Well after ending up with a little cash left over after my 65 Standard Microbus was written off and then repaired by Matt Smith, I decided to buy this little project.
Its my favourite split, a early RHD Double cab. Its from South Africa and has had some "African" repairs done already. These included fitting the wrong front panel and cab doors, along with outer sills hand crafted from rusty thin sheet. Just about everything of any worth has been stripped off it as well, just to give me something to look out for.
Any way this is what it looked like when it was still in South Africa. I picked it up from Holland and trailered it home

When i got home and checked it over I found that as I had strapped it to the trailer by the wheels (as you do) it wasn't actually held on by much. The reduction boxes where each held on by two bolts of the wrong thread and the front wheels had two bolts each, but never mind it made it back safely to Devon.

I'll post some more when I've got a moment.

So when I got it home, I did the lovely NOVA paperwork and gave it a good looking at.
Up until I picked it up I had only seen photos, but it was very much as expected. The roof is sunburnt but no serious rust. The drop gates are not too bad, definitely saveable. The pick up bed had the top panel missing but the supporting frame work not bad. Both rear arches have been cut, but the inner wheel arches only rusty on front edge. No interior fittings or seats. Cab doors have been replaced with later ones. Front panel replaced (but only tacked in place) with a slightly rusty later panel. Lower 6" missing or very crudely repaired.

So I installed it in my garage and started stripping stuff off

The front panel was just tacked on so after the cab doors that was the first panel removed, so I could see what was left underneath.
There was nothing left of the front valance so decided to fit inner valance to put a bit of strength back in. Spent ages removing the rusty remains of old valance but the chassis rails at front seemed remarkably ok. Welded in autocrat front valance and just the bottom edge of the closing panel as the original although a little bent wasn't too rusty and was a better shape than any repair panels I could find


The front A pillars needed repairs at the bottom, but I didn't want to weld them until I had the doors fitted. The doors I had weren't very rusty, but were the wrong age and both bottom hinges were missing. If they were the correct age (they are for later push bottom handles) they would be very easy to repair and use (if anyone wants them feel free to make an offer!) but I decided to find some rot free correct doors. I needed the early ice pick doors without indents where the handle fits , but there isn't a lot of them about and for sale. I eventually found a set on thesamba in California (from Cory "Blackdog") and got them shipped here in the back of a bus that Dean Jones of Classic Car Revivals had purchased from Cory. This worked very well as the shipping would have been more than the price of the doors and Dean only wanted very little for them to travel in his bus.
While waiting for these doors to arrive I had a go at the main chassis rails behind the front beam. I removed the beam, which naturally is the wrong one but will probably get used as it rust free even if its from a later bus! The chassis rails behind the beam "sounded" strangely solid but were covered in rust blisters.

When I cut out the rusty metal I found the whole inside of the boxed in part of the front chassis rails was full of South African soil!

So I dug it out

After my Wife had claimed the "lovely red soil" for planting something in, I welded up both sides of the chassis rails.
The inner front arch above the chassis is rust free and when the under seal was scraped off looks ok.
I'll leave it there for now, but will post some more later.

Great start, looking forward to the progress

Nice project! Look forward to following your progress.

Earlier this year I had picked up a used roll over jig and was keen to put the pick up on it to have a look about. I fitted some castors to the jig and bolted my van to it.





After a good look, I decided it was probably best to get a bit more metal attached to it before leaving it hanging on jig, my thinking was it may well bend out of shape. So I placed back on axle stands.
I have been slowly acquiring various panels I would need, one of which was the lower bulkhead behind the cab seats. The original was quite rusty along the bottom edge and behind the inner front wheel arch. So I purchased a Klassic fab panel to go there.
My doors arrived from California so I had a road trip to Classic Car Revivals to pick them up. When I got to where my sat nag said they were there was just a bungalow and a couple of barns. I looked about but couldn't see any sign of people or VWs. It was then I realised I only had Deans email address with me. Just as I was beginning to worry about finding him a roller shutter door on one of the barns started to open and there was Dean and a selection of VWs. Had a chat about buying stuff from the USA without seeing it and Dean told me he had met Cory who I had bought my doors from and he was a sound guy who he had bought various vans and bits from. Also said he regularly imported vans from America so if I had any more bits to ship to give him a call as it may well coincide with him shipping another bus.
Returned home and bolted doors on.

I

I ordered a Wolfberg West front panel and Klassic Fab cargo floor panel from Custom and Commercial to pick up from Bus Fest to save the shipping costs and got a Bust Fest discount, which was nice!
On the way up to Malvern in my Standard Micro bus it went round the clock while doing 60 on the M5

Had a good look about at Bus Fest and found someone in the cattle shed auto jumble selling fuel tank separation panels for split pick ups. I had already got one used one off thesamba, so bought a second of him. Apparently he was making the panels and selling them to various other companies who were selling them for more than him. Sure enough I saw them for sale at C&C and Bus ok stalls for nearly twice what he was selling them for

Picked up various other bit and pieces while I was wondering about.
Came home and added my new bits to the heap of bits to be fitted

I have picked up a Hump back seat from California (LHD so I'll have to convert to RHD) which is due to turn up in the back of someone else's bus any day now. Also various handles, locks, speedo etc from all over the place. At times it seemed like there was a parcel arriving everyday, a fact that didn't go unnoticed by the rest of my family! So I had loads of bits but hadn't done much work to van for several weeks.

A nice project. I shall be following with interest

I decided to fit the lower bulkhead behind the front seats next. Spent some time deciding where to cut the old panel so as to remove all the rust and damage, but leave as much of the original metal as possible. Cut and removed the damaged and rusty original panel removing at the spot welds to inner wheel well with a spot weld cutter. What a great tool those spot weld cutter are!

Worked out where the heater tube would come through the new panel and cut out with a hole saw. I cut back the heater tube a bit as it was very rusty on the end, I'll have to replace it later when I find a bit of tube the correct size. The bottom edge of the panel between the front wheel arches and under the seat was rusty, so cut this back and repaired with an off cut front the repair panel for the bulkhead.

Before welding into place, I wanted to fit the front cross member ,outriggers and top hat section. When I tried to fit these, I couldn't work out why the top hat section was shorter than the combined length of the outriggers and centre cross member (I'd been working all day I was a little worst for wear!) Came in and asked advice on forum, but couldn't work it out. So I gave up and had a bath and went to bed instead.
The next day went back out to garage, and straight away saw what was wrong. Where I had repaired the front chassis without the front beam and no cross member, the chassis rails had twisted slightly and move apart slightly. So I realigned the chassis rails with some sash clamps and welded the cross member, outriggers and top hat section into place.

To hold the bulkhead in place to weld I used a very special tool. This tool was a fence post and a bottle jack!

Next was the rear cross member and outriggers. The chassis rail here was a similar story to the front! Where the outriggers and cross member should be there was just a rusty hole

and when I cut it out there was some more South African red soil

So I dug out the mud and made up a patch for both sides

And welded them in, then ground them down so as not to show

Then spot welded the top hat section to the rear cross member and plug welded the cross member to the chassis

Then came the rear outriggers. Spot welded to top hat and plug welded to chassis

Went on a little road trip at the weekend and picked up my hump back seat and door tops.



Just need to convert the seat from LHD to RHD. Looks not too bad to swap the springs around. Need to look into if the padding on the seat is sided or not

Well after a couple of hours with a screwdriver and pliers I have a RHD hump back seat! Just need to get it blasted, painted and upholstered.

The "horse hair" pad seems to be uniform thickness, so hopefully after laying flat for a while to get rid of the original "hump lump" will be ok to use again. Just need to see if TMI do a hump back seat cover (I've emailed them to see) as the original cover is very much past it's sell by date.

Great effort Jon, starting to take shape already.

So I took advantage of the fact that my Mrs was away for the week to go on a 450 mile round trip to pick up a month correct near complete engine.
Well for £150 it would be rude not to!

Awesome project, I love crewies and if it weren't for the family would definitely have one. Great work so far. Whats the end result going to look like? Stock?

Also loving the 916 in the piccy above, great choice also!

Going for stock and hopefully keep the aged sunburnt paint look, but not sure if there will be enough of the original paint to be worth doing. I'm not a great fan of fake aged paint.
I've always loved Crewcabs, and have had several VW crewcabs but this is the first splitty one.
I have owned my standard microbus for !0 years now and has been very usefully for ferrying kids about but it got written off by a road sweeper lorry on the wrong side of the road 18 months ago, with the money from the insurance, after getting Matt Smith to repair it there was still some money left over . I was actually looking for an Oval beetle when I came across the advert for this crewcab in Holland. It was rough but looked saveable but most importantly it was a RHD early double cab so I had to buy it. It was a good road trip to pick it up.


As for the Ducati, ever since I first saw a 916 I just had to own one, it took 15 years but eventually got one. Its a lovely looking and sounding bike, but I need to be 20 years younger to be able to ride it!