Why did I buy a T25/T3 Vanagon

[Vince70]

Last month her indoors decided we needed a camper van for festivals etc so the hunt was on for a Bedford Bambi, but seeing we only had a couple of grand it seemed that every example we saw for sale had no front arches or floor pans.

Then we thought it would be a good idea to buy an old T4 and convert it and most seemed to be high mileage builders vans that had engine issues and then cropped up on eBay this lovely straight  but not so shiny T3, which we won for £2150.

We picked it up from Suffolk and it drove spot on for the 160 mile journey and I pretended I couldn’t see the coolant leak, but I managed to put a small split in the back of the passenger seat when we picked up a couple of trees on the way back,  for the garden which has annoyed me but I should be able to do an invisible repair.

Jobs done so far is we’ve stripped the interior completely out and are putting a new one in as we speak as it was a bit dated but not in a nice retro kind of way.

Ive also traced the leak to a couple of hoses and a water jacket leak, so the hoses are being changed and I’ll give it a service.

As for the water jacket apparently people rave about this stuff called Subaru Coolant Conditioner that stops the leak and I found out it’s just Rebranded Radweld, so I chucked a can in and it’s stopped the leak.

The bodywork and underneath are in amazing condition though and the engine is a Vega Reconditioned engine that was put in 5000 miles ago and it’s got a nice twin choke Weber plopped on top.

Some of the rear seams on one side were looking a bit tatty so while it was apart I decided to get a new panel welded in but I wanted it rust free with a bit of patina so I’m not going to overboard with the exterior.

Here it is in all its glory before I put a mop over it, I can’t get any more pictures of it at the moment, as I’ve literally a couple of inches clearance each side of the driveway. 
The only real downside was my lovely little R50 mini I had needed to go to make room for the T3 and you can’t get rear pattern wings that fit properly.

[cobblers]

They pretty much aal piss water from the head seals - I've had 4 with WBX engines and they have all leaked to some degree. A proper repair is usually a "right fucking bastard" involving essentially a complete engine rebuild in most cases so I've K sealed them all and it's been fine. Ignore the fannies on the owners clubs who tell you radweld will ruin your engine and all that shite. Just use it! They don't usually "let go" dramatically, they just start leaking a bit again. Worst case, if you put loads of K seal in again and again and it slowly blocks the engine somehow (it won't). In that case you'll need to strip and rebuild it to remove the blockages etc, in a few years. But if you didn't put any K seal in, you'd need to strip and rebuild the engine *now*. The radweld just buys you 3-5 years so you can schedule a proper repair at a time to suit you (or more likely something else in the engine fails first 😂)

My current one is ready for it's 2nd dose of K seal the first lasted about 18 months. I have a reconditioned engine under the stairs ready to go but I can't be arsed to fit it.

 

 

 

[Vince70]

Thanks so much for putting my mind at rest, I’ve got a bottle of Kseal in the shed that I wanted to use, as it’s saved me in the past on numerous occasions.

I put some in my Audi 80 as the heater matrix was weeping and it cured that some 11 years ago now and as far as I know it’s still going strong, also I used half a bottle on my brother’s old Mini as he was too tight to buy a radiator and 8 years later on it’s still going strong.

I wish I put it up on Autoshite before because I was getting flak from the Wasserboxer owners about using K seal so went down the Radweld (Subaru Coolant Conditioner lol) route instead.

I nearly went for an AGG engine the other week as I was getting worried and found one on marketplace for £200 with auxiliaries which sounded like a good buy.

At the moment I’m laying a new floor after stealing the boards out of my loft, as the OSB board that was down on the floor was a bit soggy due to a previous owner running speaker wire through the sliding door seal, also the electrics seemed to be made lots of random colours house wire and chock blocks which I don’t like.

Also her indoors doesn’t like the idea of using the old water tank that’s strapped to the underside of the van so, I’ve disconnected the plumbing for that.

This was the worst part of the Van and I’ve now taken off all the crappy warped interior panels and removed the old fibreglass insulation and replaced it with thinsulate stick on panels and filled the lower panels with cavity wax.

I must of removed about 500 rusty old wood-screws from the van  and we’ve taken off the manky cloth material that was glued to the van as underneath it’s in a lovely blue original paint and we’re replacing the panels with some nice ply ones which fit using the original holes and clips and then going over them with a nice dark beeswax.

This is the interior colour scheme we’re going for.

 

 

 

[barefoot]

Don't forget that you'll need to buy everything that goes inside it in blue from now on to match...

Toilet paper is a great place to start - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Renova-Toilet-Roll-Paper-Standard/dp/B003F51CU4/ref=sr_1_6?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rStCoqEEDcvG7ERtJchFmTsYaTd-iz14hHRRFghV3ztnMxmkbmRi8ZwStWg5guejv7RMWwDrYMdKHyQa7aRgexNRMLQZcqkeudVyvDVaphI-3XEPSwvx_DIy9XWDJvYuiG2Nn4Lpqmf9rXhXdEiBDLp_iTVXFXzo5Ilb04EFuFheYBYgtczIo__QW1vBEB5AixP2FSIfe0fRIRF7KIHa3YW7tiFD-j5DNd663UqEHic6SuIaDzJIqsBfv19CZWiEwt-o_WmdZEJvyX8LaSNOBo_TLZY7vuTDimqYxcKJH1Q.9ny0uZtCD4QWQmzWNvV4srohx2W5GCIKfPBPyvmBd2Q&dib_tag=se&keywords=blue%2Btoilet%2Bpaper&qid=1747670538&sr=8-6&th=1

I do a good 'how to' on sticker-bombing as well. if you need specific V-dub based help.

Well bought

[N Dentressangle]

7 hours ago, cobblers said:

They pretty much aal piss water from the head seals - I've had 4 with WBX engines and they have all leaked to some degree. A proper repair is usually a "right fucking bastard" involving essentially a complete engine rebuild in most cases so I've K sealed them all and it's been fine. Ignore the fannies on the owners clubs who tell you radweld will ruin your engine and all that shite. Just use it! They don't usually "let go" dramatically, they just start leaking a bit again. Worst case, if you put loads of K seal in again and again and it slowly blocks the engine somehow (it won't). In that case you'll need to strip and rebuild it to remove the blockages etc, in a few years. But if you didn't put any K seal in, you'd need to strip and rebuild the engine *now*. The radweld just buys you 3-5 years so you can schedule a proper repair at a time to suit you (or more likely something else in the engine fails first 😂)

My current one is ready for it's 2nd dose of K seal the first lasted about 18 months. I have a reconditioned engine under the stairs ready to go but I can't be arsed to fit it.

 

 

 

Totally agree with this.

The wasserboxer engine is just dogmeat, and I'd bung K seal, Steelseal, Ronseal, anything in it to keep it going for a while until it's unfixable. It's just a shit design and there's no point messing with it.

I had one of these about 20 years ago. The engine was shit, but I liked the rest. Would have gone for a 1.8 Golf petrol or diesel conversion if I'd kept it.

[cobblers]

10 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

Totally agree with this.

The wasserboxer engine is just dogmeat, and I'd bung K seal, Steelseal, Ronseal, anything in it to keep it going for a while until it's unfixable. It's just a shit design and there's no point messing with it.

I had one of these about 20 years ago. The engine was shit, but I liked the rest. Would have gone for a 1.8 Golf petrol or diesel conversion if I'd kept it.

I dunno - I used to dislike the WBX engines and I ripped a perfectly good 2.1 out of my old van to fit a 2.0 Mk3 golf GTI engine. It was barely any faster and sounded shit (admittedly it was 50% better on fuel, though). Load of work for no gain.

I've really warmed to the waterboxer, there is a certain charm to them. But they are really not in any way a suitable engine for a commercial vehicle, they should definitely have just fitted the i4 petrol engines in this and put the WBX in the passat or something that would have seen the benefit of the low weight and relative smoothness.

My confidence in the WBX is so great that I always keep *at least* one spare engine on the shelf, but I've never had one let me down yet, despite absolutely thrashing the life out of mine.

[FakeConcern]

That looks good in the pics, I'll have to pop around and see it IRL sometime.

PS, I like the mood board!

[Vince70]

Please do pop over anytime  as it would be great to catch up,  I’m usually only around the back of my place either mopping up coolant from the wasserboxer or removing wood screws from the interior, lol.

Its most definitely a two steps forward and one step back project, as yesterday evening I thought I would start installing the interior panels, only to find two panels arrived broken when we unwrapped them and clips for holding them in were too short, so I’ve measured up and it looks like T5 long panel clips are the way to go, rather than T3 clips.

The weird thing is most of the bodges seem to have been done when it had the conversion done back in 1991 when it was new, so I’ve ripped out most of the added wiring  and  the gas bottle was actually fitted as part of the seat mechanism and held the rock and roll bed in place lol.

I’m even removing the old Electrolux Fridge as it’s a bit rusty and the door looks a bit knackered and the bottle is going to get bolted down where the fridge went in the cupboard and we’re just buying a usb cooling box and connecting a manual pump for the sink and just using the gas for the hob.

Jenny has just been on Facebook marketplace and bought a singer sowing machine for £20 and is making new orange flowery curtains and Covers for the seats, in a tartan material.

23 minutes ago, FakeConcern said:

That looks good in the pics, I'll have to pop around and see it IRL sometime.

PS, I like the mood board!

 

[Hertz]

Well bought. We have the 2.1 WBX in ours and it's a bit rough from cold but when warmed up it goes really well,  I certainly won't be changing it unless it completely breaks! Keep an eye on the suspension components as ours recently snapped a front radius arm so might be worth a rub down and if ok a waxoil. Also seen rear arms starting to go on the FB pages. I suppose they are getting on for 35-50 years old though. 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Well bought! One of the few things that bums me out about mine is being air cooled, my future engine swap options are zero. 

[Vince70]

Here’s a few pictures of when we bought the old girl, but although it’s quite a bit of work, it’s nothing to serious and we knew what we were getting into.

The the added bonus is the underside is like new and the seller was a real lovely guy and we really did strike lucky with this one and he even gave us a few bits a pieces to go with Raymond Van Camper Van.

The cord material on the inside of the van had to come off anyway, as just crumbled to dust soon as you touched it and the oil that had been spilled on the floor I think helped preserve the floor pans.

For the price we paid it was a steal, as your lucky to get a running T3 for a couple of grand and it came with a years mot plus it does drive really well and it’s MOT history is fantastic plus the mileage is relatively low.

[Vince70]

9 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

Well bought! One of the few things that bums me out about mine is being air cooled, my future engine swap options are zero. 

I would of preferred an air cooled especially with pet’s around with the constant worry about coolant leaks and I think they’ve got more of a cult following so are that bit more expensive, especially as they’ve only available on the very early examples.

If I was allowed my Van would of got a 115bhp AGG 1990’s GTi engine, as they’re still available quite cheap and really are bulletproof and I have one already in my Mk3.5 Golf.

I was only looking on just Kampers the other day for some hoses for the Wasserboxer and a complete hose set for the GTi AGG conversion is available for around £60 off the shelf, plus I could put a GTi badge on the front lol

I do have a spares V5 Golf 2.3 sitting about though, but I’ve not got the skills to fit anything like that to the camper, but I would like to take the leather front seats out of it and fit them to Raymond.

[Fabergé Greggs]

18 minutes ago, Vince70 said:

I would of preferred an air cooled especially with pet’s around with the constant worry about coolant leaks and I think they’ve got more of a cult following so are that bit more expensive, especially as they’ve only available on the very early examples.

Good point about coolant, there’s definitely something lovely about the simplicity of air cooled. Quite odd at first having no engine tell tales other than an oil pressure light, so at first I was worried about cooking it all the time, especially as you hear that they like to burn valves or whatever. But as I use it more and more I’ve learned to just trust that everything will be alright. 

[Hertz]

The great thing about these things is the parts availability, more or less everything is available brand new for not a lot. Different kettle of fish I know but when I had my Alpine A610 you were shitting yourself everytime you went out in it just in case something broke that you simply couldn't get.

[Vince70]

31 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

Good point about coolant, there’s definitely something lovely about the simplicity of air cooled. Quite odd at first having no engine tell tales other than an oil pressure light, so at first I was worried about cooking it all the time, especially as you hear that they like to burn valves or whatever. But as I use it more and more I’ve learned to just trust that everything will be alright. 

Back in the early 90’s I had a couple of old standard air cooled Beetles and can honestly say they were so dependable which I bought for £500 and £700, as back then they were just your average cheap runabout 

Neither of them ever had a single mechanical issue and were neglected as I doubt they got as much as an Oil change and I did thousands of miles in them, my only gripe with them was the heaters come winter as I would be scraping the ice off the inside of the screen at 5am  for an early shift at work, plus a neighbour around our way who had a grudge about everything and everyone, would constantly complain about me starting my car up and driving up the road in the morning as he said it was too loud, so I should buy a sensible car lol.

 

[vaughant]

To be fair that looks fantastic value. 

I think you'll have less issues with it compared to the T4 version which is getting long in the tooth these days. 

The T4 always seems to be one of those vans where the owners would rather put big wheels and shit on it rather than maintaining it first whereas these are that bit older that you'd have to have looked after one a bit just to keep it on the road. 

Well bought I'd say, especially for a "proper" hitop van rather than a converted panel van you have to crouch in to get around.

[Vince70]

I’m still buying bits and pieces for the old girl but I think I’ve now bought everything I need to get the Van how I like it.

I managed to go on eBay and bought two rusty chrome hubcaps and three of the painted variety which it would have originally had.

I paid £12 for the chrome ones and £19 for the painted ones (plus about £8 postage) which is very cheap, as I didn’t realise the original hubcaps were so expensive and they’re all going into a bucket of white vinegar for a week before I repaint them in some filler primer and give them a top coat of some silver galvanised spray paint.

I learnt my lesson years ago, not to go for new chrome on VW’s, as it generally lasts about a year if you’re lucky and I’ve also got a spare hubcap now.

The 3 Halfords specials it came with were most definitely not my cup of tea and the outer edge of the wheel will get a coat in some old 10 year old white smoothrite I’ve found kicking about, also I’ve got to sort out the gapping on the back edge of the sliding door as although it closes it’s bugging me that it’s sitting slightly proud and I’m so glad that Cobblers has put my mind at rest about the Wasserboxer engine.

I’m really pleased with it and could of spent over double the amount for one not as solid as this old bus.

[N Dentressangle]

Nice. They will look loads better.

We need pics of you stamping on those nasty plastic things. They must never be allowed to disfigure another vehicle.

[FakeConcern]

The hub caps on it now look disconcertingly like these...

[rusty_vw_man]

I love a WBX, but then I’m odd. If the head seals are just a bit weepy I have also had great results with a smear of sealant on the outside. The owners forums go mental, but it worked well for me for thousands of miles. Equally K seal works well.

Overall van looks  good to me! 

Only thing, you mentioned Just Kampers - there are suppliers that offer much better parts at very similar prices and you’ll get a lot less Chinese monkey metal. 

[Vince70]

Today I thought I better give the old girl an  oil change and the weird thing is the old Wasserboxer seems to have cured itself of  the coolant leak.

Hopefully the Van will be ready for August now, as I’ve just repainted it using Halfords Rattle cans on one wing and couldn’t believe the Colour match as it’s absolutely perfect, so now that I’ve done that and replaced the other wing, the old girl is absolutely rust free.

Also I took the fridge out and we’re going to replace it with a large usb cool box,  as it seems that most of the vans with rot is due to a defrosting fridge.

We’ve got a bit of interior work to go yet, but it’s really taking shape now.

 

[FakeConcern]

That's really looking lovely now, not that it looked terrible anyway, but as you say the paint came out really well!