First ride.

Took the bus out for it's first trip on Wednesday. It drove pretty well. The two bigger issues I'm having are the brakes and the steering.

There is quite a bit of play in the steering and it has a tendency to wander. Corrections on the wheel take about three inches of travel before the box kicks in and brings the wheels back. The alignment is also contributing to the wandering. A minor adjustment to the steering box should correct it.

Brakes worked great after I bled them out and replaces the wheel cylinders. When I hit the road I made it a few blocks before the master cylinder gave up the ghost. The brakes started getting weaker with each stop. A new master cylinder is on order and will be here this weekend.

I fully intended on posting pics this week but a couple parts still need to be installed before the unveiling. Definitely will be posted by this coming Wednesday. The VIN# search turned up nothing and I was extremely relieved to find out my bus isn't stolen. So am officially legal to drive on the road with a temporary tag until my custom tag arrives in the mail.

So close I can taste it!

Back from paint.

Got the bus back Monday. Aside from one spot, It looks killer!

I'm installing new brakes and bolting everything up. I'll post pics by Wednesday when it's "done."

One thing I forgot (or never thought about) was to have the VIN checked to make sure the thing isn't stolen. Hind sight is 20/20. Cops will be out Monday to do the check. Keep you fingers crossed. If it turns out to belong to someone, They can have it back after they pay me what I have into it. If that's not going to happen then they can have it back after I pull all my parts back off of it.

roof patches
upper vent section
rear vents
wheel arches
brakes
bumper
bulkhead
lights
seals
ect ect

I'm sure everything is fine though. I'll be rolling next week. Tags and all.

In the mean time.

The van was supposed to be done with paint this week. I'm not too upset about the thing being behind schedule because I'm behind the power curve as well. The new completion time is this week before Wednesday.

While it's gone..

I've mounted some tires on my new wheels.

I also had the front window frames powder coated. They look awesome but getting the vent window seals back in is a bitch! My fingers hurt just thinking about it.

I took apart the bumper I got for $35 and stripped it of all the old scale and rust (or patina as some refer to it) and the thing is pitted pretty bad. I'm just going to throw on a couple coats of Rust Bullet and top coat it with some rattle can until I can get a new bumper.

I started to break down the side pop outs and found that the frames aren't worth saving. I managed to break down one frame, replace the seals and get it back together. It's barely hanging on by a string though. I'm not happy with the results. I am, however, out of money. So I'm going to have to live with the old side windows until I save enough to get new frames which I will also get powder coated.

I stopped at the paint shop yesterday on my lunch break and the prep work looks great. The sides look nearly new and the shop appears to have done a wonderful job so far. The only questionable area I saw was the roof which looks worse now that it has been primed and cleaned up. The waves are deeper and more pronounced but I honestly expected that. My budget and time crunch won't allow for it to be properly fixed so I'm just going to roll it however it comes out and be as happy as possible. I may undo all my hard roof work in the future and go with a sliding rag or just glue a whole new roof to it. We shall see.

I was in the garage Wednesday and working on cleaning up some old fried eggs (front signals) that my brother was kind enough to send me (thanks bro) and my wife came out and asked me what I was doing. I held up the old signals for her to see what I was working on. She said, "Eeeeeewwwwwwwww! You can't put those ugly old things on your newly painted bus! Buy some new ones." Everyone should be as lucky as I am.

Work continues. Every time I turn around I think of something else that needs to get done. the list seems endless but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Paint

Took the bus out for paint early this week. The shop said that thier body guys were just hanging around waiting for work so it should turn real quick. It should be back by the middle of next week. While it's gone I'll be working on replacing the seals in my side windows. I've read both horror stories and pleasant tales about this job. Definately hoping for the latter. But if Murphy has anything to say about it, I'll be driving a rental for another month.

Speed bump

I ran into a problem as I was prepping the bus to go to paint. The lower backing plate for the screws on rear cargo door had come loose and fallen down the channel that it is contained within.

The first thing I did was try to fish it out using one of my favorite tools. I telescoping magnet. When I shoved it down the screw hole, my tool snapped. I was pissed to say the least. Now I had to make a cut to retrieve my tool and fix the problem.

From the interior, I made a three inch cut on the rear of the vertical stringer for fishing and to get at the backing plate. I only cut three sides and then pried it open like a hinge. My tool was in plain view when I opened it up.

When I pulled my crippled little magnet out, the backing plate came out with it.

Here you see the tab that is designed to keep the backing plate from falling. What happens is, as you unscrew the bolts holding the hinge in place, the plate puts pressure on the tab and pushes it away from it's designed position. After the screws come out, the nutplate falls. I think it's a good thing that my magnet broke because there is no way I could've fished the nut plate back to it's proper position. Even If I managed to to so, it most likely would've fallen the next time I pulled the door off. So I repositioned the backing plate and used a screwdriver to bend the tab back into it's proper position. After I cleaned up the inside a little, I bent my little hinge back in place and promptly ran some of the worst welds of my short career to finish up.