Getting Closer

Last night I ground out the rust, cleaned, primed, and got two coats of black satin paint on my second bucket seat. I don't feel like this one's paint is going to come out as good as my other one but I was rushed and was spray-painting in the dark so I suppose I couldn't have done much better under the circumstances.I still haven't cleaned up the camping gear but at least it looks like my wife will have a chair to ride in. Tonight the plan is to get the seat cover on the second seat and get everything cleaned up and ready for install. I'm going to drive in to work tomorrow (I usually bike) and then if I don't have my spray adhesive in hand by afternoon then I'll go and pick up some sort of replacement. Tomorrow night will be about getting the rest of the carpet kit installed and getting the camping equipment back in the van. I'll do an oil change on Friday and finish up whatever else needs to get done. If I actually get done with any time to spare then I think I'll take the van down to the local car wash for a wash, wax, and detail. After that it's all about camping at the beach!

Trying to Get Done

So this weekend is going to be my wife and I's first camping trip of the year with the van and I'm trying to get it back together enough to camp in. Last night I managed to stick a few more pieces of sound deadener in the front cab, put the driver's side door back together, and stripped the second bucket seat down to the metal for prep and paint. I'm hoping to prep and paint the seat frame tonight and then go for the upholstry install on Wednesday night. I made a little more progress on the carpet install but I've still got another hour or two of work ahead of me until I'm finished with it. Sadly, I ran out of spray adhesive so I've got to get some more if I'm going to get the carpet finished by the end of the week.

I also started work on cleaning the camping equipment and I'm hoping to finish that up tonight. Maybe I can get it reinstalled on Thursday night and then I'll at least be ready to roll out on Friday after work. I was originally hoping to take the day off on Friday to knock any remaining tasks while I wait for my wife to get off work but it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to get away from the office that day. I'm just going to have to get everything done in the next couple of days. I might be able to get away a few hours early but its going to be tight.

It is going to be a pretty serious pain to reinstall the camping equipment and then take it all back out again after the trip so I can deal with that rust issue in some fashion but I don't really see another way. My plan in the meanwhile is to just douse the area with used motor oil so I can retard the rust while waiting for the real repair. I've also got to get the oil changed on the van before we roll out so getting all of this done is going to be a little tight.

A Seat is Covered and Sound is Deadened!

This weekend I made a lot of progress on the van's interior. First of all I got the sound deadening completed for the front cab. Its too bad that stuff wouldn't really work so well as a usable surface because I think it looks kind of cool in that a satellite just crash landed in the front of my Vanagon kind of a way. Here's a picture.




I also got one of my bucket seats finished. Getting the upholstry installed was an epic battle. The guy at SewFine told me that it was going to be a wrestling match and would feel really hard but in the end I would have a nice looking finished seat and he was right. First of all it took a lot longer than I was originally expecting. I had to strip the seat down to the frame to start things off. I was a little surprised by the amount of surface rust on the frame so I decided to refinish the seats. I used my angle grinder to get most of the surface rust off the frame and then just used some Rustoleum satin black paint to cover them. I'm a little concerned about that though because the finish isn't all that hard and I'm afraid I'll just end up with more rust but I talk more about that later. After the parts dried it was time to get the new covers on. The base wasn't too bad to get on but the back was REALLY hard. Not only was it a tight fit but I also had to make sure the foam stayed in position while I pulled the cover on. After that I actually had a tough time getting the seat back reattached to the base. It just takes a bit of a trick to make it happen and I'll cover that later. Anyway, I'm really happy with how the seat turned out. Here is a picture of my new seat next to my old one. Oh and that old one is the "good" one of the pair.




I also got my new carpet install underway. First of all, putting in a carpet kit is non-trivial if you are anal about how it looks. I'm about hald way done and I'm fairly confident that it is going to look good when I'm done but it is really stressful to actually do it. All I can think about while installing it is how mad I'm going to be if it looks like crap and I'm constantly doing stupid things like getting glue on the surface of the carpet. It's really not that hard of a job but if you are a perfectionist about things like installing van interiors then it is stressful. Here is carefully angled shot to try to give an idea about what it is going to look like when I'm done.

The Seat Covers Are Here!

Today my seat covers from SewFine arrived. Maybe I'll be able to get them on this weekend.

Best Idea Ever!

So I've been flailing around trying to figure out what I want to do to the panels of the Vanagon. I've thought about painting, upholstering, buying professional replacements, etc. but nothing has really jumped out at me as the right answer until now.

For the past four years I've have a spectacular corner office that has walls plastered with all sort of colorful posters, pictures, and various objects that I've collected over the years. Well, my company has decided that they want to try a new open office floorplan and everyone on my team is going to lose their offices. We're moving to a new space in a few weeks and all of this stuff is going to have to come down. I'm certainly not going to take all this stuff home but then again I'd hate to throw it out. A lot of this stuff reminds of of certain times and places in my life. Its a bit like a scrap book turned into walls. Anyway, I just had a thought. Why not take all this stuff and use it to cover all of the panels in the van! Sure it will be loud and a bit of a color explosion but I think it will be really fun. It will make the van feel really fun and I'll still have a use for all this stuff that I've got to get out of here anyway. If I ever decide to sell the van then I can just make some new panels or buy some replacements and then do something else with my custom panels. I've never seen anyone do this (hehe maybe there is a good reason for that) but I think it will make me really happy with the space. After I glue everything onto the panel then I will use polyurathane or something to get a nice clearcoat finish that would be easy to wipe down if it got dirty. This is going to be spectacular.

Oh and my friend informed me that there is actually a name for this and it is "Decoupage". Here is a picture of one of the walls in my office to give you an idea of the chaos that this will create inside the van.



I am excited now.

I Fear Fire

I gather from reading the Internets that spring is the time when many new people buy Vanagons. Since this is my first spring of Vanagon ownership I haven't witnessed this phenomenon previously but I'm here now and reaping the benefits. The Vanagon people are a helpful lot and in an effort to welcome the new owners the email lists are filled with helpful advice on the things that you absolutely must do with a new van. Some of these suggestions are accompanied by horrifying pictures showing you the consequences of ignoring their advice in an attempt to scare you into compliance. I've got to admit that their tactics have worked and I'm now terrified to drive my van until I replace all of my fuel lines.

Evidently high pressure rubber hose isn't really expected to last 24 years and the Vanagon likes to run fuel right on top of its exhaust system. Apparently this problem may not even be visible to the naked eye since the stock fuel line was covered with a fabric which makes it difficult to see rot. To complicate things the injectors themselves are attached to the same rot-infested fuel line but done so in a fashion that replacement is non-obvious. This means that most mechanics would just ignore the injectors and leave what is now bound to be 24 year old decrepit hoses filled with high pressure fuel positioned precariously above very hot and scary exhaust parts. From what I gather fire is a common problem and under the best possible circumstances would only ruin my day.

Now I've gone and just made the situation worse. Since I wrote that last paragraph I went and dug up a shot of my engine to have a look at the lines. In addition to looking old, I'm not entirely sure that the correct clamps were used to attach the lines. Firey Vanagon death looks almost guaranteed without a repair in the near future. I love overreacting.

In other news, I'm making progress on the sound deadening project. I don't have new pictures right now but I have gotten a lot more of the front cab done. I also put some primer on my rust spot from yesterday so by evening that area should be ready for the insulation. I figure I've got another day or two to finish and then hopefully this weekend I'll be able to put in the new carpet. Honestly I'm not thrilled with the color but it is really well made and should last a while. I really hated the dark brown that they were offering so I went with a caramel color that they had. Depending on exterior paint color several vans had this carpet and it looked to me like it might lighten things up against the black floor mats that I use. Granted I haven't installed it yet but I think I liked the color of the old stuff better but I'm really happy to be putting nice clean carpet in the van.

In other other news, I'm thinking of painting my dash. I found some automotive vinyl and plastic paint that I may use to paint my dash. I think I'd be happier with a black dash that has a few dark brown highlights. The only thing I'm not sure of is how long you can expect that kind of paint to last. I'll have to do some searching on TheSamba to see what I can learn.

It's All About Angle Grinding!

Yesterday I bought myself an 4.5" 10 amp Dewalt Angle Grinder and a 4" twisted wire wheel. This morning I went out to the van to take care of a rust spot that had created a quarter sized hole in the passenger foot well. Just to fully appreciate my new tool I decided to first try to tackle the job with our 18V Dewalt drill and a wire brush attachment. I made a little bit of headway but I quickly ran the battery down and it was clear that it was going to take a long time to do the job. Then I picked up the grinder and found my new favorite hobby. This thing just knocked the crap out of that rust and set sparks flying. It was awesome! After a finished grinding out the rust I used some rust inhibitor on the area and left it to dry over night. Here is a picture of my first grinding experience.



I've still got a few more spots to deal with up front but at this point I am ready to install sound deadening to all but the driver's side foot well. One thing that is interesting is that it looks like somebody made a rust repair to that area already. It looks like a patch or something has been put in place on that side. I'm not sure what it is exactly but it doesn't look stock. I'm kind of tempted to not mess with that side much and just put some rust inhibitor on it and call it a day. Then again, why skip out on the chance to do some more angle grinding!

Finished the Door

Here is the exciting conclusion of my passenger door restoration:

Before:




After:

Prep'ed the Cab

Other than thinking about rust, I've also been cleaning up the cab area so I can finally install the sound deadening + new carpet that I got from SewFine. Here's a shot of the cab as clean as I care to make it.




There are a few issues that I've got to deal with before I cover the area in FrostKing. There are a few small rust spots that I guess I better handle. My plan is to just grind it out and then POR-15 over it. Once I get the supplies I need I don't think it will take that long to get done.

Once that stuff is handled then I can finally install the FrostKing. I swear this wasn't supposed to take this long to do. With that in place then I'll go ahead and put in the new carpet kit I got. This might be a stupid idea given the fact that I'm planning to weld in the kitchen area but I never claimed to be a smart man. I'm actually still driving this van on a regular basis even without the interior. My wife and I are fostering a second german shorthair right now so if she and I both want to go somewhere with the dogs then the van is the only option. This means that regardless of the state the van is in, we are going to camp in it in two weeks. I'm just trying to get it back together enough to make that not unpleasant.

One other thing I did was removed the seat bases, cleaned them off, and spray painted them. This was clearly not the best thing to do but its a lot better than it was before. The swivel bases really need to be powder coated if they are going to look really nice and still function well as seat bases but I just wanted to do a quick job to make things look a little nicer for camping.

Speaking of powder coating, I've still got to get myself over to the powder man. I got a bit distracted when I figured out that if I remove my door handles then anyone can get into the van easily. That might not have been a big problem but I decided to just get a second set of door handles off of eBay for $30 so I wouldn't have to worry while mine were at the powder man. I'm also really excited to get the bumpers done. Ok I guess I should figure out when I'm going to make that happen and I should probably take the swivel bases with me as well. They are the perfect kind of thing to powder coat and they are supposed to be satin black. Dang, I really need to get on that if its going to happen before our trip.

What a week and a half its been

Wow, I have neglected my blogging. Much has happened in the world of Vanagon. When I last posted I was planning to sound deaden the driver's door and the cab area. To do that correctly I had to remove pretty much the entire interior and that was when things got complicated...

Here is me getting started:





I took the fridge out really easily which gave me lots of confidence:





After the fridge came out I went ahead and removed the rest of the sink/stove cabinent. It wasn't exactly difficult but it did take a bit to deal with the gas pipes, electrical wiring, etc.





Now if I was smart I would have stopped here and lived in blissful ignorance. Instead I decided to go ahead and remove the rest just to see how bad the seam rust was from the inside. Removing the water tank and its cabinent was a pretty serious pain. Here's a shot of all that out.



Then the moment of truth came. I decided to take out the side panel and remove the floor and here is what I found.





That's right. Horrible, horrible rust! Oh no!





So now everything changes. That rust looks just too bad to ignore. I'm going to have to do something about it. The trouble is figuring out what to do. That rust looked a bit bad for the typical grind it out and POR-15 over it kind of job. I decided I was going to have to add some metal. The problem is that I can't weld, don't have a welder, and don't have a place to weld. That makes things difficult. I thought about getting a few estimates on doing the job, and I still might, but I really wanted to figure out some way that I could take care of this myself.

I started asking around to see if anyone I knew happened to know how to weld or had a welder. I found out that a good buddy of mine who builds furniture happens to have a welder and all the gear needed to use it - plus a place to actually weld in. The only problem is that he doesn't know how to weld either but has been looking for a project to learn on. That's where me and my van come in. The plan is to spend some time researching welding and then we'll get together a time or do and try some practice welds. Meanwhile, I'll order a replacement panel and then when we feel good about things we'll just give it a go. Who knows how good of a job we could possibly do but I feel like trying it. I figure worst case I'll have to pay a shop to bail me out and I wouldn't be all that much worse off than I was to start with.

Curtains!

In far less masculine news, I've been thinking about curtains today. These won't be lacy affairs with pretty pink trim though - no, I've decided I need to make some man-style practical super bomber curtains to improve my van while simultaneously adding much needed color and flair to my currently bland interior. The plan is to get some Warm Window material online and then get some blue fabric from a fabric store. I got this idea from two sites. The Warm Window idea comes from one of my personal favorites the Vanagon for All Seasons Site. You can check them out here. Here is a picture of the ones on their van



The blue idea comes from a new site I found the other day about a couple that has taken a Vanagon all the way from Canada down into Central America. They had this picture on their blog and I liked the look.



Anyway, I figure I'll make some of those to replace the stock ones in there now. Should be sweet.

Weekend Plans

This weekend will be another Vanagon focused affair. My plan is to remove the fridge and rear cabinents as well as clean out and sound dampen the front cab. I've got to remove the camping stuff in order to get the rest of the carpet out so I can prep for the new stuff/get the sound proofing in place. This will be my first time behind the dreaded camping equipment and I'm already having rust nightmares. I've got seam rust bubbling under the paint on the driver's side so I'm expecting to be horrified at what I find behind the stove/fridge. The thing that is scarrier than the seam rust is that I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it exactly. I've read everything on the Samba about rust and its still unclear to me what the most practical approach is to dealing with it.

What I know at this point is that the only real way to fix seam rust is to replace the entire panel. If you are lucky then you only have to replace the rocker panel. The problem is that I do not have a shop and I cannot weld. It's probably worth my time to at least get some estimates from a couple of reputable vanagon focused shops in the area but I don't think I can spend much on this job. Then again, if the van is just going to rust away then what is the point of doing all this work on it in the first place.

The smart (read expensive) thing to do would be to get all body work done, all rust ground off, treatment put in place, and a nice paint job. Somehow this would become the dumb option if brought up to my wife. She would say that this is just a fun van, who cares if it has rust. Sadly we would both be correct, only her correctness would keep us from spending several thousand dollars. It would also make serious modifications like Suburu engines kind of pointless. Nobody ever said Vanagon ownership was all rainbows and unicorns.

So I'm going to look at this as the first skirmish of the rust war. I'll remove the camping equipment and I'll sand/grind what I can out of the interior. Then I'll get myself a POR-15 starter kit and apply it to the entire area being sure to photograph extensively. I'll then forget what I saw, finish removing my carpet, and finish installing the sound deadening stuff. I've still got to get my replacement carpet but once I get that then I'll put my camper back together and not think about that rust again until next spring. Then I'll have a year to save up and let the situation digest at which point I'll make a decision to either just leave it be and drive this van into the ground or to fight it. Plus you never know, I might just learn to weld/get a garage to work in during that time. I do think the body stuff is "cool" and I've certainly got a good project perfect to learn on.

More Interior Thoughts

Today I'm leaning towards getting new carpet for the interior. I've been studying the stuff that I pulled out and it is really really gross. I've done a bit of spot cleaning on it and so far I'm not impressed. Maybe 24 years is enough service for one set of carpet. The bad part about new carpet is that I have to decide what color to get. Deciding colors where there honestly aren't all that many great choices to choose from is hard. I suppose I could just go to a carpet store and find something that I actually like and then use my existing carpets to use as a guide for cutting the new stuff. Wow, that is actually not that bad of an idea. I bet I would save a ton too. There really isn't anything special about that carpet. Maybe I could find some super durable automotive type carpet as well. I think I'm going to have to look into that further.

In other news, I'm thinking it might be a bad idea to use vinyl on the rear bench seat and engine cushion. Since that is a bed and since my dog often sleeps there it seems really likely that he'll eventually puncture that vinyl and that will make me sad. So when I do get it recovered I'm going to go with a nylon tweed. It seems about as durable/puncture proof as possible and isn't quite as bad with hair as something like velour. It would have looked REALLY slick to use that off-white and brown vinyl on the bed but it just doesn't seem practical. My plan is to go with a vivid blue kind of a color. I think it will look nice enough against the brown, black, and cream all over the rest of the van and I'll finally get some color. To tie things in a bit more I'll get the armrest covered in the brown vinyl. After that I'm thinking I'll buy some of that same tweed fabric from the Sew Fine guys and make a new set of curtains. Thanks to the Vanagon for All Seasons site, I'm also going to put some insulation material on the back side of the curtains to help regulate cabin temps.

Other than that I have just been thinking of what to do with the panels. My ideal would be to have them all done in the off-white and brown vinyl that I'm getting the front seats done in. Its a bit pricey to have Sew Fine do that for me so I'm going to give it a try myself. I'd like to get a padded look so my plan is to use the old panels as patterns to cut new ones out of masonite or whatever is thin and moisture resistant. Then I'll jigsaw out the pattern and use the tricks I learn from looking at the driver and passenger door panels to cut vinyl to fit my new panels. I may also try adding a bit of foam to the panel surface to give it a padded look and then spray mount it all together with the mounting snaps already inside of the panel. If it looks awesome then I'll do the rest of the panels in the van. I may also try to do a simple stripe in the panel so I can carry that off-white stripe from the front bucket seats all the way around the van. Hopefully it will look slick.

I Finally Did It

I actually placed my order for front seat covers to SewFine. It took months but I finally settled on a plan. Thanks to my wife I decided on brown backs and sides with an off white stripe down the center of each seat. I'm doing an all vinyl setup for ease of cleaning and durability. I am concerned about what my dog is going to do to the seats but decided in the long run that the vinyl was the better option. There is certainly a chance that my dog could puncture the seat with his claws so I'm just going to make a little pillow to keep in the passenger seat whenever he is in the car. I'm not sure how long that will actually last but I was thinking that having the ability to just take out the cushion and wash it and then wipe down the seat is a lot better than dog hair and dirt encrusted tweed.

By the way I really have liked dealing with Sew Fine. It is strange to have to actually call a person to place an order but their phone folks are really nice and great at answering questions. Plus the guy told me that I should be able to get them in plenty of time to get them installed for our first big camping trip of the year which is the first weekend in May. Now I'm excited.

Interior Removed!

After finishing the sound deadening/insulation on my passenger door I decided to go ahead and do the entire front of the van. I ripped out all of the carpet in the front and removed the hardware on the driver's side door. Right now things are a pretty huge mess but I'm really excited to report no signs of rust in the front cab of the van! I was really worried that I'd be greeted by massive rust when I ripped all that old carpet up. It wasn't exactly nice under there but at least it isn't rusty.

Next I'm going to clean everything out and apply the same duct insulation all over the cab. After that I've got a decision to make. I've got to decide if I'm going to replace the carpet or not in the front. At first my plan was to just take the old stuff out and clean it. However, once I saw all that dirty carpet sitting there on the floor, the idea of putting it back in the van wasn't all that appealing. Plus I did rip the carpet in a couple of places while I was taking it out. So now I am considering just replacing it all with new stuff.

Door Insulation

After I finished with the grills I turned my attention to dismantling the passenger door. I had a couple of objectives. First, I needed to figure out how to remove the exterior handles so I could have them powder coated and second I needed to get everything cleaned up and exposed so I could put in the sound dampening/insulation that I bought for the body panels.

Getting something in there that would make conversation without shouting at highway speeds possible has always been a goal. I've seen several people online that have put up a sticky-backed sound barrier inside of their body panels and along the floor/engine compartment but their solutions were really expensive. There are several products out there for this application like b-quiet, boom mats, etc. but most of those are over $100 for a 25 foot roll of the stuff. I wasn't interested in turning my van into a recording studio, I just wanted to quiet things a bit. So I started looking for alternatives. Thanks to the magic of The Samba and the Vanagon list I found a much cheaper solution. Many people swear by this roofing stuff that looks identical to the auto sound barriers but that stuff contains tar and explicitly says it is not for interior installation. I don't like the sound of that at all. Well I found a message on the Vanagon mailing list that mentioned a product available at Lowe's that is called Frost King duct insulation. This stuff is thicker than the roofing material, has a higher R value, contains no tar, and has no warnings against interior applications. Now I have no idea if this stuff works nearly as well as b-quiet but it costs $15 a roll so I decided to take my chances.

Once I removed all of my interior door pieces as well as the panel I was left with a dirty door that has the factory installed vapor barrier but no insulation.



Next, I removed the vapor barrier and cleaned up the door as best as I could. I didn't bother with removing the left over adhesive from the barrier but I did scrub most of the dirt and grime off the door to make sure that my new Frost King stuff would adhere well.



With the door nice and clean, I cut pieces of Frost King and put them on the largest flat surfaces that I could reach on the interior of the door. I've read that the flat metal acts like the head of a drum that is sounded by the wind while driving. Placing this insulation on the surface acts like a hand resting on the drum head. It doesn't get rid of the noise but it reduces it dramatically.



After jamming as much as I could get in cleanly on the inside of the door I put a layer on the outside of the door. I just covered the area that would be covered by the trim panel cutting holes for all of the mount points. It wasn't the cleanest work I've ever done but I'm not sure that perfection matters all that much here.



Here is the final photo of the day with the trim panel reinstalled. I'm still working on cleaning up the rest of the door parts along with waiting on a few replacements to arrive from GoWesty for the really bad bits. When I get all that finished then I'll give another before and after picture.



In the end I'm not sure that this stuff will make a difference but it just seems like its worth a try. Next up I'll be doing the driver's side door. Also, after a week of driving around a nice great sounding van I'm going to take lots of parts out of the van and make it undrivable for a bit. I'm getting my stuff to the powder coating guy next week so today I've got to pull whatever parts I'm going to get him to do. I'm also going to pull the front carpet for cleaning as well as a pile of small plastic parts for reconditioning over the next week. Next weekend all the pieces should come back together and it will be time to do some detailing. My goal is to get the van nice enough that I can take it to the local wash/detail guys and get them to do a final pass. They do awesome work but taking a vehicle in truly bad shape to them will make their heads explode. I don't want to make anyone's head explode.

One last thing, I talked about my fabric selections for the seat covers with my wife and she had a few ideas. I'm going to finalize my selection today and place the order tomorrow. That should make the first camping trip of the year (first weekend in May) be done in style. The van should feel almost new on the inside by then.

Grill Project Complete

Yesterday I finally finshed repainting my front grills. I really hope all that prep work paid off and the paint lasts for at least a couple of years. You can't really tell from the photographs but the paint has a texture to it that feels rather unspraypaint-ish. I'm happy with it for now. It will certainly do for at least a couple of years. At some point I want to change over to a South African grill to get the extra set of headlights and get increased power but that is a rather pricey upgrade so I'm not in a rush. There is a lot of other stuff I'd rather do before that. Anyway here is the before and after pictures

Amazing Knowledge Gained!

I was just poking around on the GoWesty site and I learned something amazing. I've got this horrible "chrome" trim around all of my windows on my van. The finished has flaked off and looks completely terrible. I thought that my only option to fix it was to either find some way to hide what is there or replace all of the window seals on the van. Replacing the seals would cost at least $500 for new seals so I had pretty much ruled that options out. However, I found an article on GoWesty that said that the "chrome" was just plastic sitting in a rubber groove and could easily be removed without compromising the integrity of the seal. I trust what the people at GoWesty say so I immediately went out to my van and ripped one of the trim pieces out. It really is easy! Now my windows look awesome! I took a before and an after but the lighting on the after was a little screwy. Anyway...

Before:

After:

Tomorrow I will do the rest of the van and if the weather is decent I'll post some new pictures. I warn you though, the van is really dirty right now.

Powder Coating!

Its been a few days since my last update but a lot has been happening with the van. First off I have been driving the van around a bit and it sounds wonderful. The new fuel pump is much quieter than the old one and I haven't seen or heard any of the symptoms that I was getting before.

I'm still working on repainting the front grills. I've read that paint is all about prep work prep work prep work so I am really taking my time to do a good job sanding the headlight grill down. I've already worked on it for multiple nights and I'm still not done with the thing. There is more surface area there than it looks like there is.

The most exciting news though is that my wife found me a cheap hookup to get things powder coated. I am limited to a satin black finish but I can get stuff done for basically free. So this weekend I am going to remove parts like my door handles, side mirror mounts, stick shift, emergency brake, and table mount to get them powder coated next week. I've also asked for a quote from the guy to do my bumpers. I really don't know what he will say but I'm pretty sure that no matter what the cost is that it will be really affordable so I will probably get them done as well. I'll certainly post pictures as soon as I get the stuff back. Did I mention that I'm excited about this. Cause if it wasn't clear then I'm really really excited about it.

I also called SewFine. I didn't order anything but I did get all my questions answered. I asked them about how much more leather costs (it basically doubles the price) and I asked them about the install process. I learned that it was going to be a wrestling match to get the covers on but that in the end I would win. They also told me to expect a two to three week turn around on the covers. I'm planning a trip in the van in early May so I've got to get my order in this week. Man I really wish choosing colors was easier. I'm trying to decide between all Vanagon brown like the back of my current seats or all Vanagon brown but with a black stripe down the middle. I think I'm just going to go with one color to make things cheaper. I'll just have to make my door panels have some color on them to avoid the overwhelming brown. I think it will look good though and wear really well. Maybe I'll order tomorrow.