Woody my 72/73 bay window resto project .......an epic tale of rust.......

Discussion in 'Restorations' started by Diddymen, Aug 11, 2011.

  1. Coming soon to a restoration section near you............

    A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.........
    It is a period of civil war. Rebel
    campervans, striking from a hidden
    garage, have won their first victory
    against the evil Galactic Empire of Rust.




    During the battle, Rebel spies managed
    to steal secret plans to the Empire's
    ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an
    armoured space station with enough
    power to completely rust out an entire fleet of vans.




    Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents,
    Princess Diddymen races home aboard his
    trusty (rusty) MGB, custodian of the stolen
    plans that can save his fellow bay window owners
    from cutting off the wrong bits and to restore his
    restoration thread to its former glory……......




    With his home planet of TLB V2.0 destroyed by the
    Empire's Death Star our hero Princess Diddymen
    has sought refuge on TLB V 3.0 to re group and
    recruit more members for the rebel splinter group the SMG................


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    Deefer66, paulcalf and konaboy6284 like this.
  2. Honky

    Honky Administrator

    You new posts since 3.0 have had a certain humour about them.
     
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  5. hmm dont seem to be able to insert multi quotes where I want them??

     
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  6. Edit:- Welcome to my restoration thread, I hope you enjoy reading it :) I've decided to repost the lot to recap and to help me appreciate how far I've come as I've been a bit down about how long its taking me....so it may take a bit of time to get up to speed with current work.

    Thought I'd better pop up an intro for any one reading this for the first time as its getting quite a long thread!! so if your a glutten for punishment read on :lol: I do tend to ramble on a bit too so sorry in advance :) .
    The restoration has taken me (so far) about 1yr 11 moths (working most weekends) and my aim is to try to get the body work as close to "factory" as possible. My expectations dont always match my skill levels and I know its never going to be like it was from the factory but I know at the end of it I will have one solid bus. My skills have greatly improved through out the resto learning new tricks and tips along the way which I'll post up to share and I've tried to explain in as much detail (with loads of pics) how I've approached a repair in the hopes that others will find it useful or give the confidence to learn new skills and have a go, I've also posted a couple of "how to's" for some repairs. I'm not a "purest" so there will be a few modifications along the way but these repairs/modifications will be done to the same standard as all the rest of the work. I am currently at the last stages of welding and then I can start the long task of getting ready to paint it but you can read about that on the last few pages. I try to update the thread weekly with any thing I've done on the bus so be sure to check back now and again :)
    I'm always happy to answer any questions or chat, at the end of the day us V dubbers are in this together for the love of the vehicles :) Any way thats enough of me rambling on.


    It all started back in November 2009 with my first post on JK, are you sitting comfortably??? ....then lets begin..........................................


    Hi all,[br /][br /]I thought I'd post my resto on here as well. I've copied the first part from my other thread on JK to get up to speed here.[br /][br /]With 2 kids under 5 and my work commitments I don't get a lot of time so don't expect this to be a quicky :) [br /][br /]I'm currently working on the underside, got to do both sills and the usual 6inches round the bottom (ooh err mrs) It's amazing how long it all takes, in fact it doesn't look loke I've done a lot - I'm blaming that on the weather.......[br /][br /]I got my bus in September and have already started cutting out the rot and will hopefully get up to speed on where I am now very shortly.[br /]I'm doing all the work outside as my garage is home to my MGB, which means I'm really at the mercy of mother nature.[br /][br /][​IMG][br /][br /][br /][​IMG][br /][br /][​IMG][br /] [br /][br /]And here's a few more pics, as you can see the battery tray will need doing as will both rear lower corners[br /]Any one know what those small holes in the rear corner next to the valance are for - and no I don't mean the rust holes [br /][br /][​IMG][br /][br /][​IMG][br /][br /][​IMG][br /][br /]Some repairs needed to the tail gate opening, rear corner and bottom of sliding door[br /][br /][​IMG][br /][br /][​IMG][br /][br /][​IMG][br /]
     
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    Pickles likes this.
  7. ......That doesnt look too bad thought princess Diddymen just minor blaster marks from one of the empires battle cruisers .....little did our hero know that the whole corner would be chopped for that little rust bubble in a years time

    Better have a look at the rest

    next post 16th November 2009....

    sliding door track, lower outer rear arch - looks like it's had some sill work done - more on that later!
    More work to lower sliding door

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    Off side (drivers) sill ...looks like it has been replaced at some point ???

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    front pics

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    edit - this is the area Im working on at the moment
     
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    Pickles likes this.
  8. Rear off side corner and rear wheel arch. Mmmm will that be filler or rust under there.
    Front driver side wheel arch
    off side sill - looks like it's been replaced at some time?? guess again

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  9. inner and outer b post area and end of sill and the passanger door

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  10. .......still in November 2009



    and on the other side

    I've started work on this side and have cut out a lot of metal to get rid of that terrible patch job

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  11. YAY for princess Diddymen, Glad your putting this back up again, i shall re read it as you go coz its a damn good read! :)

    On you go then............
     
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  12. Why thank you Major :) very kind of you to say so

    hopefully I wont bore too many people with the re-posting .....but I think it would make for some good reading on a cold winters evening :)

    I was quite proud of the original thread, looking at one of the cached pages I saved from google, it had, had 13,400 veiws :)

    I think Im going to enjoy re posting as I've not read it start to finish my self, so it will remind me how far I've come
     
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  13. .......back to the tale then,

    Our hero Princess Diddymen takes the trusty X wing camper to the swamps of Dagobah (where he suspects the camper may have lived at some point judging by some of the rot) for his wise old friend Yoda to give him a second oppinion..........

    (still in November 2009)

    Cab area and seat belt mount - a bit of work to do here. If those patches on the floor are like the ones I've already removed then there will be a lot of hidden rot underneath.

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    Edit - .....and there was!
     
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  14. Drivers side - the seat belt repair patch was removed to reveal some nasty rot.

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  15. Dash and rear seatbelt mounts :lol

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  16. Removed the belly pans, they were so rotten I could rip most of it off by hand! check out all the rust - most of which I caught - shown here, I wonder where it all came from.......
    Will add more pictures soon of what I found underneath :shock:

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  17. .....yes still only November 2009........

    This is the first bus I've owned and restored and hopefully this thread will be keep your all amused :lol:
    It's taken me a year or so to convince my wife to let me get one. I've been into classic vehicles for some time, cutting my teeth on another German classic the Opel Manta mooving through a few modern cars, a kit car (caterham copy) then onto my MGB which really got me into classic vehicles. My wife and 2 boys (3 and 4yr olds)have been comming with me to classic car shows for a few years now but I've always wanted to get there in my classic. Having 2 seats the MGB was not going to achive that.

    So I've been after a classic the whole family can come out in all at once so we can go to car shows and as a bonus we can go camping ;D
    I wanted a bus that was tax exempt and cheap that I could restore to our own spec.
    After meantioning to a friend I was on the look out for a bus he said he had seen one parked up for many years in some ones drive and would stop and ask them if it was for sale on his way home from work. Next day I spoke to him, he didn't go home that way as the traffic was bad but coinidently the route had taken him past another bus in a driveway with a for sale sign in the window. Details taken I went to see it after work, my wife came with me the next day for a look and the rest is history! - it was fate

    Edit:- dont necessarily buy the first bus you see ::)

    It was actually the first bus I'd looked at :-[ I had a poke around and could see the out riggers all needed doing, a few patches here and there but at least the sills looked ok :lol: So I knew there was a bit of work to be done.
    I had it trailored home as it had not moved for about 4years, my neighbour and the trailor guy had to push it up my drive way (40ft of broken crazy paving hell with low tyre pressure :mrgreen: ) - I steered!
    We got it into my neighbours garden and called it a day.
    Next day I got a new battery and we tryed staring it - nothing - poked around found starter was dead.
    I couldn't get the new starter until the next weekend as I was working but my neighbour said he'd get one for me and I could pay him later....he's a great guy
    The next day he phoned me to listen to my engine running!! He'd got the new starter, fitted it, pumped through some petrol, smelt it, tasted it, chucked some on the ground and set light to it he said it was ok, connected the carb back up and it fired in about 15 seconds and ran very smoothly. We had checked the plug, points, dizzy etc. the day I'd got it home.
    I knew the engine was in pretty good nick as it was a fairly new 1600 vega but I was still worried about how long it was sitting around for. Don't forget this was also on 4yr old fuel!.

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    Pickles likes this.
  18. Yoda: Mmmm scrap it you should, humour and content your early posts lack. You are still naive my young padawan but the force is strong in you

    Princess Diddymen: but master Yoda I cant scrap it I've already given it a name and everything, it will only take a year and about a grand to fix it

    Yoda: not listening you are hmmm. Technically the Princess didnt visit Dagobah to under go training hmmm and short it will be that readers will tire of your poor star wars references. How long do you think you can fit star wars into your resto

    Princess Diddymen: I will keep it up for as long as I can, or until I get three different posters telling me to stop because it is getting tiersome (said whilst wearing the bikini out fit from Jabbas palace)

    Yoda: (sighs and mutters under breath) Jabbas palace you have not even visited yet at least get the time line right

    Princess Diddymen: But you dont even know who my real father is yet........

    to be continued...............
     
  19. Zed

    Zed Gradually getting grumpier

    You've lost it dude. Take a break in a tent. ;)
     
  20. ;D

    Ahh OB wan kenobi enters the scene........

    or is it really Zed Vader ???

    Oops that might spoil the plot .....which I may have lost :)

    Thanks for popping in here zed :)
     

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