Here we have a 1968 Volkswagen Microbus. First year of the Bay Window buses. The early bays are becoming desirable buses due to the ever growing prices of split window buses. This is currently my daily commuter and has served me well for the past 2 and a half years plus. As an added bonus this bus come with one of the coolest bus names ever! This bus is lovingly known as Scott Bay-O (read Scott Baio) It retains a fair amount of its original Savannah Beige paint and white roof. There are obvious spots of touch up from over the years but I have seen no evidence of any major accidents. The bus was originally an 8 passenger but but it appears some previous owner cut the original full width middle bench down to a 3/4 bench and made it a 7 passenger. The original upholstery for the seat bottom is folded and tucked under the bench. It is equipped with a 1600 Dual Port motor and a stock 3 rib transaxle.
If you're still reading then lets go a little deeper. I pulled this bus out of a backyard in a neighboring town. I brought it home and got it running, installed new load range C 27 x 8.5.14 truck tires, that fill up the fender wells quite nicely, and started driving it. I fixed whatever needed to be fixed and replaced what couldn't be fixed over the next few months. Soon enough the original transaxle gave up on me and I had it rebuilt by Bill Shanks at T&H transmissions here in Tulsa, OK. Bill's shop specialized in VW transmissions before Bill's recent unfortunate death. The transaxle has a '71 bell housing on it and therefore uses the later throw out bearing and pressure plate which can be considered an upgrade. It is a quiet, smooth operating transmission now. The next obstacle was the motor. It began leaking at the front seal and upon tear down I found the front bearing had beat out the case to a point that it was necessary to find another motor. I obtained an incredibly low mileage motor from a local VW shop and installed it and it is still in there today after many worry free miles. A few other projects over time have been; Installing a rebuilt wiper motor and new wiper pivots. New aftermarket plastic glove box to replace the old weathered cardboard one. Installing all new KYB White Gas-A-Just shocks which improved the ride and handeling. Replacing both the headlight and emergency flasher switch in the dash. Recently installed a brand new EMPI 34 carb to replace the leaky old original 34 and what a difference that made. I rebuilt the original horn when it stopped working a while back. Removed the clutch pedal and cleaned and greased the pivot along with repairing the cable attachment piece for effortless clutching. Replaced the rusted and deteriorated gas pedal and pivot with a new pivot welded to the floor and a new pedal, pin, and pivot kit. The ignition was just replaced too after the spring back feature failed. Recently we did a top end on the motor replacing the heads and pistons and cylinders with brand new parts as a little freshen up after some miles. The list goes on and I can't recall it all. The bottom line is this, I built this bus as my driver. I built it to not let me down. When something broke I repaired or replaced it. There were no short cuts because I relied on this bus to get me to work,home and everywhere else I decided to go.
Speaking of going, this bus has taken me all over Oklahoma and from Oklahoma to Northern Kansas, Arkansas, colorful Colorado and most recently to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the world premier of Circle the Wagen, a documentary about driving a bus cross country, at the Albuquerque Film and Media Festival. This bus lined main street in front of the theater along with 20+ other buses that day for the premier. I drive this bus daily and don't hesitate to jump in it and head out on the road.
All the electric works on this bus. The gas gauge reads a little off but I have learned to read it. I also recently upgraded the dash lights to get rid of the notoriously dim bay window dash. The rear hatch, cargo sliding door and ignition all work off the same key. The cab doors have never locked since I have owned it due to the fact that they have been replaced with earlier door handles. I am including to 1968 only cab door handles in the sale that you can take to a locksmith and have matched to the key so the entire bus will lock and start off one key. The bus has a lot of 1968 only features and all parts are there including the '68 long rear view mirror arm, '68 doors with pull knob locks, '68 wiper arms, early profile dash, early round reflectors and so on. It has a real great look with it's original paint patina and little touches like headlight rock guards that along with the bigger tires make this bus look ready to take on anything. I recently painted the wheels and bumpers to freshen up the look of the bus too.
As for the bad on this bus, it does have early bay rust around the front valance and dog legs. There is some damage to the rear engine vents on one side. The battery tray is rusted out but a temporary tray is in place and a new battery tray is included in the sale and can be easily installed at the next convenient time. One or possibly some of the previous owners have done some "body work" to the bus. There is unnecessary primer sprayed on the paint and some questionable body filler and fiber glass around the rockers. I never removed any of this because as my daily driver I didn't want to disturb anything but some of the work looks like overkill applied by an amateur. The sliding cargo door does not slide all the way back as it should. What you see in the pics is as far as it goes. I am unclear as to why because again since it didn't interfere with my driving of the bus I let it be. I have done no body work to this bus and I have replaced none of the seals. Just mechanical and electrical work. The bus currently has a cracked windshield. It does not interfere with the drivers line of site so again I did not replace it being concerned that it might turn into more work on a vehicle that was my daily transportation. Included in the sale is a decent used windshield that I have collected thinking of the future of the bus. The drivers seat is slightly more broken down than the other seats but that is known to happen. The dash has been opened for a modern stereo and the door cards cut for speakers. These aftermarket components were gone when I bought the bus and I'm not much for stereos in my cars so I never replaced them.
In preparation for this sale the bus has, in the past week, received a tune up including valve adjust, points gap and timing set, carb tuning, fan belt adjustment/tightening, oil change, greased front end, brake adjust and four new CV boots to replace cracked and torn old ones. The bus comes with a spare accelerator cable, spare clutch cable and spare fan belt. I always drive with these and no VW should be without them. Other miscellaneous bay window parts are included in this sale. Parts I have collected for the bus over the past couple years. The bus is currently tagged, titled and insured in my name clean and clear. I'm sure I have forgotten a few things so please feel free to ask questions or request additional pictures.
Volkswagen Bus/Vanagon for Sale
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Auto blog
Thu, 31 Jan 2013
After Sunday's big game, YouTube will be the place to watch every commercial that you missed when you left your seat for an emergency guac refill or, as we say in Cleveland, took the Browns to the Super Bowl. That makes YouTube the nation's water cooler on Monday, and it's got some preliminary stats to share in the lead up to kickoff.
As you know, Super Bowl advertisers, particularly automakers, like to endlessly tease their big budget commercials in the weeks before the game, many times revealing them outright days in advance. Because of this, YouTube can tell us which commercials have been viewed the most so far, and their top five list is all automakers.
Kaley Cuoco appears to have been a good investment for Toyota, as her ad for the RAV4 has garnered the most YouTube views - six million and counting - among Super Bowl commercials so far. Second place goes to Mercedes-Benz, though not its actual Super Bowl commercial, but rather the teaser for it. You know, the one with Kate Upton and the car washing, which is up to 5.6 million views. Third place is Audi's Prom commercial (3.3M views), fourth goes to Volkswagen's slightly controversial Get In, Get Happy ad (3.3M views), and the fifth and final spot is bookended by the teaser video for Kaley Cuoco's commercial (3.2M views). You can watch all five in order below.
Fri, 19 Apr 2013
The redesigned Volkswagen Passat has been a decent seller since its debut in 2011, but sales have apparently dropped off enough that the automaker is trimming some of the employees from its Chattanooga, TN assembly plant. According to Automotive News, Volkswagen will be cutting shifts and laying off 500 contracted workers in response to slowing sales.
Currently, the plant has three teams running 10-hour shifts Monday through Saturday, but starting May 13, this will be reduced down to two teams running 10-hour shifts Monday through Thursday. This will be done to reduce dealer inventory (the article says that VW dealers, on average, have a 97-day supply of Passats) and production capacity (currently running at an annual pace of 170,000 units, which is more than the 150,000 annual units the plant was planned to produce).
This, of course, isn't saying that the Passat has been a failure since VW added 200 full-time employees to the plant in February 2012 to keep up with increased demand. The AN article says that automakers frequently overstaff plants during the launch of a new product - or in this case, a new product and a new plant - but eventually reduce the workers as things run smoother and more efficiently.
Wed, 18 Sep 2013
This really was a matter of when, rather than if. Volkswagen will apparently be the first manufacturer to phase out naturally aspirated engines in favor of turbocharging its full slate. VW is kind of responsible for ushering in this push towards small-displacement, turbocharged engines that's taken the industry by storm. When it dropped its direct-injection, 2.0-liter turbo in the 2005 GTI it demonstrated that strapping an iron long to an engine can enhance the powertrain as a whole. VW made fuel economy gains, while also giving a linear, non-laggy turbo experience that it has replicated, model-after-model, to this day.
Speaking with The Detroit News, Volkswagen's executive Vice President of Group Quality, Marc Trahan, told the paper that, "We only have one normally aspirated gas engine, and when we go to the next generation vehicle that it's in, it will be replaced. So three, four years maximum."
Really, it's hard to get teary-eyed about either of these engines going away. VW has access to smaller powerplants that could easily match the performance of the 2.5 five-cylinder and the 3.6 V6, while gobbling up less fuel and providing a better driving experience. What we are sad about is that a similar statement about the extinction of NA engines came from the Vice President of Powertrain Engineering at Ford, Joe Bakaj. We'd certainly get teary-eyed over a world without Ford's excellent 5.0-liter V8.
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