Chad’s ’66 SO36 Dormobile

[Shortbus]

#61485

And for the record, we use every pedal available in Idaho. Every. Single. One. 🙂

[Shortbus]

#61486

Von_hansel wrote:

Hot DAMN this is a rad camper. Euro electric outlet, uncommon light grey paint, and Dormobile. You guys have been building some bad ass campers; one after another. It would be great to see the MCode plate. I take it that it has the Euro Westy lights on the long wall? I had a ’66 light grey kombi that was outfitted with a Sundial camper kit. All I can say is that it is nice to have a camper in a color other than pearl white.

It does have the unique euro westy lights on the long wall… I need one more good lens for this bus if anyone knows where one might be.

[John Jones]

#61487

Doors were not as bad as I figured.. I think they will work, and no damage done.  Seals will touch on the inside..   And outsides are as good as possible.

Spent some time going through boxes, sorting and organizing.   Wrapping my head around what to do next.

Steering box.?. Looks like it could stand to be removed and painted..  Is it already rebuilt?  And how about a key for that Ignition lock.  I went through everything and did not see one.

I see all the levers and such for pedals were left in while working on the bus.. I’m taking all that stuff out and rebuild blast and paint and reinstall….  and one set of them pedals.. 😎  😎

Is this a ONE popout bus???  Weird… 😎

I assume repaint the top Silver white or whatever the correct color is?

Missing a few seals… we will get them coming. Front door window stuff mostly.. looks like part of one side is missing… 😎

Outer door handles and such… Clean up and reuse, they are nice, but not perfecto.  I found the key..  and they all work nice.

door mech’s and strikers are gonna get removed and redone..  they were painted in the bus…

 

 

 

All work and no play makes JJ a dull boy🤣
Keeping a lid on it😎
Attitude is everything 🤔

[John Jones]

#61488

Shortbus wrote:

John Jones wrote:

What a cool bus.. going to be a great build!!!! I can already feel the momentum… Thanks Chad… Irs is for offroad.. EFI is for modern cars Oh Chad…..

Well, call me a trend setter… free spirit… influencer… pain in the ass… just don’t call me boring. Scooby likes where I’m going, I can tell from the picture.

 

😎 😎 😎 LOLOLOLOLOL….

All work and no play makes JJ a dull boy🤣
Keeping a lid on it😎
Attitude is everything 🤔

[Pat K]

#61490

Shortbus wrote:

Well, call me a trend setter… free spirit… influencer… pain in the ass… just don’t call me boring. Scooby likes where I’m going, I can tell from the picture. 🙂

I’m sure we’ll come up with plenty of things to call you through this build…😘

 

 

 

 

 

We will build it if it comes.

[Pat K]

#61491

[/quote]

Shortbus wrote:

And for the record, we use every pedal available in Idaho. Every. Single. One. 🙂

Of course… I bet you drove the family JD to school at 14 because you had a Idaho ”farm license”

Pat K wrote:

Shortbus wrote:

Well, call me a trend setter… free spirit… influencer… pain in the ass… just don’t call me boring. Scooby likes where I’m going, I can tell from the picture. 🙂

I’m sure we’ll come up with plenty of things to call you through this build…😘

We will build it if it comes.

[Pat K]

#61493

After we sorted through parts I trimmed cargo door seals for a better fit. 

Popped the top and washed it up…Rounding up parts for mock up. We’ll make any necessary repairs before we sand it down for primer and then a Silver White paint session.

I hear Chad is experienced in Dormie tops… do you have any links that may shorten our path?

JJ is checking over the wiring before we start on any assembly. 

We will build it if it comes.

[tlambert]

#61494

Shortbus wrote:

Pat… awesome to see it in the clean shop. Franz… take a look at this kit and let me know what you think: https://type-emotorsports.com/collections/type-2-rear-suspension/products/bolt-in-1955-1967-bus-irs-suspension-complete?variant=31614161387638 My deluxe is straight axle w/ type 3 rear brakes. They are easy to put in but adjustment and repairs later are a lot easier with IRS, I’ve had both. The kit above actually works for both stock and lowered by just flipping the stub axle housing. Well, that and swapping in 944 CV parts in for stock height. It’s also purpose built for early type 2 to so no cutting or clearancing. Would be nice in case I want to make it a real camper and lift it back up later. 🙂

That IRS kit is pretty badass.

Tim

[Shortbus]

#61496

Doors: awesome to hear, I was sure we’d have to cut back into the doglegs. Outside alignment passable too? Look as nice as the rest of the bus? There is an issue with one of the cargo doors too, you’ll find it once you install seals and try to close both doors, bottom of one door sticks out.

Popout: being a euro Westy, this bus would have been 2 pop outs and 4 fixed glass, no jaleousy windows on euro westies. But jaleousy windows are a must have in my opinion. So we pulled the driver’s side rear side window hinge so it wouldn’t interfere. Left the hinge on the passenger side for a popout to go there (inside the closet).

Top paint: silver white to match bumpers, emblem, wheels, etc. the can of paint I brought you is silver white. Hopefully there’s enough there. I would like make sure the top is not super shiney. Last top I did we mixed a little flattener in it to make it more semi-gloss. Cut and buffed fiberglass tops just look wrong to me.

Window parts: order whatever seals are missing. If hard parts are missing I likely have them somewhere.

Steering box: no idea on condition, probably wanders as bad as I remember from the last time I drove it a decade ago. It needs pulled and gone through/painted. I know there is a steering lock in there but I didn’t see a key for it. I had been watching for a NOS one but haven’t found one.

Door handles: let’s clean up and use what’s there. I can always upgrade those as I find super nice ones.

 

[Shortbus]

#61497

Pat K wrote:

Of course… I bet you drove the family JD to school at 14 because you had a Idaho ”farm license

Never drove a tractor to school… but my buddy and I used to shoot carp in the irrigation canals on his farm with his dad’s .357 Colt Python and then haul them back to feed the pigs. That’s about as Idaho as it gets. 😉

[Shortbus]

#61498

Dormy top: So after I gave up on this rusty pile and sold it several years ago, I did some trading for an original paint 65 Kombi that someone had cut a small pop-top into years ago. I had a dormy top laying around from a bay window we cut up. I turned that Kombi into a fake dormobile, god what a chore. Then I got the opportunity to by my real dormy back so I sold the Kombi convert.

So yes, I’ve installed one of these from nothing. Good news is this original dormy has all the framework already factory in installed, in the right place and everything has been together before so that cuts the job in half. There should be a set of paper installation instructions from dormobile in one of the boxes in the bus.

The first job is probably to get the roof positioned correctly and install the hinges. The original holes aren’t in the bus roof because the metal in those 3 spots had to be cut out and replaced due to rust. You can see their rough position (based on the metal repairs) if you look at the under side of the roof skin on the driver side. First I would put the seal on all the way around the fiberglass top so you can put it up on the roof without scratching anything and so you know how it will sit with the seals on. Then I would mount the spring loaded support arms (probably easiest to remove the springs for this) to the bus roof front and rear (their holes are already there in the roof framework). Next I would set the dormy roof on the bus and connect the support arms to the dormy roof (those holes should already be there in the fiberglass). Pivot the roof up to the driver side like the hinges were already in place to make sure you have the arms in the right places. Let those support arms be your guide for dormy roof position front to rear. Too far forward or back and the arms won’t be plumb front to rear with the roof pivoted up. Then eyeball position of the dormy roof left to right when closed and mark the bus roof for your hinge holes. Roof hinges on driver side, canopy is on passenger side.

Then pull the top back off and work and paint the top. Need to have you guys install wood strips on both sides of the windows on the inside of the top to mount the silent gliss track for curtains. It’s just a 1”x1” wood strip the full width of both windows, one above and one below the windows on the under side of the roof. You’ll see the shallow recess in the fiberglass where the originals were. Epoxy or glass resin them in place.

Glass: use the new glass in the box I brought to John at VWs at the Speings from dormobile. Please get it tinted before install. As light as you can find, it’s just to reflect heat. Maybe even clear ceramic? Made a big difference on my last one.

I assembled the whole top off of the bus including mounting the canvas to the dormy roof. Then install the accordion ribs to the bus roof frame. Next put the dormy roof up on the bus and secure the hinges. Install the spring strut supports. Open the roof and get the canvas draped out and the accordion ribs Velcro strapped roughly in place in the inside of the canvas. Open the top to it most open secured position and you can start to see where the canvas needs to mount to the bus roof all the way around. You want to leave 1/2 inch or so of slack on the longest side so the vinyl can shrink a bit and taper that slack off as you get to the hinge side.

There are a bunch of long ribbed aluminum tent securing strips (Not the flat bar stock looking ones, those are junk). Use those to mount the red/white striped vinyl tent to the dormy top and the bus roof. The dormobile instructions go into great detail about the tent process.

If you can’t find the dormy instructions let me know and I’ll round more up.

I’ll dig up the progress photos I took of my install and email them to Franz this weekend.

[Shortbus]

#61499

Oh, wiring… I had a local guy pull the new harness through, connect everything and test it all with a test box he built. Should all be good.

I did have to cut a roughly 2” x 2” access hole in the inner frame rail so we could get the harness pulled through the original conduit that runs inside this belly pan bus’s frame rail. The original harness got cut off when the belly pans got replaced so we couldn’t use it to fish the new one through. Would appreciate if you’d patch that hole for me.

Should all be converted to 12v already too. Only thing not converted I believe is the ambulance fans.

[Shortbus]

#61500

And while I’m thinking about it, please check the fitment of the headlights. I remember one of the rings not fitting the body housing well and a little twist would make the whole assembly fall out of the body bucket.

[Shortbus]

#61501

… and another thing. There is an issue with the wiper assembly fitment. The assembly I have doesn’t match up to the bus as far as mounting holes. The whole nose and dash has been replaced on this bus so it may be a parts year conflict of some sort?

[Pat K]

#61506

Thanks! I read all of that Chad. Let’s see if JJ will…😎

Haven’t found the instructions yet. Going through the last container of parts now.

We will build it if it comes.

[Author]

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