lol, but there will come a time when your bus has been painted and it will all be forgotten ............then you realise the rebuild will cost even more money and perhapse the welding wasnt all that bad ;D ;D
Last night was the final night for welding – thank god Had loads of bits to do so not many photos as I was working like a mad man. Got the rear valance on – the rear light holding tabs in – the 2 spring steel bits in the driver’s door that hold the sliding vent thing in – the new door does not have it on – made up a jig for the van to roll around on – and welded up a few holes – grinded down a load of welds- Well as I was in full swing with my grinder and rushing to get everything done – and I managed to grind through my finger knuckle (only to the bone) – would not have happened if I had put the guard on after I took it off to get into a tight spot – Christ it hurts!!! And I have to keep my finger straight so not to split the cut – I did this early on so had to work with 7 fingers and 2 thumbs – Ok – im a lazy git because I should have put the guard straight back on after – but no I know best! And it wont happen to me – well it did -! Won’t happen again We got it on the trailer this morning and off its gone to the dippers – should be ready Friday or Monday – so we will see what dipping and treating is all about. My wife wants it painted Cream (old English White) with white roof – does anyone have this combination and dos it look to similar – having said that I have no say in it –
Well I’ve been ringing around for a costs and time scale to paint the van and most of them can’t do it until after Xmas – and then got told that it’s going to cost between £6000k and £8000. Well that’s put a dampener on things – I’ve only got £2000.00 in for it!!!! They are saying that to do the job properly the joints need lead loading and there are hours of filling to get it right and that it’s just not the sort of thing they do ----as it a labour of love job. Not my Love at this time and moment!!! So I’m quite upset as you can see, as I wanted it to go in to a paint shop and get done quickly and back before Xmas!! How wrong am I --- fool!!!! I think with hindsight instead of putting the repair sections in I should have just renewed the whole panels so there would have been little exterior prep – it may have cost me maybe £800 more for the full sections – 2 corners 2 rear wings and middle panel – but would have saved £10000000 on the paint and prep and got it done quickly. So top tip – if you were thinking of sending the van out to paint, it will be cheaper in the long run to replace the whole outer panels and not put in the repair sections – also it would have saved a load of time welding as well. I have no option now but to do the filling and painting myself (i will try and get some one to help me) – I will get it prepped up and primed to a good standard and then give to a paint shop to give it the once over and put the top costs on cos I only used to paint with cellulose and tried 2k once before and it was full of runs. God I could kill myself – I should have just got the ****ing full panels----**it **it So – looks like I’m going to the paint store to get a load of 2 k filler primer and a 1 ton load of filler and ½ ton of lead and flux – seam sealer – stone chip – good job I have done it before----**it!!!!!!
That's priced to put you off, but you are right - paint shops don't want to do them as it's a lot of work getting the big panels flat not to mention there's a lot of it generally as it's a big vehicle. It'll get in their way, take ages, cause them delays for their regular customers - they just don't want to know so they're pricing to get rid. Obviously if you agreed to £8k they'd do it, but they'd still be moaning. If you get the filler done yourself you should get someone to do all the painting for £2500 ish including the paint. That would be inside, outside, wheels bumpers, engine compartment in two colours. There's a lot of masking work. TBH if you want a bus painted you need to get it in a condition where it won't take them long or they'll have it for 6 months if you're lucky while they wait for a gap to fit it in. It's hard work for the money so they'll only do it if they're desperate or embaressed because they've put you off for so long. What they want to do is small repairs or replacement bolt on panels. Nobody likes filler work. I got so sick of being put off I hired another unit, set it up as a spray booth and as I HATE painting, usually pay them to come and do it in there. That's worked out quite well. I do the primer and flatting and masking, then get them to do the top coat. It takes so little time to actually paint they manage to fit it in and can't charge much. I even supply the air fed mask, decent spray gun and all. They get a much better finish than I could.
Well done on reaching 1/3 miletone in the restoration, in such a short space of time, now the really boring soul destroying skilful bit begins.... To be fair to those quoting the job so far, and considering the amount of work required to get the bus just to the primer stage, anyone quoting the job at £2k I'd be a bit suspicious of! For anyone to give you a ballpark figure they really need to see the bus to determine how much work is required, I'll throw a ballpark figure in for paint and materials at being near on £1k, and thats based on using cheapish paint @ £20/L. Lead loading wont be required if all your welds are seamed joins? What sort of finish are you aiming for, clean/tidy and useable or something show worthy?
wise words from Zed and Kruger, I really feel for you mate, I was waiting for months for mine to go into paint and the guy just kept putting me off.......probably for the reasons Zed suggested.....I got some one else to do it in the end and was really pleased with their results Dont loose the faith, I did a lot of the prep myself........and although it is mind numbing it will bring the costs right down and you will have the satis[glow=red,2,300]FACT[/glow]ion of having done all that hard work your self.....even if the body shop has to do the final touches. Dont beat your self up over it, I dont think fitting bigger panels would have brought their quotes down by that much TBH.
Your doing really well mate, surprised how quick you are getting all this work done. I really hadn't thought about paint, but at those prices you are getting quoted I think I may even be painting mine myself too Keep up with the good work
Still waiting for the camper to get back from the dippers so I have been going a bit mad around the house, so decided to start fettling the front beam, as you can see the beam is knackered - I noticed this when I took it off a few months ago – so the 2nd hand replacement from FBI for £199 was a good investment.- that painted and ready. Anyhow took all the bits off the old beam, and they are now on my work bench for cleaning and painting Taking off the brake callipers I noticed that they must be recently put on as they have the gold paint on them and the disks show no sign of wear – so must have been done at the same time – no good to me as I have got all new stuff – but I think they are in good shape so will put em on EBay as they are great 2nd hand parts – the only stuff to come off it so far that are re-usable!!!
Sunday – The task was to remove the ball joints and replace with the new ones and remove the wheel bearings and press in new. Well I have got to say – take em to someone who has the right kit – that’s it – pay em. I decided to do my own – and it took all day and I have 12 ton press. The removal of the ball joints saga ----- Looking at them, they have been in forever and I tried to press one of them out – no chance. So I decided to have a look on YouTube and found a video – he ground off the top hat section and then turned it over an smashed the ball joint inner out, he then go a stick welder and welded the inside of the joint – put it under cold water and hey presto it popped out. Any how see for your self Replacing ball joints So with that in mind I decided to have a go. - well instead of grinding I decided to use my plasma cutter and cut the top out – good idea until the heat melted the grease and gave off fumes that nearly knocked me out – so on with a high quality mask – carried on – after 3 mins cut out the top of the top hat – turned it over and smashed it with a hammer and out came the middle of the ball joint- so far so good. So as I have not got a stick welder I decided to turn my mig up to full and run 3 lines of weld in the inner sections (bottom – middle and top) then ran over to my cold tap and put it under – at this point I was hoping the inner would pop out like the vid – well it didn’t – but looking at it after it had caused the two separate a little – I decide to try knocking it out – top tip – the drift to use here is the old steering pin that is in the beam – it’s perfect – well with 6 or 7 firm hits it came out – fantastic. Again, so far so good. Ran a circular wire brush through the hole and cleaned it up. So then to putting in the new ball joint – so over to the press – well you would think this is quite a simple job – but the suspension arm has to be packed up to make it lie flat because they have a bend in it. Then I had to make a spacer for it to sit on because when you press in the ball joint it sits 3mm or so proud of the suspension arm – Then I had to find a hollow drift to put over the top of the pinion bit, and that was not long enough so then has to make some packers, and on top of that a socket – you can see where this is going!!! Quite fiddly getting it all lined up and getting the ball joint lined up with the marks on the suspension arm (it has 2 mouldings that have to be lined up with the two cut outs on the ball joint) Any how the press worked (just) and got them in – but a 12 ton press just about does it – a 15 or 18 ton would be better. So being quite pleased with myself I started putting the boots back on – when I plasma cut the top off, I cleaned off a section on the top of the arm to get a good ground – so this also showed that with the clean bit of steel on the top of the arm was also the top of the ball joint- Well as I said before I started putting on the boots and on, I was working on an arm and started looking at a shiny bit of steel that indicated that I had put one of the ball joints in the wrong way – I looked at this arm with pure delight – not- How could I put it in the wrong way – I was sure I checked it before – well what a plonker. So looking at my new ball joint in the wrong way, I then had to make a jig that held the arm up and had two sections of 10mm steel welded in to brace section that then sat into the alignment cut outs – it came out ok and I then put it in the right way. After that, I took the hubs to pieces and took out that inner and outer bearings – the van must have been parked up a long time as the inner bearing race sowed rust pitting where the rollers had sat for a long time. Anyhow knocked them out There was no disk backing plates – they had rusted away on both hubs.– and that was it for the day. What was left of the backing plate So as I said before---- pay some £50 / £60 for someone to do it for you with the correct tools and save you self-time and pain. I like to learn the hard way.
I concur! And I was told by some idiot in my local vw club that they are easy to do - just need a press! I think he can do them start to finish in 10 minutes aswell :
The ball joints are a right pain in the arse, I maxed out a 40ton press when I was doing mine, scary times. Nothing worse than putting them In upside down, I would have been upset too Doing a grand job tho fella,
Yesterday I rang the car dippers and they promised me that the van will be back this week (they said that last week) but I’m pushing them. Anyhow that gave me time to finish off building up the front beam. The new bits that I have put in are. New inner a and outer bearings (with grease seal) New disks New Callipers New Ball Joints – get em done by a specialist!!! New torsion arm seals Got new bearings for beams but when inspected them after cleaning all the crud out- they were in good condition – good job as I could not see how to get them out without taking the torsion leafs out – and that looks a horrible job. New track rod ends – on both steering links- and new fixed steering link New steering pinion with bushes The wrong way to put the seal on The right way!!! Durr New shockers New steering dampener And finally new bump stops All went together quite well – but the only problem I had was on the old concentric bush that goes in to the top ball joint when cleaned up it had no marks on due to being a bit rusted up. So after a bit of head scratching I went on my iphone and had a look on the new to find a picture of some new ones – I found them and that showed the notch that then showed me the way I had to fit them. Nut and Bolt bolt for the shocker today and clean up my greasy hand marks and the thing is ready to go. Oh yes and 2 dust caps
Looking good fella!! We had the issue of replacing all our ball joints etc, knowing how difficult they are, we opted for the replacement refurbished torsion arms from Coolair!
I hope you have more luck than I did - I fitted 4 Meyle BJ's to my US import. I now know they're made over-size to accomodate previous BJ change wear and tear. But mine obviously didn't have wear and tear and they're so tight even after 300 miles I struggle to keep it in a lane on the M'way. The steering doesn't self-centre any more. I'm going to have to buy some "crap" ones and do it all over again. BTW when you fitted the upside down one, you could have used it for the other side of the beam AFAIK.
Finished off the front beam – just put on the last shocker on and gave it a clean as I had got grease all over it. Came up quite good – so I will wrap it in plastic and put aside. Now – nuts and bolts for the suspension – they seem to be quite expensive from the main VW suppliers – so will try and get them locally – I think a few of them are a bit old and cruddy and it seems a shame to spoil it for old nut and bolts. The only problem is that the ones I had in my garage are normal HT 8.8 bolds with the standard thread and the ones I need are the HT 10.9 – with a 1.5mm thread!!!! – So I’m off to find them today – I’m not paying £3.50 a bolt. So after that it was on to the rear stub axel – took it to bits cleaned it up and pressed out the old bearings – easy one this. Whizzed in new inner and outer bearings with that spacer in – with both new seals- Then on to the CV joints – got 4 new ones from Alan Schofield and they were £39 each plus vat – So took the old ones off and binned them – didn’t even inspect as the boots were ripped and clogged up with dirt. So – cleaned off the shaft – gave it a coat of paint – had to put the boots in hot water to get it on – easy. Put on the little serrated washer and then the CV joint with the chamfered edge first. (All greased up) There is no way you can get the cir clip on – I tried everything – even turning the concaved washer the other way – no way would they go on – so looked at my Manuel and it says don’t put em on!!! So did what it said – but it had a bit of play (not much) – wasn’t happy with that – so in the bin I went to pull out the old ones – on inspection they had the washers on – but they weren’t serrated – so I tried them – surprise surprise all went together well. So – Top Tip – when putting your new CV joints on – bin the new serrated concave washers and used the old non serrated concave washers from your old joints – So that was one side done – the other side tonight. It was getting late – didn’t finish until 12.00 last night – quite enjoyed myself and after 10.30 radio 2 got better so bonus.
