Restoring a VW Bus takes time and patience – considerably more than a Beetle for example. There is so much more to in a Camper – its longer, taller, has more doors, more seats, its heavier and as for that headliner.. click pictures to show hi resolution Read the rest of this entry »

After several years and a few months of driving we finally arrived at the time for a photo shoot – the Camper was about perfect – restored how we liked it to be. There are imperfections and non original items but on the whole the finished bus was a pleasure to drive and own. Click pictures to view in hi resolution.. Read the rest of this entry »

The dampener material is a heavy sticky bitumen like substrate that adheres to the surface of the panel – it adds mass to the sheet metal and thus increases the natural frequency of the vibration – thus reducing the drum sound. The aluminium layer is what you see after applying the dampener.

Now that the sound dampener is in place time to look at the sound absorber. The absorber soaks up the sound as it passes into the material and slows it down – absorbing the sound energy and translating it into heat. The mat we chose also had a thick layer of rubber bonded to the top surface which acts as a reflector to bounce the sound back into the foam to be absorbed. Read the rest of this entry »

How we made our campervan a little quieter

VW did not really spend much time or money making the Split Screen Camper quiet from the factory. Their efforts extended to some thick rubber mats up front and in the middle and then in the most important areas they splashed out on some thin strips of ‘material’ above the engine at the back of the bus with a loading mat on top. Not quite up to modern day standards and definitely not enough to have a conversation in the front of the Bus without shouting. Read the rest of this entry »

When the time comes to remove paint there are a number of different methods and techniques – all with varying results and costs. In a rough order of effectiveness the following can be employed / used / tried.

Sand blasting
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The first big VW bus project – an early 1967 deluxe bus, originally from San Francisco the bus was bought through thesamba.com and slowly over the course of several years transformed into a near show standard bus. Read the rest of this entry »