I'm Back

Has been a while since I posted but to be honest not much has happened since my last post back in 2011. Bus is in worse shape as I continue to dig away rusted old panels - the more I dig the more rust I find. I guess that is the nature of the beast. Anyway at first glance the floor didn't look too bad - a few patches here and there but a big hole on drivers side front next to bulkhead.

Once I got picking along the bulkhead the rust really became bad. The whole edge was rusted through right along  the joining edge as well as completely through the outriggers, top hat and passenger and drivers side pillars. After taking up the patches, seemed with amount of rust in the rest of the beams and main frame spars, I decided to rip the floor out.

While I was at it I removed the very bad patch of the nose drivers side and will get hold of a complete nose to replace in due course. As I said looking a little worse for wear and sad but better to go through the hard work and pain now so that I will end up with a 100% solid bus in the end. Anyway looks a bit different to when it arrived and was stashed in my garage (blog pic was as it was when it arrived).

Have been waiting on a swag of panel and parts to arrive so that I can get moving on this. Most of these will be here shortly and I will post updates of progress along the way.

Front cab area

Removed the floor just to see what I was dealing with. While the welding was a shitty job by the previous owner, it has been bloody hard to cut out. Took me most of the day to extract the passenger side and middle section and I am still working on the drivers side.

 Looks like I am going to have to replace almost all the metal from the bulkhead forward. There are some parts of the metal that are in ok shape but I figure that while I am cutting and welding I might as well fix it right and so plan to do an order from the local KlassicFab place here in New Zealand. So the money is mounting up with doglegs (both sides), headlight support panel, A Pillar (both sides below the bottom hinge), floor (obviously) nose cone (yeah its a little bit too rough to try and resurrect back to life. For the amount of time and energy required to get it reasonable, it is cheaper and quicker to replace with a new panel).

Looks like I will probably need to also consider replacement of the seat mounting panels on both sides. When the bus had a knock to the nose on the drivers side, it must have been fairly serious as the seat mounting panel is stoved in as well. A bad hammer job to try and fix and, well, best replace. On the passengers side looks like someone has taken a can opener to the side where it mounts to the dog leg. As I said probably best to just replace rather than fart-arse around fixing. I want to do justice to the restoration and rather than do an ok job, I want to make it virtually as good as new again and last another 34 plus years.








Other than this little bit of work, as I have said in my previous blogs, am just waiting on a part to fix my welder. Mind you last week end when I got the air compressor, it wasn't holding the air and while I was checking it out, the regulator snapped off so I am gonna have to replace that piece now before I can get the air cutter going. Just when I am about to start, something else always seems to kick up.

Going to be a big job - there goes plans of having it ready for next summer!! I am probably going to have to build a frame (spinning jenny or similar) so I can flip and get easier access to the sub frame and hard to weld bits. Have to find a set of plans for this though. Hey if anyone out there has a set of plans, would appreciate you contacting me.

Walk around movie

Really haven't done anything else, been away on business all week but finally worked out how to upload a couple of videos on YouTube. Shows just how bad some of the rust is in places. The front drivers quarter is pretty messed up, especially underneath where basically the only thing holding its together is the rust. She is pretty crumpled up so I plan to replace all the bent pieces to make it true and straight again.  Anyway check them out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35taH26Ex6g

and 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifx-EVCSy8U