Ploon's '73 bus
This bus has been sold on march 11th 2000

17 oct '99 it's now saturday night and i've just come back from friday nights LVWCN committee meeting. blew the flipping eninge on the way back.

As luck would have it only a few km from breda which is near a couple of good friends of mine. Wim Brooimans from the clubshop just happend to be 5 minutes behind me and he towed me to his place 3km down the road. i stayed there overnight and called hans early in the morning. We got the bay over to his workshop 10 km away and started to take the engine out. the engine got new head, cylinders and pistons last summer. but the bottom end was still the old stuff.
One drive shaft bearing gave way and went straight up through the case :-( 1 case, cylinder and piston are gone. The plan is to get a bottom end redone and put the other stuff on that with a new cylinder/piston from the clubshop.
we tried to get an old engine of hans up and running so i could drive the bus home. we almost had it going , but then we realised it was a beetle engine: no engine support bar/mounts.
hans was so kind to lend me his old passat so i've got a car to drive to work this week.

19 oct '99
These pictures are made by Hans. another cylinder/piston combo hasn't survived the crash :-( One of the pictures shows the hole in the top of the case. it's about an inch wide

Chassis: 2232166496 Engine: A just rebuilt 1600cc DP, solex 34 pict3 single-carb Original engine: AD 813690, 1600cc 37kh/50bhp Produced on: 19.03.73 Delivered on: 20.03.73 For sale in: The Netherlands Date of sale: 06.04.73 Original color: Pastellweiß L90D/060660 pastel white Current color: Yellow and White (brushed on DIY store paint) (used to be Aqua on white) Lisence plates: (no personalized plates in Holland but this is still pritty cool with the repeating numbers and the letters are for the part of the country we live in: ZeeLand)

Work to be done: Fix the sliding door Secure the middle bench with special bolts

the story so far:
used some kind of fosforic acid to clean out the rust in the tank. worked fine
so the tank is now back in. the engien had to come out to do the tank. just before we were about to put the engine back in i asked hans to tighten the oil filler neck hollow-bolt thingy with his special tool. disaster strikes when the nut breaks and some debris fals into the engine :-0
Bug Jam was only 1.5 weeks away and ferry tickets and all are booked. so hans propposes to rebuild an engine with a spare 1600cc case he has at home. this engine has been rebuilt once before so no need to split the case. we put new heads, cylinders and pistons on this engine. as well as a new pully, pushrod tubes and spark plug leads. my old tin and exhaust finish it all of
so with a week to spare before BJ i start running in the engine on the way to work.
it behaved perfectly on the Bug Jam trip. only a bit of an oil leak on the way back. probably the engine/flywheel seal.
one of the nuts on the sump lid was busted and it was a bit of a pain to replace that one as it's the one that also hold the deflector inside the case

More detailed info on this page

BIG thanks to Classic VW Restoration Holland

The inside of the rusty fuel tank (you are looking through the sender hole)


The engine, bus and fueltank


new color:

1998

1997

1996