Thought I'd start a thread on my latest restoration project, now that my Mini restoration has finished I can finally start on the camper
It's a 1979 Volkswagen T2 bay window camper van which I purchased from a local magistrate just over a year ago. Sadly during it's life one of it's 8 previous keepers thought the best way to deal with the rust was to use chicken wire, newspaper and filler to repair her. As you can see from the pictures below this cowboy approach to repairing the camper has turned her into a bit of a rot box!
The camper is mostly complete and original with only a few aftermarket bits and bobs being added, no idea who the conversion is by which I'd like to try and find out. My plan is to strip her down and replace or repair any panels that need doing and return her to nearly standard, although I will add a few tasteful mods to her. I plan on stripping the interior out of the back and building my own out of MDF etc.
Here are some pictures of "Lottie" before I started stripping her down
Scuttle area looks rather bad and will need replacing If I dont change the complete front end
The bottom of the front arch was made entirely of a massive lump of filler and chicken wire!!! Both door are rotten at the bottom aswell but they are repairable and will no need to be reskinned.
Looks like the outrigger and possibly inner sill will need replacing
The sills are totally nackered, can't say I'm suprised the newspaper and filler repair didn't stop the rust!
Whilst I was trying to remove the battery the tray and rear corner disintigrated into dust!
The bottom of the boot doesn't close flush with the hinge panel for the engine hatch, on closer inspection it looks like the camper has been shunted from the rear at some point and the hinge panel pushed inwards slightly. On the plus side the cycle carrier still works :)
More rusty panels
The passenger front arch is also shot and will need replacing
The sills on the passenger side ain't much good either
Sadly the front panel is nackered, whoever fitted the front spare wheel mount made a right pigs ear of the job and the wheel has pushed the panel in leaving a massive dent and also created a water trap that's resulted in a massive rusty hole. Looks like I'll have to fit a new front panel
Edited by liam_italian, 27 February 2012 - 01:33 PM.
