Started - Vintage Wayne Tailgater

[davido]

It was quite a weekend. After much frustration trying to find glass for my 1958 Chevy/Wayne, I decided on a different route. So Thursday night I bought a 1964 GMC/Wayne off of eBay from a guy in Springfield, IL. Not a big deal, but I'm in Texas. After work on Friday, a friend and I drove down to Houston to pick up a friend's gooseneck trailer. He agreed to let me borrow it, even after he knew what he was getting into

We hit 59 at about 9:30 that night. I drove until 2:30 AM. My friend drove from then until 7:30 AM while I slept. I then drove until we arrived in Springfield, IL, just before noon. After helping remove the engine (not included in the sale) and winching it on to the trailer, we were off and running. We stopped at the 300+ car collection at exit 41 on the way back to St. Louis. My friend's sister lives there, so we had a place to crash. I've never felt a couch so comfortable. The next morning, we had a great breakfast and hit the road again, stopping off by the Arch to get some pics.

All in all it was a pretty unevenful trip, which is the way you want it on this type of expedition. We rolled back in to town at 1AM Monday morning. Made for a long work day Monday, but I was excited to get rolling on it. I spent an hour or so pressure washing. I got all around it once and hit the top real well. Planning on some Marine Tex for the fender repairs, but the body is pretty solid.

The next items will be the 350 engine swap, body repairs, and painting. Hoping to make a huge dent in those items this weekend. Once it's ready for the road, the air bag suspension will go on. That will be the extent of phase I.

So off we go....

[westport_wayne]

hey davido, thats a great looking bus. i got a 1964 international / wayne 20 footer. it looks just like the body on yours except for the front end and winshield. a guy on the wayne bus forum told me that the 1964 was the last year they made the round back style. any how, good luck on it. westport-wayne

[eggman]

I know how the hit and runs go, glad to hear you had great success. Wish I would have seen you go by. You were about a mile from me.

[Steve]

What kind of car is that sitting behind the bus in the second picture?

[lapeer20m]

that is a beautiful looking bus!

[Griff]

Man, that is one SWEET looking bus! Can't wait to watch it grow!

Originally Posted by Steve

What kind of car is that sitting behind the bus in the second picture?

Looks like a Mustang to me.

[davido]

Well after having some initial setbacks, we back burnered the build last year. Lots of life changes. Almost all good/great.

But alas, it's time for football again! So a couple of weekends ago, we started it up again. Plus I sold the business where they've been stored so I have to get them out. So back to the build... we started with the mechanical.

- Got the engine and trans set in.
- Welded in the new engine cross member. Raised it 1" from where it sat initially.
- Fabricated a transmission mount that hard mounts to the PTO cover on the SM420 and has bushings at the frame mounts.
- Wire up the ignition, dummy lights (gauges coming in the future), etc.
- The radiator was "too brittle to repair" so I'm working on a replacement for that. Likely a 4 core Jeep radiator.
- All of the driveshafts were removed and taken to the shop for new bearings and ujoints. All FOUR of them. Pick them up tomorrow.
- We installed the new rotor, cap, and wires. Fired it up today briefly (no water or exhaust).
- Aired up the tires. I think they all hold air. Yeah!
- Ran new fuel line. For temp use. We're planning on using the factory hardlines eventually. Have to clean the tank first.
- Installed Chevy diesel fan (move mad air from what a friend tells me. I had removed the old one because my Cruiser has an electric fan).

Doesn't seem like all that much stuff but we've been working outside in the dirt and having to bring all of our tools with us. The welder was real fickle since I hadn't used it in about 3 years. It's been an uphill battle to say the least, but showing signs of progress. In the next two weeks, we're hoping to get the outside painted. Get the seats removed. Tinting the windows. And hopefully start on the inside. Mostly just new paint and flooring of some kind for now. We'll probably also lower it a little bit by dropping out a few springs (although they're already pretty settled). Air bags in the future.

I'm still in search of (answers on) the aluminum wheels. I know nothing about commercial wheels. The bus currently has 20" wheels on it, but I would like to move to 22" or even 24.5" aluminum wheels. Anyone know any good sources of these wheels used? I'm hoping to do the 24.5" wheels with some low profile tires. That's what we had as part of the initial concept. The bus currently has only 5 lugs, but the wheels have 10 holes, so I assume I can drill out the other five holes and put in more studs for the full 10 lugs.

So that's the latest. Mostly boring stuff as far as pictures would go, so nothing new there. I'll start getting more as we so the more visual items. Thanks for reading.

[davido]

Oh yeah. That's my fiance's Mustang in the back. We're both motorheads and motorcycle enthusiasts. Working on a new toy box for all of our fun stuff.

[davido]

OK, the radiator is ordered. We have TWO towbars for the upcoming towing fun of the '58. The '64 gets the driveshafts put on tomorrow. We didn't get over to TSC in time today to get the bolts we need for it. We're installing the driveshafts tomorrow so it will be ready to go as soon as the radiator gets in. Hopefully Thursday so that I can drive it over to the muffler shop. They should be able to knock it out on Friday. I'm going tomorrow to check on registration. I'm going to see if I can get Antique plates for it. That's about it for the build.

[davido]

We started getting the driveshafts mounted up tonight. Small issue. When it nearly fell off the trailer that time, it bent up one of the mounts.... actually back. It's about 2" back from where it needs to be. We didn't bring anything to work on that, so it's back again tomorrow night. I didn't get a chance to call and find out if my radiator shipped today. Hopefully it did and we'll be driving the '64 home on Thursday night.

In other news, the '58 is now sitting as the no tresspassing roadblock at the new property. Breaking the neighborhood in right. We backed it in about 20 feet past the "gate" area. Put up several more no trespassing signs. Hopefully this will keep the local high schoolers off of the property. They've been mudding, drinking, and dumping **** back there. They've taken down the cable gate several times. The bus is a little more substantial.

[the_experience03]

Or it will give them lots of windows to throw rocks at. Best of luck with that.

[davido]

All of the windows are already broken out. That's why we didn't use it in the first place. We could never find a windshield. They could beat on the sheet metal. It could happen. It's on a decently well travelled road though. I don't think that most of the visitors are that bad. We'll see.


We got the mount straightened and got the driveshafts installed today. Tires aired up. Fuel filter installed. Hopefully the radiator will make it here tomorrow. All we need to do is put in some gear oil, some gas tank treatment, gas, and a radiator and we're ready to roll out.

[the_experience03]

Can we get an mp3 of it running with the open headers?

[davido]

That would be fun. I'll see if my camera will pick it up. Hopefully it will still be light when we get the radiator in and going.

We flat towed the '58 to the new property. While going down the road, I could see a reflective tag on the side of a car waiting to turn. Uh oh. We rolled past the car as he waited to turn, our direction. We rolled to a stop at the light and up came the popo. He didn't even give us a second look. Whew. That was a little of a pucker moment. Then backing it in at the property.... I got to experience a 48 point turn. At least it's done. Buses that don't move under their own power make for difficult projects. It's not like my old Landcruiser where I can just get a group of buddies and push it around the driveway, or even up on to a trailer.

[davido]

Well the '64 drove to the muffler shop under it's own power last night. The floor access panels were removed and it was REALLY loud inside, but it actually wasn't that loud around the vehicle. I did take some pics and vids, I'll get that stuff posted.

[the_experience03]

I would have loved to has seen the flames popping out of those headers when you let off the gas on the way to the muffler shop.

What did you flat tow that thing with? Vehicle? Towbar? BRAKES?

[davido]

I have a Chevy Duramax 4x4 CC. The same one in the pictures, from when we trailered the '64 down from IL. We just went about 40. It was easy to stop. The towbar was borrowed from a friend. He uses it for his Bronco.

[davido]

The exhaust is done. Real quiet now. This weekends plans include getting the lights, horn and whatever else working that is needed to get it inspected. Hopefully the seats will come out and the roof will get painted also.

[davido]

The paint is done. We ended up going with Olympic Alkyd from Lowes. They tinted it in Aggie Maroon. We used 1.5 gallons on the roof, almost 4 gallons on the sides, and maybe a pint or two on the window touchups. We started with taping off the top and spraying it first. Then we taped off the windows and covered the top to paint the sides. Then we came in by hand and cut around the windows. Unfortunately it rained both days that we did most of the painting. It rained about an hour after the white and we had just finished the last coat (3 total) on the sides and it started coming down. It dulled the paint quite a bit. It's still soft a few days later. Hopefully it will harden up well with a few days of good sun. Overall it's not an "auto quality" paint job at all, but for less than $300, it does the job for an old beater tailgating machine. It definitely made it look a lot better. We still have to go back and patch a lot of rust holes... someday. I'll get some pictures posted. Headlights, tail lights, and wiper wiring and we should be ready for inspection. Got it insured today. $99/6 mo. for liability. It's like my motorcyles. Awesomely cheap. Need to get it weighed, inspected, and print out a few pictures to get it registered. We're still hoping to tailgate with it this weekend. We'll see how the next 36 hours go.


On a side note, we had some fun cleaning out the paint sprayer tonight. Turns out that they make a badass flame thrower if you run some paint thinner through it, across a flame. Who would have known? We have some good video and pics. I'll post those up too.

[davido]

As another side note, the headlights were indeed busted out of the '58.