LEAKOIL Forum

I love how you say "easy fix". For me, this would not even be possible. Looks great!

Another update:

The “top hat” crossmembers needed repair and were on backorder at the suppliers, no big deal. I needed some material to make a couple, luckily someone left an old file divider at the shop, perfect patch metal.



I cut and bent the pieces, would have been nice if I had a brake, but they take too much real estate when you’re not using them.



Top hats installed and welded but the door corners aren’t done yet. Those take a bunch of little tiny pieces of metal welded in to fill the gaps. Inside and outside rockers installed.





Mocking things up, I must own 20 pair of VG.



This is the front jack point and bulkhead before the floor goes down.



The curvature of the outer rocker was slightly off so I used Chuckie’s stud gun to bring the curve out a bit. I also used his spot welder for the bottom pinch welds. Thanks, Chuck!



Mocking up but not welded yet.


Some of my welds look good, some not so good. I can assure you they’re all strong though. They all can’t look perfect or Kirk wouldn’t have anything to laugh at.


Front bulkhead/jack point/top hat with all the little pieces welded in to strengthen things.




While messing with the cargo doors I pulled the windows out. One came out without too much trouble besides glowing, but WTF- some previous moron glued in the other window with some kind of high strength epoxy! It was a bear to break loose and pulled some of the panel loose. Ugh!


While primer was drying I figured I’d repin the cargo doors so when I adjust them and set the gaps the hinges will be new. Nothing new here, glow them, knock out the pins, drill the 6mm to ¼”, which is only a few thou bigger to compensate for wear. Don't do this without a vise- you could easily tear the hinges from the door skins.




I used clevis pins this time instead of roll pins, I can quickly remove the doors just by sliding out the pins.



You can see here the joists are done and I’m putting the floor down. You have to make big relief cuts where the floor goes around the uprights for clearance so you can move the floor around to align the latches. You see I’ve already plug welded a couple spots at the threshold so it’s down for good. Once the threshold is welded, the latches are aligned and the doors work nice, you work your way around the rest of the floor. Start by beating all of the relief cuts and peel-backs into place with a beater and a block of wood. Then weld it all up. Simple, right?


I made this last time- a special VG for getting around the lip so I can clamp and weld the edge of the floor. (threshold?)




A blister/cyst popped up on my eye requiring a few Dr. visits that I thought was from a spark or something. Luckily it’s not an injury like I thought but has an unknown cause, no biggie according to the Ophthalmologist and unrelated to working on cars. I'm much fussier than most about PPE, too. Most commonly seen on people who spend a lot of time outdoors (not me).



Front of bulkhead/outrigger/jack point from front wheelwell. Ugly welds but strong.



Bottom all done, not the prettiest but will outlast me. Long floor weld is 100% welded. I’ll go back later, grind out all of the welds and finish them, coat them with fiberglass gel to waterproof them and finish with paint.


All done and cleaned up, cargo doors work perfect (even though they’re rotted out), I’ll go back next winter and put door bottoms in. I’d like to have this on the road this year so all the heavy welding will come first. Going patina and not doing full paint will save hundreds of hours.



Inside all done but not ground out yet, actually came out pretty good considering I bought the mid-grade panels and not the good ones.



Next: On to the RR corner/battery tray. Wire wheel the bondo off, straighten the metal that was hit/bent, cut out the bad and in with the new.

Great stuff Bruce. Really appreciate the attention to detail and the time it takes to document and share a project like this. Many thanks.
On another note, I must be a horrible witness as I have no recollection of the welder you're using. Is it a Lincoln or a Miller or something else? Also, if you can share, what settings do you generally use for cargo floor welds/rockers? Do you just "play it by ear", or do you have specific settings you use for specific welds? Can you share how you set up welding? I'd like to get better at welding (hell, I'd like to get better at everything) and this kind of project intimidates amateurs. And as you know, I'm an amateur!

Great work Bruce. It will be fun to see this on the road. Maybe the spring cruise?

Once you are done answering Sean's questions, I'd like to know what weld through primer is. May be a stupid question, sorry.

On a side note, I've given Kirk plenty to laugh at too! He was rolling on the ground when he got a old of my bus last summer.

Six Volt wrote:... and this kind of project intimidates amateurs.

You can say that again

Wow, Bruce, your update is pretty much what I was mulling over for the past couple of days! I got a 77 bay with a butchered sliding door track (PO attempted to replace and cut it too short, forgot the inner rocker, and cut the tophat ends). If the body shop estimate comes in high, I might need to learn how to weld asap. Can you teach me real quick? Thanks for posting!

ohiowesty wrote: If the body shop estimate comes in high, I might need to learn how to weld asap. Can you teach me real quick?

Short answer, no. Learning to weld is different than learning to replace body panels. You could get a welder and learn to stick two pieces of metal together in a short period of time. Thick metal (1/8-1/4") is where you'd start, welding sheetmetal is 10 times harder than welding thicker metal. Learning to replace panels is much more time intensive- first you have to have the space, a large air compressor, multiple grinders/cutoff tools/sanders, heat, etc. Second you have to have some natural ability like a carpenter would have: you need to be able to visualize what you are doing, what it needs to look like when it's done, and the process to get there. You need to understand the physics of how a sliding door works so when you finish the track replacement the door operates correctly. You need much more than I can explain in a forum response, and doing lower sliding door tracks is the last place you want to start. Bite the bullet and pay someone to install the tracks, I'm guessing $1-2K to have it done right.

I was joking when asking you to teach me to weld real quick! I am aware that it's not simple. In reference to your reply, I did some carpentry and I actually have a mechanical engineering degree.
I understand how the sliding door works (there are seven adjusting points and I played with them for hours) and I actually made it work on the wrongly positioned track; I researched how the far side body section is built, so I can visualize the entire setup; I took clues from indentations in the cargo floor for lining up with the Klokkerholm piece installed by the PO, referenced dimensions to my other bus's sliding door, and determined the positioning error of the track. With a bit more research I can figure out where to cut the body and how to attach outriggers and top hats. The problem lies in execution - I have a very small chance to weld it right the first time. But the devil in me listens to Jim Carey Sorry for hijacking your thread

Thanks for posting Bruce, really enjoy following your progress. Look forward to seeing it in person some time.

ohiowesty wrote:I was joking when asking you to teach me to weld real quick! I am aware that it's not simple. In reference to your reply, I did some carpentry and I actually have a mechanical engineering degree.
I understand how the sliding door works (there are seven adjusting points and I played with them for hours) and I actually made it work on the wrongly positioned track; I researched how the far side body section is built, so I can visualize the entire setup; I took clues from indentations in the cargo floor for lining up with the Klokkerholm piece installed by the PO, referenced dimensions to my other bus's sliding door, and determined the positioning error of the track. With a bit more research I can figure out where to cut the body and how to attach outriggers and top hats. The problem lies in execution - I have a very small chance to weld it right the first time. But the devil in me listens to Jim Carey Sorry for hijacking your thread

Come over to my garage, we can teach each other how to weld