1935 Chevy school bus

[rlaggren]

> genny louvres...

Water and mud spray from the wheels? Plumber by trade here, got a lot of respect for water dripped into me...


Rufus

[ol trunt]

Hello All, I was happily able to burn up a week's worth of free time completing my pneumatic door project (still have to do the finish work). I found a little rust here and there that had to be cut out and replaced but not too bad. Fortunately, both the doors and the opening were quite square; unfortunately both the door frame on the bus and the doors themselves were twisted and took a bit of doing to align. I flatened the door opening by cutting and rewelding and resorted to a porta-power and chains to straighten the doors. I'll share a little trick I learned many years ago from an expert bodywork man. I was feeling all proud because I had a brand new frame rack capable of completing two 10,000 # pulls at the same time--but I kept ripping pieces out of the frames I was working on by using too much pull. One day the bodyman who rented a stall in my shop said "Man, you're working too fast" He went on to explain that metal had a memory and wanted to go back to where it had been (before the crash). He explained that if I would just pull the bent metal enough to bring it a little bit farther than where it belonged and let it sit under tension over night that when I released it the next day it would relax to where it "remembered" it had been and I wouldn't be tearing stuff up. He was right and I have been following his advice since.

My bus doors are made of a combination steel and oak frame so they are both strong and fragile at the same time. Of course I first tried a heavy pull--only to discover--again, that slow is best in these matters. I did a moderate pull and left the tension over night and by 'morn the pull was completed--and exactly right! I spent the rest of the day plug welding etc. and now have a very nice "paralleogram plug" door on my skoolie. I'm not sure which I like best, the cool door or the fact that the door still looks original. Jack

I first welded up the two original doors and tried them out a few times (found the out of rack issue that way).

Once the door and door opening were square and "flat" I welded 1/8" steel plate around the edges th form the basis for the weather seal--a D shaped rubber foam.

Completed door all snuged up.

[tango]

Very slick,Slick! --- As always a great looking and inventive solution. That's gonna be one "one-of-a-kind" bus when done. Be careful or Jay Leno may want to buy it out from under you!

[ol trunt]

Hello All. I sort of finished up the door this week-It'll have to wait now until I paint the whole bus before I get back to it.

I've been thinking about a way to make the windows I'm blanking out still look like windows. I talked to a local paint vender about formulating a paint to make the blanks look like windows and she came up with the idea of using vehicle wrap--of which I know nothing. I think it would look cool to have the blanks look like the see through windows ( Venition blinds etc,) and I am wondering about the life expectancy of vinyl wraps--any experience or ideas? Thanks Jack

[Mark R. Obtinario]

If the wraps are installed correctly they have an amazing life span.

They can't be installed if the temp is too low or too high.

Too low and the glue doesn't set up well.

Too high and the wrap becomes difficult to apply because the material starts to sag.

If you don't use pressure washers or go through car washes with lots of brushes you should be able to get a couple of years at least out them.

One thing about letting them stay on too long, they become very difficult to remove. Instead of coming off in large pieces you end up having to peel off little itty bitty pieces.

Since you don't plan on taking them off any time soon that shouldn't be a problem for you.

[ol trunt]

Hello All. I spent the last couple of days thinking about the tilt front end for my bus. As usual my thinking includes paint stir sticks and masking tape. I tried multiple variations on the theme of "tilt hoods" as seen on so many custom pick-ups--but that just won't work. The problem is, you see, there are very large front spring hangers at the very leading edge of the frame that just won't go away. The hangers remind me of what you would see on a 1920' era"'Gangsta car". The long and the short of it is that the lift/tilt mechanism can't provide the lift necessary to clear the hangers. Soooo, I'm now working on a slide forward, lift, slide, lift (you get the idea). I've done a mock up and plan to spend a long time in the hot shower thinking about it--any ideas? Jack

You can see the offending spring hanger in this pic,

I think I can cover the hanger with cowling. Also, by moving the headlamp pod forward, much of the cowling is hidden.

Here is a mock up of the front fender with the front end in the closed position.

When the front end is raised I should have plenty of room to get at the engine.

[somewhereinusa]

Hey Jack,
When I working of Saabs, somewhere around the mid 1980s their hood opened and lifted at the front, then you could lift the back and tilt forward. I never really looked too closely, but it seems there was a slanted track at the back and had a roller on the rear of the hood. I don't know how long the used that design, but it might be something to look at.

[tango]

Hey Jack --- don't know how it might fit your situation, but I stopped in at a great little small town car show a couple of weeks ago (Jefferson, TX) and saw several vehicles that had conversions along the lines of what you seem to be going for. These had all the separate hood pieces fixed in place to move together and used four parallelogram lifts to swing the whole thing up and forward in one arcing motion. As I recall, some moved just the upper portion of the hood and the sides tilted out and on others everything made the arc up and over the grill. Since they are wider at the back, they easily cleared the radiator and grill when in the forward position. They did require a horizontal brace on either side of the engine to mount the pivoting arms onto but left the compartment very open and easy to access.

Wish I had taken some pix. Trying to engineer them from memory can be tricky.

[ol trunt]

Thanks for the replies guys. Dick, the Saab hood mechanism is just what I had in mind when I started this project, but unfortunately it can't produce enough lift to pass by the spring hangers before it binds at the top.

Tango, as you recall did the front fenders lift with the hood or just the hood? I'd like to get the fenders out of the way so I don't have to climb over them to work on the engine. I'll fiddle with the parallelogram notion today and see where I get--that is the way the pneumatic door operates so I have some idea where to begin. I did spot a junked PU in my buddies junk yard sporting Lambo doors and wondered as to their alternate application. At the time I got just close enough to see that the mechanism had been "welded" to the skin of the door pillar probably with a coat hanger and a torch as the open doors were sort of flaping in the breeze. The actual hardware looked like the real deal so maybe I'll risk a closer inspection. Jack

[Dusty]

Never in a million years would I wish to put a damper on your delightful creativity , but why not just tilt front the whole front clip ? save a bunch of time

[Mark R. Obtinario]

As I understand the problem, if you were to mount the hinge of the tilt hood where one would normally put the hinge, as the hood tilts forward the bottom edge of the hood will have an arc that will intersect with the spring hangers long before the hood is open enough to do any good.

I have two solutions.

First, tilt it the other way. Put the hinge at the back of the hood and have the whole works pivot up. Since you already have a compressed air source for your service door just add some air cylinders to lift the hood up. If you do that make sure you make a prop so that if an air line or cylinder were to give out the hood doesn't come down on your head.

Or second, mount the hinges on a lift. Use some air cylinders to lift the front of the hood high enough so that as the hood tilts foward the bottom edge arc will clear everything.

By the way, Saab wasn't the only company making interesting hood lift mechanisms. The full size front wheel drive Buicks of the mid-80's had the same sort of hood mechanism--latch at the leading edge, open up a little to slide forward, and then tilt up with the leading edge going down in front of the headlights.

[tango]

Hey Jack --- the rigs I saw included one with no fenders and another with. The one with fenders did not tilt them, just the top and sides of the hood which had been made into a single unit. As the above poster noted, it sounds like you need to tilt the whole front clip using some kind of lift mechanism to clear everything.

[ol trunt]

Hello All. Thanks for the ideas and thoughts. Yes I always planned to tily the entire front end as it would be neat impossible to reach anything if the fenders were in their normal position unless I climbed around on them--shudder, shuder--all that new paint etc. I considered opening from the front but realized that even the radiator would be at least two feet set back from the bumper and even with my knuckle dragging long arms I still wouldn't be able to reach anything without a lot of climbing Mark, you mentioned air assist and it just so happens that I found an unused push/pull air ram with a 15" throw at a local surplus store for $15 and I'm dying to put it to use--we'll see.

Tango, I think your post jarred me out of my problem. I kept looking at (and mocking up) the Saab, Buick, Jag etc. tilt mechanisms and comming up with the same result--won't work here. How does the saying go? Conventional wisdom produces conventional results--or something like that. Anyway, I tossed my previous attempts and came up with another seeming solution. I watched my air door open and clpose 20 or 30 times and began from there. I discovered that two arms of dis-similar length could produce the sort of lift and slide motion I was looking for. I did a bunch of trial mock-ups (this time on the floor) and came up with a simple solution to the tilt front end--at least simple on the floor, we'll see how that translates to the bus! I hope the pics make some sense and that the marker notes are readable. Jack

I moved my paint sticks to the floor and filled in the missing segments of the hood line. Next I began experimenting with the arms. This pic shows the front end closed.

Here the front is partially open and clears the front frame ans spring hanger.[/]

This pic shows the front end completely open. I'll not bore you with the measurements but there would be room to easily access the motor.

[Mark R. Obtinario]

That looks as if you may have found your answer.

The one other concern I would have is what sort of effort is it going to take to open the hoood? With all of the pieces made of steel I would venture a guess that it isn't going to be light.

[ol trunt]

Mark, you got my curosity up. I weighed all the front end sheet metal and came up with a whopping 72 pounds!?! I figure that the rest of the framing won't weigh more than another 50 pounds for a total of about 120 pounds. Since I can still drag a 160# sand filled dummy the requsite 30 feet, the front end lift shouldnt be too bad--I'll add some sort of assist just in case.

I now face conflicting attractions as I was given (for the removal) a fold out step from an old sticks and stapels. Once I repare it and re-size it I will have an entry consisting of 3, 9" steps rather than the two 14" plus steps I now have. The second conflict is the tiny little digital temperature controller (from China $15) which will let me finally complete my genny set up. I've also collected the steel I need to build out the front end--ain't life grand! Jack

This controller is about the size of a pack of smokes. Nonetheless, it is capable of controlling temps to within one degree C --I tested it to make sure.