Rusty 87 build thread

[musigenesis]

Decided the door will be flush with the cab floor (rather than the higher living space floor) so I needed the plywood to extend 3" in. Pulled up the old piece and cut a new larger one.



Tacked and welded the rest of the rear sill. The little tab there is for the door bar to catch on. The original bar had a point and went into a hole in the floor, which I accidentally welded a patch over. I was thinking of all kinds of replacement holes until I realized I should just grind the point off the bar and use a tab like this.





I finally decided to put a piece of plywood under where the seat is. I'm going to attach a hinged piece to the edge which folds down and provides a footrest for the riders.





I am not worried about water coming in via the back door.

[Native]

At least not after you use your trusty Dynatron 550 on it!

[musigenesis]

I'm repainting all the dashboard trim bits. The bottoms were all slightly rusted.



Birds just love to crap on my bus, even when my bus isn't around.



Had to redo three of the bolts for my seat rails. I used longer ones than necessary and in the second-to-last holes on the rails they block the functioning of the rear clasps so the seat never locks in place.



Underbody brackets for the seat rails.



I tried Banman's suggestion to run beads on the outside of a warped piece to bring it back square and it worked extremely well to square up the posts on my bulkhead wall. They were pretty severely warped towards the front, maybe 1/4" out of true, but now they're almost perfectly straight. Thanks, Banman.





Started on the door. I wasn't planning to do it but my weldable hinges showed up in the mail so I had to.



Pretty much the same structure as the walls, except this is 1"x5/8"x1/8" angle, with two strips of the flatbar on each side of the window opening.



I'm out of whole sheets of expanded so I had to piece the door from leftovers. It will bother me for eternity that I had to use a piece oriented in the wrong direction for the top section. I will probably end up covering the framing of the door on the cab side with some thin plywood, to make it look more like a door.





I ordered some weldable steel hinges for the door - from Hinge Outlet, of course. I figured it was a scam but I ordered them anyway, like $3 a piece. I want my door to be removable (and probably adjustable) so I can't weld the hinges on both sides. More welding on bolts but for these I can't use my normal crappy technique because the door frame needs to be flush with the hinge, so I drilled holes and then stuck the bolt pieces through and welded the back sides. The bolt piece is also in a hole in the 2x4 to keep it aligned, which doesn't really work since they're all a little off. A couple of hammer hits gets these back straight.





I'm going to mount the door with only two hinges initially to make sure this works, and then add the other two.

[musigenesis]

I've been paying $75 a month for my spot, to a crazy old man who negotiated me down to that from my offer of $100. As I've been fearing for a while, his daughter bought the property from him and she told me today it's going to be more like $125 to $150 a month and I'm going to have to sign a lease.

Oh well, it was a fantastic deal while it lasted. At least she's not kicking me out like I was afraid would happen.

[Native]

Was the bird dropping on one of the pieces you just painted?


I did not realize the expanded sheet you has was made with such large holes .... I like that!


Bummer on the storage pad lease. Are you planning on locating another spot or using the same one?

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

Was the bird dropping on one of the pieces you just painted?


I did not realize the expanded sheet you has was made with such large holes .... I like that!


Bummer on the storage pad lease. Are you planning on locating another spot or using the same one?

Yeah, I had just painted this piece (inside) when a bird flew in my shed and crapped on it. Wasn't even dry yet so I'm going to have to repaint that bit.

I'll look around a bit, but parking spots for RVs are kind of hard to come by around here. There's a big RV storage place just up the road that is closing down and it seems there are going to be a lot of people looking for a new spot. I had one other place lined up around here but it was going to be $200 a month, so I'm still better off where I am.

[musigenesis]

Apparently you can do too much of the beads for unwarping metal - this ended up warped out even worse than before. I'm going to cut it in the middle and weld it back straight.



Cut gussets of 14 ga and welded them on the corners.







I was originally going to cut bolts and weld them to the backside of these gussets, realized it was easier to just a drill a hole through them and use a regular bolt.

[musigenesis]

Only two of the four (or maybe three?) hinges are welded to the wall and bolted to the door. I was worried the hinges would bind a little if I didn't place them accurately enough, but the door swings easily and normally. Watch me mess up the other two hinges and have them bind.

The door turned out to be a lot heavier than I was anticipating but it gives it a nice solid door feel. It's not square with the wall everywhere, though, so I'll have to do some more weld boogering to get it to line up right.

[JDSquared]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

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Only two of the four (or maybe three?) hinges are welded to the wall and bolted to the door. I was worried the hinges would bind a little if I didn't place them accurately enough, but the door swings easily and normally. Watch me mess up the other two hinges and have them bind.

The door turned out to be a lot heavier than I was anticipating but it gives it a nice solid door feel. It's not square with the wall everywhere, though, so I'll have to do some more weld boogering to get it to line up right.

That looks good. But a little weird to see plywood on the floor lol. You sure you don't want to pull that out and fabricate something else?

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by JDSquared

That looks good. But a little weird to see plywood on the floor lol. You sure you don't want to pull that out and fabricate something else?

Ha, I did put a lot of thought into any other possible construction material I could use. If I'd had a healthy steel floor, I might have used 3/4" rubber mats, but even those would be way more expensive than plywood. There's just nothing that beats the combination of strength, price and so-so insulation value.

I'm not allowing it within 2" of my walls, though, and I'm going to paint these floor pieces with primer and a good deck paint before I bolt them back down. If any water is still getting to them I'll be able to spot it before it damages the floor (maybe).

I think I can keep the Beast Plywood at bay.

[musigenesis]

Put on the other two door hinges today. Both of these had a slight hitch in them that I didn't want to feel when opening the door, so I spent about an hour last night getting them to move smoothly. Then I welded on the bolts and the hitches both came back, so I spent another hour and couldn't get rid of the hitches this time.

Welded them both on and the door still opens completely smoothly, no hitches at all. Oh well, I certainly won't complain about it.



Welded some more boogers on to straighten out the door and everything is pretty square now. The key seem to be to do just a little bit each time and then go take a nap while it cools off completely.



I welded on a couple of temporary stops (maybe temporary) to keep the door from swinging past the wall. I need to figure out what sort of doorknob/latch I'm going to use for this. I need something that latches at the top and bottom of the door in addition to the side, like how the side and rear exit doors work.



My hasp came off completely a couple of days ago and my bus was more or less locked with duct tape. Decided to bolt things up proper.

[Native]

Reminder: When open, lock your lock on the open catch of the latch so that you can not be locked in.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

Reminder: When open, lock your lock on the open catch of the latch so that you can not be locked in.

So I tried drinking some of the hooch off my sourdough starter instead of dumping it down the drain tonight, and I think that's what made that sentence so hard to read.

I have to say, that hooch is actually pretty tasty. It has like a grapefruit flavor, sort of. I'm going to see if I can save up a significant amount and use it in a tomato sauce or a stew or something. My starter seems to be producing a lot of it but it's still very healthy.

[kidharris]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

So I tried drinking some of the hooch off my sourdough starter instead of dumping it down the drain tonight, and I think that's what made that sentence so hard to read.

I have to say, that hooch is actually pretty tasty. It has like a grapefruit flavor, sort of. I'm going to see if I can save up a significant amount and use it in a tomato sauce or a stew or something. My starter seems to be producing a lot of it but it's still very healthy.

LOL ... Is that duct tape lock working good? Never worked for me.

[banman]

Originally Posted by Native

Reminder: When open, lock your lock on the open catch of the latch so that you can not be locked in.

I would put a second hasp receiver(?) on the door so when you lock the door open there's no moving parts rattling about.
And you won't be temped to use the lock for something else and then not have it when you need it...

Originally Posted by musigenesis

So I tried drinking some of the hooch off my sourdough starter instead of dumping it down the drain tonight, and I think that's what made that sentence so hard to read.

I have to say, that hooch is actually pretty tasty. It has like a grapefruit flavor, sort of. I'm going to see if I can save up a significant amount and use it in a tomato sauce or a stew or something. My starter seems to be producing a lot of it but it's still very healthy.

brettanomyces -- the stuff of sour beers -- search: yeast, fruity esters


The art of balancing your welds, or even mitering a joint to 88° and having your welds give you the desired 90° corner...
I only know enough to try and think about it...

You're right about letting the metal cool between welds -- the more you heat-soak the whole piece the more likely you introduce warping...

[Jay-Ney]

So good to see the work in progress

[musigenesis]

Lost power last night in the storm. Now the utilities outage map is saying we won‘t get power back until June seventh at 11 pm. I have never in my life lived anywhere where the power went out so frequently and for so long.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Jay-Ney

So good to see the work in progress

Thanks! The progress is slow but at least it happens from time to time.

[JDSquared]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Lost power last night in the storm. Now the utilities outage map is saying we won‘t get power back until June seventh at 11 pm. I have never in my life lived anywhere where the power went out so frequently and for so long.

We lost power after hurricane Michael for a week. And Matthew. Cold showers suck. And the lack of ac. But I had a cord out to my van and the inverter for a light, my Coleman stove on the porch. Everyone was hanging outside and it was real neighborly for a week.

Hoping to hook up the propane water heater in the bus, and the mini split before anything comes through this year.
Good luck this week.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by JDSquared

We lost power after hurricane Michael for a week. And Matthew. Cold showers suck. And the lack of ac. But I had a cord out to my van and the inverter for a light, my Coleman stove on the porch. Everyone was hanging outside and it was real neighborly for a week.

Hoping to hook up the propane water heater in the bus, and the mini split before anything comes through this year.
Good luck this week.

Thanks. I sure wish I had a completed skoolie right now, would be most handy.