Hi all , amongst my other projects i currently have underway i thought shit i'mm not busy enough yet lets start something else as well as the house resto and Towdster rebuild (bloody idiot comes to mind here).
Well it all started approx 8 months ago when Buggy Brad decided to sell his EG33 subie Boxer motor and i thought it would be a nice conversion to our 77 Baja Bay Deluxe , so a deal was done and then it sat and sat and sat in the roof of COR till two weeks ago when i took a week and a half off work and had this CRAZY vision that i could do the hole conversion in this time to which Brad couldn't stop laughing about.
Well i'mm back at work now and needless to say the Bus is still sitting at COR unfinished but is still coming along slowly (Comon Brad you know you''ll dig me here so imm ready for it ).
What weve done so far ~
When i bought the motor of Brad it had already been previosly mounted in his old dual cab and had an exhaust fabricated for it and a few other bits and pieces plus had been proven to be quite an easy fit in the dual cab body , but alas not such an easy fit in the kombi body due to the fuel tank .
So after some measuring it was found as noted above that the easiest fix for the fuel tank was to remove it all together from behind the motor and fabricate a new one but more about that later.
Once the engine bay was all cleaned up i mated the motor complete with a "Volksconversions" adapter up to a rebuilt 091 2ltr box rebuilt by Mick @ Mick Motors and after afew final measures fitted it in to the engine bay which is tight but nice fit with the twin throttle bodies and associated plumbing siting through into th old fuel tank area.
With that done i then fabricated a new sump so as to gain 60mm ground clearance back but reatain the oil capacity of the original sump.
As previosly mentioned brad had already had exhausts fabricated for the conversion so that was a pretty quick bolt on item with the next item on the list a new engine crossmember which i fabricated and fitted yesterday so as it no longer had to just hang off the geabox ears.
While this was all going on i also cut and folded a new alloy fuel tank up which is going in front of the old fuel tank area where the back seat would normally go which i don't have anyway and will hold approx 100 litres which will be great for those long road trips. Once fitted this will be fully enclosed with a newly fabricated firewall so as to be safer etc.
The next item to be fabricated is the alloy bull bar / radiator mount which i have allready done some work on and will get folded up this week for fabrication next weekend .
I will post more as soon as done and mabey some photos if i ever rember to take my camera with me .
At this point i would also like to thank Dave and all the boys at Custom Vee Dub formally known as Custom Off Road for their help and keeping my ideas in check.

i see alot of text there and no pics... .lol

nick

OK i finally got round to taking some pics of our progresss.

Looking in to the power house


And a close up


Down stairs


Crossmember


Down stairs from the front


The Exhaust


The Baja Bus with a subtle add for the Shop

Looking good

top job andrew looking good hope 2 have a look in the flesh one day

dam! thats looking good

looks great...and will go nice too no doubt...
Fingers crossed I've got some veedub time when I'm in Brissie between the 19-23...would love to see it

yeah baby yeah.. groovy!

yawn ...... how many days is it so far Andrew ???

I cleared a space in the shed to wire it weeks ago and nothing there but dust and Alpaca poo .... oh well I can give it a good clean at Xmas when I am still waiting for ya bus to show ...

That being said it is looking awesome and you and Dave have done a great job. You are correct I am still laughing about the 7 day thing as it brings back memories of me thinking I could do a subie conversion in 14 days...

As you would now know the bolting in of the engine is the quick and easy part, but the end result will be worth it as you will have the only unfinished EG33 Baja Bus in the world and if we get a really big ass forklift we can put it on the pallet racks nex to the worlds fastest unfinished towdster.

Luckily for you the Turd Mk2 is keeping your wife from having to walk to work .....

You really need to pay more attention and get one job finished before you start another one.. at least I generally sell one unfished project before I start another .. talking of which anyone want to buy a half finished Iguana Buggy ?????

For anyone who wants to see this baby in the flesh or the towdster or Andrew feel free to drop down to Custom Vee Dub ( http://www.customveedub.com.au ) 28 Hayward St, STAFFORD between the hours of 1700 - 0730 Mon to Friday or 0800 - 2200 Sat and Sunday, they will all be there and spanners will be flying as Andrew attempts to make Beach Trip 2008 !!!!!!!

Nice work Andrew - looking bloody good! I bet you can't wait to drive it.....funny how the old saying of "work out how long you expect it take and double it, then work out how much you think it will cost and triple it". That's why split is still in Brad's storage shed after (lost count of how many) years - I was going to get around to starting on it in 2005 (or was it 2004!).

So hows that Mega Manx comming along Brad is it its 10 birthday yet or 11th

wow that one tuff looking bay

Quote:

Originally posted by A Westwood So hows that Mega Manx comming along Brad is it its 10 birthday yet or 11th

Well i took it for it's first test drive last night ,allbeit a short run down Buggy Brads road and back and wow this thing motors now baby.
Roll on Dyno Day boys as she ain't 52 hp no more.
A big thank you must go to Buggy Brad for wiring the car for me in the last few days , thanks mate.

Awesome!!

Well.....that week only took 3 months.....

Good job, I look forward to seeing it at the Mt Mee Night Nav Run........

i give the gearbox a week.... hehe

well done andrew!

nick

With the Engine Conversion pretty well all sorted and drivable we have now moved onto the body work on the old girl.
First up rust work , now we've all seen good and bad rust repairs and as a sheetmetal worker i have done plenty myself .
First up lets remove the glass and oll'shit we had plenty of holes ( and i'mm not talking about the glass hole ) , the window sills are pretty cactus so over Easter i have rebuilt the 2 rear side window openings and am moving on to the drivers side middle window opening this weekend plus a few other small patches required around the rear.
Other panel repairs comming up will include removing the front nose panel and replacing with new while at the same time removing the vw heater system to make way for the subie climate control airconditioner / heater.
Will post some pics soon but am now aiming for all finished / complete for Valla , which sounds a while off but will be here before i know it.

Andrew

and u get up me for being slow to post pics!!!!

i do hope its going to be a fitting colour for such a loud bus and that it shows its true glory.

steff.............

Yeah c'mon Andrew - where are the pics???

Good stuff westwood, she would go like a bat outta hell.

Allright lads heres some photos of some of my repairs so far

As for a colour how do's the Ford Focus metalic orange on the bottom half and still the stock cream on the top half sound with still the cream wheels and a nice metalic dark grey for the bull bar and rear bumper.
Our interier is black so this will probabley be contrasted with a similar grey to the bumpers etc in carpet

Quote:

Originally posted by bajachris88 Good stuff westwood, she would go like a bat outta hell.

You will never make VALLA ..........

the orange thats on the focus XR5 i am guessing ur talking about? nice colour but its a transparent one so it will take more than a normal pearl to cover, so bargain on more product than normal. The standard soild cream on the top? I have always found a pearl doesnt really suit a soild colour and another pearl will off set it much better.

with that orange i think u would have a fair better look with say 25d,mazda,snowflake white(very clean white with xirrilic pearl) or if u want a creamy style maybe the nissans er crap cant think of the code of the top of my head buit its found on the X-trails, a xirrilic white but its a cream reather than a clean white. Get who ever is going to do ur paint to show u a couple of spray out cards , i know it seems a pain but really its worth it as it will set the whole bus off. I did a 67 mustang for one of the people i contract to and it was done in a blue pearl, he wanted the stripes over the car in a straight white(soild colour) but i showed him it with a pearl and he loved it. now a couple more in town with stangs have asked if we can change there stripes or add them in the same...

the fun of it all

steff..........................

Well its been a while since my last update but i have been busy cutting out more rust effected metal mostly helped by the PO'S love of bog .
So below are some various shots at different stages of my repairs.

Andrew