1989 VW T25 - Journey to anywhere

Right then, probably time I showed some of the nastier bits. Windscreen. Crack and leaks like a sieve due to rust. The heater fan doesn't work, the matrix is probably due a replacement and the foam flaps have all disintegrated.

So the dash came out. Rust is as expected really - this will all be getting chopped out in a few weeks time and replaced with fresh metal. Unfortunately, because it's been leaking a while, it's caused quite a mess of the floor pan. I knew about the screen when I bought the van but the floor was a bit of an unpleasant find, 10 mins into ownership Shouldn't be too hard a repair and again I have a new panel lined up to sort it.




Bleugh, many years of dirt and rubbish


Cornflakes anyone?


The main source of the wet carpets...



and the floor pan. You can see the trail from the screen where it pooled nicely and rotted the floor.



Time to get chopping!

In other news, a new heart donor will be arriving at the weekend...Winter is going to be busy

Hey

Great work

I see that clustermaster is made in South Africa

I am from SA

Where in SA di that camper company get it

Looks like a cool contraption



Keep up the good work

Thanks mate!

I'm looking forward to getting properly stuck in. Things have already massively escalated but in for a penny, in for a pound and all that. It's a keeper so may as well do things properly!




Thanks! I'm not sure where in SA it came from - Campervanculture just imports them. It's not cheap (around £150) but I figured it was better than battling with a fragile PCB that had already been butchered.

The van is off to a mate of mine for body repairs this weekend. We'll see how far we get stripping it on Saturday.

Whilst that's gone it'll be time to get the Subaru in for surgery. Got this from a really decent bloke who even kindly delivered it to me whilst on route to collect another car.

I normally feel a bit guilty tearing apart donor cars but despite this having a full year's MOT, it is ROUGH. There's not a straight panel on it, the sills are patched, arches rusty and the boot has its own indoor swimming pool. So the perfect donor really. I had planned on driving it about a bit, useful for mountain bikes, dog and general lugging duties but I think it's time to get what I need and move the shell on.

Obviously, the engine, ECU and loom are spoken for but if anyone needs any parts cheap drop me a message. Good manual gearbox, High-Low range 4WD, tow bar, fog lights, decent seats etc that would be a shame to waste.

Here it is in all its glory:





Seats are really nice actually! May even keep these for a future project.





I'm debating what to do with the engine at the moment. The 2.5's supposedly suffered notoriously with head gasket issues with substandard gaskets being used from the factory. The solution is MLS replacements. RJES website suggests this isn't as profound in cars after 2000, but I think I'm going to be safer to do just do them now once the engine is on the bench. I've not attempted this before so will be a learning curve, but watching boxer engine strip downs on Youtube, it doesn't look too bad to do. Famous last words

I did sniff test the 'baru just out of curiosity which it passed. I will compression test it too once I can find my gauge. There are no obvious leaks from the heads but the whole thing is so oily it's hard to tell.



The Clarke portable garage is now up and yes I'm getting some questionable looks from neighbouring curtain twitchers. But sod it, needs must. The bus JUST fits in. Far from ideal but it beats working out in the completely open elements.



I have a few days off coming up so the plan is to get the subaru stripped. Having seen the cost of hiring an engine crane is practically the same as just buying one, I'm going to buy one. Literally no idea what the hell I'm going to do storage wise for it after though

You're making serious progress on this!
I'm dreading taking the windscreens out of our Cortez, I fully expect the frame to fall apart!)
The pop-up garage looks like it was a wise investment too! Can't wait to see the strip-down of the Subaru. I've had two BH Legacy's with the 2.5 engine and they were so smooth and nice to drive, I think it'll be a great engine for your bus!

Missing our T25 bus but we still have a van to do, will be following your progress

Thanks, it's a shame, but it really isn't getting used, and if that's not getting used, then it means the '65 Samba in the garage gets used even less!!

The brown van was a super-high spec van that spent most of it's life in Wolfsburg (up to 2007 when we bought it) it was a 2.1 'DJ' Multivan with factory PAS, Heated seats, panoramic roof, big mirrors, big bumpers and sideplanks.... almost like a pre-cursor to the White/Red/Blue Star vans that came along a couple of years later (and that we obviously have now) I very much regret selling that one though if I'm honest... we sold it to a fella from Ireland in the end.

I think there are some repro-RHD versions of the side planks.. although I'm not sure where from.

Thanks dude! Good to hear you're a fan of the 2.5 engines too. I had a very quick blat down the road and back before I began to strip the Subaru and it felt pretty torquey.

Never a nice feeling not knowing what lurks beneath is it. Brave pills required haha.




Thanks John!

RJES, a company I'll be sourcing most of the conversion parts from, make a bell housing adapter so the original VW box can still be used. There are a few other bits that will need swapping but it shouldn't be too hard to make the two link up.




Thanks! Looks really clean that! Will try to keep the updates coming!



Cheers George! They certainly have a distinctive burble. Looking forward to getting stuck in with the engine.


Cheers Nick!

Strip down of the Legacy continued yesterday. All went smoothly, pretty straight forward job bar splitting the engine from the box itself. Apparently, it's common for the two dowel pins that align these to corrode and weld themselves together, which was the case with mine. A double-check I'd removed all of the bolts, a bigger pry bar and some pig ignorance got them to separate in the end.

Actually took longer to get the engine, engine crane and engine stand down the side of my house than it did to get the engine out!

This:



Equalled this:



Which equalled this:







Flo not approving of my lifting techniques. Fair. A brief break in the stormy weather meant some erm, fast action, less than ideal practices were involved but ssssh!



On the bench ready for clean and tear down: