Darwin '67 11 Window Resto Project

[FrankenCab]

looks like a normal bus rebuild ..ha! .. whats happening to air shocks ?

[kombi1976]

looks like a normal bus rebuild ..ha! ..

I dunno......thought you'd cut up better buses than that, Klaus.

whats happening to air shocks ?

Ditto on that.
And do you know why they were originally fitted?

[pmgbus]

hi cam, i am wrecking a 67, have a whole 67 only dash. also have a front floor that is good in middle, rusty edges and rusty under acc pedal. . currently doing exact same repair to a bus now so if you need pictures, factory dimensions or advice let me know. forgot to add, let me know if you need a bulkhead- i have a few spare
cheers andrew hahndorf

[Stealth]

I cant tell you how much I love my cordless impact driver now, worth its weight in GOLD

Bit peeved the dash has been hacked

Whilst the window areas are all really good, the door bottoms are a different story.

So which sun visor is correct for a '67?

And did Oz '67's have round mirrors or the fugly elephant ears?

Cheers

The padded one on the right is correct for your bus, the hardboard one on the left is off a 50's bus.

We all had round mirrors not the elephant ears (only USA had them im sure)

Keep up the good work its great to see.

[Cam Biscuit]

Thanks Guys only one way to learn how to do this stuff I guess! The bus only cost me 500 bucks so I can afford to spend a bit on new metal.

No idea on the air shocks the guy I bought the bus from never drove it. Just used it to store tools and bits and pieces. I wont be using air shocks though....

Andrew we need to talk! Will give you a buzz.

V8's in town this weekend as well as a bucks show for a mate so unlikely to get much time to work on it for a bit.....

[Cam Biscuit]

Got a little more done last week - each side of the front floor is gone and I've sourced a repair section for the centre bit.

Both doglegs are now off. Passenger side hinge carrier is worse than I'd hoped so it looks like I'll have to get a repair section from above the bottom hinge line.

I've realised that I've ground back a little far on the bottom of the A pillars when I mocked up the front section with repair pieces although it was pretty far gone I think I'll try to build it up with weld first to try to get the correct position for the A pillar repair pieces. This would appear to be trap for young players # 1 !!

[Cam Biscuit]

Now getting stuck into the cargo floor.

I need to get access to the B pillar and I think I'll do the outriggers and pillar repairs first and then move forward again from there. Funny how the spot welds on the top hat come out a lot easier than the ones on the I beam......

I reckon I can get some welding experience on the hidden bit first before moving on to the trickier stuff.

Good fun though! Does anyone have any recommendations on where I can get a small panbrake / metal folder for reasonable money?

[Cam Biscuit]

Bit more progress over the weekend....cargo floor now all done and the remains of the bulkhead removed.

We have a couple of long weekends coming up so hopefully I can get it all cleaned up and start welding shortly.

[gazza]

Will be in Darwin at the weekend will have to come round for a look

[Cam Biscuit]

Absolutely mate, give me a buzz.

Did you do those retrievals we discussed I'd better make a list of stuff I need!

[Raiz]

wow there some work going on here great job man.. keep em coming

[Cam Biscuit]

Thanks Raiz! Small steps and a steep learning curve

Long weekend up here for the Darwin show so got into it again.

Both ends of the front I-beam were a bit iffy so off they came and new 30cm sections went on each end. First bit of welding on the old girl! Makes a nice change to put some metal back in instead of cutting it out! I made the error of cutting with my mate's big 9 inch and forgot to take into account the blade thickness so had to do some bridge building to get them back to correct length

Have also rust treated thetops of everything I can get to with a rust treatment called Picklex 20, hence the funny white colour. Not sure if you can get it out here yet, a mate brought in a gallon from the US and sorted me with a litre. Seems to work a treat and you can still weld fine with it.

Have cut new top hat sections to length and will attach those next once I've cut out the rear cross member.

[Cam Biscuit]

Also cut out the sections of the cover plate that that the front cross member sits between. Amazing how much crap builds up in these....

Glad I'd decided long ago to put in a new wiring loom as I reckon i might have done some damage!

Inside sections now rust treated and ready for new metal to go back in.

[kombi1976]

I have to say, with the amount of relatively dry buses we see here in Oz we seldom see this sort of hardcore approach to restos.
All power to you for keeping on punching on with this.

[Cam Biscuit]

Thanks mate, when you live 3000km's from anywhere you've really got to grab what's available!

About once a week I wonder what the hell I've got myself in for but I'm enjoying getting my hands dirty - so far anyway