Bumper Prep.

While my van was sitting in a damp garage waiting to be saved it's front and back bumpers were hanging under the garages leaking gutter collecting the rain water and directing it onto the garage floor, destroying my stuff.

So as a result, and maybe because they are 45 years old my bumper were very rusty mostly on the inside.

Rather than spend days with the grinder and wire wheel I decided to get the bumpers sand blasted. Because they were to big for the blast booth they could not do a great job,(if they had let me do it I could have done a better job)  I now had to get out my wire wheel.

A bit bemused I figured I could poor some oxalic acid solution in to it and leave it for 24 hours.

Forgetting about the bumper because I didn't get into the garage for 7 day, I was left with a rusty water mark around the edge of a pool of sludge and crystal saturated oxalic acid solution

Once the solution was cleaned out and filtered to use again later I was left with a yellow coated bumper, once cleaned up the pitted rust was gone, and the tide mark of rust from the evaporated water cleaned up quick with the wire wheel.

To get under the mount brackets I made a bath with a dam of plastic bottle sides and plasticine

Although the plasticine did start to crumble a little the dams held for 24hr

Because I neglected the fresh sandblasted bumpers my greasy hand had left marks on the out side where Id handled it.

I did not have any gel rust treatment so to stop the rust blast liquid I did running off the bumper I laid a piece of tissue paper over the area and dabbed through the paper to treat the areas I needed to.

 A day spent filling flatting, filling flatting and filler primer eer ring, and I had a prepped front bumper.

 

 

I didn't realise this till quite late on, I had a dimond cut rear bumper (the shape on the left lower bumper end) rather than (what I think is the right year for a 1964) a slash cut one.

 

After a bit of deliberating and looking for a second hand rear bumper I decided to spend the money on a repro one. The quality is not to bad, its rust free and feels maybe a gauge thinner.

The repro bumper had a small cut out on the lower side, not sure if this is for clearance of the exhaust tail pipe support bracket or not.

I was not sure if should be there on a 64 bus, so I decided to weld it up anyway.

It turned out a very neat welding job, I must be getting better at welding or thicker metal is easier to weld.

The manufacturing marks and there company logo stamp needed a bit of filler.

Then a coat of primer ready for another flatting before paint. 



Cab Door Bottom Repair

After the door was dipped I was left with a bunch of pin holes on the inner part of the cab door bottom all along its lower edge.

Also the folded seam of the outer skin was holding the treated rust under it, After bending the lip up it revealed all the corrosion scar along the inner skin.

 

 

I decided to cut away the bottom of the door skin and use the cheap repair patch I had rather than make my own repair as I did on the other door.

Using a copper strip (folded from a piece of pipe) on the out side edge I tacked up the pin holes while decent access was available to the inside of the door skin.

The bend block I used to make the other door repair patch came in handy to get the new piece bent correctly, I should have double checked this against the wheel arch so it was bent in the correct position.

The damage along the lip was easily repaired with a bent strip, I made the strips upper lip wider than the original damage so that I was welding and grinding on the flat part and not in the inner radius of the door skin

Once I had the curve correct, I had to trim the repair section at the ends around the curve as it did not fit the doors profile correctly

The experience of doing repairs on the van I found the best result for a clean but joint once ground down are achieved on the external radius of a panel.

With the lower repair finished I think I should have made my own repair piece in one piece rather than cut and patch the cheap one.

I found myself chasing the small pin holes in the door with the welder. They looked like tiny holes on the outside but the corrosion on the inside had really thinned the metal.

I combatted this with a very low setting on the welder and the copper strip to absorb the heat from the back of the welds.

Rear Hatch Hinge Spring Removal and Fitting

Before the van is sent to the dippers I thought it would be a good idea to remove the two spring rods that hold up the rear hatch.

 

This was also to give me access to the new rust hole behind the hinge plate I discovered when I removed the rear hatch.

 

After a quick look at the installation I thought it would be a simple case of moving one spring one way and the other  the other. This didn't work as one would pull the other with it.

 

In the end I managed to remove the circlips and pins of the second part of the hinge then get the trusty Hammer pry bar and Ikea bed frame and with a little persuasion and a big bang the springs sprang out. this also dented the roof.

Here's a couple of pictures of there position when they came out so I know what way they go back in. If I can get them back in.

 

So after a while away from the rear hinge I've totally forgotten how to put it back together.

I grabbed the parts out of the parts box, took a few moments to work out what went where.

 I noticed the bushes in the arms were worn and had cracked on the edges.

A quick go on the lathe and two new bushes were made. 

 These were easy enough to squeeze into place in the vice

 A going over with the wire wheel and some primer

 I decided to spray up the parts off the van as its an awkward place to spray once fitted.

 Now for fitting, The two spring rods and handed, the only way I could tell which went where was due to bend in the rod end that was there to account for the curve in the roof, and the opposite end pointed down. if you fitted the wrong one the other end would point up.

Working from inside the van I held the rod at 45 deg to the rear hatch and placed the first end that was bent down to avoid the curve of the roof into the hole of the fixed bracket from its outside edge.

 Moving the second end of the rod towards it position allowed me to slot the first part of the rod into the slot of the fixed bracket. I then slid the moving part of the hinge over the rod and let it be held in the fixed bracket by the tension on the spring rod.

 

 I fitted both rod in position making sure they crossed over, before I fitted the rear hatch attachment bracket and its fixing pins.

With the rear hatch bracket fitted I then cut a slot and hole into a piece of angle that was about the length of my arm, I positioned this onto the end of the rod that was now hanging down 

 Using the leverage of the length of angle and some help to make sure the angle does not slip off the end of the rod, I rotated the angle inwards against the spring loading of the rod, this allowed me to position the rod into the slot of the fixed bracket as It rotated into the closed position.

  The pins were best pushed into there slots when the rear hatch bracket is half way open, this is when the load on these pins is transferred from one direction to the other.

The tension on the angle was manageable by one person but could very easily spring off the end of the rod while rotating into position. Do the same to the other side and your done.

Wish I'd know this when I took them apart.

 

Fitting Rear Seat Belt Anchor Points

Previously I've fitted seat belt points for all but the rear seat shoulder points, this has always been a tough place to try and fit a mount as there is only the outer skin to attach to. I don't fancy welding a seat belt attachment plate to the out side of my van.

 

There are a few ways this has been done before, and there is a thread on the SSVC (splitscreen van club) forum where members have shared there designs and thoughts.

 

Here are a few of them. and the threads

Fitting seat belts in a splitscreen bus

Rear seat belt anchor points

Rear seat belt fitting





Here is what I've done. Using the existing curve of the I cut a cardboard template of the pillar just forward of where I want to position my mount. I then cut a block of hard wood down the middle matching the curve of the template.

 

Calculating the width and height I cut a sheet of 1mm thick steel a clamped it along its centre between the curved blocks.

Using some heat along the bend I folded the first lip with a large mallet and block that had smooth edges so that it would not mark the metal to much.

With the first lip bent I simply flipped the block in the vice to bend over the second lip.

I then drew a parallel line of 35mm (-1mm for skin thickness) along the side to give me the thickness of the support. Keeping the folded sheet on the concave block I then used the convex curved block clamped on the side to let me bend the foot of the support back over the block, this was helped with some more heat.



With all four folds bent I trialled the support on the van and hammered out any high or low spots with a block and hammer

The top of the support was cut at an angle to fit in the top gutter and the bottom was profiled to fit the lip of the side wall at the bottom, the

The Height of the mount point was taken from a similar height as the front, the two remaining plates I had were trimmed to sit inside the section

The plates were held in with bolts to make sure they were in the center of the holes and welded into position.

To finalise the position to weld the support I dug out and fitted the old interior. This worked out about 21cm from the support back from the rear side window.

 

 

Before I welded the support in place I decided to make two more attachment points to weld to the bottom of the support as I'm sure of the design of the interior and where the seat belt real will be positioned. 

With all the paint from the contact surfaces removed and the inside of the support painted I clamped the bracket into position, I used threaded bar braced from the opposite side of the van to hold the support where the clamps would not reach.

With the spacing marked out I spot welded the brace onto the inner skin, (could not take a photo as the welder is so heavy) then welded around the top and bottom, there were a couple of holes that burnt a dimple in the skin, so Mig welded these.