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Old 12-08-2019, 06:19 PM   #1
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Chassis clips?

The floor of my bus is attached to the chassis rails with these clip/bracket things:

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They're a slightly-bent piece of formed sheet metal that bolts into the bottom of the cross-member and clips the body to the top flanges of the chassis rails. Does anybody know what these are actually called and where I could find eight or so of them online?

I basically need to clip my new frame to the chassis in the same manner. I've though of a few ways to improvise something to do this, but I'd rather attach something meant for this.

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Old 12-08-2019, 07:01 PM   #2
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The floor, technically, yes. Those clips hold the whole unibody to the frame.

You lost me on clipping the frame to the chassis?
Looks like those brackets are a bus scrap yard find.
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Old 12-08-2019, 07:07 PM   #3
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The floor, technically, yes. Those clips hold the whole unibody to the frame.

You lost me on clipping the frame to the chassis?
Looks like those brackets are a bus scrap yard find.
I've rebuilt an 8' section of my floor around the wheel wells. Right now, the cross-members for my new section are just sitting on the chassis rails. I want to clip these new cross-members to the chassis rails in the same way that the original floor was clipped to the chassis rails, using these clip things.

I don't think I'm going to find these exact pieces (manufactured by International, I guess) anywhere, but I'm wondering if trucks or trailers perhaps use a similar sort of bracket to attach things to the chassis.
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Old 12-08-2019, 07:21 PM   #4
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No, those are made by Blue Bird (or whoever made the body ... likely IC in your case). I'd check bus boneyards or poke around if anyone on the forum is about to scrap a bus and can make a deal on some of these, but I'll bet new ones can be had.
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Old 12-08-2019, 07:22 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by musigenesis View Post
I've rebuilt an 8' section of my floor around the wheel wells. Right now, the cross-members for my new section are just sitting on the chassis rails. I want to clip these new cross-members to the chassis rails in the same way that the original floor was clipped to the chassis rails, using these clip things.

I don't think I'm going to find these exact pieces (manufactured by International, I guess) anywhere, but I'm wondering if trucks or trailers perhaps use a similar sort of bracket to attach things to the chassis.
My Freightliner has the same (visually) clips holding the bus body to the frame.
Seems to be a standard bus-body construction that allows the body to slide on the frame in a hard, head on impact situation...

I would see about finding them in a bus-junk-yard. Obviously getting them from the same model bus would ensure the holes are all the right size and in the right place...

I wouldn't hesitate to just bolt the subframe to the main-frame-rails till you find the right clips. That is to say, don't hold up your build searching for these clips if they're not readily available.

The season rapidly approaches where a trip to the junkyard is of necessity rather than an odd form of recreation on my part...
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Old 12-08-2019, 07:31 PM   #6
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My Freightliner has the same (visually) clips holding the bus body to the frame.
Seems to be a standard bus-body construction that allows the body to slide on the frame in a hard, head on impact situation...

I would see about finding them in a bus-junk-yard. Obviously getting them from the same model bus would ensure the holes are all the right size and in the right place...

I wouldn't hesitate to just bolt the subframe to the main-frame-rails till you find the right clips. That is to say, don't hold up your build searching for these clips if they're not readily available.

The season rapidly approaches where a trip to the junkyard is of necessity rather than an odd form of recreation on my part...
Getting the exact original type of bracket isn't really that important since I will have to fabricate what the brackets are attached to in my new structure anyway.

I would most definitely hesitate to bolt the subframe (the angle steel cross-pieces I've added) to the main-frame-rails, if what you mean by "main-frame-rails" is the chassis rails, since that would mean drilling through the flanges of the chassis rails. But I think you probably mean something else with the terms you're using. People seem to use a variety of different words to refer to parts of the bus body and parts of the truck chassis below, and it leads to a lot of confusion.
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Old 12-08-2019, 07:33 PM   #7
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I'm googling some more and these seem to be called "chassis tabs", although I haven't found anything with the two bends I need - they all seem to be flat.

This isn't a show-stopper for me as I can add these pretty much any time.
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Old 12-08-2019, 07:48 PM   #8
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Getting the exact original type of bracket isn't really that important since I will have to fabricate what the brackets are attached to in my new structure anyway.
Ah, right... *

I would most definitely hesitate to bolt the subframe (the angle steel cross-pieces I've added) to the main-frame-rails, if what you mean by "main-frame-rails" is the chassis rails, since that would mean drilling through the flanges of the chassis rails. But I think you probably mean something else with the terms you're using. People seem to use a variety of different words to refer to parts of the bus body and parts of the truck chassis below, and it leads to a lot of confusion.
* In that case have your tabs locally manned (manufactured)
Measure the bends you want. Have a local metal supply place bend a piece of sheet the thickness you want. If you need 6 tabs 2" wide -- have a piece of sheet 13" wide bent how you want and then cut the individual tabs yourself. The extra inch is to allow for kerf...
Obviously your math will differ.
Most metal supply places charge by the cut & by the bend SO you don't want them to make each individual piece -- think how their big machines can bend you a large piece that YOU can cut into the many small pieces you need.
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Old 12-08-2019, 08:01 PM   #9
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take an old clip off and go have a fab shop make you some.
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Old 12-08-2019, 08:08 PM   #10
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take an old clip off and go have a fab shop make you some.
I dunno, I don't think a local place could make one of those very easily. They'd have to bend the edges and then give that double bend in the middle. I suspect the factory pieces are just stamped in one go.
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Old 12-08-2019, 08:15 PM   #11
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I dunno, I don't think a local place could make one of those very easily. They'd have to bend the edges and then give that double bend in the middle. I suspect the factory pieces are just stamped in one go.
Correct.
Those compound bends give the tabs strength.

You can make up the strength by using a thicker gauge...

You don't need to meet Fed schoolbus regs but you DO need to make sure the back of your bus-body is connected to the chassis similar to the front.

Otherwise you'll be over-stressing the tabs currently in place, if you don't bolt down, or "tab" down the back section.
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Old 12-08-2019, 08:19 PM   #12
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Correct.
Those compound bends give the tabs strength.

You can make up the strength by using a thicker gauge...

You don't need to meet Fed schoolbus regs but you DO need to make sure the back of your bus-body is connected to the chassis similar to the front.

Otherwise you'll be over-stressing the tabs currently in place, if you don't bolt down, or "tab" down the back section.
Yeah, I that's what I was thinking. They could make you something that would work.
A call to the bus builder could end up with one getting some though.

There are different ways bus bodies are attached.
Not sure what my current bus has, but my last one had spring loaded clamps and I had one bus that had rubber pads the body was mounted on.
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Old 12-08-2019, 08:26 PM   #13
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Yeah, I that's what I was thinking. They could make you something that would work.
A call to the bus builder could end up with one getting some though.

There are different ways bus bodies are attached.
Not sure what my current bus has, but my last one had spring loaded clamps and I had one bus that had rubber pads the body was mounted on.
Mine has the rubber pads and the clips.

I still like to internally fume at this fabricator guy I originally hired to rebuild the floor. Every single conversation I had with him, I brought up the need to have pads under the beams and to have them clamped in place like the original floor. "Yeah, yeah, we'll figure it out." He figured it out by just not ******* doing it. Fortunately there's enough give in the frame that I can crowbar it up and slip a pad under it; now I just need some clip thingamajigs to finish it.
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Old 12-08-2019, 08:32 PM   #14
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Correct.
Those compound bends give the tabs strength.

You can make up the strength by using a thicker gauge...

You don't need to meet Fed schoolbus regs but you DO need to make sure the back of your bus-body is connected to the chassis similar to the front.

Otherwise you'll be over-stressing the tabs currently in place, if you don't bolt down, or "tab" down the back section.
Well, the back is still connected as is the front - my new part is more the middle. I'm not really worried about over-stressing the existing tabs; there are four original clips missing out of maybe 24, and while that does mean less frictional force resisting sliding in an accident, the bus body also weighs a lot less without the seats, flooring and kids.

I mainly want these clips so that I can clamp my beams down on the cushioning pads I'll be adding between them and the chassis rails so that the pads don't slide out (like they're doing now).
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Old 12-08-2019, 09:35 PM   #15
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The floor of my bus is attached to the chassis rails with these clip/bracket things:

Does anybody know what these are actually called and where I could find eight or so of them online?
Pricy little bastards.

https://www.tacbusparts.com/45118100...ody-Mount-Clip

http://allpointsbus.com/bus-parts/body-mount-clips/529
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Old 12-08-2019, 09:45 PM   #16
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Nice find, thanks! Yeah, that is a lot more expensive than I was hoping for. I'm kind of annoyed that somehow all of these except one went missing from the demo, even though I still have all of the cut-away material.

I hadn't noticed that little tab on the end - I wonder how that works. Maybe it's crimped over on the top side of the flange.
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Old 12-08-2019, 10:01 PM   #17
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I hadn't noticed that little tab on the end - I wonder how that works. Maybe it's crimped over on the top side of the flange.
I would think it would fit in a hole, or a slot, to keep the whole clip from rotating while being torqued during assembly....but that's just a guess.
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Old 12-09-2019, 09:46 AM   #18
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I would think it would fit in a hole, or a slot, to keep the whole clip from rotating while being torqued during assembly....but that's just a guess.
That was my assumption as well...

If you just want to secure the rubber pad w/out drilling any holes, there's all kinds of clamps to research that won't break the bank...

https://www.google.com/search?q=topp...hrome&ie=UTF-8
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Old 12-18-2019, 03:40 PM   #19
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I'm googling some more and these seem to be called "chassis tabs", although I haven't found anything with the two bends I need - they all seem to be flat.

This isn't a show-stopper for me as I can add these pretty much any time.
If you can find someone who does hot work fabrication, they could bang you out a set of those pretty quick from stock channel steel.
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Old 12-18-2019, 06:45 PM   #20
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Let me look tomorrow I think I have 6 or 8 I took of of my bus.
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