How to restore a 23 window bus, Part 2

[ken]

This may as well have been titled "How NOT to restore a 23 window bus",as this project has been ongoing for almost ten years.

Here is the story of Heidi. A 1957 European deluxe.

I bought this bus on October 3rd 1998. It came from Spokane, Washington from a shop called "That's all Volks". Nice bunch of guys, and it was a regular stop on our annual trip to Seattle every year for the vintage meet and the Bugnationals at the Racetrack. Seemed someones car always needed some "attention" In Spokane, about halfway on the trip. I bought the bus for what seemed like a reasonable price at the time, $1000.00 It seems cheap now, but just wait until you have a look at the condition that this little beauty was in.

Pre-digital pics











Back at the shop.



Hmmm... this isn't looking good.



uhhh...



Just a couple of holes....



Work starts. Cutting out the cargo floors. This bus sat for years outside without a sunroof cover, so the floor rotted away, and debris fell down below to the belly pans, which were still somewhat on the bus.




At this point I decided to sandblast the lower portion of the bus, to get a better idea of what would be left.









So from there I lost all motivation. I realized that the frame had to be replaced, you'll see why in the next batch of pictures. I finished my 60' Mango bus, the 61' ragtop bug, and 5-6 other projects over the next few years, but I didn't touch the bus for almost 8 years.

After I found a good donor frame, I hauled her back to the shop and started on her again. This is now the summer of 2006.

If you think this looks bad... it gets worse.



The first time my girlfriend saw Heidi, she just pointed at this section and said..." I don't get it. What are you going to do here? there is no metal."



She had to go on the rotisserie.





This is something that you should never see in a bus you want to buy, frame rot.





I made a brace that acted as a exoskeleton...



Then carefully removed the main frame rails.



The donor rail.



Repaired.

[ken]

I got a bit more work done that year, fixed most of the frame.





Some interesting things. The original color "ID" in the headlight bucket S-ROT




Semaphore slots, just behind the door opening as she is a Euro-spec bus.



Something not so good. Skylight window rot. Luckily this is only present on 7 1/2 of the 8 skylight windows.




I was just getting going back to full steam on this project, Then something happened... Rosie came along.



She looked like a nice quick project, and a 23 window I could fix up and drive while I kept working on Heidi. Well as you probably read in this nutsusers.proboards84.com/index.cgi?board=virtualgarage&action=display&thread=1160543325
She took a year to get done, but no work was done on Heidi during that time.

[rareair]

Good to see Heidi will get her time in the spotlight finally. I must say you are a braver man than I, but I know it will get done right by you.
BTW, I think you should call her S-ROT until all the rust work is done. I knew she was rotten, but those pics are kinda scary.

[dpeters81westy]

RE: S-ROT

Ken's reply didn't sit well with me on CVD... so it's been bouncing around in my brain for about a week now...

ROT is understood to be RED...

No problems here... Ken's explanation of the S was SEALING WAX red...and it kinda makes sense.

BUT... Today I had my Epiphany (SP?)...

S = SCHWARZ
-
ROT = RED

The Bus is Black and Red is it not?

- DP

[ken]

That could be....

Or maybe "Samba" or "Sonder-modell", German for Special model.

[rareair]

Chesnut Brown to be exact. It looks black but it is actually very dark brown.

[ken]

One of the first things I did after the World of wheels was over is cut off the badly damaged and rotted lower section of the nose. [/b]



And much to my surprise I found some good stuff behind the panel. Some Cash, some 20+ year old 7-eleven hot sauce, a comb, and a religious card... which actually seemed quite fitting (the last line)





As for the section that Natalie pointed out....



Here's my plan. I removed all of it.



It will make more sense later.

[ken]

Lots of progress since the last post.

I removed the complete front floor....



And replaced it with one from Gerson



Fixed the inner part of the lower nose. The weld marks are from the front floor upper edge. I welded it in from this side as to make the griding easier.



And attached the lower, outer skin.



Mr Murray was in town for a few days and graciously offered to help with with the bus. We got so much work done it was almost ridiculous. I can't thank him enough for the time.

Chris Working on the short panel on after the cargo doors.









and the final result, an installed Autocraft panel!!



While Chris was working on the back panel, I was installing the fron floor, and working on the nose.



And with some help from Tracy on Sunday... got the nose done!



Overall she is looking better than she has in many years. I'm starting to see then end of the project coming... well at least the metalwork side of things anyway.



Fitted up with an NOS rear bumper.

[ken]

up next,

The battery tray and rear corner.

[commercialair]

Great pics Ken! Thanks for the update. It's nice to see the nose all welded in.

BTW, check the lab coat, hearing and eye protection...very professional, don't you think?

[ken]

Got a fair bit more metal work done, and some really challenging stuff that has be haunting my thoughts for years.

For example....



The front Transmission mount. This is not how this section should look. It was quickly modified in the past to mount a full synchro Trans in. Heidi is returning to 100% stock, so this had to be fixed.




The only solution was to cut it all out.


Luckily I had a section that I saved from an early single cab, that had never had this type of mod done. (The one on the right)




So with some careful re-alignment, the new one goes in. Lucky for me I could fully weld around the torsion tube without much difficulty as all of the floor was removed.



The section took around 3 hours to repair.

Next up is the kick up section behind the rear seat. There is no reproduction panel in existence for this section, as is it not usually badly rusted....Ahem....

I did manage to save a donor section from a panel bus that got parted out years ago.



So.. Trim that to size, and straighten...



Weld,



And prime...



Looks really simple, but again that was probably 3-4 hours of work. It will need a bit of seam sealer and it will look like factory.


Next up, the right dogleg. Much worse than the left hand side, but both will be replaced, as I've had it with trying to repair them, and Gerson's are the best I've seen.

Remove old, and repair the "closeout" section on the bulkhead.




Weld in the inner skin



and the outer.



I had the door on during this process, as checked the gap several times before any of the final welding, just to make sure it was all lined up. These 3 pictures represent about 6 hours of work.

[ken]

It's been quite a while since any updates here.... It's been a busy summer.

One major thing is the bus now has Cargo floors! Installing them wasn't too bad, but finishing all of the edges where they weld to took forever.

I still have some plug welds to grind down, but that is not a huge deal.







I finished up a fair bit of the chassis, with all six outriggers, the Jack points, and most of everything else under there.



Even onto the Belly pans! Man that looks soo much better to me.

All of the lower edges of the doors need repair like this.






Worked on the Passenger side corner tonight.