nice one @jay74 that's great work, it suits the contours of the bays! I do see another bus under the tarp?
You would be better of using a bought repair panel for the inner bottom of yours sliding door as they have drain channels and holes I was thinkig about your bus today whilst looking at mine Ive never seen a bay with the swage line removed Loads of work but i cant help wonder what it would look like
Its hard to see on the pic, but we cut drain channels, yeah we thought about that, but the swage line is such a nice feature, same with the air intakes. Funnily enough the swage lines were considered for a while with dropping a central groove and adding a flush mounted deluxe style trim, but after the deguttering, it was going to mean another 60ft of welds
Kev at ACE got back to me on the de-guttering thing as they have asked similar questions numerous times "At the time of questioning they were happy to allow deseaming as it actually increased the strength of the Monococque from the original spot welding .Likewise they are happy to allow full seam welding of stuff requiring additional strength such as rally cars.As always we have to say it's down to DVLAs favourite answer " Each vehicle is considered on it's own merits".
Now I see why you went back to tin top, no point having a 1" chop if your having a poptop, shame you have changed your mind.
Now to start A pillar repairs, chassis leg replacement and inner valance fitting(shockingly it didnt have one under the skin), the front skin was never fitted properly, resulting in a massive door gap on one side, turns out it was down to angle iron welded to the chassis legs and holding the panel out, proper bodge. firstly its going to be made solid and right, followed by "tweaks"
just to stick a spanner in the works.....it'd look great if you took the flare and inset off the light apertures and found some suitably curved light clusters to fit....or frenched the originals interesting project...
Yeah, that was considered but was concerned it would lose the look, mind you frenching the originals was considered and not off the table yet Plus for me the late bay style of lights are an iconic shape somewhat, similar in status to mark 1 cortina etc , saying that, they were one of the considered frenched lights that got rejected(also the type 3 ghia round were considered)
One chassis leg replaced, the others needed new end plates fabricating after the previous owner decided, no inner valance and an inch of 4 lots or steel plate tacked on the end would suffice!!! inner valance fitted(came with the van but never fitted), next job is to tie everything in before a protective spray and refitting the outer skin. And a quick cheeky shot of the profile against the light of the garage
Tied in the front end with heavy gauge, solid as anything now, not sure why the metal looks so rusty in the pics though? rub down and a blast of paint tomorrow, then finish off and tidy of the middle section of A pillars, then start on the outer skin work.
Bit of an update and still in a rough format, but the revised front end, tunneled indicators and rolled pan with frenched Number plate, all old school techniques, also removed front grill and after market panel badge "nipple" Welds need taking down to lose the join, but the corners were a pig, curves side to side, top to bottom and then under, filler just down to a skim, annoyed that i never got a bare metal shot myself. This shot shows the depth of the indicator tunnels.
