AircooledTech.com - Camper Interior

Camper Interior Removal, Fabrication & Restoration

If you own a VW bus, I don't need to tell you what a versatile vehicle it is. If you've ever been camping in a VW bus, you know what a fun experience it cam be. If you don't have a camper but always wanted to add that capability to your bus, than keep reading, because I'll walk you through some of what's involved with making your kombi a "kamper".

The bus pictured in this series of articles is my '66 E-Z Camper. The original interior had been hacked up by a previous owner and "restored" with, what appeared to be, the skill level of a kindergartener!! Needless to say, it was falling apart, was embarrassing to have my friends see and it just simply had to go. Since it was an E-Z Camper, I didn't feel the desire to do a true "back-to-original" type of restoration like I would if it was a true Westy. So with that in mind, I set out to create an interior that fit my families needs both as a people transporter AND as a camper.

What I did to get ideas as to what I wanted out of my interior, was to take my camera to a couple O.C.T.O. bus shows and take photos of features that I liked out of various campers in attendance. That way I could take the best of what I saw and create an interior with just the features I wanted without all the stuff I didn't. Click on the links below to follow the various stages involved in building my interior.

I must remark by saying that anyone thinking about doing this type of restoration project needs to really figure out first weather they have the time, tools and the wood-working ability to pull it off. I had time but absolutely NO tools OR wood-working ability, so those came in the form of a trip to my father's house for a couple weeks. ;-) He's got the wood tools and talent to use them correctly so that things come out good.

Specialized wood tools used for this project included: a table saw w/ good carbide tipped blades, router w/ carbide tipped blades, random orbital sander, belt sander, jig saw, chop saw, biscuit cutter, 14V drill/screw gun, Roto-Zip, drill press & various clamps, squares, measuring devices and probably a host of other things I don't know the names of

Believe it or not, we worked on this project for 8 full days from about 8:00am until midnight only breaking for lunch, dinner and trips to the store for supplies!! So pack a lunch folks!! It's not something you can throw together in a day or two, so be aware.

Before:

Before Restoration Shots - What it was. . .

Prep & Fabrication:

Stripping & Prepping The Bare Interior - Adding insulation, sound mat and prepping the floors.

Z-bed Installation & Fabrication - Installing a late model Z-bed mechanism and fabbing custom bed panels

Interior Panel Fabrication & Installation - The making of a custom camper interior

After:

The Finished Camper Interior - What it's like now. . . Check it out!!

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