I was , I really was going to sell The Love Bug, but I keep returning to the site , reading and surfing. I tore into The Love Bug today after deciding to keep it. Can't wait to finish. I'll keep you all updated on the progress.

Here's the interior removed. You can see the upholstery is in very good shape.


The only rot I found was near the door. Its an east fix.


The kitchen with cabinets removed. Notice the Converter in the middle.




Wish me luck!

Jamie's not going to sell his Love Bug!! Jamie's not going to sell his Love Bug!!

:laugh :dance :banana :cblob :banana :dance :laugh

Way to go Jamie!

I was upset when I read you were trying to sell your rig! Particularly since I knew you'd been bitten by the Love Bug!

We'll help you get it up and running, in factory fresh condition, ASAP!

Glad you decided to keep it!

Another one addicted!;)

Probably worse than golf....

One hot tip though... If you gonna sand fiberglass wear a mask.
I hit the door frame today for a little touch up fitting with the belt sander and thought I'd cough my lungs out.

Jamie, you won't regret it...

And, it'll look really sharp being pulled by your VW Westfalia camper!

:)

Thanks for all the support. I've always had the idea of renovating The Love Bug and to give it my personal touch. Now, that I have decided to go for it. I plan to make the TT as much like a Westfalia VW camper as possible. I found out something that got me very excited this evening. The Love Bug's wheel is the same 5 X 112 as my '71 bus. I imagine I could use the 14 inch bus wheels on the TT as I do on my bus. Then lets see.... bus tail lights, rear bumper, the possibilities are many.

glad you are keeping your love bug. maybe some day we can get ours together and compare. please keep us posted on your renovation with lots of photos because i'm right behing you doing the same stuff.

i think the vw idea is really good. i've even thought of putting bug tail lights on my love bug. let me know how that wheel transplant goes. that may be a way to buy a little more clearance without modifing the axel.

I am very happy that I have decided to keep the Love Bug. I have a couple questions. All my rivets holding the cabinets in have acorn nuts? on the inside, where can I get replacements or is there a new improved way?

Kent, does your Love Bug ride low? Mine looks as though I dropped it!

If ya can't find the nice acorn nuts, a flat washer on the back side of the rivet will hold things together, just doesn't look as nice. You can get 3/16 dia rivets (different lengths) and washers at Home Depot, Lowes or the like. :)

Most hardware stores have various sizes of acorn style nuts Jamie.Glad you decided to keep the pair together-didn't want to be the only one trying to pull onto a highway with that combination and using a calendar as a reference for acceleration.Remember to ignore the upper signs on the highway where it refers to maximum speed-our only challenge is where there is a minimum speed posted.

Rob,
I'm planning to go to Whitby for Buses of The Corn (VW Camp-out). We made it last summer and had a blast. I hope The Love Bug will make it's debut at this event on August 9-11. I used to tow The Love Bug with a 1600cc engine and you are right to guage the spped by the calandar. I have just installed a torque monster. The new engine is a 1904cc with a full circle crank, Performance Technology race heads and 40 Delortos. I will have no more problems towing the egg. What do you have?

Hi Jamie, Those acorn nuts are just a finishing touch to the rivet instead of just looking at the back end of the rivet. On my boler I have been replacing the rivets that hold in the upper cupboards so I went to the local Home Depot and bought stainless steel acorn nuts to screw over the pop rivet end. I used stainless because the original ones were only plated and started showing some rust on them. Also others could not be unscrewed because of the corrosion between the aluminum rivets and the steel nuts. I believe that the ones that I used were 10-32. Also with the stainless ones I guess that if you had a buffing wheel you could make them look like they were chrome plated......Benny

jamie;

yes, it's a low-rider for sure. that's why i was interested in the vw wheels. let us know if that works out. i could use a little more clearance, since i like to get into primitive areas, but i don't want to swap axles.

Jamie ... while it may appear that the acorn nuts are screwed onto the rivets ... they aren't.

The proper way to install a new rivet and acorn nut is to select a rivet long enough to pierce the outer shell and cupboards, cabinets or benches and stick into the trailer a little bit (say a 1/3 inch).

Do a couple of test fits first ... inserting the rivet from the outside and checking for an exposed tip on the inside.

IMPORTANT!!! When you are ready to finally install a rivet/acorn nut, remember to caulk the hole BEFORE you insert the rivet.

While someone on the inside uses a nut driver to hold the acorn nut on the interior exposed, unpopped rivet shank, someone on the outside uses a rivet gun to pop the rivet. The collar on the rivet expands and collapses, catching the threads of the acorn nut and pulling both tight, securing the cupboard, bench, etc.

Now, what's interesting, is you can then use a wrench or something and unscrew the acorn nut off a previously popped, exposed rivet ... but the converse is not true ... you can't screw an acord nut onto the exposed rivet, even one from which you've unscrewed the acorn nut ... the rivet will turn, breaking any existing caulk bead, and will eventually leak.

Benny's tip about using stainless steel acorn nuts is a good one!
Remember also to use aluminum rivets ... not steel rivets!

Hey Jamie
Boy do your pictures look familiar. I'm glad you decided to keep it as well. The more work I did on my Casta, the more I fell in love with it.

On the acorn nut issue, I came up with as solution that worked really well I thought and then because I ended up pulling everything out, didn't use it on the final redo.

I had several old rivets that did not have acorn nuts on them and I wanted to make them look "pretty.'
I bought a package of Closetmaid end caps. They are the white flexible plastic caps that go on the end of the wire on the white plastic covered metal closet shelves. They were a little too big around to fit snugly but a small dab of silicone held them fine and they are much smaller than the acorn nuts.

Most of the rivets were much shorter than the caps so I just trimmed the caps with a knife to the proper length.

A blister pack at Lowes was about 85¢ and held around 8 end caps. The acorn nuts are a good bit more in the 48 cent to 86 cent range each. I liked the look of the white caps. But they don't add anything on the strength of the bond. The acorn nuts do.

lanny

Hi Charles,
Thanks for the info on how they were originally installed...Why didn`t I think of that????? Learn something every day but I guess being a retired maintenance machinist I wouldn`t think of pop riveting the nuts on!!!!Benny

Jamie,
You've probably seen this already but the old yahoo scamp site has some pretty neat pictures of a Westfalia II Trailer. (Scamp??)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scampers/files/

You will probabaly have to register with yahoo and go thru all that distasteful email and all. But the pictures are pretty cool.
You might even get some ideas.

The "Westfalia II" Scamp pix are also here in the "Rigs" thread.

Thanks for all the replies. I'll look into all the advice. I do have a question. How do I take out the old rivets? Do I drill them out? Infortunately, the Love Bug has been painted in the past, and I will need to respray. I thinlk that I will totally dissasemble (all interior, window, and rivets out) before I paint. Any other wonderful advice?

Jamie ... a lot's been written about rivet replacement.

But basically ....

1. By its very nature, a "popped" rivet has lost either its interior or exterior retaining collar or head. You can usually use a small phillips screwdriver to "push" the popped rivet out a bit, by pushing on the broken collar side. And then grab it with a pair of plyers and wiggling it out.

2. With an "unpopped" rivet, you have to carefully drill off the little lip on the rivet, using a drill bit sized a hair larger than the rivet's mandral head or hollow tube.

Before you start drilling on your trailer, get a rivet gun and some rivets. Drill some holes in a couple of yardsticks or thin pieces of wood. Rivet the pieces together ... and watch what the rivets do when you pop them with the rivet gun.

Then practice drilling out the rivets. You don't have to drill completely through the rivet ... just enough to remove the mandral head or collar, which will allow you to then push out the old rivet and install a new one.

Once you get the hang of it, it takes longer to describe it than it does to replace a broken rivet.

I have been spending 30-60 minutes a night cleaning the ensolite in The Love Bug. Between lacquer thinner and Oops the ensolite is starting to really look great. I want to find some T-moulding to match the interior. I have some samples from when I was looking to replace the moulding on a VW Westfalia. It will look very sharp once its completed. I'll take some pictures with the digital this weekend when I have some light. I've been getting home around 8:00 everynight as my lacrosse season is wrapping up.

I think I want to go all out on a Westfalia conversion with the extra stuff I have stored in my garage. I got thinking tonight about adding jalousie windows. My concern is how to make the front and rear window opening smaller. Any advice?

Well, slowly but surely I am running into more snags. The Love Bug has been painted and I was determined to get a shine on my lil egg. I used stripper to take off the paint and found out why it was painted in the first place. Parts of the gelcoat has come off. Here are some pics.





The pics are a little dark. If I kept the flash on it was too light. I'll take some more tomorrow.
I guess I'll be sanding priming and painting ;0(
I know that dark colors attract heat, but I was thinking a bright red. My 'lil caboose!

Jamie:

That is why I chose to strip and sand the U-Haul Camper #1. When someone has painted something. Are they trying to hide those unseen repairs? It took about three to four weekends, two orbital sanders, a package of 100 sheets of 80 grit sandpaper, and a lot of hard work from Deb and I to get down to the original gelcoat to reveal a few places that had been repaired with BONDO. I have since made the correct repair with fiberglass.

- Ray

Here is another pic I just took. It's really overcast here today and it did not come out much better

When I sand down the egg, how far do I go?

I would venture a guess and say, until smooth, and not that far . mine is only 1/8 inch thick, so don't go too far. :lol

What did you strip the paint with Ray. I can't remember if we have talked this before or not, and I think mines been painted too. there is a layer of gray under the cream then another layer of cream. so the tops probably paint, then primer, then original. it sure was a pretty color to start. I want it back!

Hey folks,
I have been thinking about how I am going to personalize my little egg. I am VW bus addict and I want to put a VW Westafalia touch on The Love Bug. I have spare bus parts lying around ad here is one idea.



The square jalousies come from early campers and the long jalousies from later campers. This should give lots of air flow. What do you think?

Windows help brighten up the inside. I really glad my Trill has a front window.:ola