Rusty 87 build thread

[Oldyeller]

Sorry to hear this happened to you. That kind of money is a hardship for most of us. This is a risk we take running these clapped out, old buses . . . breakdowns.

[TheHubbardBus]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Turns out the valve was $225 (only twice what I figured it would be), road service fee of $45, and road service of $440 including travel time to the parts warehouse etc. Probably should have tried fixing this myself.

You were right a page back. You could have just manually drained the tank. That petcock in your picture...

Also, almost all these air brake components are rebuildable. I can't speak for that particular unit, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't a rebuild kit for a fraction of the price.

And NAPA (at least) has lots of Haldex components that are high quality but generally much less expensive than Bendix.

All that aside, I've been gone for a while, & it's amazing to see the progress you've made!!!! Kudos on incredible work

[musigenesis]

Had a week off for the holidays and my goal was to finish painting the inside. Sanding all the screw holes filled with epoxy wood putty was just too brutal, though. I did at least get most of the sanding done, and since today was 65°F and cold weather is coming tomorrow, I scrambled to at least get my emergency exit doors painting on the inside. These have to be opened to paint, so I can't do them by just warming up the inside and they had to get finished today.



Primed the side door.





Primed the back door.







Primed the edges of the bulkhead door and the doorway.



First coat of porch paint. I got my can of base paint tinted white and it appears to be exactly the same color as the regular white, but I'm still using the tinted paint for the first coat and the regular white for the second.





Second coat. I was a bit worried because my marker lines were still slightly visible after the first coat, but they're completely concealed by the second.







Door hardware back on. I was considering leaving the hardware on and taping everything but I'm glad I didn't. That would have been a royal pain.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by TheHubbardBus

All that aside, I've been gone for a while, & it's amazing to see the progress you've made!!!! Kudos on incredible work

Thanks, man! I've done sooooo little since August, though.

[Buster Junior]

Nice work. It looks great. Way to gri d before the weather shift!

[Mercuric Mind]

Wow! You have done some really nice work. Looks like it's coming together nicely.

[Finixie]

Mine looks about the same only my holes are in the back and top upper border of the wheel wells, how were you able to fix this if you were? Im looking at about a $4000 investment with a professional welder to rebuild them

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Finixie

Mine looks about the same only my holes are in the back and top upper border of the wheel wells, how were you able to fix this if you were? Im looking at about a $4000 investment with a professional welder to rebuild them

This album is a condensed version of the whole repair process. I actually hired a "professional welder" to fix it for me for me $1300; he turned out to be incompetent and a pathological liar and I ended up fixing it myself.

$4000 is way, way, way too much to pay for a job like this. You can get entirely un-rusted buses for that much. Do you have any pics of your rust situation?

[TheHubbardBus]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

This album is a condensed version of the whole repair process. I actually hired a "professional welder" to fix it for me for me $1300; he turned out to be incompetent and a pathological liar and I ended up fixing it myself

You know how I know you've gotta be a great person? Shyte is magnetically drawn to you.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by TheHubbardBus

You know how I know you've gotta be a great person? Shyte is magnetically drawn to you.

Scatological magnetism indeed!

[Finixie]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

This album is a condensed version of the whole repair process. I actually hired a "professional welder" to fix it for me for me $1300; he turned out to be incompetent and a pathological liar and I ended up fixing it myself.

$4000 is way, way, way too much to pay for a job like this. You can get entirely un-rusted buses for that much. Do you have any pics of your rust situation?

It really suxks that happened to you some people are just like that hope you didnt lose any money thats exactly why im trying to look at my options before I do anything about the fix

I also think 4k is way too much and just like always itll probably end up being more if I go that route. I got a mercedes diesel with 90k miles on, I payed just under 3k after fuel and plane ticket to drive it back I basically payed for the engine during corona and it was a steal though the body needs a lot of work which is probably why i got it for that price I didnt realize what I was dealing with until after i got back home and started peeling layers, looks like it got patched up at some point, horribly, it was some plaster type of thing covered in paint and it only just made the rust worse and this is what it looks like after I finished stripping down

And also I apologize if you already posted how exactly you got it done I only just saw the first couple of pictures where you showed the wells on my down time at work so i replied if you could point me to that part that would be very helpful

[Finixie]

Im just searching on here and youtube trying to find people in the same situation that could direct me to how they actually got their repair done thank you for replying its always appreciated

[dbsoundman]

Originally Posted by Finixie

It really suxks that happened to you some people are just like that hope you didnt lose any money thats exactly why im trying to look at my options before I do anything about the fix

I also think 4k is way too much and just like always itll probably end up being more if I go that route. I got a mercedes diesel with 90k miles on, I payed just under 3k after fuel and plane ticket to drive it back I basically payed for the engine during corona and it was a steal though the body needs a lot of work which is probably why i got it for that price I didnt realize what I was dealing with until after i got back home and started peeling layers, looks like it got patched up at some point, horribly, it was some plaster type of thing covered in paint and it only just made the rust worse and this is what it looks like after I finished stripping down

And also I apologize if you already posted how exactly you got it done I only just saw the first couple of pictures where you showed the wells on my down time at work so i replied if you could point me to that part that would be very helpful

That back door looks like mine but definitely worse. I think it may be repairable, but then again you have a lot of holes to fill there. I still think it's all patchable using 3M Dynatron 550, blind rivets, and appropriate sheet metal gauge, but it just depends on how nice you want it to look. A welded repair will be flush, riveted not so much.

If it weren't for the odd shape of that back door I'd say just get someone to fabricate a new one and patch everything else that you can. That's a tough one. Might be a good bus to chop off the back for a car carrier and build a new back...

[musigenesis]

Jeebus, I just noticed that diesel where I live is $6.30 a gallon. I guess it's time to convert my bus to wind power.

[Drew Bru]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Jeebus, I just noticed that diesel where I live is $6.30 a gallon. I guess it's time to convert my bus to wind power.

I know. Every time I pass a gas station and see the price of diesel I say to my wife "if we were still living on the road we'd be paying almost $1/mile to move this thing!". Our home in the mountains gets much better mileage!

[Rochey6957]

Yeah NY/ PA fuel is 6.20-6.40 most places. I saw as high as 6.80 in gibson pa last weekend. Managed to find 5.60 at my neighborhood station. Only putting $20 in the TDI doesn't get me very far these days haha

[cadillackid]

diesel seems to be running about $1.30 OVER gasoline right now.. not quite to the point where driving my gas bus is cheaper than my diesel but getting closer..



about 4 days before the russia invasion I bought a new hyundai Hybrid car.. even got a decent discount on it as no one wanted hybrids.. now they are so in demand the sales guy called me and asked if he could buy it back at $1000 over what I paid for it and sell me an SUV loaded at a discount... Sooooryyy! I like its 52 MPG real-world...

[dbsoundman]

I think I paid between $5.10 and $5.70 per gallon or so on our recent trip from OH to FL and back. Sometimes stores across the street from each other would differ in price by 50 or 60 cents per gallon!

I estimated my cost per mile to be about $1.80 (only including fuel of course).

[Dbacks2k4]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

diesel seems to be running about $1.30 OVER gasoline right now.. not quite to the point where driving my gas bus is cheaper than my diesel but getting closer..



about 4 days before the russia invasion I bought a new hyundai Hybrid car.. even got a decent discount on it as no one wanted hybrids.. now they are so in demand the sales guy called me and asked if he could buy it back at $1000 over what I paid for it and sell me an SUV loaded at a discount... Sooooryyy! I like its 52 MPG real-world...

I was originally planning on driving my '13 Toyota Corolla out to Phoenix last week to finalize the purchase of my new bus, just to save the miles and charging hassle of taking the Tesla. I took one look at gas prices and decided 20 minutes per stop for charging wasn't that inconvenient after all lol.

On a related note my local Tesla owners group is seeing resale value on Tesla's go through the roof with people wanting to go electric but not wanting to wait through Tesla's backlog. Crazy world indeed.

[musigenesis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37AL...ceCooper-Topic

Back to work on Rusty 87!