I've not been entirely idle with the beast, but progress has been terribly slow, mainly because I've not been all that well, I'm STILL waiting for the fucking wood I ordered 300 years ago and, has become almost obligatory, there's more rot the more you look for.
I actually managaed to set the ride height up properly today, and equalled it, so it sits nice and square, yay, except in so doing discovered the O/S/F shocker mount has disintegrated and broken off the chassis, the N/S is little better, and there aint much chassis left where it should weld to it, so PLENTY more work with the welder yet..
Anyway, going back in time a tad:
One of the many cab heater pipes, now suitably lagged to keep me warm in inclement weather.
Also now suitably strapped to the floor bearer with new shiny P clips.
BTW, never go to B&Q and ask for P clips, since they have no fucking idea what they are....
The cross braces get welded in under the step risers.
The only one that was a bit of a twat was the rearmost one with the lug on it for the inspection hatch.
Despite measuring the thing up first, it wasn't quite centred, so I had to cut the fucker out and do it again, all for 4 mm....
The remains of the front risers. They were, er a bit fucked aswell...
The N/S shocker mounts and bump stop. Just for a change, they were fucked aswell..
so, much as the O/S:
They get plated up aswell.
The result of three days fabricating and welding. The front step risers finished.
So, in goes the N/S wheelarch.
Then the company kindly gave me a spare 5hp500 ecomat gearbox.
I borrowed the Hi-Lux from a mate, and was suitably impressed by it!
One of many body pillars getting the red oxide / chassis black / smoothrite / waxoyl / stonechip treatment.
It was whilst arsing around with this one that I finally twigged why the body bearers angle down at the arse end. It hasn't been smacked at all, they're all like it, it should have been obvious, but I didn't "get" it until I looked closely at the pictures of these things in build at Plaxtons.
The body bearer is higher than the outrigger at the back end in front of the wheelarch, so rather than cut a lump out of the bearer and weld it to the crossmember, they cut the whole fucking bearer off and welded it back on at an angle to clear it! Wankers, the same body on Scania and Volvo chassis don't have this anomally..
Some more panels fall off, revealing the stress panel (that I now know is one piece front to back) is pulling away from the body pillars and needs regluing with sikaflex. Obviousley both stress panels are sikaflexed to the bus both sides end to end
... Personally I'd have used hookbolts, but it's a bit late for a major redesign of that now, since I'd have to pull the formica off the inner side of the panels, and you cant get it anymore..
The next pilar to come out will be..... yeah, you guessed it!
Down in the bowels, this is the O/S chassis, where the chassis riser meets the ladder chassis and spring anchor cross member, all of which is, er, a bit shagged...
so, after alot of cleaning up, and some major cuttage, it looks a bit like this :
Same to do the other side, which is just as bad...
The rear axle bed, known to crack and rot. This one was replaced a couple of years ago, so it's not too bad yet, so clean up and red oxide.
I'm the high bidder on air spring pistons on the bay at the mo, so if I win those I'll pull these off, keep them as spares and then I can paint up the underside of the carrying trays.
The old floor goes back down and the floor covering gets layed on top, to allow it to regain it's original shape after laying around rolled up for months.
It was whilst doing this I fell over and broke two ribs, which resulted in rather alot of ungentlemanly verbalisms..
A proper downdraught tail pipe! So it now looks like what it should.
And finally, shiny new BMAC lights, not that they'll look good for long, they go black in about 3 minutes, and are £150 each!
