Burdekin
Chief Bodger
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True but still not good when you buy a car full of them.
- Thread starter Burdekin
- Start date
True but still not good when you buy a car full of them.
It's ages since I driven one on the road but they are good fun, I must get mine sorted. The last one I had on the road failed the MOT on sills, I replaced the inner with box section. Not sure I would do that now but it really improved the handling sounds a funny thing to say for a camper but it could really be hussled along after that. Used to do a bit of karting in those days and I overtook a Suzuki Swift into a roundabout one night near Windsor. This lad turned up at the kart track one day telling the story about being outbraked by a VW camper, everyone had a good chuckle. He wasn't going as fast as he could because it was his dad's car but it had a roll cage and all sorts. Another time while racing my mate in his 1300 Fiesta he cut me off on a roundabout and I had to swerve so hard to avoid him I had it almost fully sideways and it still pulled out. It was just ropey old van with a 1600 upright in it, never really understood why it went so well. Happy days 
This is the kinda thing I'm trying to sort, patches on both sides of the hole with a token gesture at a replacement jacking point. To fix this hole properly it needs a new cross member, jacking point, inner B post, outer B post, large patch to the top of the tub including seat belt point, large patch to back of tub, new wheel arch, new inner/middle/outer sill. And repeat on the other side.
And there are loads of holes in the floor to add to the fun
so meany tramper vans had the wrong motor in them tho. rember a guy who had me look at his 1300 - 1600 conversion because it was crap in his own words. he didn't really know what he was doing but how hard can it be, he'd got a fresh rebult 1600 motor that went ok, problem was the 1300 he took out was far from standard and nowhere near 1300
Ive got to move a late bay devon poptop camper off the hardstanding at the other house and see what state its in, but I remember doing sills, arches, the lower half of the sliding door and the front deformation panel and fitting alloys before getting distracted and leaving it there about ummmm 15 years ago now. I'll probably have to redo some of my work again as irrc I only primered it in places. I put a load of effort into it at the time because it had a very low mileage engine but now it'll need going through I guess.
Happy to see the value picked up though, Its now worth finishing and taking back to the uk and selling it there rather than converting it as its a rhd and I'd have to move the sliding door to the other side & rejig the interior besides changing the front beam/moving the cooker which is behind the passenger seat etc as its a camper and they are a pain to reregister with stricter rules. My mrs has gone off vw's now we have a family and moved onto A class campervans and I prefer other stuff myself.
One thing you should do on any vw van when taking ownership imho is change the fuel lines. Yes its a engine out job (but thats not major), but when they start to leak you cant see it and the van goes up and theyre all getting on now.
Happy to see the value picked up though, Its now worth finishing and taking back to the uk and selling it there rather than converting it as its a rhd and I'd have to move the sliding door to the other side & rejig the interior besides changing the front beam/moving the cooker which is behind the passenger seat etc as its a camper and they are a pain to reregister with stricter rules. My mrs has gone off vw's now we have a family and moved onto A class campervans and I prefer other stuff myself.
One thing you should do on any vw van when taking ownership imho is change the fuel lines. Yes its a engine out job (but thats not major), but when they start to leak you cant see it and the van goes up and theyre all getting on now.
CompoSimmonite
Member
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- Werrington, Staffordshire Moorlands.
I was just thinking similar - fur coat and no knickers ?
You can always rely on a Herefordian to come up with a comedy phrase for a situation....
Cobbler
Codger bodger
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- 8,031
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- Gloucestershire UK
One thing to do if you want to keep it & it's a 1600 is change the exhaust valves. This was a service item back in the day, 40,000 miles on the van & 70,000 on the cars. Not many people know this & they have a reputation for dropping valves because of this. It's got a million miles on, drops a valve, so the owner buys another condition unknown, fits it, drops a valve & so on. This came from an ex VW mechanic who used to look over loads for the local dairy. As its air cooled the valves work over a large temperature range, far more than a water cooled engine.
You have to take the engine out to do it, but this is only about half an hours work & it's on the floor.
You have to take the engine out to do it, but this is only about half an hours work & it's on the floor.
Hey Burdekin, that looks pretty good for £4k. Looks like the door step,front arch, door bottom is starting to go so would guess some of the other lower components like cills, outriggers etc are on the way. Upper panels look pretty straight although.....
What I tended to find going to shows and looking at vans was a lot of people were spending £2-£3k on a paint job to make it look pretty but not addressing the underlying rust. They had a "show van" for 18 months then it all started falling apart and they couldn't fund spending the real money to sort properly. Also seen this on a lot of trader vans for sale, quick £1000 blow over, looks mint, sell a 4k van for 10k and new owner has a bubbling moonscape 18 months later.
Looks like this one has had a decent refurb from the pic, new window rubber, details like dash painted and air vents colour coded, etc. but would guess they haven't spent the money on the underlying issues.
If you are buying to sell it would be a bit less attractive to me as to fix the rust properly you will be doing a lot of visible bodywork I am guessing, not just chassis. That means you are looking at another respray so to do it properly I reckon you would be looking at your time plus £3-£4k for a van you could sell fro £10 ish.... (It doesn't look like a pop top so that will have a bit of a limit on its camper appeal)
If you were doing it dor yourself then I think £4k would be a good purchase subject to a closer inspection and mechanicals being viable. On the engine it is probably a 1600TP which is a very easy engine to work on/rebuild. Can be very reliable, not quick, but just keep on going. If you were so inclined you could build a rock solid one for < £2000.
If you've got an Amazon and P1800 then you know what to look for so just have a good gander, could be something you could fix the MoT stuff on quite quickly and have a half decent van for the summer.........
Cheers,
MM
What I tended to find going to shows and looking at vans was a lot of people were spending £2-£3k on a paint job to make it look pretty but not addressing the underlying rust. They had a "show van" for 18 months then it all started falling apart and they couldn't fund spending the real money to sort properly. Also seen this on a lot of trader vans for sale, quick £1000 blow over, looks mint, sell a 4k van for 10k and new owner has a bubbling moonscape 18 months later.
Looks like this one has had a decent refurb from the pic, new window rubber, details like dash painted and air vents colour coded, etc. but would guess they haven't spent the money on the underlying issues.
If you are buying to sell it would be a bit less attractive to me as to fix the rust properly you will be doing a lot of visible bodywork I am guessing, not just chassis. That means you are looking at another respray so to do it properly I reckon you would be looking at your time plus £3-£4k for a van you could sell fro £10 ish.... (It doesn't look like a pop top so that will have a bit of a limit on its camper appeal)
If you were doing it dor yourself then I think £4k would be a good purchase subject to a closer inspection and mechanicals being viable. On the engine it is probably a 1600TP which is a very easy engine to work on/rebuild. Can be very reliable, not quick, but just keep on going. If you were so inclined you could build a rock solid one for < £2000.
If you've got an Amazon and P1800 then you know what to look for so just have a good gander, could be something you could fix the MoT stuff on quite quickly and have a half decent van for the summer.........
Cheers,
MM
