September 55 Std Microbus build thread

[badassratbus]

I have found myself with a bit of time on my hands due to minor illness so I have decided to do a retrospective build thread the bus just needs to be assembled now but I will start at the beginning .

I purchased the bus from Jeff Cutler at jc welding , ironically he needed the money to buy the aga barndoor which used toi be mine but i did nothing with. I went to see the bus which is unusual for me as i usually buy from pictures due to mileage issues. As Jeff was uncovering it my friend and work colleague Neil Chapman spotted some original pinstriping and from that moment he decided that i needed to buy it, i was weak and i caved in here is the bus as i started with

[badassratbus]

I decided that the chassis on the bus was rotten in so many places that the correct way to attack this project is a complete new chassis using the engine cradle from the bus , so I set about separating then bus from its chassis

[badassratbus]

[badassratbus]

with that separated I set about recreating the chassis firstly I got the parts of chassis I wanted to use dipped, with that done I used my purpose built jig to assemble the chassis

[badassratbus]

Then the chassis was painted in zinc primer so it all got covered prior to putting it on the bus and also to protect it whilst I worked on the body

[badassratbus]

I then set about preparing the body to be reunited with the chassis I missed out quite a few pictures of work here sorry due to breakage of phone and forgetting to upload to computer

[badassratbus]

I then started to assemble the rest of the body

I am going to leave it here for now as I need to upload and take more pictures

[ryans65]

This went from 0-100 in the first post haha

Killer killer killer work! Look forward to more!

[zuggbug]

thank you for sharing - incredible job.
_________________
SOUTHERN INTEGRITY AIRCOOLERS
58 15 window
56 westy

[far rider]

Oh.....My......God. My jaw is still on tbe floor. Wow!
_________________
67 zenith blue sunroof

Contentment; when what you have is what you want.

[62DoKaGuy]

"Purpose built jig..." It's almost like you've done this before and know what you're doing haha. Damn. Going from first picture to most recent in such a short span of time makes it look almost too easy! Beautiful, badass work! That bus is in the right hands. Cheers.
_________________
,,Wenige Menschen denken, und doch wollen alle entscheiden.'' -der Alte Fritz

[linwine]

Totally awesome/ very professional

[andre b]

WOW,,,you made it look like super simple....amazing work,,keep it up!!!

[scvw]

This will be a fun thread to follow. What's the plans for it?
_________________
58 Coral Red ragtop(Diana's car)
57 PG/SG standard
63 Ruby Red SC
SOUTHERN INTEGRITY AIRCOOLERS


WTB - Sigla popout glass like in my ad.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1667775

[pyrOman]

“Ground up” literally!
_________________
Some people are so busy being clever they don't have time enough to be wise.

[crofty]

Amazing job, what a lot of work! I hope it was damn near free to start with!
_________________
Your Vanagon sucks, Stop waving at me.

[Abscate]

You should have an expert review your work.



Incredible! This rivals “desert bus”
_________________
.ssS!

[badassratbus]

thanks for the positive comments, its good to know that the hard work is appreciated. As I am sure you have noticed I do have the added advantage of the equipment I have and the fact its my job. Sadly the bus was far from free but euro spec 55 std microbuses are not ten a penny, so I had to pay what I needed to. Hoping to do some updates later tonight after I fetched my daughter.

[badassratbus]

the next job was to get it onto the rotisserie and finish off last few jobs and paint the underneath, It was zinc primed again, stonechipped with a conventional spray gun so its smooth, then a satin topcoat that was colour matched to the primer underneath the bulkhead cap. Then finally the factory style overspray was added in sand green top coat

then it was panelled up ready to go for paint

[badassratbus]

Then cam the big step. I enlisted the help of Paul Irving at irvs restos to handle the paint job and this is what he did for me

while the bus was at Irvs ben pon was on so i had a trip over there and collected another peice of the puzzle, 6 leg pg/sg middle seat