to abandon it. Technically speaking.
I hear you Zed and agree with what your saying regarding walking away from it. To be fair to my guy I stupidly bought the minger myself without him seeing it and have asked him to progress after MoT failure with a view of full restoration. We haven't talked money yet and I'm only guessing as to what I'm going to hear. I've got money put aside for but it it's not a bottomless pit.
I would say that will be quite expensive just for the welding. Some of the apparently "good" bits will be bad.
Meeting went well. Ok so it's going to cost a small fortune but it will be worth it. Looking forward to seeing it progress.
If it is anything like ours '76 RHD then the bottom 6" will be fookered, including the chassis, front beam, front steps, wheel arches & most ifnot all the rear! We are past the point of no return with not a lot to show for quite a lot of hard earned & the time it all takes is beyond even getting worked up about! However as above it will be worth it ....... won't it???
looking good .....at least you know you will have a solid bus when it's finished how long does your resto guy think it will take him to finish off the metal work?
Difficult question as he is more or less a one man show. He does smaller jobs, MoT work etc on other cars as fillers. I'm in no rush and this year, camping wise is all but done so my goal would be to have a solid,painted, MoT'd van for April which should be very achievable. Caveat to that will be cash and the unknown quantity that is the 2ltr carbureted Type 4 engine which wasn't running well before we started the strip and in the quest for reliability would benefit from a rebuild somewhere.
good to hear your being realistic with time scales .....a lot of people don't realise how long these things can take, and your restorer still has to make a living by working other vehicles at the same time to pay the bills
Paul Weeding is your man for that but he’s busy so get the ball rolling now if you want the engine back by April (tell him you need it February).