1960 Dove Blue Rust Repair

[bigmau]

Yeah man. I got the front floor in and all my pedals dialed in. I never had proper return springs on my brake or gas pedals, so now it feels super legit. I drove it to work all last week. Fixing buses is fun and all, but there's nothing like driving one. Going to seam seal it up and then the interior is a blank canvas. I got the Rona and missed Prado, but Big Wednesday is coming up and San-O is the best. Take it easy Barry

[BarryL]

Hey I saw your Bus is back at your house. Yayyy.

[bigmau]

I think the best way to support a bus is pretty subjective based on time, money and the desired end result. I cut quite a bit out, but before I freed up the frame sections, I welded the two main framerails together, top and bottom, kind of like a beefy crossmember. Before I cut out my cargo rocker, and floor I attempted to tie the B and C pillars together with a brace across the cargo door, but that popped and failed. I kept going back to it after I cut out everything for reference, and those pillars didn't move move than .090".

Best factory job would be Celette frame jig like Deluxe Customs is doing 356's. Best access would be a rotisserie tied into the front axle and the rear torsion housing with a bunch of diagonal support braces welded to the body corners. I started with a level garage floor, got is super plumb before tear down, and built it in place using a regular bubble level as a reference. I had two jackstands under the front beam and two under the torsion tube. That seemed like pretty close to the weight of the bus sitting on its suspension without the tires being in the way.

Old busses move. My buddy Chato does Westy interiors and all of his templates are 1" oversize because they all sag in different ways throughout the years. Mine ain't a Seinfeld bus, so I did what seemed right for me. Good luck with your projects, hopefully that helps.

[Stocknazi]

When doing frame repair, cargo floor, cross-members, at this level, what is the best way to support the bus while welding?

Is it better to have the bus supported on the frame rails, as level as possible, or leave the bus on all 4 tires, allowing the suspension to carry the weight?
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[BarryL]

Hey now we're talkin'...I was wondering what happened to you.

[bigmau]

Cargo floors in. Got it to driver status. I had some gaps between the floor and the pillars so I made tabs to tie them together. It feels way less flexy than before all the work.

Seam sealer was recommended by mike fn garage, the OSI from home depot. It's cheap and keeping the water out seems like the right thing to do.

I hit up some cruises and shows, got back to some paint peeling/scraping, a CT90 project came into my life.

Had a good run but it's got to under the knife again to deal with the crusty front floor.

This shit doesn't look stock...

[BarryL]

Wow. How's your eyes, ears and hands holding up?

[bigmau]

Long Panel Install. Used a shrinker to re-flange the rotten pillars.

Grafting in new I beam ends.

Tophat repair

Wheel well closeouts

Jackpoint Install

Floor fitting with heater delete. Note the fat gap because the floor sunk up or the body sunk down. Either way I had to close the gap.

Floor Prep, mark drill paint grind.

More floor fitting

Bend the lip

Latch mod

Floor Welding, 2 man job.

Clearcoat until I figure out what I'm going to do about paint.

[bigmau]

Photo dump. Getting busy with a 110v miller flux core. It is better than my harbor freight flux core, but not nearly as good as the Lincoln 220V with gas.

I had to adjust the length of the autocraft front outriggers to match the klassicfab tophat. Then it went together pretty nicely.

Tail light welding.

Battery tray before, demo and after.

Bullet welding, blowing through rusty shitty, thin metal. Gotta do what you gotta do.

Crossmember install, post welding and after some paint.

More bulkhead welding. Once the frame patches were in and the bulkhead welded, the whole bus got noticeably stiffer, so that's a good thing. Structural Integrity.

With the b pillar shored up, I started going after the rear crossmember, frame, heater delete and outrigger/jackpoint fitment. The second to last tophat was pulling away from the frame rails, so that's why I had them clamped until I could weld them down. Messy work, but someone's got to do it.

Crust below the torsion tube, so I made a doubler plate. A friend welded it in, because overhead welding is horrible and hard.

Rotten inner frame repair job.

Rear tophat splices and jackpoint and crossmember fitment. The lower closeout on the rearmost tophat was a bitch to weld and I blew holes through the metal. The patch isn't the prettiest, but it covered up the hole I made.

Fitting the rockers to the cargo door and then tying in the c pillar.

[bigmau]

Thanks Karl H. Greetings from San Diego. Some more progress pics. Before the bulkhead goes in, I need to plug some hippy holes in the pedestal. These particular welds were done with a buddy's Miller 110V flux core. .035" wire. Not exactly a stack of dimes but it gets the job done and cleans up with flapper wheels.

Then I can start to final fit the bulkhead section in place, setting all the gaps for weld. There's not much pillar flange left, but it kind of all sandwiches together with the closeout panels.

Flux core in action. This ended up being a shitload of welding. Hit it from both sides and then grind, then come back and do some pinhole filling. All while trying not to blow holes through the thin panels.

Converting back to 60 turn signals and tail lights. I been waiting a long time and collecting donor parts for this. Pretty sure I nailed the tail light location because the bottom of the original hole was still there. The bullet orientation, I'm not so sure, but time will tell when I put together the outer housing and lens.

[karl h]

wow, lots of work! nice progress
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86 Caravelle
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[bigmau]

I painted the insides of the cargo rocker and stiffener before spot welding them together. A little protection because once they go together can't get in there.

Hung in the right spot relative to the lower door edges.

.
Got the short rocker all lined up. Lower C pillar fitted.

I was going to leave the long rocker, but it was too far gone, so it had to go.

Lower bulkhead section fitment. It didn't fit well at the bulge, so I had to make some pie cuts and hammer it to close the gap.

To deal with the bottom seam mismatch, I spot welded some strips to the inner rocker bottom edge. This extends it lower and I can bring the outer rockers together at the bottom seam.

[bigmau]

Hey Barry, life is good. Can't let a little coronavirus get you down. I'll cruise by the pad as soon as I have a runner.

There were some strange hippy stash holes in the center pedestal. I plugged a few and left a few. Not structural, so I'm letting some of them ride. Strange though. Cleaned up some of the crustier parts with a wire wheel.

While dissecting the rear section, I found some pretty rough stuff, including some frame rot below the torsion housing I didn't know I had.

With the frame in place, I started to fit the tophat, front outriggers, bulkhead and inner rockers. Samba research led me to bend the rocker tab forward to make a 3pc sandwich with the tophat flange, inner rocker and closeout tab.

The autocraft outrigger didn't line up with the tophat, length wise, so I ended up moving the outrigger flanges a bit back.

Setting the rocker tops to the I-beam and tophat plane, I begin to realize that my bus has sagged and will need some custom shit when it comes to bringing the inner and outer rocker seams together at the bottom.

In order to set the cargo rocker at the right height, it's going to be a little funky. B pillar and C pillar sections need to be at the right height, relative to inners and outers, so I have to get creative.

[BarryL]

Hello bigmau. Way to dive in with gumption. I was wondering how it was going with your bus.

[bigmau]

The bus had been sagging on the passenger side way before I cut it apart, so I did some jacking, clamping, pillar pulling and squeezing to get it into position prior to final frame welding. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and once it was welded, I released all the stuff and it seemed to stay put.

There were some pinholes, but once it's all boxed up with the inner sections, I feel like it is solid.

[bigmau]

I agree with you guys about the structural welding. Part of the deal with me tearing this thing apart was that my co worker is a pretty accomplished hot rod fabricator type dude. So he did all of the structural welding. I have been fabricating, fitting the panels and gaps and then we'll get down on a weld session on the weekend. Learning experience for sure. Staying focused on structural integrity.

The middle closeout was pretty roached so I cut it out and made a closeout. The front tophat kind of sets where I can build out the rest of the rockers and front crossmember location.

[crukab]

[ddutch]

I admire your brave work on your beloved bus. It definitely needs some attention to the chassis to make it strong and safe again.

I would suggest to do more and stronger bracing. A piece of stripsteel only takes pulling forces but can't stand any pressure. The more metal you cut away the bigger is the risk to loose alignment of the body and the chassis. It might deform under its own weight especially since you dont use a jig to keep everything in position.

I also would like to suggest not use the chassis of your bus as a practice object for learning how to weld. You don't want incorrect or weak welds in the structural most important parts of your bus. A fair amount of welding is needed there and you want to be sure it is of good quality to be safe and strong.

[bigmau]

Before I cut out the cargo rocker, I wanted to brace the cargo door opening. I attempted to weld a brace between the pillars, but it kind of failed in every way. I couldn't close the doors with out clearance on the brace, and I was using my harbor freight welder (110V, low setting, .035" flux core, no gas). There was a super fine line between not getting penetration and blowing holes through the thin rusty metal. I ended up not using this brace, but I did keep it around to see how much the pillars moved after removing frame sections.

I got a section of autocraft frame rail section to make my patches. It was the right profile and thickness, so I didn't have to mess with bending the thick stuff. I think it's 14ga or about .075".

My welder is terrible and my skills not up to snuff, so I had a buddy with a 220V Lincoln mig with gas tack it in after I was happy with the fit. I knew I had to shore up the frame kink section before I built up anything around it.

[bigmau]

I keep demo'ing the bulkhead. I got a nice fat klassicfab section and I'm going to use it. I drilled out the spot welds to the pedestal and make angle grinder cuts. Getting after it pretty good.

Got new outriggers, so those have got to go.

No frame jig, so I straightened the crushed part of the frame I need to keep with a crescent wrench and pipe for leverage. It moved around pretty easy. Before I cut out the front crossmember, I lay down my first welds and they are pretty nasty. But they hold. Overhead welding is hard and I have trouble getting penetration into the frame.