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.