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[63 left hooker]

Great metal working skills you've got there, keep it up

[splitthis]

So next up was the outer valance, I stripped the shitty green primer from the inside and painted it and then punched the holes to plug weld it on. I used the bumper brackets to help align the panel and then started to burn it in. My vise-grip collection is getting more and more impressive.


Then onto the passenger side dogleg. This took me two full days to fit because i was going about it all the wrong way. The Gerson panels are really good in some spots and then shit in other spots. The seal parts that from the seal channel are way off but will be hidden by the seal so you just have to live with that. The bit that pissed me opff the most is that it wasn't square! I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't fit nice until I put the ruler on it.


After a day of fighting the dogleg and not actually welding anything I hit the net and found some good posts on thesamba.com with step by step pics. the trick was to fit the outer skin first, tack that into place (lining it up with the door) and then fit the inner piece to suit.
Here it is tacked in and using tech screws to hold everything together and in the right place. The gap along the bottom of the door isn't even but thats because the door needs to go forward a few mm and up at the back. Once the hinges are adjusted it will be good.

[splitthis]

First of all, to the powers that be, thanks for bringing DSK back! i was pretty bummed there for a while, so many good threads and heaps of info on this site which i thought were lost. I never would have got this far on my bus without DSK.

So back to the bus, I haven't been doing too much but with the wife only 10 weeks away from popping out our first baby iv'e been trying to get the welding on the body all wrapped up. My aim is to have the welding (excluding the doors) all buttoned up before May. I recently sold my bay SC (apparently it's illegal to carry babies in the back of utes) and have been throwing $$ at all the stuff I need for the split. I have almost everything except an engine now so hopefully when it's all body-worked and painted it will move quickly rather than being held up waiting for parts.

With the wise words of Beer Doc ringing in my ears i finally got stuck into one of the shittest parts of this bus. Doc told me on the day I bought it "start with the shit no one sees, and by time you are doing the visible stuff you will be better with the welder". Well i've nearly run out of hidden shit to fix so time to get stuck into this mess.














The bus was obviously parked on a slope/under a tree for a long time. The rest of the top half was really solid but the drivers side was BAD. The roof was really solid but the gutter was gone and so was the strengthener in places. Originally i had planned to save the roof and cut out everything underneath that but after assessing the situation i decided the best way to do it properly was to take out some roof to gain better access.

[splitthis]

It was when i was cutting out the gutter that i started to find some things that didn't make sense. There was braise in the gutter and lead in the b-pillar so I started to dig.....











This is all the lead I pulled out



The b-pillar was pretty smashed up and had been pushed in quite a bit as the inner box section was all crumpled. When I was replacing the bulkhead i fixed up the inner section but I didn't realise how far out the outer section was.



I tried pulling it out but in the end i got a really nice donor panel from Cooper and decided to fix it properly. First i added a nut plate for a 3-point seatbelt installation while the skin was off.



Then i had to do a little jigsaw work as the donor section had some rust and didn't completely fill the void left by the rot removal. I replaced the door jam all the way down to just below the striker plate, this meant that there was no evidence of the previous repair and also allowed me to get that section straight.



90% welded in and primed. No filler yet and will need bugger all.

[splitthis]

So once that was all welded in I could get stuck into the gutter repair. Massive thanks to Jimmy Bay who had a super fucked PGSG bus he was cutting up for the section above the drivers door, trying to fab that would have been a massive pain in the ass and quite frankly, beyond me.

Tech screws and clecos are your friend here. I had the gutter in and out a few times to get everything right. I also had to use a spreader bar to hold the B-pillar in the right spot as i installed the gutter as it wanted to come in at the top.









Im used to repro panels needing tweaking but these autocraft gutter sections were disappointing. They were purchased at the same time and there was a 1.5mm difference in the width.



Cutting out the section I needed from the donor clip. The donor bus had a headlining so the claws needed to be removed and the roof card retaining strip was saved from the original section, miraculously it wasn't completely rusted away, and that was welded in before trial fitting.

[kombi niko]

Stella job there mate!! that top section is tricky to get right!!

[splitthis]

With the rear 2/3 of the gutter in place i started messing around with this section. Again, it was in and out hundreds of times until I was happy and again clecos and tech screws were used. i replaced this section at the factory joins to make it easier to hid the repair. So it was welded in at the b-pillar and then just laterally to the air vents. I used a piece of timber to jack it up until I welded the a-pillar section back in, i'll have to get a pic of that later as I didn't do it for some reason.



I drilled holes in the roof flange and plug welded it from above. The washers where welded on to pull out a low spot in the roof.



More tech screws on the inside, if you don't like plug welds then don't do a bus, I have used them everywhere.

[splitthis]

Stella job there mate!! that top section is tricky to get right!!

thanks mate, it definitely had me banging my head against the wall for a while. It has turned out really well though, slow and steady.

[MID WEST DUBBER]

Man, that is some quality work!

[Cam Biscuit]

Epic work mate!

[rabidkombi]

Amazing work,inspirational

[rusty 55]

Love your work mate, you'll be driving this baby soon as!

[Jockster]

Awesome work mate..

[splitthis]

Thanks guys, it has taken longer than I had hoped but im glad it is still moving forwards. Uni started up again today so between work, baby and uni I'm hoping to have this thing all done next year..... best laid plans.

[morts]

Didn't know there was a degree in kombi restorations...!

You're smashing it out of the park.