Topic: Gusbus; our 1973 LHD Tintop Bay resto (Read 2524 times)

MarkC68 · « **on:** Thu 29/10/09, 13:16 »

Hi everyone, here's our 1973 Bay , she's a LHD Tintop. Bought September 2008 with no interoir but supposedly restored from the ground 12" upwards, yeah right!!! Here she is:

Plenty of work was carried out in the engine bay:

Both chassis rails from the rear axle back were rotten and poorly welded up by the PO, all this had to be removed and replaced along with the rear valance and outer skin. New battery trays had to be welded in and the mudgaurds needed replacing.

MarkC68 · « **Reply #1 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 13:22 »

After stripping bits off a few weeks after buying her, we unearthed quite a bit more rotten metal, poor welds with non existant strength and in the meantime, we had new panels arriving. In places we had to fabricate sections, luckily we have a good source of sheet auto steels of various thickness'.
Here we have a new chassis rail top but behind it we found the splash guard and inner section rotten:

We made a splash guard up, not an original part but hey ho, once POR'd and the rest of the panels/sections back, it will do the job! Its just tacked on at the moment, new battery tray to go in and infill sections to be welded to the top!

We turned our attention to the lh/rh chassis rails as these fell away with the rear inner & outer valances:

However, these are sat waiting to go on:

MarkC68 · « **Reply #2 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 13:27 »

Next up, we got stuck in concentrating on the RH Chassis Rail and getting the rear valance back in and welded up in some sort of good alignment:

After this was sorted out, we then welded the chassis rail back up nice and solid:

The steelwork was ground up to remove any signs of spotwelding/seamwelding and the battery tray was lined up to see how it sits:

Our next stages are the battery tray and right hand side light cutout as this was poorly welded and filled rather than the panels blended into each other:

MarkC68 · « **Reply #3 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 13:33 »

Leading up to christmas, we just completed the right hand battery tray and a few patches here n there ready to take a break:

Battery tray spot welded in, the gaps in the seam filled:

The chassis rails have been given a quick coat of POR15 to prevent rusting over the christmas break:

MarkC68 · « **Reply #4 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 13:36 »

In the weeks following christmas, we got the rear valance welded back up, left hand battery tray welded up and seams sealed plus the flanged bits for the engine bay seal:

It needed some attention to the lip for the engine door, they have rotted away. The hinges need removing and re aligning and new pins making up.
Te battery tray looks better and fits nice and snug, we had to patch bits the PO bodged up, not perfect I know but it will not be noticeable when undersealed/painted up.

The seams where the engine bay to tinware seals go all had to be remade as the steel on the old sections was past there best - we saved the best we could and made new bits to suite. All welded up amd seam sealed too!

MarkC68 · « **Reply #5 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 13:39 »

We foumd some serious rot to the axle where the tapered cups come off the chassis rail onto the axle - these had to be ground off and replaced along with some repairs to the chassis rails here.
The right hand rear wheelarch tub had some rotten patches but these got sorted and replaced, zinc primered and POR15'd:

Meanwhile the engine bay has got a good lick of paint too which made a big difference:

MarkC68 · « **Reply #6 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 13:42 »

Work in progress at the moment is the sills and door runner sections work as we need to replace them. Poked a bit towards the seat back and found some filler:

Investigated further and it was worse than suspected:

So we are gonna go the whole kit n kaboodle and replace the floor, all outriggers/jacking points and sill assemblys both sides:

I have some more images to download onto photobucket with the floor completely removed, the inner, middle and outer sill under the sliding door removed. I'll see what time I get in the week!

MarkC68 · « **Reply #7 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 13:46 »

Been busy this last week, welded in the rear outrigger/jacking point, went well. Got both of the inner & middle sill sections welded in successfully along with the front outrigger/jacking point. Had to chop some rotten metalwork out of the back of the front wheelarch & tub. Bugger!

Whilst we was under the Van, we noticed that the Front Beam has a pair of adjusters welded to it - nice find and eBay turned up a pair of nice Saab 9-5 charcoal leather seats (I chucked the oldies away). Pics to follow!

hailfrank · « **Reply #8 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 17:27 »

that is some proper work going into that!

MarkC68 · « **Reply #9 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 18:19 »

Theres more to come too, got plenty of :mad: yet

MarkC68 · « **Reply #10 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 18:40 »

Anyway, got a bit done this week - replaced some metal from the right hand bulkhead and door pillar, got it welded in, ground up, bit of galvo-weld on it just needs filling a bit when the rest of the inside is done:

Next week we hope to get the front top hat section in and welded up!

MarkC68 · « **Reply #11 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 18:44 »

Not a lot going on these past couple of weeks, we had a struggle sorting some bits out on the right hand bulkhead, the steel was thin on the lower part where the radius'd but curves round, looks messy. Think we need to re do this bit:

But we did get the front wheelarch sorted and some sealer put on, I've been scraping underseal off for the past couple of days. Looks much better though:

Next job is to get it red oxide painted & POR 15 treated. Next update will be in a couple of weeks at the most!

bigrich · « **Reply #12 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 20:00 »

good work fella,keep it up.

MarkC68 · « **Reply #13 on:** Thu 29/10/09, 20:41 »

Cheers Rich, we sure will!

We didnt much like the state of the steel round the wheelarech as I mentioned earlier, it looked messy and the metal was too thin. We chopped it back out again and replaced the metal with some new and although it looks a bit better, it will do for now until we can turn the bus and get underneath to dress and add a bit more. The inside will be made great when we get the floor back in:

We have done a repair on the top of the wheelarch tub where there was a nasty piece of metal bodged in. It came up good:

We are kinda struggling at the front end at the moment, the van needs turning but to do this we gotta sort the floor, electrics, replace all the brake lines and re fit the engine (1641 remtec motor, bnib :sp:)

dog · « **Reply #14 on:** Fri 30/10/09, 18:20 »

this must've taken ages to re put up?
keep up the good work buddy

zebedee · « **Reply #15 on:** Fri 30/10/09, 18:24 »

Whoa, quite a bit of chassis work been done there.

MarkC68 · « **Reply #16 on:** Fri 30/10/09, 18:29 »

Dog it did take ages to copy over, about an hour or so! Zebedee we look to have the same rust issues as each other!!

dog · « **Reply #17 on:** Sat 31/10/09, 17:16 »

i love that you can't write ze bedee

zebedee · « **Reply #18 on:** Sat 31/10/09, 17:46 »

I don't.

dog · « **Reply #19 on:** Sat 31/10/09, 17:48 »

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