At the beginning of the week I was still struggling to finish chroming the droplight. There was a problem with sharp edges on the verticals which I solved by filling the gaps with dumdum putty so this droplight is ready for fitting in the window pan. In preparation for a trip to Evans Trim on Wednesday, I dismantled the drivers seat and removed one seat back from its frame. Delivered the back and cushion of the driver’s seat to Evans and had a useful discussion about recovering the other seats. Assembled the next window pan and fitted it to the bus after a bit of adjustment to the protruding screws. I started on the next two, gluing the crossbars to the lower panes to form the fixed lights then gluing them into the verticals. The last two droplights need to be assembled and chromed next.
Tag Archives: windows
6/5/2024
Started the week with more paint stripping and a coat of red primer on the aluminium face of the trapdoor. I also gave the cylinder head lifiting ring another coat of primer and found a new bolt for it, having lost the nut from the original. I collected the three remaining droplight panes of glass from K.W. Glass on Monday evening. On Tuesday I undercoated the panel just to the rear of the drivers, the rounded top of the dash and the trap door. On wednesday I assembled one of the droplight frames with a new pane of glass and had a problem with the bracket breaking away at one end of the lower horizontal, I probably wasn’t careful enough riveting the corner. At this point there was little I could do as the glazing silicone was already setting so I strapped it up in the right position and filled the hole with silicone in the hope it would all set in the right position – which it appears has worked ok. Had I glazed it using rubber as per the original method I might have been able to repair it, however that seems unlikely. I started to polish the newly-painted switch cover with a view to cutting back the gloss a little but discovered some flaws in the paint so repainted the sides. I rubbed down the trapdoor and gave it another coat of undercoat, another rub down then some cherry undercoat and its ready for top coat. I applied chrome wrap to the droplight frame I had assembled earlier in the week, with the usual difficulties. I chipped one of the otherwise-perfect long pieces, much to my annoyance. I filled the chip with chrome paint from a marker pen but I may replace the whole piece if there is any wrap left over.
14/4/2024
Started the week by priming the cab ventilator after stripping the old paint and smoothing as many dents out of it as possible. Did a little work on the two remaining window divider bars, fitting the rubber and the “QuickTho” name plates. Investigated how to wire the inicator switch in the cab and decided on the following: 5-core from the switch to a box (purchased but not yet arrived) on the top frame of the cab door, where two cores can go to the flasher unit and three down to the terminal strip under the cab door for the indicators. Fleetname transfers arrived on Tuesday from Dan Shears – they look very old but hopefully will be ok as long as I take care putting them on. In order to facilitate the installation of the wiring in the cab for the indicators, I prepared and painted the the fire extinguisher holder with black engine lacquer as per the original. I also repainted the cab step kick panel as it had reacted with the lacquer. The lacquer seemed fine this time, a little dull maybe. I cleaned and polished the cab side triangular window glass, which I’m pleased to see is actually triplex, though badly scratched. I prepared the aperture for it, removing the remains of the rubber and some white filler and stripped and painted the the aluminium surround that holds it in place. I also removed the paint from adjacent panels and attended to some dents with filler so that is all ready for priming now.