Good to see a fellow Alberta keeping these old vans alive! Kudos from Canmore, AB! We love our ‘81 Westy

Mark, My name is Dale Griffiths and I had a 1970 VW Bus. Loved it very much. Been thinking about one like you have. I watched you video and that is a very nice camper that will last you a long time. Thank you for taking the time to post this.

@mbg5046

7 жыл бұрын

Thanks Dale for the nice comments.

Excellent restoration and you obviously are very skilled and know exactly what your doing. I enjoy these videos to see a ruff vehicle transformed into virtually a new vehicle, in fact better than when it was new. Thanks for taking the time to make this video, considering all the work you did and allowing others to see the whole process and the finished product.

@mbg5046

6 жыл бұрын

I love this comment: "...you obviously are very skilled and know exactly what your doing." Nope. I started out with no idea how to get a Subaru engine out of a Subaru or into a Vanagon. I knew it could be done and I spent a lot of time researching and planning. The Samba website was an essential resource as well as Rocky Mountain Westy, Small Car, and GoWesty for providing advice and good explanations of their products. I bought my first MiG welder for this project. I had welded before but my welds were never good. Now I can weld anything at this scale. I put hundreds of hours in and loved it! I can say at the end of this odyssey I do have the skills but I didn't when I started. If you want to do this and you are good at research and planning and have enough patience, it can be done and it's worthwhile.

I am so incredibly impressed that you took this on and saw it through! CONGRATS!

absolutely beautiful video,I've already watched it 4 times.one of the best that I have seen....great job mark..

We're taking a Greyhound bus tomorrow morning to Almonte to pick up our '88 Westie from Frank. He's got the old beast really dialled in mechanically. It's exciting to have it back on the road after many years in storage. Need a shakedown cruise to get reacquainted. Next year - body work! Man, I wish I had your skill set. Great job!

This is a lovely restoration job. I'm glad to see you painted it the original color. Thanks for sharing your video. Great work!

@mbg5046

7 жыл бұрын

Thanks Zala I had fun doing it!

Beautiful job! the photos of how you did the rear panel sides replacement were very helpful, many thanks for showing!

Fantastic. She lives another few decades. Good restoration.

Congrats on a beautiful build. You worked really hard on this and it looks great.

I loved your video. Saved of course. I restored an '81 AdventureWagen several years ago. Today I bought an '83 Westfalia water cooled to restore. This has given me a lot of thought fodder. I also have a 2001 Outback with the H6 that I may be installing into the Van. Thanks again, great vid!

Absolute joy to watch! Thank you so much and a superb job my friend!

Awesome job mate!!! Good see that kind of pride in your work!

Fantastic job on the restoration and on the photography to document it. Extremely cool!

@mbg5046

8 жыл бұрын

Thanks!

Sweet Job Mate! I love seeing crazy people, like me bringing these back to life, and filming it Wow!

Great work, love that you use it also for its intended purpose.

This is awesome! Very inspiring. I'm about to do all the same, but so far have gotten lucky and already have a doner subaru that I got for $100. Northern Minnesota is tough on these things so I definitely have my work cut out for me.

Congrats Mark, You have maked a great job. Thanks for sharing this video.

Man Thanks for Sharing! That was a labor of love.

Beautiful work on that Westy!

Absolutely beautiful work! Thanks so much for sharing!

Beautiful...Still considering doing my Vw 2.1 Caravelle conversion 1988 model due to availability of engine part's...Thanks for sharing...

looks good. it's nice to see someone that takes care of their T3/Vanagon

Ein tolles Video! Danke. Excellent work!

Incredible job! Congratulations

Nice video. Ive found yours to be one of the better Subie swap. Vehicles Because of camera angles and the overall clean installation i really liked how you prepped and cleaned up the " problem" areas etc. one of the reasons i like this conversion is because of how well the engine fits and looks like it is made for the vehicle or original of course the power increase is important as well

Hi! Even if it was mostly a slideshow, it was a really beatifull one. Allmost made me cry beatifull. This is as good i'm going to try with my upcoming project. :) Thak you for the videos! :) Greetings from Finland

Awesome, and greatly documented.

Did a good job there Mark, she looks a Beauty.

awesome video. Thanks so much for sharing. What a great van.

you went ALL out its a dream rig!! love it solid as hell huh cool color

I have the exact same van/ year /colour just picked it up in Aug. I hope it turns out as well. Thanks for the motivational video

totally amazing i hope you get many years of use from your project.

Fantastic! I want to do a similar conversion but with a TDI. Great work. I'm from BC

Great job!!! Congrats!!!

Well done!

so sick!!

Great Van! Super work mans!

Amazing process

Well done ,lots of love to the dub . 🚎

@mbg5046

8 жыл бұрын

Thanks, it was fun.

@Camp_Runamuck

6 жыл бұрын

Mark Griffiths I’ve been restoring mine for the past two years just got it back on the road and it feels good to be driving her again after not having her for two years but she shouldn’t need much for the next 10 or 15 years other than upkeep and general stuff . Good to see them end up in hands that treats them the way they should be treated .i’m lucky mine had zero rust

What a beautiful job

Superb! I shall be going down this path soon

Amazing job, maybe one day, I will have that beauty 🤩

Awesome job !

Nice work!

Great inspiration. My 85 will need a new engine soon. While I'm at it ...

Great job. Thank you for sharing.

Nice build!!

Epic work

Well done. I live in Alberta too.

Beautiful!

My vanagon's engine just died, so I am looking forward to the whole restoration of my baby.

@Coordinator61

3 жыл бұрын

A van is never a baby come on.

wow the end result looks unreal!! I've got the same 84 vanagon so i may have to copy cat you hahah

@mbg5046

8 жыл бұрын

Copy away! I copied and was inspired by many builds. You don't get this far without some help.

great job

damm this is a work off art good job

Great project, Well done...

Beautiful job I want one of these vans so bad

she is a thing of beauty

wow lots of work

Awesome! I have an '87 Syncro tin top, in admittedly much better shape, but considering an engine swap and color change. Your video was inspiring for sure!!!! Incredible amount of work. Awfully well done.

A reliable camper van🙏🤟 winning comb9

Looks great!

Very cool!!

Great job!!

+ from Latvia. Thank you

good job.

very nice job!

I love this!

beautiful

magnificent i have one the same blue....

Gute Arbeit!

fantastic job, in Germany there are only three vanagons in good condition for sale !

@mbg5046

7 жыл бұрын

Hard to believe. Here they come up all the time but often they want too much for stock vans that need all these upgrades.

@StanleyKubick1

5 жыл бұрын

I have an air-cooled T25 with 213000 km's on the clock. It's in iceland, but it just passed a 2 year inspection with new starter, new belt, new brakes in front. Shipping to germany is like €1000 from here. Still want one?

@user-ry1jr4ev1u

4 жыл бұрын

Vanagon with Subie engine is MUST !!

very good job!

Amazing!

Such an awesome job!! Did you change the drums over disc? Thanks for sharing man!

*Awesome!*

How did I only see this video for the first time after talking Westy with you so many times! You are a true genius. I am just starting my restoration now. Can you recommend your panel welder?

Stinkin’ awesome!

Love that Blue!

An amazing job Mark. Thank you for putting the whole process up on KZread for others to enjoy and potentially follow your lead... Any chance you have /kept a list of suppliers you can share?

@mbg5046

8 жыл бұрын

Sure. For starters GoWesty, Van Cafe, Bus Depot, California Import Parts, Concept 1 in Calgary, Subaru Calgary, Rocky Mountain Westy, SmallCar, Summit Racing, Auto Value, Princess Auto, Green Line Hose & Fittings, Country Campers, Hobo Campers, Go West Campers, Calgary Auto Body Supply, National Transmission, Fifth Avenue Volkswagen Calgary, U Wrench, Speedy Glass, Malahat Auto Recyclers, Pick n Pull,

Beautiful Greetings from Jakarta

Great Video , love the coloured epoxy primer never seen coloured epoxy primer before , you have any details on that please , thanks for sharing

So beautiful.. you have done amazing work.. how long it took you to finish this project?

Best way I can say it is WOW. 😎

I like da music. Are there TABs out there?

Loving the van, the build, the video and the music - tell me the track from about 3:30 please!

Nice 👍👏

Too bad you had to deal with that rust. I'm sure its near impossible to find a dry bus up there, eh? Awesome, articulate job. Wish I had the money to do this. Cheers from Salt Lake City

@mbg5046

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks!

Amazing can you do my Kombi T1 engine swap hahaha damn...this all looks so technical I have no clue.

Nice ❤️

Nice work. Looks great. I have one question. One pic showed a rather small looking drum brake. Have the brakes been upgraded and, if not, how do they cope with the bigger powered Subaru engine?

@mbg5046

7 жыл бұрын

So far the brakes are stock and like everything else on a stock Vanagon, they are undersized. I have a front brake upgrade in progress to Audi 5000 Turbo bigger rotors/calipers. However the Subaru engine doesn't requires bigger brakes because the idea is to have enough power going up hills fully loaded, not for going really fast.

Very nice job, I love the engine conversion. I did not know that was possible. I just found a pretty clean Westfalia in a storage yard tucked away. I am going to make an attempt to buy it what was your investment after purchase. I have a 1983 Lotus Esprit I just finished bringing back to life and I am thinking of selling my Coleman popup and switching things around some.

@mbg5046

8 жыл бұрын

The purchase price was $3200 but the final cost was almost 10 x that in repair and upgrades. Yep, it's a lot to spend but it is as reliable as an a new van and way cooler!

Niiiiice! :D

Excellent job on this beauty. It looks perfect! I'm wondering, does replacing the engine and the pipes that way you did prevent the vehicle from breaking down as frequently? I've always wanted one of these but the failure rate has always been a major detractor. If building it out from the ground up the way you have would change that then I would be very interested in taking on a project like this myself.

@mbg5046

6 жыл бұрын

iReturnV1deotapes Yes it definitely improved reliability. The mechanical upgrades make this a very reliable vehicle. I have had 3 great camping seasons, done some light off road travel, mainly forestry mountain roads, and I use it in the winter here in Canada without any problem.

@mbg5046

6 жыл бұрын

I have no regrets about replacing the engine or with my choice of the 2.5L Subaru. It's very reliable. I have been driving the van daily since Spring 2015. It handles cold and snow, long hot highway trips, mountain passes and I have never had a mechanical issue. To be truthful though, I had the transmission rebuilt and it failed in less than a year due to overheating. This is a design issue that I solved by running a separate transmission radiator up in front of the main radiator plus an inline cooler and temp gauge. You won't have this problem if you have a manual transmission.

and how the gearbox and the motor were spliced there is a difference in the bell (in its height and diameter), how are things going with the clutch release, how are the discs themselves being bigger than the disc from the Volkswagen?

Que chida la dejaron

How long did it take you to do this? You did a fabulous job and I enjoyed your video. I'm considering an 84 westfalia/ 2001 subaru forrester conversion.

@mbg5046

6 жыл бұрын

julie giles It took me 7 months, from October to May. I worked weekends and evenings on it. I planned out everything carefully so I had all the parts and tools ready ahead of time. I put together a written work plan for each day and updated it as I progressed. A project like this has so many steps you can’t just go at it without a plan or it would take forever and there would be a lot of rework.

Good resto! Just curious, but I'm watching this in Jan 2021, do you still have it and how had it held up?

@mbg5046

3 жыл бұрын

I still have it and it still looks and runs as good

I've only seen this done on vans. Is it not possible to convert Beetles?

Where'd you send your trans to? Great job man. I bostig'd my 89 Westy and have been really happy with the results

@mbg5046

6 жыл бұрын

I sent it to National Transmission on 14th Street NW in Calgary. They did a great job but it failed in less than a year due to overheating. This turned out to be a design issue and I added a dedicated radiator in front of the main radiator plus inline cooling and a temp gauge. To their credit, National rebuilt the transmission a second time at no cost. It has been going now for 2 years without any issue.