Lets have a bit of background on dolly shall we.

Like a lot of UK buses, Dolly had been subject to the usual home and MOT repairs and was in places rather like a patchwork quilt! Luckily for the Bungles though, the previous owners had spent quite a lot of time and money buying it as a wreck and sorting the problems out. It looks like they made a pretty good job too. As you can see from the picture below, they really had their work cut out! The only thing that lets Dolly down slightly is the paintwork and this was due to a hurried job as they lost their workspace before they could do a top job. Anyway that didn't stop them using it over the summer of 2005 as a surf bus until the engine let go! A new VEGA unit was fitted about a month before they sold the van to fund a T5 for their surf trips. A real bonus there!

So back to Feb 07 and Dollly is at home with the Bungles. Their first trip out to the 50-67 meet ended with Dolly refusing to start, typical VW behavior! The next trip out was the CVWOC Swap meet which held no surprises but sadly the next trip which was Bristol Volksfest unfortunately resulted in Dolly breaking down before reaching Devon! Sarah, now expecting the worst was suggesting the buying of caravans, but that must have spurned Dolly on as after a little rest she made it to Bristol and with a bit of duct tape.. made it back again no problem.

With no shows imminent, Geoff decided to personalise the interior of the van, after all that's where they were going to spend their time. A new CD player was installed, Seatbelts to secure baby Bungle (William) were put in and the rock n roll bed was renovated. His little helper even helped with making a buddy seat/toy box.

Now for some the next part of the story may be a little dull because for the next few months, Geoff, Sarah and William.... just used Doll for what she was supposed to be used for... camping and having fun. They went on a camping trip to Padstow which went well apart from the howling gales they experienced, they attended the first Flubber Dubbers camping weekend, the CVWOC Jamboree and Vanfest all without a hitch. The last trip they did of the summer of 07 was a trip to Newquay for Mrs Bungle's birthday. Unfortunately Dolly chose that day to throw a bit of a wobbly and broke down on the way home. The AA man was duly called but when he questioned the water under the van and whether it had come from Dolly, they knew that recovery home was better idea than letting him touch it! This seemed like an ideal time to give Dolly a winter break so she was duly driven into the garage for her winter refit.

Over the next few months Geoff decided to sort out a few niggles that dolly was showing. The electrics needed a looking at, a couple of crossmembers underneath needed replacing and the pop top roof needed a freshen up. Starting with the roof, bungle stripped it all down and removed the fiberglass top from the van. This allowed him to repair a section of the rain gutter and remove the paint from the metal roof. When all the paint was gone, he was able to prime the area and start the first of a number of coats of rust resistant paint, applied with a roller. Numerous coats and flatting back later, the roof looked right and a good polish brought it up as good as a spray job, just a lot cheaper and more resistant to the elements!

The pop top roof was next in line for a good renovation. The frame was stripped off, cleaned and painted. The roof itself was again cleaned, flatted back and painted again with the white rustoleum paint. The nasty 70's polystyrene tiles and adhesive were painstakingly removed and the inner surface cleaned up ready for foil backed insulation and carpeting to be applied. A new pop top canvas was ordered and fitted and restored roof air vents were installed. The roof and pop top were now as good as new, possibly better!

Next job was to replace the front and rear crossmembers. Again, not a job a lot of us would tackle, but Bungle was straight in there and within a couple of days, 2 new crossmembers were installed and thoroughly painted with red oxide paint. Benefiting from a pit in his garage definately helped and while he had the paintbrush out, the rust was removed from the underside of the van and it was all treated to more of the red oxide paint. That should keep it nice and rust free.

Geoff now turned his attention to the wiring. He'd been experiencing some electrical niggles so bearing in mind his familiararity with cables in his job as an electrician, he pulled the wiring loom our from the back of the van, back to the fusebox. He inspected the state of the wiring, tested everything and started to repair and replace the damaged cables. After a bit of fiddling and some checking of the ignition components he got everything back together and working. The windscreen washers needed a bit of a joggle but after that everything seemed ready.. A thorough check over again showed pretty much everything to be working so Dolly was put in. All that came back was a sticky door lock and worn handbrake cables. This only took the weekend to attend to and on the return to the test centre and MOT was issued. Hurrah!

So there we go, that's the story of Dolly. It's been laughter and tears as any relationship with an old dub is, but Dolly is ready to attend the shows and go wherever Geoff, Sarah and William decide to take her. So after all this work that Geoff has done on Dolly, what does he want to do next? Bungle is pretty clear on this one... he wants to use the bus, have fun and try not to spend too much more! That seems pretty reasonable to us!

Thanks to Geoff for proving the background info for this article.