Our 76 Sopru called Olive

[onetrackwonder]

Hey guys as the title says late Friday night we have dragged another Kombi into the Central Tilba VW Rescue Sanctuary, as the title says its a 3-76 Sopru and it is Martini Olive in colour, Dave H it must have been another Friday car as there is no Sopru tag beside the wardrobe on the drivers side, it does have a Sopru sticker on the drivers side rear window, or whats left of one.

This bus was purchased new in 76 in Bowral by its first owner, it still has the Bowral dealers sticker on the rear window, two years later it was sold to the Bowral person who we bought it off, the second owner used it to travel with his wife and kids doing one lap around Australia and lots of shorter camping trips.

The engine was overhauled in the late 80's including having new Webers installed, he said that it cost him over 4k which at the time was almost as much as the Kombi was worth, it was then parked in a shed in 1990 as it wasn't getting used, in 2018 it was removed from the shed while they were trying to sell it and was parked up outside, its funny how thing go as I had contacted the seller back then but for some reason I never went to look at it, most likely because we never had the money as we were building our house, but I remember the photo on Gumtree of a bus hard up against one wall with building bits and pieces hard up against it, unfortunately at some stage while it was outside the pop top hatch turned to powder falling to bits and water has gotten in damaging some of the cupboards, it was then wrapped with a tarp, again not good.

Surprisingly it doesn't have very much rust compared to other purchases I have made recently,at the time of inspection I hadn't realised that the front callipers had been removed and were taped onto the steering arms, once home and the next morning I could see something on the front of the trailer and it was the drivers side calliper,we were very lucky not to loose it, or even more lucky that it didn't fly off and hit someone else.

Yesterday I gave the engine a good going over, drained what was left in the fuel tanks and lines, and after 31 years being parked up fired into life be it for just a short moment and then switched off as the fuel lines were not replaced yet, it sounded very good, I was very impressed, I wont be doing much with this one just yet as I want to do a full restoration with it once I finish Katherine's Beetle restoration that I hope to get back into in the next month or so, happy days, cheers Greg

Felt like uncovering gold
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Finally home in the wet and cold
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Last edited: Mar 9, 2022

onetrackwonder, Jun 14, 2021

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Great pickup!
Cheers,
Mark
 

Pit crew for Herman - the white lowlight 
……………& The Tardis, a '76 Sopru 

"It's not an oil leak, it's sweat from all the horse power!"
- Anonymous

oldman, Jun 14, 2021

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Well rescued, you seems to be in the right place at the right time to pick these beauties up.
 

72 Kombi 8 Seater Microbus
72 Double Cab Ute
76 Single Cab Ute

Wayne murray, Jun 14, 2021

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Just don’t forget where you put it Greg, so you can retrieve it later to start work on it.......... 
 

 

Kanga Banga - Blue 88 Manual Caravelle CL (T3)

Utervelle - Blue 91 Manual Single Cab (T3) 

http://forums.kombiclub.com/threads/my-t3-single-cab-project.50622/page-17

http://forums.kombiclub.com/threads/kanga-banga-tidy-up.57512/

Grantus, Jun 14, 2021

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You can always leave it at my place! I'm getting bored.
 

72 Kombi 8 Seater Microbus
72 Double Cab Ute
76 Single Cab Ute

Wayne murray, Jun 14, 2021

[onetrackwonder]

Grantus said: ↑

Just don’t forget where you put it Greg, so you can retrieve it later to start work on it.......... 

Yes Grant thats very funny and i'm sure that I deserve it but its made it into my shed and i'm 100% sure that I wont loose this one, ha

Wayne murray said: ↑

You can always leave it at my place! I'm getting bored.

Wayne that sounds like a plan, you do wonderful work, but are you sure that you have any space with all your VW's, i'm planning shed extensions as mine is already full, cheers Greg
 

onetrackwonder, Jun 14, 2021

[onetrackwonder]

So in between lots of stuff with ours and a neighbours house build I have spent some time on this old girl, first of all I wanted the bus to be moved around the place safely so first of all I replaced all of the fuel lines and filter, brakes were also an issue, with the front callipers already off I started with those, I tried soaking them for a bit in the parts washer as I couldn't budge the pistons with compressed air, after a couple of days I tried again without any success, so it was out with the grease nipple kit and I installed grease nipples where the brake lines attach and then got the grease gun out and gave that a go, and it wasn't long before the pistons started to move, sometimes only one was moving so I clamped them in place and adjusted accordingly so that they both came out evenly, it was slow going but it worked a treat

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Man the worst part was getting all the grease back out of the calliper, the fluid journals were the hardest

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Next up was to clean everything up again, there was rust on the pistons that I was able to clean off the chrome, then a coat of heat proof black spray paint and some new seals

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Then it was new soft brake lines front and back, I aready had the fronts on before I realised that I should take some pics, also installed was rear slave cylinders and a master cylinder and the front to rear bias thing was taken off and cleaned up, it was full of sludge, hard lines were also cleaned

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you should have seen how much crud came out of the old master cylinder, the things I haven't yet changed is the front discs, I have cleaned them up and they are within spec and look good but I am going to see how they go with the view of when the resto is complete then look at doing them as just sitting around in the shed here by the sea by the time we are ready to use it they would have rusted, also the rear drums looked brand new, pads also looked okay, I went and tested the brakes and they were not great at speed, okay around the driveway, possibly because the pads are not yet bedded as such, but the question/concern I have is what is inside the brake servo/booster,its the only thing I haven't changed, is there any rubber bellows that can perish over time inside when not being used, hence limiting it's efficiency, i'm happy to change it but not happy to waste the money if its not needed, cheers Greg
 

onetrackwonder, Mar 9, 2022

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Hope you have more luck with the brake pressure regulator then I did, Had a lot of trouble getting one that didn't leak after I worked on it. 
Make sure your two halves are flat, before reassembly.
 

72 Kombi 8 Seater Microbus
72 Double Cab Ute
76 Single Cab Ute

Wayne murray, Mar 9, 2022

[onetrackwonder]

Hey guys its been a while and lots has happened with the old girl,happy to say that the brakes are sorted and working fine, I did find a couple of split vacuum hoses where they attached to the carburettors, replaced them and all good, I have also replaced the missing hatch in the pop top, the electrical inlet along with the water tank filler and the gas bottle cover needed lots of reworking along with a new lock

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Also installed new shocks and steering damper

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more to come, cheers Greg
 

Last edited: May 4, 2022

onetrackwonder, May 4, 2022

[onetrackwonder]

Hey guys i'm back again, sorry or being tardy but I have been pushing like hell to make it to the Nationals in this bus, to continue on I have attacked pretty much all of the rust that I have found in the bus and cut it out and repaired with steel, yes thats right, no bog and fibreglass here in sorry, ha the bits that I haven't yet done I have treated to stop any progression, I have fabricated the small bits of steel that I needed all from an old Beetle door that I have been using for rust repairs on Katherine's Beetle, yes thats another side project that i'm doing and once the bus is finished I will be onto the Beetle until completion, First of all the battery box needed attention so I cut it out and made good, the outside lip of the new battery box I bonded to the outside panel as I didn't want to damage the original paint on the outside

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Then there was one small hole on the rear of the roof about 15mm round that needed doing, ended up getting bigger and bigger to cut out the thinner metal around the edges of the hole, thought I had a pic before I started but cant seem to find it

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[url=https://forums.kombiclub.com/members/onetrackwonder.3594/]onetrackwonder, May 17, 2022

[onetrackwonder]

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more to come when I have the time, cheers Greg
 

onetrackwonder, May 17, 2022

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Greg
That’s fantastic what you have fabricated
 

Barry, May 17, 2022

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Thanks Barry, I have fabricated a fair few houses, ha, Carpenter Joiner by trade, I have built a couple of Kart Trailers and scratch built three Lotus Seven replicas, the first two I sold as I felt each time I could do better, the last one I still have, I have also restored a couple of Kombi's body wise, the last of which I hung a new front panel on and straightened all the panels, the build is on here somewhere, and unfortunately due to a tenant destroying the inside of our investment property growing a full house of weed inside we unfortunately had to sell it to one of our forum members to fund the reno on the house, he finished the kombi build and I believe still has it to this day, once the house was finished we sold it and all has turned out alright in the end and now we are living in paradise, I have some toy panel work machines that I use, a planishing hammer, shrinker stretcher, bead roller and an english wheel, all of which I am trying to teach myself how to use, also have mig and a tig, the tig is new and i'm still learning, also my mig welder that I have been using for the last 20 years died as I started this work so i'm currently learning the new one, a long way from professional but hey i'm having fun as I go and i'm happy with how its all coming along, cheers Greg
 

onetrackwonder, May 17, 2022

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Ha Barry I got carried away, I read what have you fabricated when you really said what you have fabricated, bloody hell, i'm feeling tired from burning the midnight oils hence on here tonight, cheers
 

onetrackwonder, May 17, 2022

[onetrackwonder]

So continuing on with the rust, under the sliding door had a couple of small spots, I cut them out and enlarged the holes until I got back to solid steel, I treated everything inside the cavity, and made up some new panels, painted the inside before I welded and ground, sorry I didn't get any pics yet of it painted, I never used any bog I just painted straight over the ground welds and it looks great, another win in my opinion, cheers Greg

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onetrackwonder, May 18, 2022

[onetrackwonder]

Errrm…..the Nationals are this Sunday. 

Just saying…
 

 

Kanga Banga - Blue 88 Manual Caravelle CL (T3)

Utervelle - Blue 91 Manual Single Cab (T3) 

http://forums.kombiclub.com/threads/my-t3-single-cab-project.50622/page-17

http://forums.kombiclub.com/threads/kanga-banga-tidy-up.57512/

Grantus, May 18, 202

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Grantus said: ↑

Errrm…..the Nationals are this Sunday.

Just saying…

Yes Grant I know, and we are leaving Early Saturday morning so we only have tomorrow left to finish things off and pack the bus, cheers Greg
 

onetrackwonder, May 19, 2022

[onetrackwonder]

Hey everyone, its been a rocky road for our beloved forum and I was a lucky one that was able to transfer my thread over to here, so I thought that I better update a little as lots has happened, our first adventure after my last post was Olives maiden voyage, which was a trip up the the VW Nationals in Fairfield, we clocked up close to 650km on the round trip, we took two VW's up as Katherine flew out after the Nationals to QLD to see her daughter and the grandkids and left the dual cab ute at her daughters in Tahmoor for her return trip, was a great couple of days catching up with family and friends, I forgot to take any photos of Olive once inside the show so I borrowed a couple from Kylie R, Olive ran like a dream up, on the way back it started to rain not long after I dropped Katherine at the airport and then pissed down all the way home, the other side of Ulladulla she decided to go onto two cylinders and I felt the throttle pedal go soft at the same time, I pulled over to find that I had lost a nut where the linkage connects to the carb, luckily there it sat on the tinware so I put it back on, checked the other one and off I went, she ran like a train and I was extremely happy, the further she goes the more power I can feel, they did say that it had been rebuilt just before it was parked up and i'm thinking that maybe it hadn't had hardly any running and the rings are just now starting to bed in, happy days thats for sure, cheers Greg

Heading off through Tilba



CC
Corunna Lake 


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The queue waiting to get into the Nationals





Inside at last




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The loose nut missing in action
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[Wombatventures]

Great job getting your old posts over. And your repairs look spot on. Hope ours come up as good.
Dead set lucky with that nut. I had the pivot pin come out of the fuel pump on the Notch one time. Lost power straight away and stalled from lack of fuel. Popped the boot and hatch and there was the pin sitting on the top of the engine. Gotta be lucky sometimes