Gertie the 72 crossdresser. Full resto....and it needs it!

If my camper had that much rot I would prob of lost faith along time ago

 

............youre mad ;D

but a man after my own heart .............theres nothing that cant be saved with the will power, a bit of time and the skills to do it

I'm looking forward to this ;D

 

Cheers Diddy. 8)

I phoned a guy last year from cardiff who restores VW's and he basically told me if I sorted the minor work, sills, steps, arches etc that he would sort the main chassis repairs BUT it would be 4-5 weeks work at a regular wage of £500/week. I just thought stuff that and the more I have done, the more competent I feel that I can do it.

Once the bus is over on the rollers, I am gonna brace the torsion tube to the body with a few welded steel bars then I'm gonna try and unpick some of that rot around the tube to see if it's salvageable. If not I'll cut and shut the tube otherwise I'll leave it intact and rebuild around it into the new section.

The mad thing is the opposite side is good?????

 

Spent a few hours over the last few days binning some !@*#e and clearing a space for the bus to be tipped over. Not much left to move now, just have to find somewhere to store the bike for a few days when I make a start.

Todays work started with breaking down the old wooden rock n roll bed and marking it all up in case i decide to re-use it or even use the pieces as patterns for a new one.



Next I decided to take off the roof as I am gonna need all the space I can get when it's on it's side.



Drilled out every rivet from the fabric retaining strips around the roof then removed the pins from the spring struts and lifted off the roof. Then I had to go around every rivet and cut it flush then pop the rivet bottoms through the roof skin. Next up I had to remove the head lining to retrieve the rivet balls to stop them rolling around in the pillars when the bus is finished.
That really would wind me up.

At least I now have a bit more light to work with. lol



The roof is looking real good with very minor rust on one short section of gutter.













The worse rust near the roof believe it or not is inside!!!!!! Must have had a leak.





This is the external rust. Thats it!





The same however, cannot be said for the bottom of the door aperture!





Found this plate rivitted onto the bed base and thought someone had done a poor job of fitting an inspection hatch for the tank sender so drilled out the rivets only to find this bodge! Obviously when they started chain drilling to make the hole they decided it was like too much hard work and gave up!!!!

 

Nearly forgot. I got this in the post today as well. 1 x nearside genuine VW arch tub off ebay from a very nice guy down south for £47. O0 )

 

Just bought this on the bay of E. £110 Well happy, was £150 before he relisted it.O0

 

Sorry Jimmy, O0

Had a call earlier from my m8 Darren at Fairfields Tool and Die engineering shop saying he had made the 4 x sleeves from my dimensions I needed to space the both chassis sides to get the width the same as the existing steering box mounts. Not had a chance to get up the garage today as I am baby sitting. So all I have for the minute is a few pics. These should be built into the chassis section tomorrow.

Gotta say though, his work is always spot on.

 

It's all good.i totally forgot about it untill it had finished.u got it cheaper with out me biddin on it also lol

 

Haha. ;D

Well, I managed 2 hours this evening to try and assemble the chassis section complete with steering box.

Counter bored the plate to 16mm so that the shoulder on the above sleeves would sit inside the plate allowing me to weld around all four sleeves.
Also managed to removed the snapped stud, after snapping a few pilot drills and a 10mm tap. lol.



.......and the same with the other side



All thats left with this section before welding it in place is to weld around both sides of these sleeves.

 

Making a nice strong job of that mount,

Looks like you're trying to give Shielsy a run for his money with the speed of progress on this restoration ;D

K+

 

If you are looking for a plasma cutter - i got a Cut 40 from Blackburn new for £199.00 - i have used it a lot and its fantastic - but you do need to buy a good supply of bits for the ends - as they do wear out quite quick.
Also you need to have a big 3 pin blue plug put on it (and socket) - and a 30 amp breaker.
if you want more details i will forward them on to you

marc
;D

 

Cheers Marc, I will get the one of Frosts, even though it's almost twice the money, (£375) it will work on a plug top on a 13A supply. Bit of a bone of contention with me, I am an electrician and my garage is still on an extension reel. :laugh2:

Managed to squeeze in an hour earlier on and welded up the sleeves and ground it all back and stuck a coat of etch on it. Decided instead of welding in a pair of captive nuts for the bumper fixings, I got some 10mm x 30 mm flat bar and drilled the holes at 84mm centres and tapped them at 10mm so I should just be able to bolt the bumper back on when I'm ready.

 

Got another hour and half up the garage. Finished plug welding the bumper mount inside the box and seaming it along the edge.



Decided then to strip the steering box before I get everything welded under the front.

Box looks very good inside and has minimal wear. Lip seal sizes for the cast iron box are 27-37-7 for the output shaft seal and the input shaft seal is 24-36-7. Not sure how this compares to Diddy's sizes but I think his box was different to mine. I've dug out the seal and will fit fresh before reassembly.







Can anyone advise whether it's worth packing the worm bearings before reassembly or will the gear oil be suffice?

 

4 more hours into it today.

Chopped off the end of the chassis rail ready to accept the new section. I suppose I could have patched it but now it's done I'm happier. This was the reason for chopping it out!



Made a bit of a schoolboy error in not measuring the chassis replacement sections again. Found that the new stuff is 120mm wide and I needed 109mm -ish. Had to chop off the bottom and rebuild that after taking out a slither of around 10mm.
I then put a piece of plate either side and welded it in place this should allow me to plug weld it later in the original section but now it's done I'm not sure it needs it. I'm not gonna grind back the weld. I'll leave it there for strength.







It was a nice fit and I had to use a club hammer to get it in between the walls of the original.



welded it up.





Still have to weld along the bottom joint (the top is done) but I'll do that when she's over on her side. It'll be easier then and there is loads of strength in there now. It's solid.

Time to turn my attention to the steering box.

Gave the 2 halves a good coat of etch primer then the body had some PJ1 engine case paint so it should be good for the elements and the bottom alloy section had some silver Hammerite smooth. New seals fitted and just awaiting some gear oil now. Joined the 2 halves with Loctite instant gasket for cases (got it from work) :laugh2:







Maybe a bit of work tomorrow, we'll see.

 

thats some great work going on

lovely job on the chassis and steering box mount sections

 

Cheers Dale.

Glad that I'm impressing people with my meagre work. ;D

Really wish I had a 50mm cutting blade for my hole saw rather than butchering the hole with a die grinder though. I had 16/20/22/25/30/38/40 and 75mm but no 50!!!!!!

 

5 hours today. Gonna keep putting the time spent in each post so I can sort of tally it up roughly when I'm done.

Sourced a spare bolt to replace the one I snapped when removing the steering box and refitted making sure I used copper slip (this bus hasn't seen any of that for a long time).

Steering working fine with no tight spots.



Cleaned off the old lip on the front inner panel which looked ok but was actually the vertical lip from the old inner valance, which would push my new inner valance out by a further 1mm or so with no need, so off it came. Cut out a few squares of rotten metal and cleaned it back to bare metal then put some paint on it until I get it finished.





Pumped up the tires and with a little help, pushed the bus out and back into the garage on the opposite wall to allow me to fit the rollover frame to the NS hubs. Hopefully by Thursday it should be tipped over to sort out the main chassis rail. Still need to clean the floor of rotten cuts.