After owning some rather original buses I decided I needed a bus which was stock, yet family friendly

Hector (or H as I call him) is not lowered, has reduction boxes, and a 1600 engine.

Hector is not an original UK, having been imported from Gibraltar.
Special order Westfalia SO22, right hand drive. Understated, none of your slamming or narrowing. Just a nice bus

Congratulations on such a nice Westy, interior looks fantastic.

Those seats look very similar to SO33 design, which is what I'm going to have to build back into my van.

Is there much left to do?

Cheers

Law

Hector is not an original UK, having been imported from Gibraltar.

Gibraltar......The bus is as good as English !!

Very nice looking bus.

Andy

I need to take re-fit some of the interior. Two bits which on the cargo doors are currently not fitted. Towbar to fit.

Engine needs some work, but that's about it.

Thankfully.

DrumBreaker wrote:Congratulations on such a nice Westy, interior looks fantastic.

Those seats look very similar to SO33 design, which is what I'm going to have to build back into my van.

Is there much left to do?

Cheers

Law

H originally had US spec bumpers. The lights are also the sealed type, so not typical UK spec.......

andy f wrote:

Hector is not an original UK, having been imported from Gibraltar.

Gibraltar......The bus is as good as English !!

Very nice looking bus.

Andy

Ooooh I like .

Owning Hector has been a joy, but the one big thing which has not cut-the-mustard is the engine.
It's a 1678 engine, which needs a rebuild, and burns oil. It came with twin carbs, which used to stick.

So imagine "me" sitting at traffic light, engine revving The shame of it.

Twin carbs, big this that and the other.... these are fine, so long as they don't go in Hector.
A replacement stock single-port engine is the name of the game.


Last year I heard about an engine which may be for sale. A former Swiss army engine, which had been used as a water pump, for a grand total of twenty hours. Made in 1991, by VW West Germany. It was one of the last engines (of this type / spec) to be made at this location.

So last weekend, I hired a van, and collected the engine. It was heavy, but did have the advantage of being in an engine frame.



The engine is in quite exceptional condition. The Swiss army have been meticulous about servicing things. Every screw on the engine (which has been adjusted) has had a dab of paint put on the thread.

It was a shame to have to touch this engine, but we live in a practical world, where money and space are at a premium.

So the first thing to do is remove the bits I don't need. These are:

* the magneto
* the solex carb and belt driven rev maintainer
* the none bus airbox







These were easy to remove.

I hope the following two pics show where I have removed the carb and magneto.




I am going to be using the money earned from these to buy a refurbished 30 pict 2 carb.

I now need to do some research into the bits I need, before the swap-over starts in earnest (not helped by the flu, which will not go).

But, the main thing is that the engine is in the garage, with abit of cash raised for spares

So the things I need to do:

Modify the fan-housing tinware to accept two heat-exchanger pods / connectors.
Get a carb which is in good reconditioned condition.
Take the heads off and replace the valve springs.

......

That is a thing of beauty! Hopefully the cold doesn't turn into man flu, its worse than ebola apparently!

So today I spotted pool of oil on the floor. I thought, I will empty the oil, and start taking tinwear off. The tinwear at the front came off OK, but the tinwear to back and too the side (over the heads) is not coming off. I need to check the order for removing the tinwear.

Right, after a sod of an afternoon, I have managed to remove the necessary tinware. I feel amazingly proud of everything I have done.

But now I need your help. I need to fit some valve springs, for variable revs. So I need to know if you guys have any tips (please).

There are some flap things on the left side of the engine. Can someone please explain what these are. Please see bottom two pictures below.



Thanks Miles.

Miles

Think they are the thermostat flaps from the bottom of the fan shroud, guess you undid the bolts when you took the fan shroud off, they should stay with the shroud, although it does look like they are controlled a different way on that engine

See the pics on this webpage for what a standard engine should have:-

http://www.awesomepowdercoat.com/thermostat_flaps.html

Not a recommendation for them just some good pics that explain what they are and where they fit, first webpage that appeared when I googled it.

Do you really need to change the valve springs?

Thank you Richard, I see what you mean

The engine came with different valve springs, and this is their purpose (apparently).......