Thread: Need help on bus origins.

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Originally Posted by johnboy

I don't always get 'sawdust and bark and pigfern' in my keyboard when I log on...I have been known to sometimes clean up a wee bit...hey: I even have a bath at least once a year whether I need it or not...I mean, let's face it; only dirty people wash.
So will give you a Bell later to arrange a time/date for you to be my 'Knight in Shining Armani' and come to my aid...(or is 'Pierre Cardigan' more your style?)



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Nah....Jockstrap and jandals...like everyone else down here...We dont wear no stinkin dee signer clothing..we's po' fiberglass laminating types..Yeah,gotcha...ex cockie...loaded..nod,nod. Are we talking tomorrow,or later??

Thanks Lynda!

Here's some photos of the bus...posted today with Mr and Mrs lamin8r's help.

The body with right-hand door filled, sshe's now sitting on a 2000 Chev lwb chassis.


The bus's snout...with all hairline cracks repaired, the nose was actually the most time consuming job done on the body...the rust in the body was pretty well all just surface rust...nothing major.
Also a new hand-made front bumper.


400 ci Vortec motor with 5 sp manual box installed.


Side skirts replaced and back guards filled to accomadate 16" rims.


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That is one cool old bus. Are you putting a double entry door over on the left front, mimicking the original which you've filled?

" Here's some photos of the bus...posted today with Mr and Mrs lamin8r's help."

A Special Thank You to Mr & Mrs Lamin8r!!

The bus is looking great and it's amazing the journey it's already taken you guys on!

Nice progress!!!

Now, was Lynda able to teach you how to do that yourself?

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Nice progress!!!

Now, was Lynda able to teach you how to do that yourself?

For a mountain boy,he's a relatively fast learner,Bob..I noticed,that he didnt get any sawdust in the keyboard when he ''logged''on yesterday. and by the time we had driven back home(near enough to an hour),he had gone back in,and written between the pix,,so I would say that Lynda's instructions were good,,and she sent him a loooooooong e mail last night on the ''doings''of it all..Stand by,,she has created a monster..

That bus is looking good John. I believe you are doing the interior out as a mobile home so do you intend to blank out any of the windows to have a shower / toilet room etc.. But then again, I suppose a hammock slung across the bus is all one needs and a fire outside to heat the tucker and billy.

We could have left the bus left-hand-drive, but because we drive on the left-hand side of the road, that would have meant that access to and exit from it would have been on the right hand side, i.e. the 'traffic' side.
A tad too dangerous to my way of thinking.
So the door was moved to the left side, and the steering wheel/pedals etc. moved to the right.
That, in itself, was a major task.
Willie Roach (of Eagle Automotive, a company that specialises in right-hand-drive conversions,) was a tremendous help to us in achieving this.
He could have said "Nah, shove off, I've spent forty years learning my craft, I'm not going to let you pick my brains," but he didn't.
He told me to wander through his workshop and take as many photos as I wanted, and if we got stuck he was only a phone-call away.
He even sourced and supplied the right-hand steering box for me at 'mate's rates', and gave very explicit insructions about how to mount it.
A top man.

We've had a lot of help from a lot of people over the last eighteen months or so, as a f'rinstance, I took the steering wheel (a poor sorry-looking object, all battered, faded, and chipped,) to a mate, Ray Inwood, who totally rebuilt it to a thing of beauty.
"How much Ray?"
"Forget it."

Mofo, (Jerry Stutterd,) gave me the air-horns.
Bryan Cresswell gave me the driving lights.
Murray Harrison gave me the twelve-foot whip aerial.
Ian Scott gave me six of the sixteen inch rims I needed.
Barracuda, (Justin Hanson,) gave great assistance with the Certification process. (not yet complete.)
And of course Lynda and Robin Barnes who drove an hour each way to show me how to drive my pooter.
And there's many more who have given help and advice.

You don't realise how many good friends you have until you need help.

Humbling really.

All good.

Thanks. It's much appreciated.

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The bus is still a long way away from completion, there's the Certification process to finish, then the interior to br fitted, (yep, complete with shower and toilet facilities,) and then it has to be painted.

It will be in its original yellow livery with a black band through it, and "Billings Ind Dist No 4" signwritten on it.
Plus the logo of the "Billings Bulldogs" (the Billings' softball team,) on its butt.

Then we're gonna drive the wheels off it!

We're retired now; so it's going to be our 'Home Away From Home' all over New Zealand.

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realy cool idea and use for old school bus

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Nice progress!!!

Now, was Lynda able to teach you how to do that yourself?

Well Lynda's not here today, but she did send me a page full of instructions last night as to what I should do, so I had a go.
Here's the result:

Hopefully it's a shot of the front of the bus with the original 454 in it, showing the two steering boxes and the flat-head Ford engine mounts I dug out as body mounts for the front clip to sit on.
(Hopefully!)




Whew!
(Big sigh of relief!)
That took me about two hours and left me all shaky!
The idea behind retaining the original steering box was Willie Roach's, two boxes interconnected increases the amount of oil flow at any one time; so if you're reversing at an idle there's still plenty of flow and you've got fingertip steering.

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Great idea johnboy

Thank-you Hank, yeah; I thought so too.
It also made setting up the geometry of the steering that much easier.

All the glass is in now, and all the wiring for the 'mechanical' side of it is complete.

The front seats too have to be repositioned...we had it sussed, with swivelling seats I'd got from 'Pick a Part', (out of a Japanese 'people-mover',) but they had only a lap-belt.
After we'd bought and installed them the LVVTA (Low Volume Vehicle Technical Association, the Assoc. that is responsible for Certification of all 'scratch-built' cars in N.Z.) changed the rules, and I had to replace them with seats that have a lap/diagonal belt, and also has an engineers report stating that they're capable of withstanding a crushing force of 5g's.
That little exercise made me swallow a bit...(She Who Must Be Obeyed reckons I've got gorse in my pockets...'cos I'm so reluctant to put my hands in them...) so $1500 each later...for the two front seats, $3000 in total...we have the seats.
And they're legal.

And it's just soooo close!

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Can you help me understand the working relationship of the two steering boxes? You have the input shaft on the right side, looking from back to front. How are the two boxes interconnected such that it reduces the steering forces, and are both boxes connected via pitman arms?

Originally Posted by johnboy

The front seats too have to be repositioned...we had it sussed, with swivelling seats I'd got from 'Pick a Part', (out of a Japanese 'people-mover',) but they had only a lap-belt.
After we'd bought and installed them the LVVTA (Low Volume Vehicle Technical Association, the Assoc. that is responsible for Certification of all 'scratch-built' cars in N.Z.) changed the rules, and I had to replace them with seats that have a lap/diagonal belt, and also has an engineers report stating that they're capable of withstanding a crushing force of 5g's. So $1500 each later...for the two front seats, $3000 in total...we have the seats.
And they're legal. And it's just soooo close!

SUSSED??? Translation please?!?!?

Don't you love it when the "Man" changes the game on ya'? 3 large for 2 seats is a huge penalty! All for an engineers report?