i thought this might inspire others who find theirselves up against a problem. Bryan my welder and i had been working on Rhubarbs resto since sept 2010 , we had renovated the front end on the restricted area of my drive as was , we had replaced all the out riggers jacking points , sills inner and outer and part of the front end , we in affect were at the rear end close to the finish -- in March this year we moved house , where i had a warm garage and a pit , we decided to tow Rhubarb on a bar behind Bryans landy , on the way i noticed the rear nearside wheel was splaying . when we finally highered the garage door and got rhubarb over the pit we discovered this - The rear torsion beam had split all around the equally rotten chassis , just cause for hissy fit and despair , i nearly wept , a lot but being the pig headed dope i am i set about a cure and with a little help from my tlb friends decided on a inner tube fix thus - It was a bugger to get off but with a lot of heat it came out from the wrong end -- no access to slide in a 89mm tube there :-[ keep the rubbers safe http://s863.photobucket.com/albums/ab191/poptop2/?action=view¤t=rearbeam009.jpg so no option but too cut it off , a saw would have been better but i ground it off with a lot of fiddling and danger The new tubing - 89mm x 4mm Cut down to slot in Thus - note the ingenius clamping :-[ you get the gist - inner tube yeah ?. inner and outer tubing Busman advised me to make a disc as extra strength Ready for the insert and weld up eight=600 src="http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/ab191/poptop2/reararm001.jpg" /> Back in Then we had to do the same to the offside , only this time i took off too much of the torsion arm steel and had to sleeve it all the way back - This nearly made me scrap my van , but with sheer determination and a will to find the way i got the project back on course , you can too if you think about it
This was what was left of the off side after grinding and tugging , you can see how the tube slotted in to the main beam , once it was welded in from this side another disc was made for the other side to strengthen the chassis join , we then 8mm plug drilled the outer beam to the inner beam in 16 places . Its now stronger than when it was made ( hopefully ) and its 3mm tubing not 4mm as put earlier , but it did set us back with the resto , quite a bit .
It all looks pretty rotten back there. Surely there comes a time when welding rotten parts is no-longer viable. Welding bits together I'd be thinking this'll never be as strong as it was intended. It would be a nightmare if it were to collapse when you're on the road. From a safety sake, if it were me I would have bought new parts.
Yep that was my dilemna , tbh honest once i'd cut out the bad and cleaned up the good it was worth it , i found that the bits i expected to be rotten were'nt and the bits i thought were good were'nt , so although that bit was bad other bits are rock solid . Then theres the problem of sourcing those parts , most are only available secondhand , not always in better nick either , so you either fabricate something or scrap it . i have no idea how it got so bad in those places ???
well done on that, I know it caused you a whole lot of heart ache ......well the whole bus did. ........but you've stuck with it and your proof that nothing is beyond repair with a little bit of time, thought and determination A man after my own heart top work Malc
only just realised you had to do this buddy. my god what a ballache! so glad to be able to say that mine just needs a little bit of fettling in this area, think that would have sent me over the edge!
I had trouble finding a tube... so used a acro prop my hole was not round... ??? I know what I will use.... ;D It`s not pretty, but it is very strong...
