Chapter 28 - There's No Stopping us....

By now, Busfest was but a distant memory, and all eye's were on Christmas, and and the Joys that the season brings, meaning in the short term, my funds were limited to non bus items.....

Still....... it didn't stop me making a shopping list,

A list for Santa, if you like....
Over the next 3-4 months, I saved my pennies, and started stock piling the parts, for when the weather would break and let me work our magic. 

Things like, a new suspension kit, -50mm, fully adjustable dampers

New polyurethane bushes,

Gonna need some new disc's, with more stopping power........

With mine being a early model, the disc and hub come as one complete unit, so it looks like i'll need some new bearings too

Unfortunately the stone guard on the back, were in a right state, one had two holes rusted through.

In for a penny, in for a pound, so ...........

 

Note the new extended wheel studs

Meanwhile, some more goodies arrived from Bickwerks!
Note the new drop links, I managed to snap one stripping the front suspension, so i poly bushed, the anti roll bar, end to end

Now for the fun part, getting the bugger back on the anti roll bar

We clamped the antiroll bar down, and i lubed up the yellow poly bush with the included grease (copper grease) and forced it on with a lot of effort!

(make sure you put them back on right, or i imagine you'll have even more fun removing them!)

We took the liberty of, grinding and sanding the antiroll bar, then cleaning before a coat of plastic coated matt black paint,

Got me some for the toe in bars too!

Chapter 27 - Busfest or Bust

I realise its been a while since i wrote anything regarding my bus, seeing as my last post was written in August last year, But I'll do my best to fill in the missing blanks in this timeline.

Busfest is the first week in September for those that don't know about possibly the worlds biggest VW Bus show, held in Malvern, in Worcester, in the UK

My original plan was to have my bus ready for the show, however i wanted at least 2 weeks to give the van a shakedown run, just to find all the little niggles you get when building a project like this.
The van has been sat for months without being moved and the consequently the brakes had seized, and during the strip down of the fronts, it was discovered that the drivers side calliper had seized solid.

 Originally i figured on just replacing the pair of callipers, but when we discovered one of the brake lines was corroded to excess, and the steering universal joint had perished, I said that we would put the project on hold to allow us the time to overhaul the entire braking system, and steering.



So we packed up our camping gear, and travelled to the show in my company work van (A VW T5 no less)
The weather was fabulous, the company was too, all 5 of us had a good weekend, much beer was consumed, many many BBQ's were devoured, and whilst sat around the table with full bellies, a plan was hatched.........

Looking at all the various vans, we noticed one or two with Porsche brake upgrades, so we thought, instead of spending the money on new stock brakes, why not do the whole front end in Porsche's finest, we even managed to find a stall selling adapters allowing fitment of these awesome brakes.

Problem was, by the time you factored in a set of adaptors, and a set of second hand callipers, you could be looking at a bill of £800 plus.

I decided to shelve the idea, for now, and pick up one or two other spares for the van while i was there,

A used, but rust free late model tailgate was haggled upon and purchased, along with a used rear bumper - as ours was a bit of a mess........

And so we left Busfest, we had taken in a lot, and left recharged, with a new sense of focus.....