Well, I finally thought that it was about time that this old bus saw some serious welding...!

The history of this bus is that it was originally a TV/Radio company in Denmark that owned it, but little is known of its history prior to 2003. At this time it was painted up in its current guise for use in the Danish TV series, Kronniken, roughly translated 'Better Times' kind of like our Heartbeat. It was a quick tart up job that was done purely to use it as a stage prop more or less, so this bad work will all have to come off/out and the original issues sorted that lay underneath this paint. Here are a few pics of it prior to having the Bella paint popped on...

So, in 2003, the paint was laid on with a quick tart up job, resulting in a pretty (But pretty bad!) bus, able to pull itself around, with some bracing to stop the rotten bits from falling off..









God knows what is going on with the rear camber, needs to drop a spline.... thats not something you hear me say very often!!

And so, we jump to a few years later, the Kronniken series had moved on to the 60's so no longer needed the bus, so it reverted back to the previous owners, who decided to pass it on. It then came to the UK, where it has had a variety of owners. Some of you may remember seeing it on ebay on more than a few occasions.

So, it eventually came my way. This is the day I collected it from Matt. The previous owner to Matt had started doing some work to it, but it was not exactly working in the right direction, as you'll see later.



As with every bus, there are good bits and bad bits... this one has bad roof gutters and front end. Heres a pic of the makeshift brace slapped in to make it work for the TV series that held the front on/up?



and some more of the bad bits:









Spot the wag!



So, it was time to go shopping for cutting discs!

So, as is always the case, I had to clear some space in the shed to attack it, and am working alongside Tom's '55 in the BarndoorBarn as it were! Got round to doing some slicing on it recently. The spotters amongst you will have noticed how the roof kinks down at the B pillar on the offside.. This is due to ancient accident damage from a crash years ago. The van has since been welded, so this was pretty much fixed in place, with repairs etc going in over the years with this new roof design.....

So, time to slice! Nothing salvageable on this corner, out with it!



So, then comes the jacking/bracing to get the front end back to where it should be!









Problem 1, the door hinges were too close together to ever get a door on in this position. Nice. So, some adjustments were made, and the A pillar gradually makes its way back to where it should be...



Door now bolts on, but the hinges are bent from the door flying open at some point, I'll sort that later.



A very fruitful trip to FBI sourced a chunk of Barndoor, very handy! It needed a little TLC, but fitted the bill for this bus down to a tee...



So a hell of a lot of measurement and jigging, pulling, pushing, jacking, etc etc saw it trial fitted..

Tacked in, time for more measuring



All measured up right, so a lot of patient stitching across the roof skin here, a lot more of this to come....!!!

So, on to the long rusty bit next. Still some finishing on the front bit needed, but I wanted to play with grinders some more!













Braced and sliced!!



Well, that was my Bank Holiday weekend, back on it this weekend!!

this is going to be a great thread....

Birth cert ordered, registration soon....

Some pics of the underside, not too bad really!













Wrong tail lights will be for sale.

Wow - that looks great.
I wish I had the skills and was brave enough to chop the rot out of my bus

Can' wait to see it done, loving the Bella history.

Orb

Awesome work Dai, another BD to be on the road before mine....

Good stuff,

Good to see some progress on this old danish Barndoor.

Didn`t you also buy the other (better) Bella barndoor?

I thought this was the good one, the paint is shiny!

The early pics above show it rolling on 16's, but these were 3j bug ones, so they went to FBI VW a few years ago apart from 1 which was shot because it had been run loose, and had ovalled the bolt holes. This will be used to repair the OG rims from my deluxe which have some 'issues' along the forest lip...

Should have some more tin on the way next week, got enough to be going on for now though, waiting on a gutter inner strengthener rail and some other bits and bobs, so will have to do stuff other than the roof sections for a bit, might crack on with the front end/chassis tomorrow, I guess its whatever chunk I pick up first that grabs my attention!

Engine is a later 34hp 1200, which has had 1 tailpipe outlet welded up, a very bad idea! So, if anyone has a 1200 bus exhaust in the way, give me a shout!

good job this bus went to you dai after seeing this i definately would not of ever finished it i feel, i also feel a little bad as i had no idea about half of these problems apart from the obvious rot issues

massivesplitproject wrote:good job this bus went to you dai after seeing this i definately would not of ever finished it i feel, i also feel a little bad as i had no idea about half of these problems apart from the obvious rot issues

I knew the bus from when it came in to the country with Mark Hopley dude, the only new problem was the hinges on the door being closer together and the guy you got it from had put some of the new metal in the wrong places, no biggie compared to the 7ft long weld im going to have to be patient on to do the roof! Definitely no need to feel bad, i knew the issues. Im enjoying doing this, was interesting pushing the front up, although I do have to confess that I had to re-cut it and push it up a second time as it had settled with the strength of the roof pushing it down. The 2ft pie cut from the B pillar up into the roof skin helped ease that back up again!

Got the cab door back on and hanging in the gap correctly now, although the hinges on the door need work, got the rest of the cab floor in, and also got the front inner in, so a productive few days again! Waiting on some autocraft bits now so I can get the roof nailed, then I can cut all the rot out of the chassis and plug that together.

wish i could have some productive days wiring garage up so i can crack on however i have lined up a 58 panel thats gonna be my next bus on the road