Thats a good question.. its a flat grille speed 20 drophead. apparently its one of three and is supposed to be some pre production speed 20 if I picked the chap up correctly when he told me about it . Its so rare there are even very few pictures of one ... the chassis number proves it to be one of the first or the first of the three produced . It must be late 20s if it has the flat grill like a 12/50.. I have one picture and one sales rendering of one ... and thats about it... looks like I never saved them either ... oops
Since my van is a conversion and had cut out windows, I decided that they had to be recessed . I dont have any glass for the van and the converted vans had curved side glass ... I needed to have glass cut.. I didnt want the full size bus windows so the only option was to start fabricating the parts to recess the cut outs .. The idea being thet there will be some body work aound the glass which will break up the panel and have some contrast with paint detail that the expanse of glass on a factory bus misses out on... If an anorak looks at the van, it will mess with there head since it will be obvious the holes are the wrong size, a giveaway of a van conversion but with recessed glass !!!!!!!!! Yikes thats not supposed to happen..... LOL... why not ? I actually prefer the smaller size of the windows ... I made a start to the recesses
The inner panel neds some detail, just bent up the one in the pic to gain some idea of what was required .. Fortunately Ive got the other van here to check out the wee details ...
gave the rear quarter a buff with the orbital to take it back to bare metal.. plan is to do one panel per day for the next week and get the van ready for body work..
Nice work are you using the original window glass or have you got different glass from panel conversion glass0.have you made the hole bigger to take the new glass and rubbers I think your be in paint before me
I dont have any side glass at all so will be getting some cut. Fortunately Ravensby glass is just down the road from me and they will cut and temper to a templete and even provide colour tinted ... Im using the VW bus rubber seal so it sits properly in the hole . To accomodate the thickness of the rubber I had to increase the size of the opening by approx 30mm so the opening will be the same size when it has glass in it as it was pre modification... I put the rubber in the hole before I started and it made the hole look to small, so the increase was needed .. Its to bloody cold to do any of the bodywork so it will probably be in bare metal until the spring fortunately the garage its in is bone dry.. The wifes old 304 sat in there for 5 years in bare metal and dindt have a spot of surface on it after all that time ... I will spend the down time fitting the doors tweeking the gaps tidying some of the repairs and re installing the running gear before its prepped for paint... but then thats just the plan.. there is plenty to distract me... including some repairs on the other bus .... Im kinda hoping the mod ends up looking stock just so its a bit of a head scratcher ..
I love subtle mods on vehicles that when you look at them you know something is different but you just cant figure it out
just add my 2 peneth are you going for a stock bus i was thinking of bonding the glass in like on modern cars this would be the ferfick situation i think
I gave some thought to bonding the glass in a while back, when I was trying to decide what way to go with the windas... It would have been really cool with flush glass but that would have still meant curved glass ...so that idea was shelved .. Bonded glass would also have meant better security.. it takes about 30 secs to get into one of these vans through the side glass, less if the seals are new... at the end of the day it was the micheviousness of crossing the cut outs with the factory fit and rubbers that rocked my boat... I spent all afternoon making up all of the parts needed to do all the windows so no turning back now.. the new seal I got from JK for factory windows seems nice and plyable and shapes into the corners really well.. Obviously its to long but the join is easy to locate , just needs a trim and stuck with supergluebefore fitting.. ( thats the theory anyway )
the other thing is accuracy as the glass would have to be spot on for every apperture and corner .. the rubber lets you off the hook a touch
went down the shed and welded in these bits to convert the glass.. Fairly pleased with the end result.. just a wee bit of tidying and its good to go.. Im not sure if I missed an oppertunity to make it really different though... more splitty looking ? Less work the better probably.. or this thing will never get done
no doubt its a lot of effort to go to just to get slightly recessed glass... but I think its worth it.. im a wee bit happier with the look ... quite pleased as well that it might be the only converted panel in the world with recessed glass...
I'm afraid it's not the first, someone on here has already converted a panel to factory and no doubt plenty before. I like the idea of dividing it into 2 smaller splitty style windows - if you're going to all that trouble why not make it obvious?
