Get on the Bus

The VW Bus: for more than 60 years it has been the utilitarian workhorse of every country on Earth, and has developed a reputation (depending on where you're from) of being cranky and impossible, or of being indefatigable (if slow) brute that gets the job done. No wonder it's German nickname, Bulli, means 'work-horse.'

I have almost a quarter century of experience with vintage VWs, having owned most of the air-cooled models, installed and repaired my own engines, and having built a show winning 'reference restoration' 1972 VW Super Beetle (1302 model.) I've driven cross country three times in VWs, including solo jaunts in a 1971 8 passenger bus. These cars and I go way back. So when I sold the Super Beetle to a collector after its restoration was complete, I decided that a Bus for the family would be enjoyable. And certainly roomier than Beetle, which proved to be too cramped for my children. That and their tendency to KICK the interior of a show car and dribble on the upholstery caused me to revise my plans.

A restored stock 2L L-Jet EFI Type4 engine. (Not mine.)

After I sold the Beetle, I spent from October 2010 to January 2011 studying the state of parts availability for the VW Bus in the USA. It isn't nearly as rich as it was 5 years ago. There are now only 3-5 engine builders competent to rebuild the Type4 engine used in the vehicles from 1972-1979. Bec
ause of the limited manufacturing run of the engine, consumables (like exhaust, emissions components, Fuel Injection components) are becoming  scarce or are available only as rebuilds, with a fraction of the lifespan of the original. There are some attempts by enthusiasts to do limited manufacturing runs of some components to keep their rig alive, and I fully support them. These enthusiasts are doing it 'for the love,' which is good, because there is no faster way to lose your shirt than to labor under the delusion that VW owners are anything but cheapskates and no matter how clever your 'replacement parts' fabrication is, you're likely going to lose money on the deal. Still, I support them with my cash when they're making a part that I just can't live without.

My engine. Unfortunately. (Or Fortunately. Compare the
two pictures: mine is filthy and crusty, but it is
COMPLETE. When working on a vintage vehicle,
complete trumps almost everything.

I have an engineer's mind without a mechanical engineer's training. My target vehicle is a 1977 7 passenger Transporter (aka Bus-bus, aka 'Ferdinand the Bulli') that had sat in a downstate Delaware barn for a dozen years before being purchased and relocated to South Central New Jersey. The vehicle was originally a Champagne Edition 1, which included some up-rated upholstery as well as a gas fired cab heater and an up-rated alternator to drive it. Unfortunately, the previous owner had repainted it Fire Engine Red and fitted it with zebra stripe seat covers and a Harley-Davidson branded wheel cover on a nose mounted spare. Simply....revolting. And filthy. And afforable. I bought it in April of 2012. I know how to do upholstery, and everything else this old Bus needs. The personal investment in time is trivial compared with the amount of cash I would have to spray at a specialist to get this vintage vehicle running. And even though I don't care of the paint color (like lipstick on a pig!) I like the Bus.

My Beetle was built for the sense of personal validation that I knew what I was doing and could do a period correct restoration. Getting a Bus again started as an engineering idea: Could I retrofit a modern Subaru EJ22 engine into a classic Bus and do it elegantly for less than $4000? A lot of research went into this, and in the end I concluded that it would be foolish to proceed with such an expensive retrofit without at least testing the existing power plant.

This is where my plans changed: The engineering effort required for the conversion will take a lot of time, even sourcing as many off-the-shelf components as possible. I realized as I dug into the research on the project that my goal, unbeknownst to me, was really to have a road tripping vehicle to play with my family in. I realized this when my daughter went gaga over the Bus, and reached a point where she would tell me not to bother reading her a story tonight, go out to the garage and work on the Bus! (She's six.)

So now the rush is not to keep the project from hanging over me, nor to avoid the six year long restoration the Beetle represented in an attempt to restore it 'perfectly.' The rush is to put it on the road so that my little girl and I can be out doing things together with it.

Note as of August 2013: Unfortunately, I got lead down the primrose path by well meaning Type4 engine aficionados who kept pushing me to save the existing engine rather than perform a conversion. Over $1200 wasted trying to resuscitate a corpse before I finally walked away from the siren song and made myself a lot of enemies in the process. (What a silly thing to make enemies over!)

So root, hog or die, I need to make a vanishingly rare engine driven by a dead-primitive fuel injection system push a neglected 37 year old bus down the road. All in pursuit of the vanishing opportunities to spend time with my daughter before she has found more interesting things to do than root around with her nutty father in a vintage Bus. No more excuses, but accept the unavoidable delays, which are after all, unavoidable.

Vorwärts!