The "Lurchmobile"

[CraigOnTheBoat]

Just put a wood burner in it and be done with it.

[framingsilly]

That's sweet!

[Six Volt]

Just put a wood burner in it and be done with it.

Forget the wood burner, I like those front seats!

I had a bus with a set of those on it I ripped them out and slammed them in a trash can hahahaha

Yea, I was wondering what happened to them!

You say, nothing crazy.... But it sounds like you are going to do this one up like your westy

I hope not! I just want a passenger bus to cruise around town in to carry the troops. I don't now when I'm even going to find the time to do all this, but I'm starting to get the metal together.

Right front dogleg complete from CIP1


Left side step by driver's door.


The panel for that seemingly always rusty area in front of the left rear tire.


Lurch had the sliding door running smooth, so I'm just doing the bottom of the door panel.


Also need the back brakes redone. Cables (2)


Never heard of these rear wheel cylinders, but hopefully they'll stop the bus if necessary!

[toolbox]

Just put a wood burner in it and be done with it.

Forget the wood burner, I like those front seats!

That is John Lago's ice fishing Bus/Shanty. Has a trap door in the floor and a snowmobile recoil pull start setup. He drove it from Upper Wisconsion to the Michigan show many years ago.

[Howie]

Forget the wood burner, I like those front seats!

I'm not sure how comfortable they would be on a long trip, or even SAFE , but you would sure look cool when ya got to where you were going!

[TheBigSpud]

Looks like some dried corn cobs hanging to the left of the stove pipe - wonder what that's about?

[Howie]

Possibly drying some popping corn?

[Six Volt]

Rust is something that is dreadful to deal with. It's bad enough on the body, but when it invades the mechanical units of a bus its hell to deal with. We finally got around to dealing with some of the rear brake/axle issues on the '78 today down at Dale's. Just getting the drums off was an experience in itself. Everything was rusted together. Drums, brake shoes, e-bake cable, adjusting stars... everything.

Fortunately, unlike me, Dale knows how to deal with it. A little blaster, a little heat and a lot of forceful persuasion got everything apart.


Getting the old e-brake cable housing out of the backing plate was rough. I had to sand, scrape and file away rust till we got a decent surface.


The front mounting bracket for the e-brake cables was of course rust, covered in later applied grease!


Dale showed me how to "unfreeze" the stars and get new ones installed for future pain free adjustments. New wheel cylinders as well.


I wish I had one of these lifts at home!


Since we're swapping the "toasty" '78 exhaust for the earlier 72-74 set up I started tearing into some of that as well. I guess Keith and Dan weren't all that concerned with the thermostat function! (Ok, maybe it went bad with the last guy! )


New cable is in.


All hooked up and ready for a bleed.

[Six Volt]

Finally got the Lurchmobile home this summer and started to actually drive it. I had it down at Dale's VW for nearly a year just siting around. Dale did a ton of work on it while it was there including replacing the front beam with a nice old one from a '73 he had and a ton of other work on the brakes/engine. A few weeks ago we spent a day putting in new heater cables and fixing the wipers, horn and lights.

When I took it home to drive it my son started using it and he fell in love with it. Even after he got a truck he still asked if he could "take the bus".


I've got more vehicles than I have room, but this thing has been a blast to drive. FI when it works is AWESOME. So even though I love the rusty patina on the outside, the inside needed an upgrade. SInce there aren't a lot of tin top passenger buses around, I decided to give it a low budget upgrade. One of the former owners used old license plates as rust hole patches. Needless to say, I've got a lot of old license plates! Still have a lot to do on the inside and this is all low budget, but here's where I'm at.

[vw7266]

Nice work Sean patching up the inside. Its always good to have something nice to look at on the inside even if the outside is a lil funky