Our VW Van Fail and How You Can Live the VW Dream

Living the Hippie VW Dream

You’re driving down the winding coastal highway holding the wide wheel of a VW ‘Hippie’ Camper Bus with a huge grin on your face as you and your loved ones sing along to the music. You see another VW coming the other way and you give each other the peace sign, part of an exclusive club of eclectic adventurers. You’re doing it, your living the greatest road trip ever experienced. You’re living the dream.

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We lived that dream from Victoria, BC to a mountain top in Northern California and on to San Francisco. We bought a 1974 Westfalia (Westy) and drove it home with the plan to bring our son on the ultimate road trip. At the age of five, our son named the van ‘Freddie’ and even helped me sand the van body to prep for painting. For months I puttered around in my driveway listening to hits from the 1960’s as I slowly turned Freddie from a worn out workers van to fresh banana cream family trip fun mobile. Unfortunately, I received my lay off notice three months earlier then we had planned to take our trip causing us to wrap up the work with the intention of finishing when we got back home after our 3,700 mile trip. Westies were a dime a dozen on the West Coast but back home we could sell it finished for $15k-$20k. We did some things right, we did some things wrong and if we had a do over there is plenty we would do differently. We want to share our successes, mistakes and our ideas of how to do it better so that you can take the road trip you’ve always dreamed of.

Successes:

Here are the things we did correctly with some ideas on how you can replicate or improve on our successes.

We bought our Westy on the West Coast

• • Vancouver Island is an amazing place to search for VW Busses in need of a new home. You should expect to pay $3,000 – $5,000 cdn for a fixer upper that still has enough steel to weld new rocker panels.
  • In the Western United states you can expect a real junker for $2,000 and a moderately decent bus for $6,000 usd.
  • In big cities, especially big cities on the eastern side of North America you could easily pay double to triple the same price.
  • Be sure that the frame itself is not rusted. Panels and floors are easy to replace, but a frame is not worth the effort and more importantly it isn’t safe.

We did the body work ourselves

• • • Disassembly: Get lots of containers and label them meticulously. You don’t want any mystery bolts at the end of the day. Take pictures of each assembly and lots of step by step pictures of anything that looks complicated. It might seem like overkill, but depending on your schedule it could be months before you have to reassemble it. Place big items somewhere safe and assess for damage so you can order replacements well before they are needed.
    • Cutting: Remove rotten panels with a grinder and cutting disks. Be super careful around the gas tank and be sure it’s empty and aired out before cutting or welding near it.
    • Welding: If you don’t feel comfortable welding there are plenty of welders around. Buy a portable welder and get them to teach you the basics for a case of beer. Or if you trust them to not warp the metal by welding too much too fast let them do it.
    • Elbow Grease: Clean the van and all the parts you want to save. You’d be amazed how shiney you can get those hub caps with the right chemicals and some serious buffing. A power washer works wonders on the camper tops as well.
    • Body Filler: Body work isn’t rocket science. You can teach yourself the basics using books, blogs and youtube. You can also practice on the rusted metal pieces you cut out of the body. Take your time and make sure the body is smooth and perfect before applying the paint as the paint will make every imperfection stand out.
    • Paint: Rent a compressor and buy a gravity fed paint gun. Buy real paint from an auto parts store. Don’t cheap out on the paint, it has the power to make your bus look amazing or terrible. Clean the gun well and often. Paint in a sealed environment with as little dust as possible.
    • New Parts: There are some amazing parts dealers set up specifically for VWs and I would recommend www.cip1.ca which I had great success with. They are not an affiliate, I just really liked their parts and prices. Check and double check that the parts you want work for your year (I may have ordered the wrong headlight covers once). 
    • Reassembly: Putting it all back together. This is when you thank yourself (and me) for meticulously labelling all your boxes, or curse yourself for putting all the different bolts in an old paint can because you didn’t want to spend $20 on plastic lunch containers and some masking tape.

We chose the Coastal Highway to start off on

• • OMG. This is the most amazing road on the planet. I wanted to stop on every hill and at every beach. My only regret is not stopping more.

Failures:

While there are some good times and some good choices with our VW adventure, we also made some pretty stupid mistakes that we wouldn’t want to see anyone repeat. Learning from these mistakes can save you the heartbreak of abandoning your Freddie in a Goodwill parking lot in San Francisco (not actually abandoning, but selling at a rediculously low cost).

• • Engine Work: We didn’t put any work into the engine. Mechanics may not be rocket science but you sure can’t pick it up by reading one vehicle manual and watching youtube videos. We bought the van and it drove just fine around town giving us the false impression that we would have no issues on a 3,700 mile trip. What we should have done is had a mechanic strip it down and fix any issue before the trip began. It would have cost us more money to start, but far less than what we lost by selling Freddie for next to nothing.
  • Poor Driving Times: We drove during the day time during one of California’s worst heat waves in recorded history. Instead, we should have driven in the very early morning till about 9 or 10am. Then drove for a few more hours after the sun had started to go down. We would have made similar time, saved our engine from the worst heat and enjoyed the main part of the days relaxing on beaches or exploring cool towns.
  • Didn’t join VW Clubs: Even before you buy your van you should join a club or two locally and online to get advice from people who have or are currently living the dream. They might know of deals, they might have hook ups or just offer some great and invaluable advice. They will also cheerlead as you post your rebuild pics online.
  • Sold the van out of desperation: Don’t sell your van for $1500: It was a bad choice, period. It would have been better to tow it, ship it or even fix it a little and limp home. It was not worth the economic and emotional loss just to get home.

Do over  (Feel free to Ignore this section if you want your Westy 100% original)

• Subaru Conversion Kit: If you have the money and you don’t need a 100% original parts Bus, you should look into a subaru engine conversion which is a far superior engine to the air cooled VW engine. When the air is scorching hot, then is does nothing to cool an air cooled engine, making your van stall on mountainsides with no cell phone because you’re in another country and with a 5 year old in the back being stripped down because he’s over heating. (Thank you to the man who stopped, let us use their phone and the police officer who drove my wife and son to the next town to ensure they were safe). This happened time and time again while we drove, which ended up being the thing that made us give up. We couldn’t get it fixed and we were running out of money get towed and paying the mechanics to try to fix the problem (which never got fixed). 
• Leave out the Kitchen: Drop the kitchen and carry a coleman stove. Use the atrocious amount of space the sink and stove takes up to make it more comfortable inside for sitting and sleeping. You’ll want to cook outside anyways and if it’s raining your eating area is filled with wet boots and coats so you’re not likely to cook anyways.
• Dump the original Mattress: Invest in a good mattress up top. The standard mattress feels like sleeping on a bus seat. Spend a little money on high density foam and your back will thank you.
• Reduce the sound: Get a good stereo, grease everything that moves well, tighten everything that can be as snug as you can and put foam between everything that can’t be tightened completely. That will help, but it will still rattle lots. 
• Boondocking: Staying at free places can save you a ton of cash. There are many websites out there that list free camp sites and if you joined the VW forums like we suggested, they will know some great stops as well. If you are in a bind remember that Walmart allows overnight parking. 

So needless to say we’ve lived the VW dream and experienced the nightmare. If there is a silver lining to our story it is that we went on to write a world travelling blog that helped others learn from our mistakes so that they could live the dream. I still give the peace sign to VW Busses as they drive by so if you see me out on some beautiful highway in your very own Westy be sure to raise your peace sign in return.

Have you been on a great roadtrip? Tell us about it below!