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Well done Matt. Great job!

Good work mate, milestone moment, so will you be getting it painted next year?

That’s great Matt, glad you have hit another milestone.

Thanks fellas.

Yes Wiz painted next year but all booked in with them THIS year so dont even start with me . Everyone has a bit of a wait but that’s cool I’ll finish up the engine tin, paint interior cards and seat frames etc while I’m waiting.

Looking forward to seeing this thing get some colour mate.

Speaking of colour......... What's it going to be?

I'm pretty sure I have now 100% completed rust repairs

Yea baby, gotta be happy with that!!! A little birdie told me you might be looking around at a few painter options. Mine is back with Dan now, and should be done in a few weeks. Not sure if the red and white one he just did is someone on here? But it looks great.

I’m driving out to see Dan tomorrow. Have a suss of the red bus (and a sneaky look at yours too) and have a chat. I’ve got a couple more guys who are going to have a look too and then make a decision.

Cool, I can't really comment totally yet until mine is done, but so far Dan has been great to deal with.

C'mon Matt, you know the blue it needs to be...

So with the body 99% finished (I keep finding little things to tweak) I have got back under the bus to clean up old welds and finish off a few jobs. I spent about 12hours cleaning old welds behind the doglegs, under the floors and on the chassis. Cleaning old welds isn't really photo worthy and I still have a few to finish off but its progress all the same.

I did manage to get the steering box raise all welded in. I went 37mm which is meant to be max raise without messing with the floor, I still think i'll need to dimple above the pitman arm/drag link but it should be minimal.

I've seen a heap of steering box raises and read a heap of posts here and on the samba for inspiration and the best one I saw was done by our very own Cooper. Cooper did an awesome job on the raise for Beatts's bus so I copied that a fair bit but with a slight twist.

I started cutting down some 40mm square tube at the same angles I planned to cut the chassis and capping the ends with 2mm plate and then cutting them down to 37mm. Then I clamped them and the chassis down to some thick plate checking it was square a hundred times and tacking it together before cranking the welder right up.







Then it was time to tack it back into the chassis and fit an old steering box to make sure it was as square as I measured (don't skip this step, theres a few examples of people skipping this online and it leads to tears). Strangely my steering column fouls the floor towards the rear of the hole as it passes through, I noticed that when I was pulling the bus apart and I cant adjust it any more. A bit odd because there is no accident damage and the floor there is OG. I tried to slide the section forward as much as possible but it still rubs, I may have to open the hole up a little.





Then once I knew it was straight I burned it in from both sides and then 2mm plated the open ends of the chassis. The drivers side I will leave the welds as they are but on the passenger side I'll grind them down flush and it should look almost factory.





I'm waiting on my oil cooler to arrive from Germany and the next jobs will be oil cooler and brake booster mounts along with the last of the weld cleaning.

Awesome work Matt!

thanks for posting mate, they are some great pics - top one!

That’s another big job off the list, looks great Matt.

Managed to get some time on the bus this week, unfortunately with every step forward there seemed to be two steps back but any progress is better than nothing.

Steering box raise cleaned up and primed.


Clutch arm notched to allow for full travel and then gusseted because the notch was pretty serious . I managed to get the gusset inbetween the steering box and pitman arm with a little work so once painted it will be pretty subtle.


Then mounted my CSP heavy duty oil cooler. I could have just bolted it through the chassis but decided to weld in nut plates, made the whole thing take way longer than expected but makes it a much cleaner install.



I "massaged" the heater pipe to get the cooler as high as possible. My bracket set up was limited by the mounting points welded on the cooler, the bracket sits 30mm below the crossmembers, I think it should be safe but if it looks two low once its on wheels i'll cut off the mounting points and weld new ones to the cooler which should buy me that last 30mm.


Once it was all welded in I realised it was going to foul on the clutch cable so I lengthened the clutch cable tube and thats where shit went downhill. Once the extension was on I thought I better run a clutch cable through to make sure it would get past the weld..... It did but only went another 150mm, apparently when I welded the clutch cable tube to the chassis all those years ago I got too much penetration. I spent a few hours trying different things to open it up before biting the bullet and cutting out the front section and replacing it again. I think it will need to be attached at the front end to stop it flexing with the kennedy.


I also need to mount the VH40 booster but haven't figured out where it's going. I know beerdoc put his on the left side of the engine bay but that means 3 brake lines running front to back, ideally i'll get it up the front somewhere, has anyone done this? I got the gearbox mounted so I could weld in the Butty's bits mid mount but something doesn't look right. It's meant to be the CE IRS version but the weld on plates just seem to sit in the wrong place to weld them, I might need to make up some new ones.

Hey Matt have you considered an electric booster, small, compact, put out big PSI. its what alot of street machine and rodding guys are turning to.