Jimmy our 68 westy

[67westy]

Well after hanging around here for about a year now I thought it was time to get some photos posted up and have a thread for keeping a bit of history together. So this is Jimmy our Westy. Built on October 18th 1967 and apparently spent most of his life in and around Nevada. He was imported in Feb 2010 and Hannah and I bought him in May that year.

As he is now:

Camping last weekend:

Since buying him we've made a few improvements, originally it was fitted with a 1200 engine (gutless!) and was lowered with an adjuster on the front and 2 splines down on the rear. The engine is now a 1600tp with an LPG conversion and has Transporterhaus dropped spindles on the front with Slamwerks plates on the rear to give a much better ride 8) The front seats were swapped out for some from a vauxhall calibra as the originals gave me back ache on longer journeys.

The front panel was changed at some point in the states and it wasn't done particularly well. This winter we're planning on getting the front panel redone and the rest of the body work stripped back and resprayed. The aim is to have this all done and ready in time to use for our wedding photos when we get married in August 2012.

That's it for now, I'll try and keep this thread updated as and when things happen and hopefully it will give us a running history

Adam

 

[Beigebay1968]

nice bus mate

 

[67westy]

Thanks we like him.

Just fitted the inner louvre window seals that Johnny is selling, just tidys up the windows nicely:

Plan for the weekend is to fit the propex heater we have and move the electrics underneath the buddy seat to utilise the original hookup point, weather permitting!

 

[dubscum]

lovely bus 8)

 

[mister]

Cool beans...like it

 

[lard]

Nice bus! - also a great plate you got allocated - was it much work to get the seats to fit? I assume you had to bolt them in place on custom subframes?

 

[67westy]

Thanks for all the comments guys.

Nice bus! - also a great plate you got allocated - was it much work to get the seats to fit? I assume you had to bolt them in place on custom subframes?

The seats aren't on subframes, we were going to fit them on the originals but it made them just a touch too high for me. I think if you are under 6' it would of been fine. We removed the seats from the original subframe and then made up a couple of brackets and bolted them in place. On the passenger side I jad to remove the original bracket that was spot welded in place as it was catching on the seat, will be easy to put back in place though. Pretty simple really and didn't take too long. They've got all the wiring for heating as well but haven't got round to trying that yet.

 

[Ted]

Cool looking bus

 

[67westy]

With Sunday and Monday being the hottest days of the year so far it seemed like the perfect time to install the propex heating and get it working Didn't get any pictures of the process but this is the finished result. It's under the buddy seat along with the electric hookup kit, 12V fusebox and battery charger. Could do with tidying the cabling a little but I'm quite pleased with the results. The plan at the minute is to store the gas bottle in there as well which would leave me just enough room for a few tools and spares, not 100% sure about having the gas so close to the electrics though :shock:

 

[rallye dale]

I would seriously reconsider putting the gas bottle in there, I personally would not have put the heater in there

Small leak on that pipework or bottle and a little spark in a confined space, goodnight vienna

Upto you only my personal opinion, there are regs aswell, although you may not want to adhere to them, safety does come first

Nice bus by the way

 

[67westy]

I would seriously reconsider putting the gas bottle in there, I personally would not have put the heater in there

Small leak on that pipework or bottle and a little spark in a confined space, goodnight vienna

Upto you only my personal opinion, there are regs aswell, although you may not want to adhere to them, safety does come first

Nice bus by the way

Thanks

I'm goint to put some more thought into it yet, most installs I've seen tend to have electrics and propex near to each other whether that is in the buddy seat or underneath the RNR bed. I think the problem in the vans is that where ever you install these things they aren't going to be far from a potential spark whether thats from the RCD/12V fusebox or lights etc. I reckon a gas leak sensor something like this could be the answer:
http://www.sourcingmap.com/safely-gas-leak-detector-annunciator-p-13307.html?currency=GBP&utm_source=google&utm_medium=froogle&utm_campaign=ukfroogle" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Will hopefully give an alarm before anything can go wrong, I just don't know how sensitive they are. Anyone got or tried one?

 

[67westy]

Well we got back from a great weekend at camperjam and we bought this home with us:

Well pleased with that

 

[creationblue]

Nice stance fella 8)

Just

 

[sparkywig]

Nice bus Adam, good to meet you both at CamperJam.

 

[67westy]

Well the time has come to get Jimmy restored. The last couple have weeks have been spent stripping out the interior and sorting the dodgy steering box. We dropped him off on Saturday with Stuart and Drew at Midland Paintwerks. They'll be stripping back to bare metal over the next couple of weeks and then we can see what needs sorting, there's a couple of bits we know about already. The aim is to have it all ready for our wedding at the start of August, I'm hoping we might get it earlier so we can come to camper jam but we'll see how it pans out.....

So here's some before bits of areas that need attention, I'll be updating as and when I get pics sent through.

First the front panel is a bit dented and badly repaired:

Passenger door will be replaced (cheers Justin!):

Either side of the sliding door is bubbling up and the outer sill sounded a bit crunchy:

The floor isn't too bad, little surface rust but nothing serious:

Earlier repairs will need sorting:

Bit of attention needed on the wheel arch as well:

And finally the pop top will be repaired and painted and the roof above the cab needs a little work:

And finally the slightly battered rear corners!

I'm sure a few more things will turn up but hopefully not too many!

 

[creationblue]

Its gonna looks great 8)

 

[simo]

Im not jelous :evil: :evil: :evil:




simo

 

[mister]

looking forward to seeing the transformation

 

[67westy]

Probably getting a little ahead of myself but we got some new covers and curtains already

Not sure if the pic does justice to the colours but it should freshen up the interior nicely

 

[dazza1975]

Probably getting a little ahead of myself but we got some new covers and curtains already

Not sure if the pic does justice to the colours but it should freshen up the interior nicely

These look cool mate, where you get them from and how much?? just what I n :mrgreen: eed!!