Club Kombi (part 2)
 
     
 

Club Kombi - Installment 2 (2001)

For the first 12 months of its life, the Club Kombi was based at Andrew's house in Coromandel Valley. Volunteers were limited to those able to travel south for an evening's work. When Andrew moved house, a new base for the vehicle was needed. Rob Gilbert, of North East Powder Coaters came to the rescue, offering space in his workshop. The new location suited members of the club who lived on that side of town. A core group soon formed: with Rob being joined by Ken Rowlands, Dave Furlong and Peter Toome (ably assisted by son Andrew when available). With a suitable venue, we met regularly on the 3rd and 4th Wednesday's of the month and as many Saturday's as we could fit in. All of the group had projects of their own on the go: Ken a 54 Beetle, Dave, Rob and Peter splitties. These poor project cars languished in a state of neglect once we started work on the club van.

 

 

First priority was rust removal - cutting out the worst panels and grafting in new or reclaimed parts. Graeme Bell came to our aid with a donor Kombi, which to then had been used as a wood shed. The collection of this car is a story in its own right - with horrid tales of trying to pull the car up a sodden slope on a wet day...

The angle grinders and gas axe soon came out to carve out the salvageable parts from the donor. Many parts which were not needed by the Club found their way off to help other Kombi owners with their resto's.

Worst section of all was the area of the roof above the left side cargo doors. Dave Furlong achieved the impossible, grafting in a complete section from the donor. Temporary struts were welded across the door openings to keep them aligned while the sections were replaced. The left inner and outer sill panels were also replaced. Fortunately the right side of the van was in much better condition than the left.

 

On some nights there were 2 Mig welders running side by side on various panels; grinders running on others... what a racket. The left dog-leg too was in sad shape and Pete took on the task of fitting a replacement unit. One important lesson here - don't assume that any two parts will line up: when the door was finally fitted the panel and dogleg did not line up properly, requiring a neat incision to allow the metal to be eased out enough to bring the two together; some fill welds and a clean up with the grinder and all was well again.

 
 

... Go back to part 1 or on to next installment...