Volkswagen Caravelle C T25 1985

[nnabeel]

i think this thread can give some idea to do jugar:)

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-general-discussion-207/sa-door-interior-trim-restoration-1103911/

[Xulfiqar]

The plastic barrier on the back is mounted to the card or the door?

[msabbasi]

The plastic barrier on the back is mounted to the card or the door?

The question is directed at @nnabeel but I will pipe in to say a word or two about the van. The only place the plastic moisture barrier has been applied is the front doors (on the door frame) that have wind up windows. The rest of the windows do not open (this is a European spec van and they typically do not have opening windows there). Since no water is meant to enter the van from the sealed window hence no moisture barrier anywhere else.

After looking at the back of these cards I find water stains along the lower side. That could have only happened when some over efficient driver went and had the van washed from the inside during a "service". Perhaps not once but repeatedly as a normal activity during each service. Front door cards perhaps suffered more warping as a result of the "service" than failed moisture barrier.

[msabbasi]

i think this thread can give some idea to do jugar:)

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-general-discussion-207/sa-door-interior-trim-restoration-1103911/

Sir this is just outstanding. Can't thank you enough for sharing. A great find.

[msabbasi]

The flip side of the card for the fixed wall. In the picture below note the water staining along the lower side of the card and around the ashtray. As already said in post 163, the windows are non-opening so water has no way of getting here except by purposefully directing water at the cards such as people get done while at the car wash.

I wonder if I have put enough binder clips

[msabbasi]

The fixed wall card is completed. All it basically needed was to re-secure the vinyl to the card and pull out the creases. Here is the final result below:

Main problem area is circled in yellow.

Repairing of this card marks the end of this tedious business of fixing cards. Next time I see them will be when they get fitted in the van.

[msabbasi]

Here are a few pictures I took of the van today. The denter has applied gray primer and he has sanded down the left side of the van. Here are pictures:

Water has been poured over the side as to make it more reflective. There is a problem with the sliding door. Look at the reflection of the red pick up in the primer. It has two rear wheels

The denter himself pointed this out to me. Nice of him. Finally they are in the same page as me.

[Xulfiqar]

This reflection error happens when they sand in pieces without a pepper coat to "see" if a dip exists.

Also when sanding, two panels usually curve inwards, to prevent this, build up the filler etc. And sand as its gapless

[Xulfiqar]

You are right with the washing thing, the fixed window areas didnt have moisture barriers in early models but had a black foam barrier in the very last models to reduce drumming noises from the body.

The front ones require the plastic barrier sealed with butyl tape to make it water proof. VW did quite a lot of moisture sealing everywhere on all their cars, I recall that the non commercial transporters and kombi had close to 2 gallons of cavity wax applied to them.

Thats why they smelled like a crayon factory. Lol

[msabbasi]

This reflection error happens when they sand in pieces without a pepper coat to "see" if a dip exists.

Also when sanding, two panels usually curve inwards, to prevent this, build up the filler etc. And sand as its gapless

You are 100% right. The curving at the edge of the to panel syndrome is found here just in the 8 inches at the upper portion of the sliding door gap nearest to the camera. Along the same gap as one sees lower down there is no curve. The denter specially mentioned and demonstrated how he went over the gaps as if they were one panel as you said. I don't find the 8 inches of gap curve syndrome too bothersome. But the wave is a different mater. He did used the guide coat as I saw the peppered black spray on the panels during an earlier visit. Cant figure out how he missed this wave. He too was not happy with himself. Kept saying, "I don't know how this got missed by me?" I have to be honest, I did feel sorry for him. He has already done the van twice. This wave correction will be the third time on the same side. I advised him to do the other side as come back to this side later. Sometimes if one is doing a job for too long eyes start playing tricks. It is better to step away and come back to the job later.

At least the guy was not making excuses.

[msabbasi]

Along with cavity wax, I will add under body protection. Under the van, the chassis protection is still in place and I have to say that I am very impressed with no rust after being in use for 34 years. The only area needing a new panel was the battery box floor. That in my opinion is to be expected. After the repair, I am thinking of going down to the junk yard and finding a suitable plastic battery liner we see in modern Japanese cars. At some point in the van's life the battery has been relocated from it original position from under the driver's seat to the engine bay. I am OK with that. it is an improvement.

I do intend to place sound deadening patches on the van walls and doors before the cards go back. Don't intend to cover every square inch with the stuff as that is not required. Just apply a few patches judiciously on each panel.

[msabbasi]

Pictured below is a small selection of parts I got for the inside of the bus. Mainly they are the a/c & fresh air vents for the ceiling, a/c outlets, new clips for the door cards. The old ones are worn out and keep popping out of place. I also got a set of uncut VW keys. These have to be cut according to the original key barrels.

A small selection of interior parts.

Just showing the location of the white ceiling vents. From these only fresh outside air comes out!! They are connected via a duct that passes through the door to the air intake at the front of the van just below the windscreen - Crazy design!! So when the a/c or the heater is on, one has to manually close off each of these four vents by hand.

[mehran]

An excellent Sunday read . You are doing an amazingly detailed project. Keep up the good work!

[msabbasi]

An excellent Sunday read . You are doing an amazingly detailed project. Keep up the good work!

Many thanks. Paint shop is frustratingly slow. All further work is held up till the van gets back.

[msabbasi]

In the picture below I would like to show how badly the seats have been sun bleached. This comes from standing in the sun for years upon years. The seat material and the cloth inset on the wall card are the same!. Yet the seats look more grey compared to the blue of the cloth insert.

Nothing can be done about it but it is annoying all the same. So to prevent further fading, The plan is to get a van cover to keep the UV rays away.

[msabbasi]

A few parts that were hard to find. Namely the door mirrors and the rear light assemblies.

Door Mirrors: As already mentioned in the beginning of the post, this van, at some time, had the original VW door mirrors removed and replace with Suzuki Bolan items. This posed two problems: 1 - They prevented the quarter windows from opening (any VW owner knows the importance of these windows in the Summer) . 2 - The view to the back of the van was extremely limited with a huge blind area on both sides. The passenger side mirror was particularly bad. This situation is very unsafe especially with the motorbike wallas who love sneaking in between the van and the curb on left hand turns.

Unfortunately the original holes which had captive nuts were welded shut and new holes were drilled for the Suzuki mirrors.

In the early days when I was doing part shopping, I found that most stores only had one side mirror but not the other - only the driver side. I had to wait 6 months before I could find a pair. There are after market items and not original VW-Audi items. Quality is not good but at least they are the same shape as the originals

A comparison of the locations of the two mirrors - Suzuki (left) - VW (right)

Correct mirror finally fixed after drilling out the welding and re-tapping the original holes.

During the body work stage, the holes drilled for the Suzuki mirrors were welded shut

Rear Light Assemblies: Also mentioned earlier, this van has the wrong rear lights. They from a Bay window bus.

Wrong rear lights for this model.

The correct ones are pictured above. Finding the lens was easy enough but the bulb carrier was very, very hard. After much searching I got one from UK and the other from France.

These bulb carriers were next to impossible to find. AS you can see they are the original VW-Audi items. It seems that after market ones are not made.

[nnabeel]

the foam behind the door cards were covered with plastic. I had to paste separate plastic to make door barrier. But still the door car also needs to be covered in plastic from behind because sometimes the service walas dont care and put full pressure during service.....which gradually damages the door cards..

[nnabeel]

Ah.....its refreshing after two days holidays......lots of detailed post....MAZA agaya subha subha.

Great work sir......

[Xulfiqar]

umm

just dont get it washed by those service morons then.

[Xulfiqar]

These are now becoming very rare, if you had this bus about 10 years ago, they would have been cheap chump change.

btw - get some glycerine and massage the gaskets to plump them up and a touch of silicone grease to the bulb stalks so they dont rust themselves in.