Hello all, maybe about to become a very late bay owner.

Two questions:

How are your Portuguese translation skills?

How fat is your wallet?

Oh, and have you overfilled the nearside tank yet - it only holds a gallon!

 

I've had two and to be bluntly honest, unless you are getting it for £15k or less, don't bother.

I paid £12k for each of mine and made a profit when I sold them, but I wouldn't pay anymore than that as the parts availability is patchy and expensive and garages are generally reluctant to work on them.
My water cooled panel van went like a bomb and often breezed past chugging old T4's, but some of the idiosyncrasies and the peculiar assortment of parts that VW cobbled together ( mostly old bits of Golf, Fox, Polo and Passat) make them quite troublesome to maintain.

 

Watcha

 

Two? What of the last model, or Brazilians in general? There's certainly none of the last editions going for anything like as low as 15k anywhere.

Well, I'm hoping it's going to be pretty much OK anyway, it does only have 8k miles on it so far! It's basically a 1.4 Polo engine, how complicated can it be?! Anyway I have my own garage facilities, do all my own work and generally avoid garages so I'm not too worried about them being scared to work on it. Most don't have a clue about air cooled engines now either.

 

Most garages these days don't know how to fix anything if they can't plug in a computer. The days of old school mechanics are long gone...they are vehicle technicians these days

 

I had one of each, a 2003 air-cooled and a 2010 water-cooled panel van.
You should be OK if you've got garage facilities and don't mind doing your own maintenance, but everything related to parts and their configurations is troublesome. Danbury were quite resourceful when they imported them and converted them to RHD, fitted Webastos etc but they are now long gone so supplies have dwindled. Exhausts are about £450 if you can find them, so custom stainless steel replacements are often a better option. Complete fuel pump assemblies are about £250 if you can find them. ECU's can be problematic and their Bosch format is long gone.

Good luck

Edit: regarding prices, if you look on the Brazilian Bay forum there's a 2003 air-cooled with poptop, revised steering set-up and a decent awning set up going for £15k.

They are about if you know where to look.......

 

OK, It's already got a stainless exhaust, so that's done at least. Hopefully it will be a few miles yet before the ECU & fuel pump fails! If they do and originals aren't about, I'm sure there'll be alternative solutions from similar 1.4 VW engined car control parts bins.

Mine isn't a run of the mill Brazilian bus, it's one of the 1200 last edition models from the end of 2013, in as new condition with only 8k miles and has been garaged from new! The seller is asking a bit more than £15k mind, (although not that much more) but these usually go for over twice that in pristine condition.

You've got me feeling all defensive all of a sudden, lol!!

Can you point me in the direction of the Brazilian bay forum please?

 

Think the message @Purple is trying to get across, is do a bit of research about what you are buying as parts pricing and availability could be quite challenging.

Also, I would refer you to my first post about 'characters' on here

 

Sounds like a nice van, but won't be any different than the other late water cooled vans from about 2010 onwards - there were subtle differences in the cooling system - remember that it's a bespoke system as well and the pipework can corrode around the joints and is....difficult to source, so bespoke stainless steel pipework is often fitted The water-cooled vans didn't have heating in Brazil, so Danbury fitted a heater matrix into the cooling circuit, but some vans then suffered from cooling issues and airlocks. So some vans have a secondary water pump, but some don't.....and I retro fitted the standard van grille over the radiator as the fake spare wheel cover doesn't allow as good an air flow in.

Check your side sliding windows have the drains clear, they block up and send water down between the outer skin and inner walls - its sits trapped on the floor.

And the front/side ventilation intakes aren't connected to the outside world, the front vent plate is often mastic sealed shut and there's no slider levers as the dashboard air vents aren't connected to anything, some have had the Webastos routed up - I put speakers in mine.

The nearside fuel tank is an auxiliary, only active when the main tank is filled with ethanol - which is often in Brazil, but never over here. So after the first time you overfill it before realising there are two tanks with separate fillers on either side, the auxiliary is never used, so the fuel goes off/rots the pipework and filler seals/cap.

 

Yes, I appreciate the candor actually, I do quite like owning weird stuff, even if it can be more challenging to maintain sometimes. (I also have a 1954 Beetle, so am no stranger to hard to source parts.) Maintaining the cars I own is a hobby to me, I very much enjoy it as much as using them. Thankfully I don't need to rely on third party garages for almost any work either, so in a slightly better position than many.

 

The Brazilian Bay forum:

https://brazilianvwbay.forumotion.com

 

That's all really useful, thanks. I'll have to check out the heating situation, this one is as it left Brazil, Danbury haven't been at it, so I might have to work on some solutions.

Can the older ventilation parts be retro fitted to get fresh air intake?

 

Hi and welcome.

I’ve worked on loads of busses of all the VW T types but my only brazzer was this absolute POS 2008 1600 air cooled fuel injected, Splitty steering pseudo Early bag of parts!
Made of steel thinner than Klockerholme panels already rotting just awful.
I eventually refused to have it back in the workshop.

Sorry for the rant but as you may have sussed I wasn’t impressed.

 

If yours is original Brazilian spec it might have the front vents connected, but if not you'll have to source the red and blue slider levers and linkage assemblies, but I think the front vent plate is the same as a late bay so you should be able to improvise, or fit a heated screen, otherwise you'll have problems demisting the windscreen in the winter, the opening quarter lights will help a bit, but it will constantly mist up.

Is yours a LHD still?

 

Yes, still LHD, I don't mind driving LHD, had a LHD Mexican Beetle I drove for 10 years back in the day, much preferred it to the butchered RHD ones BeetlesUK were making a dogs dinner of at the time.

 

It's another of the idiosyncrasies, a Splitty king pin steering arrangement, sat next to an electronic throttle pedal.....

 

I would think that's a good thing!
I hope it's a good one, like Flakey I had one in my workshop when I did this and was not impressed, particularly with the bodywork where every panel was rippled. Early / mid production, they were probably churning them out then. It was only a few years old.

 

Welcome to the madhouse

 

Hello and Welcome from The Colonial Contingent