My 1966 Split Window Bus

Bryce,

I will take you up on that when I get to that point.

I drove to Gatlinburg yesterday to meet Jerry from Samba as he had two wheel well panels he got for me. He is a super cool guy with an awesome 21 window getting a full resto.

I started early this morning with hopes of getting the Bus from Hacked Jersey style to normal. The PO said the wheel wells were cut when he got it in 1988 So I was trying to reverse the look that had lasted 30 years. I guess it looked good in the 70's but I hated it.

This is the one thing that has bugged me since day one. I can not tell you how happy I am to have those ragged edges gone.

I started on the Drivers side. Neither side was cut too far up but the drivers side was cut further back towards the seam.
Opened it a little to get in really good metal.







I had some spray paint that is at least blue so I hit it to keep the rust at bay until I can get to the paint shop and get some PPG mixed.


Passenger side. Will save you the boredom of multiple pics. I still have to finish this side. ran out of Garage time and had to go to dinner.

Looking good, Keep it up!

Impressive metal work dude!

looking good you and bob are getting me motivated to do rest and metal repair

Much mo betta!!

Awesome work!

Very nice. I really need to get over there and look at this thing.

Wow! Looks great Phillip!

Very Nice!

Thanks Guys.

Glenn, feel free to swing by any time. Usually in the garage at least one weekend day.
I am planning on taking it to Sonic, dry rotted tires and all. I have a little wavyness on these that I need to get right before blending.

Had some trouble with the passenger side but finished it this morning.

Before and after

Philip, Far be it for me to offer you any "advice" on your metal work but... consider trimming back the inside line on the rear wheel pieces you just graphed in. That sharp edge can present some problems later on. I did this on my build which allowed me to get more rubber on my 17" rims while lowering the stance. You can't tell that I did this when looking at the bus. I actually had to put a spacer in using the 17" fuchs replicas (Pictures at "67 Savannah Bus" on this forum ) Hope to see your bus in person someday.

Been a while since I posted. I mostly finished with the cargo rocker, just have to hammer out a few high spots.
Before


Also grab another set of 15's from Bryce and got some new tires to make it to Sonic last month.

And last, I saw Original paint hiding under the spray paint up front, but after attempting to strip it I found it was actually not much at all, so I stopped and touched up the white a little just to help correct the paint lines.

Plan on blasting the other wheels and painting them white, touch up the nose, repaint the windows all the way then on to the interior.
Phillip

Nice seeing everyone Yesterday. Was the first time I drove the 914 in a couple of months and it showed. Fought a dead battery all day.

Since it was so cold this weekend, I decided to hack on a 66 look alike arm rest on the Bay seat I got from Bob. Not a perfect match but better than what it was before. I have a rear seat now just have to get up to Tennessee to pick it up.

Very nice!

I got that arm rest for you Phillip.

Since the weather can not make up it's mind I decided to wet sand and respray the nose with the replacement paint Paintscratch sent today. They at first said sorry we do not replace paint for 1966 colors your paint most be faded, but after some persuasion they looked and noticed the other Sea Blue was what was suppose to be on the Bus.
The 1st Sea Blue was terrible, really big reason why I did not take it to Firehouse last weekend it looked terrible. This matches up much better and will work until I feel like breaking out the shrinking disc and doing real body work. I ran out on the passenger door so it is a little dry. I will shell out another 30 bux for another can I guess.

Looking really good!

Wow, that matches really well. Is this paint they put in a rattle can for you, or you have to put it in a paint gun?

Comes in a rattle can.
I was going to have a qrt of PPG mixed but I know my OCD will take this thing off the road for months so this turned out good enough.

I figured I would do a proper update.
I got A solid week on this old bus. Every day after work I tried to get a couple to 4 hours in. My son's football team is putting on a car show on the 12th so I wanted to get some things done and take it with one of the Porsches.
First off, I took the spindles off and dropped them off at Tim's and he flipped them for me. Big thanks to Tim.
Since I was going to lower it, I felt the roof needed some attention so I wetsanded it with 1500 and buffed and polished. Obviously the white is gone, but the blue shined up super nice. I was shocked at how glossy it wound up being.


Shot dead on. The Blue is super glossy.

Since I had the buffer out, I focused my attention on the spray painted passenger door.
It and the nose was done with Paintscratch cans, although the match was pretty close the gloss was terrible.



And since the spindles were out for a few days, I decided to fix the one last eye sore and solve the mystery of the rivets in the nose.
It appears sometime prior to 88 (Po said the nose was like that when he bought it) the nose was replaced. But instead of going all the way to the top, they flanged the new nose and riveted it behind the original metal. Funny thing is they did weld it right at the corners and the center. I guess they gave up and riveted the rest to avoid warping. I drilled out all 52 rivets, and massaged the metal as best as I could. I then welded it up and pulled the dent down at the bottom of the nose.




And back together. Buffed the blue as well. You can see the bumper in the reflection now.I did not and may not buff the white since it is a little brighter than the rest of the white. I was very happy with how this part of the project turned out, the rivets have been an eye sore since I bought it.I still may do a full nose at some point but this will work for a while.

And the new stance. Dropped the rear one click. I can live with the stance for now. Will go adjustable and bug tranny at some point.


Now I want to get my step fixed and mounted back up. Still have to polish the passenger trim.
With all that, the bus is not drivable now though. I put the shims back in at 5 and 3 as suggested on several sites on 7mm offset but it has some serious camber issues as well as toe issues. The tie rods are nearly pulled all the way in and one wheel is pointing out while the other is straight. Hopefully I can get that fixed and replace my pulley this week so it can make it to the show.
Also ordered new Pop outs from Wolfsburg.

Sits nice

type901 wrote: The tie rods are nearly pulled all the way in and one wheel is pointing out while the other is straight. Hopefully I can get that fixed

That's exactly how mine were. Had to find center then start adjust the tie rods to get the toe set correctly. Came super close to having to cut and shorten the passenger side tie rod, it maybe has another 1/8" of adjustment on it.

That nose job looks great!

Thanks, after looking at it, I may have some room as I the pass wheel is turned out so I should be able to draw it back in. The camber is another mystery though. I would think the shims would be the same coming off and going back on as the chart showed 5 and 3 on both and that is the same that I took off.

Spindle bent or warped? Are you setting the camber with the early chart and leaving the grease seals off?

I was going off of the widefive.net chart and I did leave the seals off. Spindles were not bent before and both wheels are showing postive camber so I would rule that out. You can see in the pics I have some positive camber going on. I will look at adjusting the tie rod ends in the morning and see how bad the camber is. Thinking maybe I was 1 MM off on my set up although I measured 3 times 7MM offset.