'66 Deluxe

[Mike Kever Kombi]

Bus is really coming together. Looks good.

I know that the dog legs are different on a 66 than a 61, but if the bottom 8" of the doors are the same, and the inside frame is straight, I would be interested in that door.

[heyed67]

dude....lookin good man... if you need a hand let me know i'll help 4 sure...

[Dual Port]

Well, here’s what we’ve been up to. Bodywork is a slow process, sometimes with many hours invested and not much to look at, that’s where the bus is right now. I’ve been spending nearly every day in the shop and Chuck has been there several nights as well, we've made considerable progress but not that shows up in photos.

I did use a stud gun to pull several minor dents out of the nose of the bus. This is a cool tool- it welds a nail to the skin, which allows you to pull the dent out when there is no access to the rear side. I'm thinking this dent is from someone bumping the front-mounted spare tire.

Once the nail is secured, a hand puller can be used to pull out the low spots along with a body hammer to lower the high areas around the dent.

If this is not successful, a slide hammer can be called in to provide more brute force.

The results were terrific- here’s a straight edge showing the dent is gone and the correct crown is back in the metal with only a super thin skim coat of filler needed. This one came out so well that high build primer might be all it needs. I use a straight edge as a cheat constantly because it's a lot better than my eyes or fingers.

All in all, the nose is looking really good. There were bunch of holes I welded up including those from a spare tire carrier, several minor dents including some that were right behind the bumper overriders, and other dents. This bus was pretty straight overall, with no major crash repair needed. The lower windshield frames were badly pitted from rot but the metal was still strong, so I sandblasted them very deeply and filled in the pits with epoxy gel. It wasn't bad enough to replace the metal and it came out great. You can see it a bit in this pic but I didn't zoom in on it.


I’ve spent a ton of time prepping the cargo doors, both inside and out, to get into primer. A big wire wheel works great to get the glue removed from the weatherstrip channel, but there’s constantly little wires flying around the shop coming from the wheel, endangering nearby personnel. Good thing for safety glasses. I’ve pulled stray wires from my flesh several times and they are constantly stuck in my clothes……

I did locate a driver’s door in Minnesota and that is on it’s way here. The photos show it is nearly perfect, I can only hope I’m not disappointed when it shows up in person. It’s being shipped Greyhound bus and should be here sometime next week. How does that work? Greyhound calls me when it’s in and I pick it up downtown?

This bus has so many holes drilled in it I wonder about the previous owners, it’s like some kid got a cordless drill for Xmas and went crazy on the bus, putting dozens of extra holes everywhere. I assume these all need to be filled?

Total about 350 hours right now.

[wwebner]

Bruce,here's somepics of one I did a couple of years ago. although this was a non walk thru, most of the holes in your pic look symetrical.

[Dual Port]

Bill-

I like what I see in those pics. How did you fill the window openings- is that cardboard? I'm thinking of thin cardboard panels cut to fit the window openings and a million little magnets to hold them in place so I don't have to worry about tape. Once the inside is painted, flip the panels over to keep the paint from the inside as I'm doing the outside......

Nice workmanship. Solder. Blanket on the floor. Sound deadener.

I will be asking a lot of questions since you BTDT.......

[wwebner]

Yep,cardboard panels. I used tape,the correct good stuff,but whoever did the body and paint job did little or no proper prep in the window recesses. When I pulled the tape,well you guessed it,bare metal was what I was looking at.

[toolbox]

This bus has so many holes drilled in it I wonder about the previous owners, it’s like some kid got a cordless drill for Xmas and went crazy on the bus, putting dozens of extra holes everywhere. I assume these all need to be filled?

The 2 large holes are for the grab handel and the evenly spaced outer holes are for the screws that hold the panel. There should be 2 for the screws that hold the mcode plate on too.

[Dual Port]

Yep, the big ones are the grab handle. The tips of the M-code plate screws are barely visible just above the upper big hole. (view is from back side)

Thanks!

[Dual Port]

Well, my new door came in Greyhound and it's "pretty good" but not perfect. It has virtually no rust- some surface rust on the lower inside lip but not much, a wire wheel took it right off. It was hit in the lower center and has a spot of mud about 8” around in it, you can barely see the lines I drew with a pencil where the magnet showed mud. I wanted a 50 year old virgin, but I guess there's not many to be found. It came with nice deluxe trim and a hacked up window frame, but I didn't take pics before I removed them. The prior butcher bent the lower edge of the window frame out so he could pop the glass and hang his arm out the window. Brother.

It doesn't fit very good, not because of the door but because when this bus was tapped in the old driver's door it evidently pulled the A post rearward about 1/4", which is just enough to screw up the door gaps. Evidently it had a "custom one off" driver's door on it before, because it fit and worked perfect.

I did get it hung and after heating and bending the hinges it fits OK, but not perfect.

Right now it looks like it's too far forward, but in reality it's centered. The problem is the lower front gap is 1/32" and the rear lower gap is 1/8", when combined they should be much more than that, like 3/8" or something.

I'll sleep on this and decide whether to break out the PortoPower to fix the door gap. Hmmmmmmm....

Chuck helped sling more mud, but it wouldn't show up in pictures anyway. The cool thing I bought was a pair of Shrinking Discs which were recommended to me by several people, I've only used the big one, but very happy with what it does. After working out a dent, you invariably have a high spot or bump from the metal being stretched. The shrinking disc heats the bump using friction, similar to what a torch would do. After heating the bump, cool it with water or shop air, and the bump levels out. Quite impressive! Once again, pics wouldn't show this as we’re only talking about 1/16” or maybe 1/8” max here. It flattened out several high spots for us but did not work on one that is on a weld line- evidently the high spot has to be in regular sheetmetal, but for those it’s great!


Here’s some pics of the windshield frame that I blasted and filled the pits in with epoxy gel, which worked well.


Work’s getting busy again.

[Mike Kever Kombi]

Fan-freaking-tastic

I love those shrink discs

Just a word of caution, make sure you get that epoxy gel super smooth or windows will leak in heavy rain (or at least mine do). Given your level of dedication im sure you will.

And who are you kidding, you know you wont be able to sleep at night with uneven door gaps

Again, good work and looking great.