www.dsk.com.au

I bought this old girl back in October and thought I should share the journey.

The plans are to do a ground up rebuild. Unfortunately there is a little too much rust and bog in the lower panels to make keeping the sign writing viable. So shiny bus it is - but will likely keep it Dove blue. I'm modernising all the running gear and am planning a Type 4 engine if I can get a hold of one. All the old gear is for sale in the parts board.

This will be a slow build as I will attempting to do a lot of the work myself and need to learn a lot before I get there.

Coming home


Engine not quite in the right place


Just a little bit of work involved


Front beam out. Had to clamp the chassis and use a bit of persuasion to get this to drop out.


Up on the rotisserie



More photos here

Looks like a great project! Looking forward to the updates!

... yeah, glad to see your getting serious on it
Keep the updates coming

Love this bus, it's great to see it getting the attention it deserves. SHAME SHAME about the signwriting though, sure you can't save it?

plenty of work to do before you get around to painting though

I'd love to keep the paint and sign writing. It's not original paint though, there was a white respray in between the original dove blue and the top blue (which looks close but not quite dove blue).

There is a fair amount of bog along the drivers side and a heap in both dog legs. Makes me thing it was side swiped at some point. I need safety over originality so all panels and mechanicals are getting fully repaired, strengthened and upgraded where needed.

But as you say, a while before the final decision needs to be made. A lot to do in between...

I've been slowly plugging away at getting the bus ready for the sandblaster over the last few months and he has come and done an excellent job this week.

In progress


Half done - had to stop to refill the sand hopper


Getting the tricky bits


The final product


Inside


No real surprises - just the usual places full of rust

Dog legs


B pillar


Cab floor


Heaps more photos on on flickr

Would you have a sketch of your rotisserie ?

Looks like to works well?

I don't have any drawings or anything. The bulk of the rotisserie is just two heavy duty engine stands. I just made them a bit taller. The front is bolted through the bumper mounts and the rear is bolted through the three random holes in the rear of the chassis rails. I used 2" box to make a t-bar style mount which is then clamped between two plates. A threaded bar provides fine adjustment so that I could get it to a balancing point where one person can easily rotate it.

Took a couple of weekends to make and fine tune but works really well now. Only thing I'd change is bigger wheels as it is a little bit hard to get past the inertia point with those small metal wheels.

Thanks for your help, I have one of those engine stands that is a great idea

I've done the same thing, its not a hard unit to make just need a little adjustablity to get the balance point right for easy spinning. My total cost was $280 making it.

kombi niko wrote:I've done the same thing, its not a hard unit to make just need a little adjustablity to get the balance point right for easy spinning. My total cost was $280 making it.

I just read about yours in your build thread. It's look pretty good. Mine cost a bit more than that - the stands were about $250 each. The threaded bar is an old trick for fine adjustment and also helped to lift it too.

Like the threaded trick, easy adjustment for sure. Did you blast it your self? I'm almost ready to start on mine, just waiting for the new garage to get a concrete floor next week then i can start on the bottom.

Looks good. Just goes to show you should never sand blast though. If you don;t then your bus is not rusty.
I cannot be coincidence that all these busses only develop rust holes after the sand blaster has been.

BTW - Who did you get in to do it? Curious as your avatar is in Brisbane so could be a handy contact.

Cheers,
Brad

I got the guys from Aussie rapid blast in to do the job. Shawn was a pleasure to deal with and even followed me up the next day to make sure I was still happy work job and to get some photos.

They turned up bright and early with a huge dry air compressor and a big bag of sand. Got the job done in about 5 hours and it cost me ~$1600 - money very well spent as there is no way I could have done a better job.

Looks like a good job, when these buses are that old some sort of media blasting is a must, they sure bring out more work in some cases at least you know what your dealing with at the end.
I'm going to be using fine glass beads for the panels and a heaver grade garnet for the chassis.