1987 VW T25 Rat bus - Fixing bodged clocks!

[leo]

Hi everyone, i'm leo and i'm new to this forum so hello!
Me and my brother (edd aka eddbmxdude) have just bought ourselves a very nice red 1987 Caravelle camper/transporter which is my first and edds latest project. We both are extreme unicyclists and with any luck we're going to turn it into a unicycling tour camper!

Here's few pics of the beast



The plan is to get it running which shouldn't take too long as all that is wrong is the coolant pump is busted and to generally smarten it up enough to get through an MOT.
Then we'll work on really neatening it up. A few things we intend to do are:
Spray the body matt black
Lowering it
Changing the interior so its all purple (carpets etc)
Putting in a table, fold-up/down sofa-bed
Cinema stylie purple LED's along the edge of the roof/doors etc


Thats edd!

And thats me!

(sorry about the pictures being too huge, I tried resizing but somehow it went wrong, )

EXTREME! (unicycling)!!



cheers, leo

[luckygti]

Whoa! Extreme unicycling indeed! The van looks like my old bus! Me likey! Let me know if you have any dramas? Might be able to help! Welcome.

[guz]

got a twin slider w/c wedge myself.

try 80-90 or brickyard for other wedge owners,

[rob0r]

I spy MK bus station and chicksands? Van looks sweet, and mad skills on the unicycle!

[leo]

Thanks for the warm welcome, will keep you all updated. Orderd a new coolant pump on monday so that should be arriving soon, then we can actually get the beast running.
Yep chicksands is great for the unicycling shenanigans!
Yeah already members of club 80-90, but i thought with any luck it'l end up pretty 'retro' so i made a thread here, lol

byyyeeee leo

[DerbyDan]

Hi Leo - welcome to the board.

Unicycling is extreme enough on flat smooth ground - what you're doing looks bonkers!! Recognised Chicksands and MK bus station aswell ;D - Woburn's alright aswell, I guess?

Loving the twin slider - looks in pretty good nick? & your plans sound like they would fit the theme of your chosen activity (though I think Matt black has been done to death now? )

God I miss my old T25 - especially for how versatile they are, & great for transporting bikes & suchlike.

I met your brother eddbmxdude at last months R/R meet in Henlow - he & his friend (with the Stag?) Just had so much enthusiasm for all this old car malarkey - that I guess you'll have this up & running in no time

[eddbmxdude]

Right, its been ages, but its running at last. Had a water leak after fitting the new coolant pump, turned out one of the elbows was really pitted, so we had it off and ground it flat again. Fingers crossed it holds the water now.
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SFCnl1380Yw

Also got a new rear quarter to weld in.


Now the weather is a bit warmer it seems like I'm progressing a bit better on most of my projects.


Edd

[dollywobbler]

Was going to say "what the hell is extreme unicycling?" but then you answer it. Bonkers!

Good luck with the van project!

[eddbmxdude]

dollywobbler said:

Was going to say "what the hell is extreme unicycling?" but then you answer it. Bonkers!

Good luck with the van project!

He he, thanks Dollywobbler!

Me and Leo are really getting our 's into gear with the van.
Hears the damage that we did last night.
This is how it started off looking, all crusty and horrible!


This is what we did to it:


and this is how it looks now:


My cutting disc ran out, so we had to stop but I'm going out to get supplies tonight. On friday we are going down there again and hopefully we will get the rest of that panel cut out.
I hate bodywork already, cutting through filler is horrible!

Edd

[DutyFreeSaviour]

I can't see - but I hope you're masked up fella - not wanting to sound ott but I've 'risked it' and the dust is a killer

God luck with the rear quarter.

What do these things drive like? Never had the chance to try!

[eddbmxdude]

I was wearing a 'ghetto' stylee rag over my face because we have run out of face masks. Gonna get some more supplies in before going down there again though, cause that filler is horrible stuff!

I was surprised at how it drives to be honest. Don't feel as sluggish as I thought it would, although it is totally stripped out atm and I have only driven it out of the farm and back. It takes a bit of getting used to the fact that you are sitting directly above the front wheels

[eddbmxdude]

Update time!

Went down there today and got all of the rot cut out.



The channel that the sliding door seal sits in was almost non existant, so we will need to get some new stuff in there.


We are going to need to fabricate a few patches from sheet steel, which should be good fun and I'm quite looking forward to now.

Heres a pic of the van overall, in the glorious sunshine


And heres one of Leo in all his rave gear


Edd

[leo]

UPDATE!
Well its been some time since we updated this, although i think the last post was the last work we had done on it so it all good.
Me and edd are really trying to crack on with this now because its been sitting dormant for ages! our aim is to get an MOT on it by feb.
We went down the unit to work on it on the weekend and we got a fair bit of patching done, well mainly edd as i had to fix my 106 exhaust.
But still progress has been made




















I think we may redo that last patch, either that or majorly smarten up them welds

leo

[petetong]

hello, and welcome.

[ray900tap]

tour bus.. great plan!

big up the MK bus station massive!! haha

'don't grind the marble'

never get sick of hearing that....honest

[eddbmxdude]

Dec 8, 2008 22:20:20 GMT ray900tap said:

tour bus.. great plan!

big up the MK bus station massive!! haha

'don't grind the marble'

never get sick of hearing that....honest

Haha! ;D We're not chipping it, honest!
I'm so ashamed of that welding Need more practice

Edd

[luckygti]

Glad you've got back on this. Have a pic of my old one for some inspiration

[leo]

Wow! shes a beauty! I'm loving them wheels!
Me and edd are going up the unit tomorrow to do some more, i think we were gonna get her running first because she didn't start last week , then maybe do a little bit more pannel work. I'll take my camera so's to keep you all updated.

leo

[luckygti]

Wheels were off an Audi. Just needed the centrebores taking out a little bit, which was done when they were refurbed. Curbed em the first time out...... Looking at a Capri going the other way!!

[leo]

Awesome! might have to look into getting some nice wheels
Anywho me and edd were concentrating mainly on getting it running today, which we found out why quite quickly. It turned out to be the battery after all lol, so we're gonna have to get a new one because the old one is completely knakerd.



We then decided to take the exhaust of next because it blows quite badly. You'l see from the pictures it was the elbow joint that joins all the bigger pipes together which was blowing. :S






Except from that the exhaust seems to be in fairly good nick really.

I decided to do a little more panel work while edd worked on his metro turbo, i had intended to wax oil over the repairs we had made last week, although i wish i'd never started though because in the process of cleaning the area as soon as i poked around a little the screwdriver went straight through another supposedly solid part! Do'h!
So after much cursing etc i began trying to get back to actually solid metal.
I never did get round to wax oiling, maybe next week







leo