First topic message reminder :

Latest addition to my pool of Aircooled VWs:

Matching Numbers All Around;
Current Missionary School Van;
November 1968 (Model year: 1969) Early RHD T2 Bay Window Walkthrough Microbus with Sliding Door on Left.
1600cc M-240 (Low Compression) 44BHP Matching Motor

Needs a ground up restoration but worth every penny its bought for.

Bought it for a Polish friend's Tour of Pakistan! The Polish friend named it as "Missionare" (German: means Messenger) for its life long service to humanity.



This is tell tale of Missionare's acquisition, 700KM journey back home and the restoration. Stay tuned as we embark on an exciting ride deep into the Early Bay world to explore what it is like to restore a half living auto-marvel from the past. 

DISCLAIMER: The thread would be creepy slow as I have two other projects running in parallel to this (a 65 Bug & a 79 Safari), so plz be patient but be assured that it would be another restoration cookbook, though this time on the subject of Early Bays.

Update on History of Missionare - July 16, 2013

*04 Documented Previous Owners
*1st Registration Date: March 04, 1969
*2nd Registration Date: January 01, 1975

1st Owner - Unknown as of yet (Owned from: March 04, 1969 To: December 31, 1974)
2nd Owner - Syed Rahat Ali Kirmani (Owned from: January 01, 1975 To: April 13, 2004)
3rd Owner - Syed Mohammad Zakaria (Owned from: April 13, 2004 To: April 13, 2010)
4th Owner - Amjad Yousaf (Owned from: April 13, 2010 To: June 16, 2013)
5th Owner - Yours Truly (Owned Since: June 16, 2013 To: Date)

Center-Center Beam Mounting Bolts Measurement: 9cm
Center-Center Rear Shocks Mounting Bolts Measurement: 52cm
Fixed/Non-Adjustable Tie Rod Measurement (excl. ends): 50cm
Adjustable Tie Rod Measurement (excl. ends): 46cm

Yep, all the aftermarket interior on the Missionare is gone and the inside gives a haunted look but not for long. Time is near when the stock/year correct cargo seats and replacement panels would be arriving and so would the TIG Welder. That is the time when Missionare would start being reborn, all but in time!

With Sunday at hands, tomorrow is time to get all this mess out of Missionare and get it ready for sand/soda blasting in the days to come.

Rear Backing Plates on Missionare are rotten, all there but rotten and needed replacement. There are no repro early bay rear backing plates available anywhere because they stopped producing them long ago. The rear backing plates on Early Bays are almost the same as on Splitscreens with an exception of the center axle hole which is larger on the Early Bays due to the fact that IRS suspension needs a bigger hole for passing of axles than the swing axle on the splitscreens.

Bought a nice pair abroad from a 67 splitscreen which would be modified (center hole would be enlarged) to fit Missionare. Here are a couple of pics:

I have hardly come around to working on missionare which remains parked in my porch. Mostly its because my son is growing and needs my time to come about tiny things in life so I prefer spending time with him these days, after work to make him build perspectives about all those tiny things including answering his innocent little questions about toys to colors to books to playing blocks to TV to techs and much more.

Cars can wait and be built over time but if this time with my son is lost, it would never return to any of us. So better enjoy it than being sorry later.

Anyway, last night I did take a couple hours off for working on Missionare's passenger compartment floor. Here are results



The cargo floor was cleaned using the wire brush and the metal was covered with the rattle can primer to seal the bare metal until its time for sand blasting in the coming weeks.

All those tiny holes that you can see in the floor were punched over the years by previous owners to satisfy their desires one way or the other. These will be welded using my TIG welder which is due to arrive soon.

Well, you can still find the T2a Parts locally, if you look for them in all the right places. At least that is what I have concluded. Just bought a Brand New Centre Pin Kit, A Set of 04 (2 front Brazilian + 2 rear German) Shock Absorbers and an Adjustable Track Rod (tie rod) for Missionare locally. Parts are due to arrive by tomorrow noon. Will share pics as soon as the parts arrive.

reezvaan wrote:

Well, you can still find the T2a Parts locally, if you look for them in all the right places. At least that is what I have concluded. Just bought a Brand New Centre Pin Kit, A Set of 04 (2 front Brazilian + 2 rear German) Shock Absorbers and an Adjustable Track Rod (tie rod) for Missionare locally. Parts are due to arrive by tomorrow noon. Will share pics as soon as the parts arrive.

The NOS Brazilian Center Pin has finally arrived. This is no recent Brazilian crappy production. Its from an old stock from the 90s so I am counting it to be comparatively better in quality than the current repros. And if its not, what have I got to loose, LOL!

Dealers were provided Body Repair Manuals by VW which illustrated where to cut and how much to cut in case a panel was needed to be changed. The same manuals illustrated how and where to weld a replacement panel on, with related measurements given thereof. All such manuals seem to have vanished, especially the ones related to Bay Window buses and those which are out there (and there aren't many as I know of only two) cost more than an arm and leg.

Since I am planning to do the welding on Missionare myself, I am hunting for one such manual for all these months since I had decided to do the welding myself. One such manual was fished out with David who seem to have a complete body repair manual. Here are some shots from the manual under discussion:

This fella here has surfaced and clearly is a lowlight, last seen in Islamabad/RWP. The claimant suggests its a 68. Registration plate looks to be IDC 8547 or IDC 3547, cant really make it? If its really a 68, its going to be country's new Oldest Known Surviving EB.

Anyway, we're soon hearing from Islamabad Registration Authorities on its Chassis Number that would conclude the debate. Lets wait until we hear from the ppl who could help

reezvaan wrote:

Well, you can still find the T2a Parts locally, if you look for them in all the right places. At least that is what I have concluded. Just bought a Brand New Centre Pin Kit, A Set of 04 (2 front Brazilian + 2 rear German) Shock Absorbers and an Adjustable Track Rod (tie rod) for Missionare locally. Parts are due to arrive by tomorrow noon. Will share pics as soon as the parts arrive.

Have arrived. The front ones are Brazilian Cofap, rear ones are German. The adjustable track rod is Brazilian too.

reezvaan wrote:

Sourced locally, Brand New Set of 03 Passenger Arm Rests for Missionare which came without any.

reezvaan wrote:

Have arrived too.

Done with cleaning and sealing the cargo floor with primer I thought I should check what panels I should be needing exactly before the welding could start. That couldn't be helped without stripping some panels. I started with the Nose/front panel as I knew it had a patch welded onto it from DIY on the air vent flaps. So here is what I was able to dig out after a bit of stripping:


And here is another shot:


Then wanted to see the sills so started on the driver's side sill:


Well so its kind of certain that all my assessments on the panels that were needed were correct. Its just that I would need high sill panels than the low sill panels. I will get back to this later when I have stripped a couple more panels.

reezvaan wrote:

Sourced locally, Brand New Set of 03 Passenger Arm Rests for Missionare which came without any.

These didn't fit on Missionare as these were for later models so these are sent back to the seller.

Took out sometime and worked on stripping a couple more panels to ascertain what panels would need replacements. Marked the heights with tagging the required panels. Some pics:






Yep, as crappy as it gets but then it needs fixing and thats what I am going to do over the coming days by first sorting what exactly is required as replacement panels and then getting the panels replaced.

Volkswagen found the type 1 chassis pan and bolt on body to be too weak in prototyping the type 2. So they developed a truck-like ladder style chassis and welded the body and chassis as one unit for strength... so its a monocoque (unibody). The type 2 "floor plate" assembly looks something like this.


The monocoque design on the T2s make it harder to carry out the chassis repairs and thus a rotisserie becomes an essential requirement to carry out the repairs the right way. I am building a rotisserie in-house for Missionare using this simple design/template:

reezvaan wrote:

reezvaan wrote:

Well, you can still find the T2a Parts locally, if you look for them in all the right places. At least that is what I have concluded. Just bought a Brand New Centre Pin Kit, A Set of 04 (2 front Brazilian + 2 rear German) Shock Absorbers and an Adjustable Track Rod (tie rod) for Missionare locally. Parts are due to arrive by tomorrow noon. Will share pics as soon as the parts arrive.

Have arrived. The front ones are Brazilian Cofap, rear ones are German. The adjustable track rod is Brazilian too.

Missionare's rear end was sagging and the shock absorbers performed too poorly too when I drove Missionare home from Islamabad. So replacement of all shocks was one of my top priorities to be replaced ASAP therefore I had hunted down a set of four shock absorbers for replacement which had arrived a couple of days ago. It was only a matter of time that I had replaced all four. Today, it seemed like a good time while I was refurbishing the rear hubs and sealing them with Red Oxide.


And when I removed the old Jap shock absorbers, I stopped surprising about the saggy/imbalanced rear end. I am sure after looking at this pic you'll stop being surprised too



Yep, you guessed it right, these two rear shocks are aftermarket Jap shocks of unequal lengths and are totally dead with no life left in them. The second pic shows the NOS German Year Correct Shock mounted next to removed shock.

At this moment, missionare is at 3 new shocks, yes one at the driver's side front has been replaced too which was Monro Gas Shock and had still some miles left in it but I wanted to have all new shocks at all corners so off it went and the new cofap unit was put on. The passenger side shock was inaccessible at the moment in my porch so left it alone till morning. Will share pics of the front ones when both are done.

Now Missionare's rear end saggs no more and it has returned to stock height.

Some more progress on stripping the thick filler on rotten/patchy panels;

reezvaan wrote:

Dealers were provided Body Repair Manuals by VW which illustrated where to cut and how much to cut in case a panel was needed to be changed. The same manuals illustrated how and where to weld a replacement panel on, with related measurements given thereof. All such manuals seem to have vanished, especially the ones related to Bay Window buses and those which are out there (and there aren't many as I know of only two) cost more than an arm and leg.

Since I am planning to do the welding on Missionare myself, I am hunting for one such manual for all these months since I had decided to do the welding myself. One such manual was fished out with David who seem to have a complete body repair manual. Here are some shots from the manual under discussion:

Thanks to Johnny of EB, sorted this! Johnny has compiled EB Body Work Manual CD covering every aspect of body work. The manual on the CD would be on its way tomorrow morning!

Here are some screen shots from the Manual that he has compiled on the CD:







Thanks Johnny, you've been a wonderful help. Now I can go ahead with the body work the correct way without much hassle right at my porch!

Inner centre sill between inner & outer sills with track for sliding door RHD 68-79
OEM Part Number: 214801671D

Scored these OG fixings cheap as chips

Aftermarket coil swapped out for a Bosch ignition coil with bracket all painted nice and clean

Heater pipe grommets, hubcap puller and interior sliding door handle from this lot.

Throttle Pedal mounting bracket on Missionare was worn out and was replaced with a local hinge (qabza) which is welded to floor at one end and to the pedal at the other. Needed to be sorted but the pedal itself is patched and welded too so wanted to replace the complete pedal along with restoring the stock arrangement of its mounting. Picked up brand new pedal as well as mounting hardware from VWH.

VWH Pedal is Wolfsburgwest part:


Rest of the bits are Original VW items:
Mounting Bracket


Mounting Pin


Pedal Return Leaf Spring


This would put the throttle pedal back to stock arrangement. While at it, thought I would try VWH RHD Throttle Repair Kit too which is way cheap than Simon's


This shell bring the Throttle Assembly back to as new as when Missionare left the assembly line, eliminating all woes, current or future.

Also picked up the clutch pedal rubber stop which was missing on missionare and the clutch pedal used to knock the cab floor every time it was released sounding a very odd and loud thud.

1. the injection points with circles are existing holes
2. the circles coloured black need to be plugged with a rubber bung
3. the triangles need drilling
4. the black coloured triangles need drilling and plugging with bungs