1935 Chevy school bus

[atcc77]

WELL DONE SIR, WELL DONE! The popup makes sense to me now, can't wait to see the finished project.

[ol trunt]

I got some more time in on the SKOOLIE pop up roof today.

[Tango]

Hey Trunt --- for some reason, I am reminded of something an old -timer friend who is a "real welder" told me a few years back. He said..."son...as welders go...you'd make one helluva mud-dauber". I'm still a work in progress.

[ol trunt]

Yea Tango-- I'm a mud dauber when it comes to ancient rusty sheet metal I'll just grind the edge a bit and bring out my Bondo and no one will be the wiser HA! I'm confident that the plug welds where the rivits used to be will hold the thing together--what say you? Jack

[Tango]

I think our techniques are pretty similar Trunt. Just melt the suckers together and grind'em down. Maybe one day I'll figure it out. Till then, for sheetmetal I'll just stock up on flap wheels.

[chev49]

you can also use your butt weld clamps, square up the orig hole and weld without much warpage, or use the air punch after squaring up the orig hole and plug weld..

or careful tig work.

[ol trunt]

Way too much welding and grinding today. Somehow I forgot to blink before I started the arc and I have sunburned eyes to show for it.

My HF instant dark welding hood works just fine if I remember to blink for a second as I press the trigger. I know, you get what you pay for and I paid for sunburned eyes--not too bad, should be ok by AM

I did get the rest of the roof repair/smoothing done so I can start fabricating the pop up--OH BOY, too much fun!

[chev49]

the hf ones work almost as good as the $400 ones... and i think they are 40 bucks on sale right now...

[ol trunt]

$400? Then they ought to be 10 times better--BLINK BLINK. The eyes seem to be ok today but I think I'll still give the welding a days rest

[Tango]

I bought an adjustable auto darkening helmet by 3M Speedglass for about 150 bucks after reading that anything below 1/30,000th of a second was too much of a delay to prevent burning your retinas (they don't grow back if severely damaged). The Harbor Freight & such are a third or more slower to respond. Would prefer to avoid the whole blindness thing if I can.

[ol trunt]

Tango, thanks for the tip. I'll start looking for one and will probably just keep blinking until I do.

[ol trunt]

Just a brief good news, bad news, good news update.

Good news: I got home with both 4'x8' polycarbonite sheets for the pop up still intact despite a 100 mile fwy ride with them tied on the bed of my S-dime.

Bad news: I got both 4x8 sheets of plastic through the garage,over the Ford and Suburban, through the (wifes creation garden?) back yard and onto the patio for storage where I tipped over a wooden painters easel which skittered across the stucco wall, and went through the screen and both windows of the door that leads to the master bedroom I spent most of the day today (and most of the night last night on the couch) repairing a 70 year old door assembly. Oh, and I took pics but accidently erased them--what's that all about?

Good news: I was allowed the run of the metal fabrication business I have mentioned before (even had qualified help). The 1/8 " sheet metal to be used on the pop up now fits the rounded contours of the bus roof. I trashed those pics as well--Hard to get good help when you do it yourself

I hope to at least get things tacked together tommorrow and will try to post pics.

[jkindt]

If you only need one more inch to get the bus into the garage....Let some AIR out of the TIRES.

[ol trunt]

I know that if you are reading this you have time on your hands

I ran across many pics of neat housecars I thought SKOOLIES might enjoy seeing. They are at Nomadicista.org under housebusses and housetrucks entry Saddletramps---enjoy.

[Accordion]

Nomadicista was at one time called Sharkey's. I was one of their most prolific posters. There are lots of nice people on that forum. The stories that Sharkey wrote, entitled "Thirty Years In A Housetruck"are well worth reading. Sharkey has a great talent for the written word.

If you are curious, you may also check out the many posts that I made. On that forum, I used my name which is Rudy.

Have fun over there. There are several members on this forum who have been long time members of Sharkey's forum.

Stuart, from New Zealand, now runs the site. He is an amazing guy who does everything from playing the bass guitar to loading big ships with cargo containers to driving big trucks with many trailers behind them, and is also a very good boat man.

[ol trunt]

Rudy, I have read many good articles over there including, as it turns out, many of yours. Thanks for the info. Jack

[ol trunt]

Hello all, It's taken me a lot longer to fabricate the working mechanism for my pop up top than I had imagined. Cutting and bending (with the huge press you have seen me use before) 1/8" plate to be used to surround the opening in the roof took a lot of set-up time. Only 4 pieces but each with 4 bends that had to match and line up--slow going. Welding these parts together along with their 1 3/4" tube steel frame presented another challenge. The first side went just fine but its parallel side reminded me of the waves of a 50's hoop skirt pettycoat I spent a glorious day grinding out the welds (about 10 feet worth) and replacing the part with heavier material and more carefull welding.

I used a length of piano hinge on the secured length of the pop up and had planned to bolt one side of the hinge to the bus and to weld the other side to the pop up mechanism. That was not to be. I used all the "right" stuff to do the weld but the stainless steel hinge (.165" thickness) wasn't about to cooperate with the heat necessary to make a weld on the 1/8" steel . Fortunately all the "practice" trials were done on scrap material so I didn't mess up the good stuff.

I raised the hinge from the bus body 1/8" using strap. This was done to reduce the pinch which occurs when the hinge closes. Now that welding was out I had to find a fastener that would work in place of the welds. I visited several specialty nut and bolt venders but found nothing that had a head less than 1/8" thick. The last thing I wanted to do was add a thicker spacer as every part of an inch I raise the roof

[ol trunt]

Along with spelling typing is another class I shouldn't have ditched. A Newton is .22 pounds not 2.2 pounds--OH WELL

[Tango]

Hey Trunt --- Lookin' good my friend! Outstanding craftsmanship as usual. It must be great to both have access to that level of equipment...AND, know how to use it too.

You've had me pondering a "Trolly Top" myself, but most likely something fixed (if I can even figure that out). Thought you and a few other folks here might enjoy the site below. It was certainly quite inspirational to me on several levels. Just click on a few of the "Living Van" links on the right of the page and see what you think.

http://www.visit.carters-steamfair.c...ivingvans.html

WARNING...the site above can cause delusional thinking and big grins!

[chev49]

Thanks for the link.
Roof looketh good jack
now put in slide...