LEAKOIL Forum

I've been shooting color on doors and getting better every day. Today's paint is virtually perfect- no orange peel, great gloss, no runs, etc. Playing with activator pn vs temp, tip size, and pressure has made a lot of difference. I am definitely getting my confidence up.

This is that driver's door that was caved in near the center of the panel. Not only does the paint look good but the metal panel is nearly perfectly straight.

The cargo doors are "pretty good" but not great. The paint is good but there's a hint of wave in the mud. I'll wet sand them and buff, and if they don't pass I'll block them out and reshoot them, doing these off the bus makes it a lot easier. The engine lid came out nice considering it was probably driven over by a truck before I got it. The only big "oops" was the gun dripped on the hatch lid which doesn't show in this pic. That should be fixable but if it's not I'll reshoot it. I'm shooting all of the doors horizontal so runs are nearly impossible. I did shoot some white vertically today to try my nerves.


Tomorrow I'll shoot the white on the rt side doors. If anyone wants to come out and critique my work I'm all ears, and there's beer in the fridge. Didja get that floor put in yet, Kirk?

awsome bruce looks great.....cant wait to see in person....

Yeah, Bruce!
That color looks great!

Shot the roof, it came out good with no runs and good gloss. I'm not perfect with this paint yet but getting better.

I took a break from paint to install the rear brakes/seals/backing plates/drums, they went together like a dream. Napa Strongsville cut the drums for me for free as payback for all the biz I gave them years back, nice to have friends in the right places... The drums slid right on like they're supposed to! I'll pull them back off later when I put the brake cables on. It's goofy how the rear whl cylinder bleeder is below the line- ass backwards from every other car I've ever worked on. Do you invert the bus to bleed the brakes?


I moved the bus to the center of the shop and raised it up for better access. Front brakes next, then more paint.

Great stuff Bruce. It is amazing how you both saved and rejuvinated this bus. It's a total rebuild. I'd call it Wolfsberg Midwest. A lot of great detailed work. This will serve as a great benchmartk for future LEAKOIL restorations. Keep it coming because I'm looking forward to the transmission/engine upgrades. And most of all, I like the confidence you have in those jackstands!

Six Volt wrote: And most of all, I like the confidence you have in those jackstands!

You're right, those cheesy stands suck. This is probably more your speed:

The reality is I had a dumb $@&* attack and couldn't find my good 6 ton stands. They were 10 feet away from me in a place they shouldn't be. Who the F put them there??!!

How's this- a combined 72,000lbs of support capacity. Is that strong enough for a thousand pound shell?

Anyway back to real work. Assembled the front brakes today, driving in new bearing races and all new German wheel bearings, capping it off with Saco bearing clamps to replace those cheesy dual nuts that always piss me off.

I had the clamps on my linkpin sandrail years back and liked them. WF stopped by with his thread dies and chased the spindle threads for me.

I used the brushes to clean the crud from the speedo cable passage. Yech!

No paint today. I knocked out the clutch cross shaft bushings, there was some kind of cheesy German rubber seal wrapped around the tube I never even noticed until today. I wonder if it will make it back on the bus?

I cleaned the hole really well and installed new super long bushings guaranteed for a million miles.

The inner bushing is tight to access but a nut and bolt pulls it right in.



The outer bushing drives in with a HF bushing driver, but I had to grind the OD down a bit to allow it to enter the tube to remove the inner bushing.

The outer was stuck pretty good and needed stress relieving with a scroll saw to free it up. I didn't want to torch around all of my new paint.

All done, and the cross shaft swings as free as a breeze. I didn't even have to ream the bushings, and I bet there's less than .003" side play.

Chuck can hook you guys up with those bushings if you need them, and I bet nearly every split bus needs them....



Back to paint.

Early splits had a zerk fitting installed on the pedal shaft tube.

I'm painting this in an unconventional way, one panel at a time. I can concentrate better on a smaller panel and get the detail done better. Also, if I screw it up, it's easier to fix one panel than the whole frigging bus.

Masked the nose, shot the white,

Shot the red,



It came out really nice. The nose was beat up, dented, holes for spare tire, etc, and none of that is visible.

Blocked, masked and shot the RR side.

There must have been dirt on the camera lens because the last set of pics are all foggy.


All came out very good- not perfect, but very good. Very little ripple in the bodywork, I tried to show the reflections in the pics so you can see it.

The ripples that are present are the spots Chuck did, the areas I did are flawless.


A bit of orange peel, a run behind the front bumper where it won't show, one spot the gun dripped on the lower quarter just above the RR tire (it doesn't show in the pic) that will wet sand out.


All of it will be wet sanded and buffed to remove orange, but overall I'm very happy. It's starting to look like a bus again instead of a gray brick.

Next: Tackle the LR long side. My confidence is getting better, which means I will royally phuck it up.



Probably about 580 hours right now.

Yes, the flaws in the body work were my doing, It's kinda like an artist signing his work, and damn did I hate that right rear corner, almost as much as the whole left side, amazing what a little bondo & a ton of high build primer can hide....

That was a joke, Chuck. The RR corner is actually perfect.