I’m not sure there’s much more that can come off Babe… she’s really stripped down to nothing! No steering wheel, no pedals (even the gas pedal shown in this photo is out), not much left! Which means next week will be the start of repairing the body. There were a couple of surprises as the […]
Author: Peter Kraiker
Has it really been 5 years?
I’ve been looking through photos as a result of accepting a Facebook challenge and as so often happens “one thing leads to another”. In this case I stopped on a photo taken on 2011-03-24 and looked at all the things that photo says to me. Looking at this photo 5 years later I have to […]
Westfalia Restoration Week 5
This was a short week with Easter coming early so the restoration didn’t progress too much in week 5. And Volker had a few other jobs that took up some time too. Including salvaging what he could from a ’72 that was at the end of its life (he’s always on the lookout for metal […]
Restoration Details – One Door
My previous posts have been a highlights reel of how things look and how things are going. Today I thought I’d post a detailed description and photos to illustrate the attention to detail that Volker does. You’ve seen the preview of the finished product in my Week 4 update, this post will focus on the […]
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Westfalia Restoration Week 4
So much to share, so many stories to tell. Where to start. Well… paint colour of course! After much fussing and lots of sampling I ended up right back where I started. Trying to find the right balance between brown, orange, bright but not too bright, and more has been very trying. I think I […]
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Westfalia Restoration Week 3
Progress hasn’t been as dramatic this week, the early steps were more visually interesting. Now there are some very fine details being sorted out. Still important stuff though! Like: All the detached pieces (doors and hatch) are almost ready for paint! New fridge. It was a hard decision and yet an easy choice. The 30+ […]
Westfalia Restoration Week 2
Another week of work has gone into Babe and instead of just disassembly week #2 included the first repair and restoration steps. As seen in the previous post (Top Down Approach), the fiberglass cargo box and pop-top were the first to get completed. They weren’t the only parts to get worked on though! Babe has […]
- Restoration
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Top Down Approach
The body work will start soon but in the meanwhile parts that have been taken off are being repaired, cleaned and prepared for fresh paint. And in the case of the fiberglass top it includes up to final coats. They’ll get stored away until assembly time. And here’s a sneak preview (before and after).
Westfalia Restoration
As I previously mentioned, I decided over a year ago that I would go about getting my Westfalia camper “Babe” restored. And after doing some research I picked the person I wanted to do the work. Volker has been in the bodywork business for about 20 years. He got into restoring Westies in a very […]
Metamorphosis
It has taken two years to get to this point and it’s definitely a big deal! A mix of feeling nervous and excited. Babe is getting a serious makeover… I’ve enjoyed the past 5 years, heading into 6 I knew I wanted there to be a lot more. And the rust was beginning to be […]