Too Rusty? '69 Crewcab

[moler]

This all started back in January when I spotted a Velvet Green, ’70 RHD crewcab advertised on The Samba, it was located in Cyprus but was cheap to offset the shipping…

…after emailing the seller, he told me of another crewcab he had for sale, this was a White ’69 RHD, not OG paint but in better overall condition so I decided to go for this one instead, after all, it was a ’69

But the other crewcab was too good to miss out on too, so I mentioned it to my mate Col (fredsshed70 on here) who has a soft spot for commercials. To say he was enthusiastic about it was an understatement, his then current project, a ’71 LHD single cab, was put on eBay within days!
Col’s resto thread

Here are the pictures that were on the ad for the '69…

After much tooing and froing with emails and phone calls, prices were agreed, payment was sent, and shipping was arranged. This was the first week in March by now!

Fast forward to the 13th May, and we can finally go and collect our crewcabs from Tilbury Docks. An early start of 4:30am was decided to allow for traffic, and we made great time arriving around 8:15 (Col?) but as we had a prearranged collect time of 10:00 we had a little hanging around to do, so off to Maccy’s we went!

A little after 10 we were escorted on to the docks…

…to find our 40’ container…

…paperwork checked it was time for the grand opening…

…we asked the dock guys, who were very helpful unlike the shipping company, (but that’s another story) if us taking pictures was strange, but apparently it’s common. A lot of people who are collecting there new treasures from overseas like to photograph the reveal…

…promptly unloaded, and loaded for the journey home…

…we made a quick stop to remove the remains of the tilt from mine as it was flapping about…

…there where some great views on the way home…

…and many admiring looks.

We made it home by 4:15pm…

…Col’s crew went straight on my lift, as it needed the steering sorting out before it went to his lock-up, and we could have a poke about underneath it…

For those who have seen my split resto, this needs very little in comparison, but should be no less rewarding, and will probably be a much slower resto :lol:

 

[Nick-Rackham]

A great find, Looking forward to this one Ady

 

[67panel]

velvet green ooooooooooooooooooh

 

[krusty]

I love your splitty van so much! So I can't wait to see what you do with this one!

 

[easy]

Nice work Molar i am so looking forward to the resto your work is legendary! 8)

 

[gninnam]

Well done on the purchase 8)

So looking forward to updates on this

 

[cunning plan]

Brilliant thread.

Keep us posted.

MORE PICTURES!!!! arty0021:

 

[moler]

Nice work Molar i am so looking forward to the resto your work is legendary! 8)

Thanks dude, that's made me feel all warm inside


More of the pictures that the seller sent me HERE, this will also be the gallery for all the pictures during the resto, like the one I had for the split

 

[easy]

Credit where its due fella 8) keep up the good work :mrgreen:

 

[froggy]

…Col’s crew went straight on my lift, as it needed the steering sorting out before it went to his lock-up, and we could have a poke about underneath it…

WOW. very very jealous of this ramp, is it on your drive?

 

[moler]

WOW. very very jealous of this ramp, is it on your drive?

Yes, it is :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[moler]

From the pictures I got sent, I could never quite figure out what was going on with the load bed, here it looks solid albeit with crusty paint…

…but from underneath, it looked holed.

On the day of collection, when I stood on the back to remove what remained of the cover, it was pretty clear that what could be seen was actually a fibreglass coating, and that what was beneath it was very rusty. So as the first job I decided to investigate further, this needed the gates off, every bolt needed a bit of heat to get it going, but it only took 20 minutes to get them all out…

…time for the great reveal, there where 1 or 2 stubborn areas where the fibreglass was still stuck, but the bolster and mallet made light work of these. To say the load bed is knackered is, as they say, an understatement…

…a quick brush down with a yard brush shows the full extent of the rot…

…I’m actually not that bothered, I already knew that the bottom of the load bed bulkhead panel was rotten, this just means that I’ll have to renew it all eventually. I’ve already found someone that has a bulkhead panel, I just need to raise the funds for it, and the load bed is nearly the same as a split one, and KlassicFab do these. The other thing is, once removed, I can get to all those hard to reach areas under the bed without any trouble.

I’m not sure funds will run to a load bed just yet, not unless the split sells for very near the asking, so I’ll sort everything beneath and install a substantial plywood load bed. The gates aren’t that clever either, so they are higher up the wanted list than the loadbed too.

 

[dubscum]

that lift is badass! 8)

 

[gninnam]

The rust does look significant on the load bed but its removal should make the task of sorting out underneath easier

 

[Geeze]

Yay! A Moler restoration thread!

At least by following it from the beginning, it won't take me a whole night to catch up like it did with the Jet Rocket thread on SSVC after a mate tipped me off to it......! 8)

 

[Resto-raider]

Cool ride. I like these double cabs as well. Good luck with the resto and I hope you don't come across too many surprises.

 

[moler]

I’ve had a couple of spare hours to have nose round.

The roof and gutter is mostly very good, except for a couple of bits…

…not bad behind it…

…evidence of some old residence…

…that knackered load bed bulkhead panel…

…initially the floor and edges didn’t look bad…

…but after a sweep out there are more repairs required, but still not bad…

…further back though is great…

…I told you this was gonna be slow :lol:

 

[Fredsshed70]

all the bad bits are similar to mine got fair bit done this week(or last week) been on nights so few hours each day before back at work
got pics to put up on my thread poss tomorrow when i get up

 

[Buss69]

I Love a crew, looking forward to how this works out. That lift must be a bit handy?

 

[moler]

I’ve been investigating the extent of the OG paint, and how many layers it’s under…

…there’s evidence of some filler too…

…unfortunately it looks like the paint has been rubbed down for it’s first repaint, so in some areas there is no OG paint to find, and the grey swath on the left is filler!!

My plans are to reveal as much OG paint as possible and run it like that for a while, but it will be getting a full respray at some point, in a different VW white than the Lotus White.