Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 7:42 am Post subject: Billy the Kid - first timer's resto project
I thought some of you might like to see the story of our resto project on our 1973 bay "Billy the Kid"
We bought Billy sight unseen on ebay last July. Probably not the smartest move but once we had decided we had to have another Kombi, emotion took over and before we knew it, he was ours!
He wasn't running and had dings all up each side but the rust situation wasn't as severe as it might have been. We were probably a bit lucky there. Internally the kombi was in a real mess. The guy who had had him before us was a paver I think and had fitted him out with shelving all screwed in everywhere through the back and had spilt lots of concrete and sand over the floor which had been allowed to sit and in one spot the floor was pretty well rusted through.
It looks fine in this pic, but that was before I removed the fiberglassing which was filling in all the holes.
The exterior with the dings down the sides was a bit of a worry. The first thing we did after we had him trucked to our mechanic's place at Verrierdale (Mick Budge - Sunshine Coast Qld - The idea was that Mick would rebuild the motor while I drove out there in my spare time and worked on the body) was to grind the rust out of the dings and remove the loose cracking bog from a few other dings. Luckily the rust didn't go right through anywhere so we went back to bare metal and then refilled the deeper dings and started that long, tedious process of spray filler, smoothing out all the panels. In retrospect I wish that I had learnt how & done a lot more panel beating, used less filler etc, but the truth is I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I really just wanted to get the van on the road as quickly & cheaply as possible. Initially I had no intention at all of attempting the actual paint job myself...but that all changed
Thanks for that - it sounds like Billy is now in good hands! We have bought a second kombi and are in a similar situation (we are torn between quickly fixing it for the road, or (more likely) doing a longer but much more rewarding job...) - so keep the pix (and story) coming...! _________________ ....Woz
As well as members that are inspired by these stories and photos it probably makes many lookers think about doing their own Kombi or even buying one if they haven't one already.
It also gives prospective buyers a chance to see what can be done.
_________________ Kombis Keep you Younger
73 Sopru Poptop-under resto
Last edited by Brookie on Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:46 pm; edited 1 time in total
good to hear you are having a go at it yourself. not only does it keep the cost down but there will be much more satisfaction when you are finished, step back and look and be able to say " i did that" looking forward to more progress pics _________________
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It looks fine in this pic, but that was before I removed the fiberglassing which was filling in all the holes. 
looking forward to more progress pics 
