Cheers guy's

The guide coat doesn't look as bad looking straight on at it....honest

One down thing, is the paint I used on the inside has got rust coming through behind it. It is my fault as I only put one coat on when I should have done 2....as per the instructions.

Now there is no way I'm getting in there again with the angle grider and a wire wheel, so there is a blast comapny just round the corner from me here in Gosport. Dropped them an email to get a quote on getting the inside, bumpers and door tops done and they quoted £400 with an option of £100 to give it a zinc primer blast....which I'll get done.

I should get a bonus at work in Nov so that's what I'm gonna get done.

Andy

Hey Andy

How's that bus coming on ?????

Mark

Hey Mark.
How's it coming along ?.....slowly

I did spray the outside in Jotun Jotmastic Primer, which is super tuff stuff and has kept it nicely protected over winter.



It probably does look straighter in the pics than in real life









I should be getting the inside shot blasted next month, as I did take it back myself but where there are so many knooks and crannies it wasn't a good job, and I didn't want to be doing it again in a few years.
As always it's down to the dosh, still uncertainty over my job blah blah blah.....But I still love it, still enthusiastic about it, especially after seeing the 8mm film that was put up on the forum the other day

Andy

Andy mate

Doing a bus up is no race ..... remember it only ever goes up in value over the years so just keep plodding along mate and she will be cruzing again one day ( this what I tell myself ......... Not that my bus has done any cruzing in many years before I got it

Mark

WOW. nice one andy...and to think that bus was nearly a roof section some cab doors a bulkhead and a few other bits and bobs.I`m so glad you called when you did and even happier the south african grid went out when it did.You`re doing a superb job.Proud of ya fella

Hi Andy

It's been 5 months since I last posted on your thread

we want pic's .............. lol

hows thing buddy ......... hows work ? ............... ok i hope

what you been upto on the bus then


Mark

You know what mate, I read your post and thought " 5 months....cheeky git " scrolled up the page to see the post before .........oh cr@p it has been 5 months .

Your right tho, I should put some pics up, but I have to say not a lot has happened ( picture wise ), got the inside shot blasted and primed. Corrected the fact that I had put the hockystick in incorrectly so while I had the gearbox pulled forward to sort out the hockey stick I sorted out a problem I had with the springplates.

Got the engine stripped, and have drilled and tapped it so I could clean it properly, got some parts this week, for rebuilding the bottom half of the engine, but i am such a tit, On thursday I had given the engine case and crank the final clean......left it in the garage as I was going to start the rebuild tomorrow......went down the garage today and I thought, "I know do a bit of filling and sanding " so there is now filler dust all over the clean parts

I've wasted a bit of money on buying some real crap parts . lessons learnt, ask more questions and more pics . and as allways mate it's just down to money...save up, buy a few bits and save up some more.

Put on VW Jims replacement for the Twin lock nuts, very nice.

But yep I will get some pics soted....check back in 5 months


Andy

Good update Andy

Sounds like you've been a busy boy

Tell me about it money money money it seams like it never
Ends when it comes around to spending money

But it'll be worth it in the end


Keep pushing mate you'll get there in the end that's what i tell myself

Mark

Well I know for sure that the last time I worked on the bus was October last year, and that was to fix a leaky CV boot and before that.......well according to this thread was August time.

I have been struggling for enthusiasm to work on the bus, have seriuosly thought of getting rid of it, but I'm slowly getting back on it. Cleaned out the garage a few weeks ago so it's all nice and tidy and ready to start on the bus and then I found myself allways finding something else that took priority, I'm sure a lot of us have been there!

However the other weekend Clare told me to get my ass in gear, so I decided to start off with a few small hopefully easy jobs to get me in into the swing.

The first was to install the main section of wiring loom into the chassis sections ( by my self ) so while sitting on the floor in the garage deciding on the best way to do this I saw a piece of 15 mm plumbers plstic pipe ( the stuff that's used instead of copper pipe ).
So i fed the rear light cables up inside the pipe, secured with masking tape and then taped up every 6 inches or so.







Fed it from the center of the bus though to the rear first and then did the same with the front section. The rear was a doddle , the front...I had enough arm span to to get to both sides of the front chassis box section, so was pretty easy as well.

With that done and feeling pretty pleased with myself, i decided to fit the VWJim bearing nut replacments. So easy to do and well worth the money



And finally to finish off i decided to loose fit the Butty's accelerator replacement



Again, a great bit of kit and well worth the money

That's it for now

Yay Progress, I know what you mean about enthusaism mate, I think we all set ouselves stupid deadlines and unless you've got a wad of cash to throw at the project and loads of mate's with no lifes of their own, it'll never be done to the time scale you set.
I thought I'd have my bus finished in a year and a half, and, as it only cost £800 to buy, I thought i would be sub £8K.
Well 5 1/2 years later and £14K+ down, I'm on the road but still not finished.
What you've done so far looks good mate so get the head up and plod on, it'll be ready when it's ready and be worth the wait.

Brian.

....so I saw your comments on my thread and looked at your thread....how is it going?
What you doing now?
I read Jim's development thread on the bearing nuts...
I have a 62 I have been collecting parts for...So I will look at these...
I have had this a while and it is a real basket case....roof off first....

Good thread mate,I know what it's like waiting for the cash to catch up with your plans etc, what's happened since last July then?

2 Post on my thread in one day !!!

Thanks Guys, it's actually going not bad. I always forget to take the camera down the garage with me !!

I'm pretty much just prepping it ready for the MOT which hopefully may be in a couple of weeks. The plan is to put in in for the MOT with as min as possible, no glass etc . S0 the electrics are all up and running, the engine is in ( more on that later ), got it running, but a real pain to start and running like a bag of nails, couldn't work out why and then searching on the internet found the reason.......I had set up the static timing. did that thought, well i'll give the key a quick flip to see, and started straight up. Fantastic...... I thought.

Left it for a couple of days and decided to get the strobe light on it, the colourtune ( for the fuel air mix ) and compression tester.

Could not get the fuel air mix right until the mix screw was literally just about to drop out ( but when you wre there it sounded perfect )so I have the carb off checking for a blockage etc.

As for the compression testing, I got
No 1 - 150
No 2 - 145
No 3 - 145
No 4 - 137

not too bad I thought ( 1600 single port ), bit curious as to why No 4 was lower, when to put the plug back in and it wouldn't tighten up, the thread is gone. Soooo the engine is coming out tomorrow, gonna drop the head down at a place called TK engineering in Fareham, let them do a helicoil , hopefully when I get that back I will have cleared ( if that is the problem ) the blockage in the carb so the engine can go back in ...all sounds pretty straight forward eh?

So we are going full out to get ready for an MOT. After that, home strip out, spray with celly in the garage, put all back together and defo, and I mean defo be on the road for next year.

Probably not that exciting to most but this video was a couple of weeks back when I got the lights etc working




And then the first time we got the engine running


I was really pleased with the engine, me and my mate Toby who's been helping me, we'd never stripped an engine down before and rebuilt it. I did the oil galleries whist stripped down so fingers crossed it should be god for a good few years.

So hopefully next update will be the bus passing the MOT,

Andy

Looks like you are making great progress.....the helcoiling will work fine...Just remeber when you pull the plug from that cylinder....they do unwind sometimes with the plug..

Keep the post( s )coming!

Dropped the engine this morning, got the head off, so I'll drop that off tomorrow on the way to work.

Got one of Rusty Lee's rock n roll bed delivered on Friday......couldn't resist giving it a trial fit