Fordham Family » 1967

The Finished Bus

thefordhams — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:24:20 +0000

Some pictures of the finished bus, this was on sale on Samba for 6 days before sold, lots of detailing and a beutiful Carolina spring day for the pictures to turn out nice

Running Gear

thefordhams — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 15:51:16 +0000

Anibal Chico www.steelbuggin.com built this 1776 long block with a new case, new heads, C25 cam for torque, with a deep sump and full flowed for oil filtering. We then added powder coated German doghouse tin, new Sachs clutch, powder coated intake manifold, and even tracked down a complete 38A (68-71 bus) generator – so we could run some extra music at some stage.

This is the first fit in the bus. Apparently correct for a 67 we made sure we used German heat exchangers that had the pre-heat on the passenger side, we then plumbed this through the rear tin and used a cap to block off the front tin.

This shows where we ended up putting the oil filter – under the drivers side of the tray, out of the way of stones and debris but still accessible.

Turned brake drums, new slave cylinders, shoes and that ultra expensive one year only correct 67 master cylinder. Dual circuit brakes.

This is the first run early in 07. At this time we were using a 30 pict 3 with an ACN SVDA but we eventually went correct 30 pict 1 and a correct era SVDA. With any luck only the really observant will say this is nothing other than a correct 1500 SP.

We wanted yet more reliability so we chose to replace the whiny 4th gear with a fully rebuilt Rancho stock ratio bus transaxle including RGB’s – just add oil and go they say.

www.ranchoperformancetransmission.com/transaxles/vw.html

New gearbox mounts, front and rear, restored gas tank with new sender, new heater cabels, clutch cabel and accelerator cable and we should be ready for the engine.

Here we are ready for the engine to go back in

This is how it looks today..

Paint & Upholstery

thefordhams — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:30:57 +0000

This is 1 day old coming out of the paint booth, inside painted, top painted, then the lower and finally as we see here 2 coats of clear ;

Next stop the upholstery shop Donalds Upholstery in Charlotte.

Sound proofing to the top surface of the roof;

Finished headliner – front to back and back to front – very straight

Covers with painted head stainless self tappers – the details…

Front seats, had to source a replacement drivers seat at the last stage due to a broken spring

Rear seats – back section straightened;

Correct year middle seat (minus the handles at this stage)

Fitting up the polished trim to the freshly traffic white and clear powder coated bumpers.

Father in law shaped the trim insert with aplomb

Pre Paint – 2

thefordhams — Sat, 06 May 2006 14:14:31 +0000

We thought long and hard about the final color combo – it was tempting to make it an all lotus white deluxe as she was originally but.. we settled for a titian red / grey combo.

This is post sand blast and off to the paint shop

Check out the 12 gallons of sand that the painter had to remove before etch primer

Primer and small repair finished (90+ hours) and now off to the paint shop;

Passenger Sill

thefordhams — Wed, 25 Jun 2003 13:42:18 +0000

Repair work to Passenger Side

This is what it started as;

Same deal as the drivers side. Cut it out, weld an inner sill

But the floor baffled us, either localised repair or a new section?

Purchased a replacement VW floor at great expense from Schofield

This is what it ended up like;

Small localised repair to the rear suspension tube carrier;

MOT’d in a hurry, registered her, surrendered the CA title, packed up her up on the RoRo ferry as we’re off to the new world of North Carolina USA.

We then thought long and hard about what to do with the bus, use her as is or get some more repairs done and then paint here to be nice. With all the hassle of titles in NC we decided to get her painted.

Introduction – our first real vw bus

thefordhams — Mon, 06 Jan 2003 13:09:14 +0000

Although this is not where it all started this is where pictures and detailing what we’ve done maybe started. So here goes, we wanted a bus, something to move more than 5 people, was cool, was old… so after an aborted attempt with a (hindsight) really nice SO-42 split screen we arrived at a vw split screen that had seats. Onto the Samba.. we eventually found one - a super correct 67 deluxe with all the right parts.

This is where we started in 2002;

Once again the Samba came to our rescue but this time we took some time and chose more of what we wanted;

Original

Bus with seats

Deluxe

Not much welding

Owned and driven by the guys who run Hannoverwerks – now a defunct website but they were all over the scene in the late 90′s.

The original ad pics from Samba;