Somehow just having a nice campervan purely for the holidays never was an option. It needed to be something strange. So when a friend decided to sell his VW van for cheap, I got me that one.
It's an LT1 from when the last T2 Transporters rolled off the assembly line. The LT1 had already inspired the design of the T3 that was just about to be revealed. In terms of technology, the T3 also took over the (first-ever) crumple zone in the front chassis beams. Oh, and the bumper corners are also a match between T3 and LT1. Other than that they share nothing. The LT did get a facelift (no more round headlights) and then got a lot of T3 interior parts. My 1979 does share a few pieces with the last T2's. I know exactly which ones as T2 parts are easy to get and anything that is LT specific is unobtanium. VW is very selective on which classics they support with parts.
This one was delivered in Belgium with a high roof and somewhere during 1980 was converted to a campervan. The somewhat older couple that did the conversion kept it and only drove it for about a 1000miles a year on holiday. The rest of the time, it was stored indoors. My friend bought it from them as they got a little too old to still take it out for camping. He knows little about cars, so just kept it going.
The awesomeness of a 6-cylinder Diesel 2.4litre. It was found in many Volvo's, and a friend once made a 190hp 760 with one of them. That engine did not survive very long. Since I have some 2.5 metric ton to move around, 190hp sounds excellent. But I got the first-ever version of the engine that has no turbo. And only 75hp. Maybe even worse; it took VW a few years before they realized the engine did not have to be in the upright position and protrude the space between the front seats with a nonisolated metal cover. So despite a vast cabin most of the space is taken by this very noise hump in the middle. Also, the only system on there to do a cold start is the glow plug array. Any diesel has at least some timing change for a cold start but not this one. So the trick is to wait for minutes for the glow plugs and then just keep cranking it with your foot on the accelerator. Smartly the exhaust is at the side so in your side mirror you can see the diesel leaving the exhaust unburned in white smoke. Some more vibrations mean some of the cylinders are now firing, and sure enough when you see the first black smoke you can stop cranking. It will slowly get all 6 of them going but don't make a mistake to let off the throttle yet. You sure get to meet a lot of people when every time you do a cold start, you first have to warn people to close their windows.
In terms of driving it; it is in almost every way the same as a small truck from the time they did not have power steering. Only going uphill, you are probably slower. Downhill you are faster as there is no speed limiter. Faster as in you may hit 70mph if you push for it. When you see an uphill road ahead, you do want to push it downhill to get as much momentum as you can. When you go uphill there are two things to watch for; you regulate the throttle by the amount of black smoke you see in the side mirror. There is extensive travel of the pedal where you don't go faster but make more smoke. People that overtake you tend not to like it. The other is keeping track of one of the total three dials; this one being the temperature dial. Since the cooling fan is directly connected to the crankshaft, you sometimes have to drop a gear to get the fan to speed up and avoid overheating.
It's horrible good fun! We do take on a long holiday in Europe and mostly stay off the highways. When you had enough, you just park it somewhere and relax. If the place looks nice, even sleep there.
Trying to keep it going is fun also. Other than the other oldies I have this one is purely functional. Need to be creative with repairs as parts are unavailable. But also it just needs to work and does not have to look pretty.
So what have we broken already:
The first day I took it for a test drive after buying it, it suddenly ran on 5-cylinders. A high-pressure line to an injector cracked. Luckily these can be made to order.
On the first holiday, I lost parts of the exhaust (I have bad luck with exhausts typically) and decided to carry on without it. Just outside of the Wolfsburg home town of VW the driveshaft started to have a massive play. Parts or a whole driveshaft were nowhere to be found, not even used. Until my ANWB (Triple-A) sourced a used one somewhere from a scrapyard in the Netherlands and sent it over by courier.
The second holiday stranded on the driveway with the whole van packed. The glowplug relay failed. I added a big cable from the glowplugs that my passenger had to hold to the battery terminal at every cold start, and that got us moving for the week. I replaced it with a T3 glowplug which has a little short time. So I need to always use the glowplugs twice before starting. Door handle failed too. That is replaced by one from a T2. A week later, I noticed the wipers moved slowly. When I stopped the engine, I couldn't start it again thanks to an empty battery. Alternator failed. Replaced it with a big alternator and redid the whole camper interior electrics so that it used its own battery.
Gear linkage failed a few times. Sometimes only lost 2nd, sometimes lost any gear but the one we were in. Replaced some of the bushings with bushings, I carved new bushings from something leftover from the Alfa 164.
In the Alps on a downhill slope suddenly the throttle pedal became disconnected. As it turned out the pedal had rusted through a little and that allowed the throttle cable to come off. With some fiddling and tie-wraps, it got back together. Ended up replacing it with a new throttle pedal assembly of a T2. The only difference is that on a T2 the floor is flat and on an LT the floor is slightly on an upwards angle. Using a T2 pedal means the pedal is in the LT very much upright. Nah, you get used to it.
In the middle of France, the passenger side windshield wiper didn't move anymore (I also have a bad luck thing for wipers). Tightening the bolt became snapping the bolt... Oh no! That is an LT specific part and even worse only for the first model years! To my surprise, the VW Classic Parts was able to sell it. It did turn out to be different than the part in the LT, but it could be modified to fit.
The vacuum pump for the brakes failed and locked up the V-belt. Instantly filled the cabin with rubber smoke. This specific vacuum pump is a 1979 only part. After long searching, I found a specialist that remembered seeing one ten years ago. That was as close as we could get. Put a GM electric vacuum pump in (some 90's Dodge maybe?) which makes quite the sound, but still, the diesel is louder.
The rust was building up (on nonstructural parts), so I considered selling it. Wanted to take it out of storage, give a new MOT and put up for sale. It must have known because I could not get it to start. It turned out there was air in the fuel system. How did there get air in there? So did get it started and then was told that for the MOT to pass the fuel leak needed to be sorted.. Ah, that is where the air got in! Where is the fuel leak then? The high-pressure pump. One of the seals; right in the middle of it, failed. That meant a pump overhaul. Without MOT and with a leaky pump I won't be able to sell it, so we repaired it. The repair is so costly; however that we will keep it for a while. Got the MOT sorted, put on six new tires and did another round of rust repair/bodge and painted it over. It looks decent now. The new pump gave it a significant horsepower increase. Now I can keep up with the trucks uphill. The fun is back!
