I completed assembly of the new steelwork for the nearside framing today and apart from the boot closing panel, this means the nearside framing is repaired.
Work now continues around the corner, in the vicinity of the boot doors. I removed the nearside boot door today, this required the heads drilling off the screws but proved that one of the hinges is seized and may have bent, causing the door to not shut properly.
The following series of photos shows the new steel (painted blue for protection) in place:
Reinforcement behind the wheelarch
Intermediate vertical, rear
Corner vertical, forward facing
Corner vertical from the rear
Intermediate vertical/bearer joint from underneath
The previous couple of days were spent in much-needed tidying of the bus shed and installation of two large cupboards at the end furthest from the big doors. This has enabled me to store all the paint safely and get a lot of other stuff off the floor.
Today I was able to assemble the steel reinforcement plates to the body frame behind the NSR wheelarch and the boot. One plate remains to be fitted, this being the one behind the boot front closing plate which will need to be drilled and fitted before this plate can be bolted up.
I ordered the floor covering for the boot and luggage racks today.
The last few days have been spent preparing to fit the steel reinforcement plates to the new (and old) timber around the NS of the boot. This involved marking-out and drilling pilot holes in the plates, then using these to locate pilot holes in the body bearers and the side rods. The holes in the bearers were difficult to drill due to the steel insert (Weymann’s “composite” construction) and the lack of clearance between the boot floor and the position of the upper holes. Once the pilot holes had been drilled they had to be opened out to clear the 1/4″ bolts that pass through the steel plate, the bearer and the second steel plate. I found it helpful to drill slightly larger than necessary clearance holes in the steel plates to compensate for any misalignment in the the through drilling.
Once all the holes were drilled I etch primed and painted the steel plates with blue smooth Hammerite enamel. These will eventually get refinished in grey or interior brown depending on where they are located,
Restoration diary of a 70-year old AEC single-deck bus and the trials, tribulations and adventures of our 1966 Bristol bus.
