3 Months ago, we purchased 10 Kombis from Steve Muller of Kombi Rescue in Sydney. One of these was a 77 Deluxe microbus that had some panel damage to the front nose cone, but was in otherwise very good condition - a little surface rust here and there, but not a bad prospect.
He is a certified 8 seater, with only 138,000 original kms on the original 2 litre engine. The original VW clock still works, and the seats were all original and in excellent condition. When we tried to start the engine it fired up first time, but each of those wheels were locked on tight.
You can see from the photos below, we still had a lot of work ahead of us, including the repairs on the front nose cone, the rear wheel arch, and some minor rust that was affecting the steps. There was also a little surface rust on the roof.
Hence we began removing all the fittings, bumpers, rubber and glass, in order to start digging deeper - The question on everyone's lips is, "What else will we find?"
Aside from the rear wheel arches, the rear quarter was also suffering from more than a bit of surface rust! This means stripping back to bare metal, cutting out the worst sections and treating the remainder - Once the final coat was applied it was quite a transformation!
Alas, once we got to the roof, that surface rust was much worse than we thought! Seems like a good rule of thumb is that if youy see rust then times it by 4. Again this resulted in the roof being taken back to bare metal, and,.. yup you guessed it - rust treatment, primer, undercoat and the final 2 pac is applied!
So what about that nose cone?
I have a few magicians that are quite handy with a slide hammer and a welder. These lads have been able to recover the front nose cone from the mangled piece of steel to the now handsome and well defined brow of Harold!
Work undertaken:
All surface areas rubbed down, primed, undercoated and sprayed with Dupont 2Pac.
Back floor areas cleaned, rust treated, and sprayed with black stoneguard.
Drivers floor area cleaned, rust treated, and sprayed with black stoneguard.
Entire roof stripped back to bare metal, primed, undercoated, and resprayed.
New seals and rubbers throughout.
4 original opening qtr windows - rust treated, and reinstalled.
Damage to front nose cone, and rear quarter has been welded and restored.
Back cargo area resprayed.
New exhaust.
Engine tuned and has brand new battery.
