Project Fudge

[No Sliders]

3 vans, 3 bodyshops, 1 build, 6 years (almost)

And so the story goes…


From a very young age, being brought up on my dad's VWs, it was only natural that (having VW logos stamped into all my blood cells), I was at some point going to get 'the bug'.
Fond memories of going down to Devon or Cornwall on holiday as a family in our ruby or royal red 69 beetle, luggage on the roof rack and sometimes our golden retriever panting and dribbling all over the black basket weave seats between me and my sister, will stay with me forever

So, I guess you could say I've been in to dubs all my life but joined the scene (aircooled), about 18 years ago when I bought 'Rosie' - a faded red 71' early bay Dormobile conversion lowered on Empi 5s. Sadly, she was written off by a lass speeding in an Astra on a muddy wet back road …she lost control coming around the corner and broadsided straight into the front of me. This is another colourful story all unto itself, but I'll try and stay on track.

Following that I had a 66' resto cal bug built from the floorpan up. Man, this thing was quick! That moment when someone is hard up your arse on the approach to a roundabout that's about open up on to a dual carriageway the other side, and they follow you around the roundabout ready to accelerate away in the right hand lane, thinking they're gonna leave you sitting in the left hand lane. Noop, was never gonna happen. Watching them pull back into the left hand lane in my rearview mirror as I left them for smoke was always a joy and totally unexpected in this thing
Tbf, it was pretty dangerous. Although it looked the part the build quality wasn't great so it had to go. Might post some pics of my bay and beetle at some point - plenty of pics to come though.

Fast forward to 2011, in steps Oscar…



After a good few years and eventually deciding I wanted a T4 to convert into a campervan, I spent many Saturday mornings hanging around the auction sniffing around potential vans until this one cropped up one cold snowy March morning.

Hightops aren't really my bag to be honest, but at a winning bid of 2.6k all in, it was too good to turn down, so I'd bagged one.
2.4L… no guts but, fold out bed, 3 way fridge, hot water pump, propex heater, sink, gas hob and grill …happy days! But wait, what!!? No sliding door! Hadn't realised at the time I'd actually bagged myself rocking horse shit. This thing was (and still is), rare.
Oscar came with a stack of paperwork (always good). Turns out that the original owner had traded his Golf GTi in part when it was ordered from new at a dealership. So it was shipped over direct from Volkswagen with no sliders and sent straight to a conversion company to be fitted out.
If I remember correctly from the receipts it cost around 23k newly converted.

Being pretty chuffed, I actually sent a letter to the previous owner letting him know of my overhaul plans and new life planned for the van, and was he interested in seeing pics when it was finally finished? Turns out this was a good move as he wrote back telling me he had a Fiamma bike rack I could have for free for the tailgate, and did I want to pick it up. Do bears and all that? Got to meet him, have a good chin wag, exchange a few stories, leave and drive off into the sunset with my free bike rack - sweet.

For almost 4 years my partner and I got miles and miles of memories and smiles out of Oscar - named so because of his numberplate. 'SSW', which I figured stood for 'Sesame Street Wagen' (obviously), and so he was named after Oscar the grouch who hung happily from the rearview mirror in his trash can.

As mentioned, from experience hightops aren't my thing, (horses for courses as usual), but I have seen some pretty cool ones recently eating the weeds, so my opinion is slowly shifting off of the 'zero cool factor scale', even for coachbuilts, there's some pretty deadly ones coming on to the scene.
Yep,… great for leaving the drivers seat and walking straight through to the back without a care to start eating, sleeping and cracking the beers out, but height restricted car parks in urban zones you fancy sightseeing and stopping off at… nope. And, my least favourite… driving in very high winds.

The hightop had to go, so I did some research to come up with the best solution for my pretty rare configuration.

[TommyP]

Nice. The restricted height thing is the reason I didn’t go for a high top but the practicality of them is just epic, I like them.

A few suspension tweaks and the side wind on the road wouldn’t be a fraction of the problem it is compared with standard suspension. Even standard roof vans handle like cross channel ferries. It’s amazing the difference from just dropping the ride height without even touching the shockers or adding an ARB. Centre of gravity I suppose.

Whilst you’re adding stuff, add a turbo, intercooler and LDA pump to the list and you’ll outrun the wind anyway. Bbbbrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaa Tzsu tzsu tzsu!


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[Fruitbat]

Great story , we know why you’ve called the van Oscar , but could you enlighten us with the story / reasoning behind your username.

[TommyP]

Great story , we know why you’ve called the van Oscar , but could you enlighten us with the story / reasoning behind your username.

The answer is in the build thread....


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[Fruitbat]

The answer is in the build thread....


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Aaaaahaa yeah I got it now

[No Sliders]

Thanks for the responses guys


So, after some pretty extensive trawling and researching, I found a pop top that'd be practical for my layout.
Back in 2013 there wasn't quite the choice there is today and prices were more inflated by comparison. The choices available and number of companies producing them today, especially here in the UK is great - this of course drives cost down.

I ended up going for a rear elevating SCA roof which cost me more than I paid for the van. Reasons; A) because as I recall, they were probably only 1 of 2 manufacturers at the time that did them, B) the other roof looked gash, and C) bed configuration, quality, reputation, German.
Yep… could of maybe sold the van and lumped that money together with the cost of the new roof and bought myself a van that already had one, maybe even a better spec'd van? But, you know what it's like, you grow attached to these things. You set off, have a great time, build memories and it kinda becomes a trusty member of the fam that never lets you down and shares the good times …bit like a pet, but in the form of a big metal diesel drinking, smoke spittin' brick …there's a T-shirt right there, (you're welcome).

Decision made, I shopped around the SCA dealers here in the UK and played them off against each other for the best price possible. The choice to go for rear elevating was based on my layout, with the kitchen area being at the back - all the windows and vents would be situated where it counts most.
To me, the rear elevating roof looks more natural than front elevating, even though there's clearly more of them. The fact that they're also less common, literally kinda adds a cherry on the top of my (already), rocking horse shit.

With the roof ordered up, shipping date from Germany confirmed, and delivery date to the fitters in place, I set about tearing into Oscar's big hat to strip it out ready for removal.




Oscar's craniotomy…



Oscar post surgery in his posh new hat…





Getting this van restored and resprayed was always on the cards, and as you can see in just 2 years of owning it, Oscar was looking pretty tired and pretty much ready for retirement. I booked him in for a resto set to start in December 2014.

The 6 months prior to this were spent with the odd weekend away here and there, enjoying the benefits of Oscar's new hat, but also a pretty amazing holiday during the summer where my partner and I took off in the Sesame Street Wagen and totally winged it for 2 weeks. Our only commitment during those 2 weeks was the Isle of Wight Festival which ran over the weekend in between, otherwise it was a case of waking up, looking at the map, and then road trippin' off to wherever and satisfy our curiosity of places, whether it be a beauty spot, historic site or city.
Between where we live and jumping on the ferry across to the IOW, and then back again is so much to see. Adventures like these are one of the major reasons we own one of these vans (as you guys will appreciate), and Oscar nailed it all without even a hiccup.
The festival was epic btw - highlights: Biffy, Rival Sons and the Chilis …oh, and soaking in a hot tub on top of a double decker bus

As winter approaches, I set about gutting the van out and exposing some of the reasons behind why the van was a bit chilly to sleep in one Hogmanay (from what I remember)…








True caption comp pics for sure, but no prizes for guessing whether these vents blow hot or cold air.

December reliably rolls around and Oscar is dropped of at bodyshop no.1 for his exciting resto job. Although I trawled around various VW specialists for quotes, the same guys took it on that fitted the roof as they were already familiar with the van, did a good job with the roof, and gave a very competitive quote.
Along with discussing my plans and vision, I managed to find some T4 drawings and thought these would also be a handy and helpful back-up reference for the bodyshop guys to follow. I mocked up my vision and included all the custom work, points and info discussed on the run up to dropping the van off.

Here are my original mock ups…

[T4vancalledStan]

This is so good a story i just made the Mrs listen to me read it out to her in full!!! Im totally buzzing to get the van on the road.... !!!! Superb!!!!


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[arfur fox-acre]

Great write up, makes for captivating reading. Keep it coming....we need more.

[S49]

Theres a build thread where a boat top gets fitted. "One day i'll have a camper" shame he hasn't been on in a while.His is a great thread. yours could be a great antidote to that one. Don't be put off by the rust.Will be following with great interest.

[regcheeseman]

K reg vans - they love tin worm. Keep the updates rolling in...

[No Sliders]

Stoked on the compliments guys, really appreciated, thanks!


I handed over print outs of these plans ^^^ to the head honcho of bodyshop #1 - let's call him 'Dom' for the sake of this thread. Dom worked alongside one other who we'll call 'Ron'…just because of rhyming and that.
Dom took the print outs and put them in a box in the back of Oscar which I'd filled with lots of new goodies I'd bought and collected over time, ready to replace or upgrade tired and existing parts.
I paid my deposit, left Oscar with his new goodies, and my partner and I continued off down the road to visit family.

Man, as we came away I was so amped up on the thought my dream eventually becoming a reality. This was pretty much a childhood dream come true.
As a kid I'd stand in WH Smiths flicking through the pages of 'Street Machine' (anyone remember that!?) I was fixated by the custom cars that filled the pages with their cleaned up/shaved lines, immaculate paint, chrome wheels, fat tyres and clever mods. These things were works of art, so cool and different.
I vividly remember getting a book on custom cars and hot rods out the library and seeing a Chevy van painted in electric blue metal flake over a double page spread and wondered if one day I'd ever own something as cool as that? At the time, the closest I got was sitting drawing lots of outlines of a Ford roadster in my sketch pad, and then giving each one my own custom paint job with pencil crayons, Obviously one of them had flames licking back behind both front and rear arches.
I guess my reference visuals above are grown up versions of this.

Soooo, my arse was making buttons. Time was spent trawling for more bits needed, keeping my ear to the ground for bargains, thinking about interior design solutions and collecting inspiration and know-how from other build threads.
About 3 months had passed and Dom and Ron had stripped out pretty much all of the cab, so I took away all the plastics, dash etc, and both captain seats.
This at least kept me occupied for the time being as I wanted to prime and Plastikote everything in satin black…





Everything got a thorough scrub with sugar soap before being pressure washed and cleaned again with white spirit and a scotch pad to give a bit of a key.



Then I primed all the parts in black plastic primer…




These are just a few bits completed. As I remember, I think it was 2 coats of plastic primer, lightly rubbed down and wiped over with white spirit after each one - followed by 3 coats of satin black Plastikote, again same key and clean after each coat, apart from the last one obviously.




Oscar was never a trades van at any point, so in that respect I was lucky that all these bits were in pretty good nick without any gouges or major scratches.

6 months had past and no work had been done on Oscar since getting the cab stripped out.
Bodyshop #1 was about 2 and a half hours away, south from where we live. We visit my family once every couple months even further south, about a 7/8 hour drive from our home. When visiting time came around, we'd drop by the bodyshop on our way, excited to see the progress being made …or not.

Making this journey to visit the fam every few months has its advantages. I could trawl the internet, bag some bargains and either pick them up on the way down, or more often that not on the way back up going home. Geographically, I pretty much had good pickings of bargains dotted up and down mainland Britain - I had become a T4 parts vulture that was almost unrestricted by location.

I'd sold the old 3-way fridge and wasn't keen on replacing it with another gas powered fridge that meant carving holes in the newly patched bodywork (when complete). After some research, I decided I wanted to replace this with a Waeco coolmatic CB36 top loading fridge. The efficiency is great, it's safer, and being a top loader means that the cool temperature mostly sits and doesn't escape like a fridge with a front opening door (it's cuz ov naichur 'n' fizziks 'n' stuff, innit).
The gas hob/grill and sink were old and took up a lot of space being separates. To replace these I decided to plump for a Smev 8323 sink and 3 burner combo - a quick win on the space saving front with everything neatly stored under one nice black glass lid.

All this in mind, one instance I'm particularly proud of was my luck in bagging both of these items in one swoop.
I was circling above a nice new but unused Smev 8323 that I was watching on ebay. It had been removed from a Fiat doblo or whatever. All of a sudden the listing was taken down? Noooo… why!? Straight away I contacted the seller and after a bit of back and forth managed to get his number.
Prior to calling him I'd established that he'd decided to remove the listing because he'd discovered a small hairline scratch on the glass lid, and so he thought it was unfair to list an item with an inaccurate description. This was all very good of him - a good human, an honest Joe. It was also very good that he was unaware of the fact that he could of just edited, updated and flourished his listing with such information. I began the descent (via phone), to bag what was now fair game. As the conversation progressed, he explained the circumstances of the sale and also mentioned the fact that there was a new… unused… (yep, you guessed it)… WAECOCOOLMATICCB36TOPLOADINGFRIDGE!!! I know, right! What are the chances! Fate I tell ya, fate!
RRP for the fridge = £575 ish. RRP for the hob/sink = £340 ish. T4 parts vulture price negotiated for both items together = £300.
I picked both spoils of my hunt up on our way back home from one of our fam visits. When I turned up, old honest Joe had the fridge hooked up to a battery, just to show me that everything was in good working order. What a thoroughly good egg!


Over a year had past and work to Oscar was minimal. Countless times in between my partner and I would drive away deflated and down hearted by lack of progress.
Eventually, it was suggested by Dom and Ron that Oscar was really too far gone to make the resto viable.
The alternative suggestion was to find a left hand drive LWB T4 bodyshell and order up a body panel to blank off the opening to where the sliding door would be. In this case on the offside. Reason for this is because apparently it's a lot easier to find such a panel more readily in the UK, than to get a right hand drive bodyshell and then try to source a panel to blank off the sliding door opening on the nearside. The flexibility of an interior with no sliders would be retained. All the relevant parts and engine from Oscar would then be transferred over, to the new (to me), T4, which would effectively be converted to a right hand drive at the same time.
It seemed that most of the responsibility of this task was now being delegated over to Ron, from Dom.
I agreed to all this and transferred more cash over to make this happen.

In steps van number 2. The reasonably solid LHD bodyshell sourced by Ron and originally from Sweden I think?
I'm gonna call this 'Van X' as I have no emotional attachment to it…





New replacement panels were also ordered up to replace the front wings and rear quarters.
Oscar (RIP), also started to make a few donations of his own…

[S49]

So Oscar is having a body transplant. Keep it coming.

[Skiddy]

As soon as I saw 3 body shops I took a deep intake of breath ufff!

Looking forward to the next chapter

[S49]

Alarm bells rang when I read bodyshop number one. I'm hoping for a happy ending.

[No Sliders]

Months would pass and my partner and I would drop by the bodyshop only to either see very minimal or no progress since the previous visit.

I'm a very patient and pretty laid back guy. I cut people slack and always give people the benefit of the doubt. I try not to judge and trust they're a good human, and hope that in return they appreciate good nature - then extend that appreciation back with a willingness to carry out whatever's required of them, knowing they've freedom from someone breathing down their neck.
I appreciate that bodyshops either have contracts to deal with crash repairs, or have smaller jobs coming in now and then that can be tackled and punted out the door for quick turnaround and consistent cash flow. That's cool if that's communicated, but as far as I'm aware there was never any insurance work or mention of it. The odd smaller 'in and out' job, yes.
Also sitting in their main workshop was T2 bay camper, fully stripped down to bare metal, along with a couple of other bugs and buses on the go. A lot of work for 2 guys - I couldn't help but think that they'd bitten off more than they could chew. The fact that they never lifted a finger on my van for 6 months also made this apparent.
The gutting thing is knowing you've missed out on the possibilities of further adventures in this time, when there probably wasn't a need to.

We'd walk in to the bodyshop to see how things were going. A bit of banter and small talk with Dom would mainly consist of him rolling his eyes and telling us how "his heart wasn't in it anymore". I wasn't convinced this was something I wanted to hear coming from someone who I'd entrusted my pride and joy with? He would then just point us in the direction of Ron. Ron would then have a chunt in a lowered voice about Dom to us through in the paint booth or a different section of the bodyshop. It was pretty much confirmed that most of the responsibility of my project was on his shoulders.
With the position I was in as far as progress and timeframe was concerned, coupled with constantly being told "we'll start it again in February", or "we'll be able to get on with it again in April" (or similar), was getting boring. Naturally, you can't help but think they're stalling tactics to keep you happy as your van sits in the queue and they sit on your money. You also wonder if some of the reasons given for not making progress were potentially excuses or otherwise.

All this time, Oscar had been sat outside in the elements for over 2 years, the majority of which the interior was exposed to the elements. 'No big deal' you might think - it's scrap anyway. The big deal to me was the fact that my (almost 3k), pop top roof interior was growing mould, and where the canvas had dropped down, it had been exposed to the sun and faded. The very same roof we'd only gotten 6 months use out of from new, prior to being dropped off. Understandably I was getting pissed.





Again and again, I would come away from my visits, swallow it all down and hold on to the hope of excellent progress, along with the fact they were actually genuine guys and not taking this piss out my continued patients and good nature.
I believe I always give more than enough slack, maybe too much? It's up to that person whether they hang themselves with it or not. The thing is, if they take the piss, it really grips my shit and I'll happily step up and hang them myself.
What should have been a totally great experience was stressing me out. I needed a diversion and something to focus my attention elsewhere.

So, meanwhile back at the bat cave, I'd decided long ago that I was going to make the collapsible interior table top from recycled skateboards.
As a kid/teen (grom), I loved it and the whole culture. I've always been all about the board sports. These days I surf and live just under a mile from my local break. I snowboard along with my partner, and live an hour and a half away from our nearest shred. We also paddleboard. Snowboarding has to be my biggest passion out of the 3 though.

It has to be said at this point, that my life partner and soul mate has been 100% supportive throughout this entire process. She's helped out where she can. She's not phased by driving the T4 when we go away if I want to chill and soak up the scenery. She drives a Caddy (we share a Golf). And she totally rips on a snowboard. She's altogether amazing… what's not to love! I'm very lucky. Together, we're 'team taurus'
Enough of that.

I set about dropping into my local independent boardsports shop every now and then - this was already a very familiar haunt for my partner and I. I'd built up a pretty good rapport with the staff in there and traded them bags of donuts for thrashed decks. Didn't matter the condition… one piece, feathered, cracked or snapped. It was all good Canadian maple, hard as nails, worth recycling and looked super cool. I'd already decided that for certain aspects of my interior, I'd recycle.
It wasn't long before I'd plotted skate shops to call into on our journeys up and down the road when visiting. The decks for donuts deal was working a treat, and my stash was building nicely.





I set about stripping off the grip tape using a heat gun and scraper. Not the best part of the process - some peel off a dream, stripped in minutes. Others break off in little bits and take longer.






It's always quite intriguing peeling back the tape. Sometimes you reveal some pretty cool graphics which kinda makes the process a little less mundane. It's one of those jobs where you just stick some good tunes on, head down, and away you go.




A stack like this could possibly take me a morning, depending?

What I've failed to mention is that I'd already made one attempt at this table and it turned out gash. I'd learnt by my mistakes, recognised where it needed improving for strength and began making a new improved version.