Rusty 87 build thread

[Mountain Yawp]

musigenesis,
I just finished reading your whole thread. Nice work on the rust removal and based on the sellers pics it is crazy that you had that much to do.
I like your placement of the step tub and might need to do something similar.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Mountain Yawp

musigenesis,
I just finished reading your whole thread. Nice work on the rust removal and based on the sellers pics it is crazy that you had that much to do.
I like your placement of the step tub and might need to do something similar.

Thanks! Looking over those pics again, I'm a little more accepting of the version of myself from a year ago buying this thing. I never posted the eBay link here or on reddit because I was afraid of somebody poaching it, but I'm not sure if anybody would have pointed out the specific problems with it, other than to say never buy a bus from NY (which is sound advice, of course). From what I know now, buses without any pics of the underside are guaranteed to be rusty as hell.

I was very fortunate in one sense. I bought the bus on impulse after getting laid off from my previous job. I got a severance (first time that's ever happened to me - usually the severance is "**** you, no, **** you!") which included one final check for six grand that I still have no idea what it was for, so I plunked it all down as the max bid on this bus. Fortunately the bidding stopped at $3600, which would have been a decent price for an un-rusted version. Paying $6000 for this would have been really really bad.

I hope my tub works out. I'm somewhat fearful of cutting it and gluing it back together, but it wasn't too expensive if I screw it up (about $150).

[Mountain Yawp]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

I hope my tub works out. I'm somewhat fearful of cutting it and gluing it back together, but it wasn't too expensive if I screw it up (about $150).

I have not messed around with cutting and gluing something like that, but I would think no matter how perfectly you do the job, you will always be able to see and feel the new seam. If you use extra material of some kind under the seam, then you should at least be able to make it watertight.

[musigenesis]

Yeah, I have no illusions about this looking perfect or anything. The way I'll have this set up most of the time, the seam will be hidden by the shower curtain anyway.

[musigenesis]

[banman]

Harbor Freight has welding magnets and "fender clamps" for holding a metal patch flush with the bus. I'm a big an of the magnets as they also serve (a bit) as a heat sink.

[kidharris]

Originally Posted by Mountain Yawp

I have not messed around with cutting and gluing something like that, but I would think no matter how perfectly you do the job, you will always be able to see and feel the new seam. If you use extra material of some kind under the seam, then you should at least be able to make it watertight.

That's why I asked earlier if he was going to weld or glue. If it was a weldable thermoplastic (hot air welding or use a electric soldering gun to melt/smear/spread) A weld would be easier to seal & reinforce (use the cutoff/drop to reinforce on the back and to make same material filler rods) and could be shaped/re-shaped to look like a tread/ridge, just don't get it too hot (dis-colors and/or warps) He could practice on the scrap/drop and weld from the back. My plastic welds always look like crap, but they sometimes seem stronger than glue. As far as I know you can't weld thermoset plastics.

[musigenesis]

The floor was still bouncy and warped by the side door, so I bolted in two additional angle-steel stiffeners on the underside, and it's flat and solid now. For the second from the left, I also have a strip of 14ga on top of the floor as a sort of long washer.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by kidharris

That's why I asked earlier if he was going to weld or glue. If it was a weldable thermoplastic (hot air welding or use a electric soldering gun to melt/smear/spread) A weld would be easier to seal & reinforce (use the cutoff/drop to reinforce on the back and to make same material filler rods) and could be shaped/re-shaped to look like a tread/ridge, just don't get it too hot (dis-colors and/or warps) He could practice on the scrap/drop and weld from the back. My plastic welds always look like crap, but they sometimes seem stronger than glue. As far as I know you can't weld thermoset plastics.

After watching a single Youtube video on welding ABS plastic, I am now an expert. I'm going to experiment with the cutout block as you say, and maybe put my tub back together that way. The one I watched reinforced the weld with little pieces of copper wire, which I may try. He also made a sort of ABS "mud" by dissolving Legos in methyl ethyl ketone. He ended up with a perfectly smooth repair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aE-f6ryCWU

[kidharris]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

After watching a single Youtube video on welding ABS plastic, I am now an expert. I'm going to experiment with the cutout block as you say, and maybe put my tub back together that way. The one I watched reinforced the weld with little pieces of copper wire, which I may try. He also made a sort of ABS "mud" by dissolving Legos in methyl ethyl ketone. He ended up with a perfectly smooth repair.

careful with the MEK, read the MSDS. Some places are selling substitute MEK today because of its problems.



You know that he is going to paint that repair. While you are practicing on your scrap, since you have plenty of filler material to dissolve in the MEK, you might try sanding a piece smooth and then buffing it to see if you can blend it in so that painting is not necessary.



I experimented with making custom shaped copper tips for my soldering gun but it was a lot of work to get them to fit into the gun and I backed off because I was in a hurry. It works but be ready yo invest some fab time or buy a better soldering iron. mine was an ancient piece of dodo. My welds looked bad. Did not know about the MEK trick.


Since you have a planned "break" maybe you can grind/file a bevel into the plastic to make the weld easier, smoother, and stronger. Looking forward to seeing your results and any experiments.




here's another vid was on the same page - different technique & tips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRCMIDILfEI

different material but shows real plastic welding irons and 2 different tips with different techniques & tips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9R0cIav_fI

[musigenesis]

The ingredients:



Welded together and smoothed the two end surfaces that will be pressed up against my crossbar and the chassis rails.



On the other three, I'm not going to do these spots at the base of the threading. They're not necessary for anything and I'm going to need to grind these a little. This is why before doing a bunch of new items of some type I do one all the way through to make sure I'm doing them the right way.

[Native]

There is something intrinsically rewarding making a bracket (or clip in your case) that does as it needs to do. Starting from basic flat stock and ending up with a functional part. Makes me smile every ime I do it and every timeI see others do it.

[cadillackid]

definitely something satisfying about making brackets and pieces.. growing up in a house with lathe, drill press, bender, torches, saws and the like.. I remember as a teen.. "Dad the bushing in my alternator bracket disintegrated".. Dad was like "Lets just make you a new one".. and that was the day I learned how to use the lathe..

[Frochevy]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

definitely something satisfying about making brackets and pieces.. growing up in a house with lathe, drill press, bender, torches, saws and the like.. I remember as a teen.. "Dad the bushing in my alternator bracket disintegrated".. Dad was like "Lets just make you a new one".. and that was the day I learned how to use the lathe..

I agree.... Makes me feel like other kids missed out that didn't grow up learning things like that and access to tools like you mentioned. I am blessed to have a dad like you do!

And good looking bracket btw!

[musigenesis]

The bolts on my first attempt at a clip got slightly misaligned when I just dropped them in the holes and tried to tack them, so I socked them in with nuts this time before welding the heads.





Spot-welded the heads only on the underside this time.





Ground and polished the two mating surfaces on each clip. Making steel shiny and smooth is really fun.



Since it's so cold now, I primed these in my basement. Mildly stinky. Tomorrow it will be barely warm enough for me to paint them outside, then the yellow will take at least two days to dry. Hopefully Thursday I'll be able to install these on the bus.

[Native]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

The bolts on my first attempt at a clip got slightly misaligned when I just dropped them in the holes and tried to tack them, so I socked them in with nuts this time before welding the heads.

Attachment 40907

Attachment 40908

Spot-welded the heads only on the underside this time.

Attachment 40909

Attachment 40910

Ground and polished the two mating surfaces on each clip. Making steel shiny and smooth is really fun.

Attachment 40911

Since it's so cold now, I primed these in my basement. Mildly stinky. Tomorrow it will be barely warm enough for me to paint them outside, then the yellow will take at least two days to dry. Hopefully Thursday I'll be able to install these on the bus.

Nice work, real nice! Has anyone else been having problems with "ClousFlare checking your browser" on this site???

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

Nice work, real nice! Has anyone else been having problems with "ClousFlare checking your browser" on this site???

Thanks! Yeah, I'm seeing the Cloudflare browser checks from time to time.

[musigenesis]

I still need to attach my three middle tray pieces to the angle steel beds they're sitting in, so this was an experiment in how I'm going to do that.



1/4-20 carriage bolts in 3/8 holes welded from above. I need to practice this a lot more so I don't leave so much extra steel to grind away.





14ga sheet will then be nutted down. I needed two washers here for each because of the crappy weld job. The bolts here are extra-long because I'm going to screw on dowels that will go through the 2" XPS foam and attach to the plywood.



The sheet isn't quite flush with the angle steel (crappy welding again), but when I install these for real there will be a bead of seam sealer all around so it won't matter.



Drilled out 1.25" diameter holes in the XPS above the bolts, and now screwing in 1 5/8" pieces of 1.25" dowel (pre-drilled on the bottom to go into the carriage bolts). To do this I drilled a couple of small notch holes in the top and I'm using the wrench from one of my angle grinders. It works OK but I'm going to make a special tool to do this.



Dowel is about 1/8" short of 2" here so that I get good compression from the plywood.



Plywood layer goes on top and screws down into the dowels.





Plywood stops 2" short of the edge. My goal here is to have the subfloor be as much insulation and as little wood as possible, especially in the corners like this.

[Native]

All that to keep from adding a thermal bridge?

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

All that to keep from adding a thermal bridge?

Well, mostly this is a way of attaching the sheet metal to the angle steel, but since I also want to have a mechanical connection between the plywood and the steel bottom, I'm just taking advantage of the ends of these carriage bolts already sticking up. The dowel thing is actually pretty easy to do - the hard part of this is welding in the carriage bolts, which I would have to do either way.

I did conceive of this in terms of minimizing thermal bridging, but if it presented serious difficulties I would abandon it and just use a regular piece of wood.