1970 Savannah Beige Deluxe from Shawnigan Lake area

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I picked this Bus up years ago and it had been awaiting attention that I was delinquent in not giving it. Originally from California it has lived in BC for a while, but the rust hadn't ramped up too bad. It was a very solid Bus. The guy I got it from hadn't a clue about VW Buses and the poor thing had an engine that was ready to destroy itself from lack of attention. The generator was not fastened down and was vibrating like gangbusters along with the fan housing. It wasn't pretty! When I pulled the engine ancillaries off I found along with a generator that was totally toast and broken up, a fan that was welded once in its life(why I do not know!) that had separated from the hub. The engine compartment and engine was covered in oil and dirt. Ugh! It took a while to clean, that is for sure.

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Got the engine out...And bay cleaned

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The engine that came out was a bit ugly




Eventually I ended up pulling the engine out of my cousin's Bus, fixing some oil leaks on both engines and painting the tin, then putting them both back in their respective Buses











In ya go…




Much better!

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Straightening bumpers was quite a dirty strenuous task. I sure would like to know how professionals do it…English Wheel?

Rear









The front was in better shape

[busaddict]

Ah ha! So Don has owned some fixer-uppers. When did you work on the bus and where is it now? Great post, thanks!

[Brenticon]

Lookin gooooood ... I faintly remember this being for sale online.
I believe the pic under the rafters make me think this

[Volktales]

Somewhere on the other side of the world....

[Brenticon]

I meant while he still owned it, years ago when I was lookin to get back into buses ....
I saw the European ad, wowsers! Now get back to work Russel!

[tony]

You too Brenton!

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Nov 6, 2014 0:31:32 GMT -8 busaddict said:

Ah ha! So Don has owned some fixer-uppers. When did you work on the bus and where is it now? Great post, thanks!

Yes Tom, I have. I should have kept my cousin's former Bus. This Bus was bought in the fall of 2010 and I didn't really get to working on it until later in 2011. It was pretty rust-free and that is why I bought it. After selling the Brasilia Bus to Frank I had to get another Bus…I couldn't help myself


The Bus is now in Holland, or last I saw it was being sold in Holland for, get this, 13,900 EUR . YIKES! I sold it to a dealer in Holland who sold it to the guy who was selling it. No wonder the dealer I dealt with didn't worry about the price!!

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One of the last things do on the Bus before getting it back on the road was repairing the front floors. Seems this is a very common problem. These ones were rusted up the wheel well a bit, so the repair patches I made out of the GMC tailgate metal differed slightly from those I did on my cousin's Bus. This time I welded them in, ground the welds down, seam sealed the welds, and painted them. It is all under mats so I didn't spend a ton of time on them, but they didn't look half bad considering my rank amateur-ness.






















Oh gawd










Then the left rear corner needed to be attended to before the bumper went on







Cleaned the Bus and gave it a cut polish





And then put it all together

















Getting to know one another Then it was soon goodbye

[tony]

Decent patching Don , did you use a chisel and a 'push' to form the grooves?........sorry

[magikbus]

You're making me kick myself in the butt again and again for selling my welder.  Oh well, I suppose if I need to get one again it'll be a mig welder.  I have also fallen in love with the new epoxy "welds" and fully intend to use them again.  They are so strong I've been told by the guys who run demolition derby cars in the interior that it's banned to use expoxy to put together demo-derby cars, they won't fall apart for the spectators.  The only disadvantage is in the case of a big fire, they tend to fall apart then.
Stan

[busaddict]

Hey Don, may I ask what the beige bus sold for, and what year you sold it?

[Volktales]

Don shouldn't have sold that one...