www.dsk.com.au

Keep at it mate, it’ll probably be on the road before mine!
If I don’t drive it by the end of next year I’m selling too

Finally back in the garage this week. I really thought I would make a big push and get everything finished up on the body but as usual stuff just takes longer than you expect and combine that with a couple of issues and I made much less progress than planned.

Pat got me my cab door hinges back with new pins and bushes in the flogged hinges so I was finally able to get the drivers door back on.

First i made up some 6mm nut plates to replace the original solid rivets from the factory. The cab door hinges are a massive weakness so I went over the top in the hope this would help them last.



Welded in and then primed/painted after this.


With the hinge mounts all finalised I was able to complete the skin and then drill the holes for the screws.


Ignore the hole in the weld, I took care of that after the hinge was on. To get the countersunk holes I just drill and then tighten the new countersunk screws down as tight as possible with a little WD40 to help them turn nice.


And finally I was able to get the door back on! remembering how bad this door was originally I was pretty happy with the initial fit but with all the other gaps close I could not get the bottom rear corner right and I realised it was due to a twisted frame. Ideally I wouldn't have welded the skin on without fitting the door to the bus but I knew the frame fit before and I didn't want to wait any longer.



It took me half a day of bending, hitting, twisting the door and a good dose of swearing but it came up nice.



Once the door was sitting in the right spot I was able to use the welder to tighten up some of the other gaps.

Start


Finish


There is still some tweaking to do on the bottom front corner with the welder but I decided to get stuck into the door top. Ill post some pictures and a write up on that later, It has gone wrong due to my own stuff up and i'm too angry to write about it now

Great work Matt, really like your attention to detail on this build! Can’t wait to see this bus in paint soon

MID WEST DUBBER wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:39 pm Great work Matt, really like your attention to detail on this build! Can’t wait to see this bus in paint soon

Thanks mate, I really need to start locking down a painter, it’s pretty bloody close finally.

Looking good Matt.
I’m probably going to Edwardstown Custom Body Repairs up the road from Shane’s. There’s also Crispin Crash in StMarys or the guy on Brighton Road atHove Crash. Either way it’s going to cost big $.
I’ll let you know how I get on.

Mal and Edwardstown was recommended by a mate too. Being so close would be nice, makes it easy to go in regularly and see progress.

This is a post about getting over excited, pressing ahead, fucking up and wasting a day .

My drivers door-top was rusty in the bottom corner but I couldn't find a better one and it was the original frame to the bus so I decided to just crack on and fix what I had.







The problem with repairing door tops is there are three layers, The seal channel, the main frame, and then the cover pieces. Mine was rusty in all three layers and I had nothing to go off when I started fabbing the seal channel. I made up a new channel corner piece to fit the frame, welded that in and then cut sections out of a junk door-top I had and welded that in.





All braced up to hold the shape


So I had it all welded up and it was looking good and I was quite happy with myself.


Then I went to my good passenger side door top to make templates of the cover pieces and my stupid stuff up became obvious. The seal channel doesn't go all the way into the corner like I made it, it actually cuts the corner quite a bit. Here it is with a seal sitting in place, unfortunately most of the work I did will now need to be undone and i'll need to fab a new pice of channel and get that in before I can do any more.


Measure twice, cut once . In hindsight I should have been looking at my good one the whole time instead of assuming how it was made. A stupid bloody mistake considering how much time i've spent sitting right next to that part while driving busses.

How goods that!!

Like a pro!

Nice Matty... any updates?

I’ll be back in the garage this week but I had an hour out there with the kids helping out so decided to do something small and simple. Made up a full set (9 I think) of the interior panel retaining tabs. I know I’m copping shit for this but I made up a jig to put the little dimples in them and all
Hopefully make some real progress this week and have a post up next week.

splitthis wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 5:45 pm Made up a full set (9 I think) of the interior panel retaining tabs. I know I’m copping shit for this but I made up a jig to put the little dimples in them and all

. I don’t think 59-60 models have the dimples, they were for the earlier 55-58 models

vanell wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 4:12 pm

splitthis wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 5:45 pm Made up a full set (9 I think) of the interior panel retaining tabs. I know I’m copping shit for this but I made up a jig to put the little dimples in them and all

. I don’t think 59-60 models have the dimples, they were for the earlier 55-58 models

I’ll sell them as “rare” early parts then.

That’s epic. Love little features that u will never see!

D-Train wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 10:37 am That’s epic. Love little features that u will never see!

I knew you'd appreciate it you sick bus nerd

I didn't get as much done this week as I would have liked because I had some other stuff on and most of the work I did was tidying up old stuff or not really photo worthy but heres a few pics.

I finished the last little bit of rust in the rear corner, there was a small hole here I had tried to weld up but it was just too thin so cut out a small section and put some clean steel in. These corners are going to need some hammer and dolly work thats for sure.




One of the engine lid nut plates had been drilled out and was way to flogged to tap, I tried to weld up the hole without taking it out but got dangerously close to melting the outer skin so just decided to open it up from the back and replace the plate, I also had to make a cage to hold the plate in position.




Welded from the outside


I spent a good 2 1/2 hours in the engine bay dressing the back of all the welds where I had plugged up screw holes in the parcel shelf/firewall but didn't bother with pics.

New seat plates welded to the floor.


Then welded in the new interior panel tabs



The bus is now all welded from the bulkhead back except the heater log which is off to get blasted before I install that. I'm pretty sure I have now 100% completed rust repairs . I want to make a few adjustments to a couple of my previous repairs and then I'll be rolling the bus back on its side to finish up under the bus and painting the underside before it's off to final body/paint. I'm in the process of getting a few paint quotes now and it should all be happening next year.