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

Oooops forgot to link the pics :

 

I was going to go in to work today but decided against it in the end and I'm glad I did as the weather was dry

Managed to get a bit of welding done. I've welded in a couple of floor repairs and part of the inner front wheel arch. I meantioned this in an earlier post and hopefully you'll know what I was talking about from the pictures.

In the end it was probably only 4 hours work as I stopped for a lunch break and cup of tea. I was only really stopped by the diminishing daylight, and no sooner had I finished it started to rain.

The welds will still need a bit of tidying and I can then get the other floor patch welded in. But it's slow going as I weld, grind back, weld again, grind back, weld up pin holes I've missed, grind back......

 

Hopefully I'll get a bit more done tomorrow but I think the rain is here to stay for the rest of the week end

Here's a few more before and after pic's from todays work

 

My welder only has 4 settings so I can't get the accuracy of yours but I'll certainly crank it up - probably try 2nd highest setting first.

I had already bought a top hat section (with lots of holes : ) I think I'll make my own at work on the bending machine if I need any more.

As predicted last week end, Sunday was raining
I managed to tack in another small floor repair inside, couldn't do much more so went swimming with the family (Not in the garden although it was nearly wet enough)

I'll finish the rest of this weld when the top hat section is in as when I weld along the join it will also be fixing the top hat to the floor along with plug welding through the old spot welds.

 

Yoda: Board with these re posts your readers must be getting hmmm. Content and speed your early posts lack .....I sense too many tea breaks were had hmmm

Princess Diddymen: Listen do you want to hear the rest of this story??

Yoda: Not really.........carry on posting though you will : I fear

Princess Diddymen: I could always go to cloud city, Lando Calrissian would probably listen to me

R2D2: beep beep whistle beep woooo

Yoda: I knew he would say that

 

Thanks Mark .....if the Star wars theme gets tiresome let me know. ;D

Just thought I'd spice it up a bit for any one re reading it ;D

Nice to see gus busses thread going back up too, I forgot how much you did in the early stages too .....I'll be over in a bit to read a bit more of yours

 

You could have fixed a bit instead of all this re-posting. We know where you were, and you can always add the odd recap?
In fact, thinking about it, you've been slacking for months. :zedfingerwag:

 

;D I'm going all out for the reposts as they were. I think there was quite a lot of good info on it(mostly from others though ;D )

Thanks Zed ;D , I'm nearly there with the welding now I've got 10 more bits to go ;D .....I do think I spend as much time on my resto thread as I do acctually working on the bus ........any way hows yours going

I will add the odd up to date pic just to muck up the time line

and zed.....you know where my other thread is ;D Im keeping that up to date until this one is back on course ......but it hasnt got any star wars references Im afraid ;D

............December 2009

I've been held up a bit (not just by the weather) as I've been waiting to borrow some scaffolding so I can build a tent over the bus, but as it is a favour from a mate I can't keep hasstling him.(that never happened in the end )
Once I've tented the bus in I was going to borrow a shot blaster from work for the week end to do the underside of the bus. (that never happened either)
I wanted to do this before I put the top hat section in and the sills etc. But as I don't know when this will happen I decided to take off the rust with a wire brush in my grinder and for the difficult to reach bits I used a wire brush in my drill. It was a lot slower and harder work than shot blasting :
I wiped the panels down with white spirit to clean the dust and any grease off. I then used some Jellonite liquid I've got to treat the rust, not sure I like it as it is quite runny and you're supposed to : keep coating every five minuits - as I've got 10 litres of the stuff I don't think I'll go buying any thing elses though!!.(I did though, and I dont like using the stuff anymore) After 2 coats I let it dry whilst I had a cup of tea. Gave it another coat of Jelonite rust killer and wiped off immediatly, left it to dry for 30mins as per instructions and had another cuppa Once dry I gave it a coat of etch primer, Hopefuly if its not raining tomorrow I might get some POR15 on it as I don't like leaving bare primer as it can absob moisture.

Heres some pictures, the first wheel arch panel that I welded in (also shown from the inside in an earlier post) and the under side after primer - I'm actually quite pleased with it It's not in bad condition really.

 

Heres some more pics of the underside, you might just make out the holes in the bottom of the chassis, the bottom edge is also heavily pitted. I'm not sure if I should just weld in new metal to the holed areas or to cut out the pitted areas and weld in new bits there as well.
I probably will end up cutting out the pitted areas as well - I did in the end!!

 

I discovered a great welding technique last week (by that I mean well over a year ago). Whilst browsing another forum I came across a technique using a 2pence piece under a hole to stop the weld blowing through. Further searching found a description. By placing a piece of copper under a hole you can plug weld it up using a MIG welder, The weld will not stick to the copper and the copper acts as a heat sink to reduce distortion. The back of the weld is a lot neater needing less grinding (ideal if the grinder can't get in there)and there is no risk of blowing a hole in thin metal.
I've been welding for a few years and this is the first time I've heard of it or used it. I'll be using this when butt welding some bits - especially if I cant get behind the weld to grind down. It is a great techneque I will be using it a lot ;D
You can buy a tool called a welders helper or copper spoon but I have made one using an old piece of copper pipe hammered flat at one end.

I'll try and get some photos posted of the process next time I use it in the mean time I might put a post on the tech forum.



Heres a picture of the one I made

 

Yoda: the first of many Jedi tricks you are learning young student, but porus is primer. Rust it will if left.

Princess Diddymen: I know that, I will paint it with someting

Yoda: a product you will come to know called epoxy mastic will be your frined against rust

Princess Diddymen: yea what ever, I know what Im doing

Yoda: do you really??? A planet we must now go to called Tatooine, and a wise Jedi master we must meet

R2D2: whistle beep beep whistle, long whistle

Yoda: I knew he'd say that

So off they set across the system leaving the swamps of Dagobah far behind

 

Last weekend I managed to get a bit more done, I also took Tuesday off work as the weather was supposed to be good to crack on.
Got the front top hat welded into the floor (still got to seam weld to the old top hat)and the floor repairs have been welded up. It was difficult grinding back the welds as they were so close to the front seat rear panel so I had to resort to my rotory file/burr grinder thing. I'm not too happy with how they turned out but a skim of filler will tidy it up (and it will be covered up by the flooring)
I painted my first coat of black underneath to seal it up from the elements. I used POR15 which is supposed to be extreamly hard and resillient to impact. It is quite expensive and supposed to be the best.

 

I decided that as the weather was fine on Tuesday I'd clean off a bit more of the underside.

I was planning on shot blasting the underside as I'd been promised the loan of one, I wanted to get a tent put over the bus first and I was going to build it out of scaffold. A friend was going to lend me some, but I've decided not to wait as I don't know when he will be able to get it to me. So as this has been holding me up a bit I decided to remove the rust and clean up the underside using a wire brush attachment on my grinder and wire brushes in my drill for the hard to get to bits.
I then wipe every thing down with white spirit, treated rust with jelonite liquid rust killer (wiping off last coat as per instructions) left to dry then overcoated with etch primer. Once this was done I then gave it a coat of POR15.
Looking lovely
When I was cleaning a bit more off on Tuesday I ran over some of the cured POR15 with my wire brush in drill and it stripped it back to bare metal , I'd read that even grinding would not shift POR15 but mine was coming off easily. I could also chip it and scratch it with my screwdriver This stuff is supposed to be bomb proof
You might be able to make out the scratched areas in the photo

 

Yoda: Listen to me you didnt hmmmm, thats Tatooine over there, find a space to park you must. too close you are to that satelite slow down a bit

Princess Diddymen: I know how to drive you know

R2D2 .............

 

o.k. so I didn't follow the POR15 recommended prep (marine clean, metal ready, POR15 etc.) so it was probably my fault. I also read that even the slightest condensation on the metal would cure the paint before it had bonded to the metal, it said that even your breath could cause this. I was wearing a face mask but I suppose it could be due to the weather? the surface looked bone dry ???

Either way my confidence has been shaken in POR15.
I've decided to buy some epoxy mastic 121 instead as this was near the cost of buying the extra POR15 products I need to apply POR15 properly, and at this time of year POR15 may still be crap.
I'll buy the other POR15 bits next year and follow the instructions to the letter to give it a chance at redemption, I know a lot of people have used it and got excellent results.

 

Decided not to work any overtime this afternoon - I've got to work all day Sunday and a night shift Sunday night so I decided to try and get as much done today and tomorrow as I can.
In reality by the time Ive got home and sorted a few bits out, got set up etc I've only got about 2hrs of light so I didn't get that much done :
I welded in another top hat repair, this time only an end section. You may have noticed the sill was in in one of the last posts, this was only clamped in place so I could see how long the top hat section needed to be. I had taken measurements before chopping the old one off last month but I wanted to check it was right with the sill in place. Both measurements worked out to be the same.
I'd cut the last usable pieces out of the new tophat section I'd bought as the light was fading on Tuesday, unfortunatly one has a gap of about 1.5mm when clamped in place. Due to the lack of any other bits to cut down to the right size and my impatience I decided to weld this bit in (using a copper backing piece.)
I clamped it in place using the jacking point to reference it against, tack and plug welded it from inside the van then took the clamps off and removed the sill. I could then seam weld the rest.

 

Theres still a few pin holes I've got to fill but it's not too bad, I couldn't grind it compleatly smooth as I couldn't get the grinder in and I'd started grinding away the tophat's lip by this point.

 

I've got one more top hat end to weld on this side before the sill can go on.
Before I do the other top hat I have to do a repair to the bottom of the rear wheel arch where the end of the sill joins to, as you can see theres not much of it left. I wont be able to get to this area very well if I weld in the rear top hat just yet.
I think this is going to be very tricky to form this section due to it curving in different planes.
I may have to do some other small floor repairs around the C post area, there is no bottom to the C post either so I'll have to make a repair up. Not sure if I need the sill in before the C post bottom : any tips on this?? how to make a C post bottom?



It's frustrating only doing little bits, I'm itching to get some big bits on.

Saturday started making up the repair for the rear corner, it is extreamly difficult due to my lack of tin bashing skill and it took all day to make this one piece so don't laugh. Well by the time I'd got up, had breakfast etc I got 2 hours done before being called in for lunch. Eldest had a birthday party at 3pm so I had to look after youngest, so I got 3 hours work done which was the whole day for me really.

I've decided the repair doesnt fit as well as I'd like so I'm going to make a new one - what a waste of a dry Saturday :