Author Topic: How are the Bay projects coming along?  (Read 29571 times)

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Offline kinggeorge13

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #120 on: February 18, 2019, 06:40:02 PM »
Classic photo time from this past summer.   You have not really lived fixing rusty buses until this happens at least once to you.  Hint: 2 minutes before I took this photo that bottom left corner of the door was not all bent in.......   
« Last Edit: February 18, 2019, 08:40:17 PM by kinggeorge13 »
1975 Westy, Serenity
1975 Westy, Jack Sparrow
1979 Kombi, Pistachio
1979 Kombi, Oliver
1977 Tin top camper, Cosmos
1974 Westy, Garfield
1973 Tin top camper, Bart (now thinking he's 1976)
1974 gutted Riviera, Casper
1975 Westy, Stella
1979 Super Beetle, Penelope
1967 Fastback, Green Hornet

Offline kinggeorge13

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #121 on: March 11, 2019, 06:32:02 AM »
Rusted out battery trays.   It's not just that it's a pain to work in that tight space removing the old rusty metal but it's also a pain setting up new metal and "brackets" to hold that metal in place and welding it all up.   I'm getting less flexible with each year and for some reason my hands seem to be getting bigger so they don't reach places as well.  The aging process sucks: both in me and my buses. 

Plus?  I don't know about the rest of you but removing those 4 nuts that hold the tail light assembly in is enough to keep me awake at night worrying about it (almost).   First off they are always corroded and stuck so you have to plan ahead and soak them with your penetrating oil of choice at least a day or two in advance.   Then the fun of the two on the outside side of the taillight assembly are 100% out of view.   And if your lighting assembly has had a lot of fun in the sun and is already getting crumbly, just the action of trying to get the nuts to break free of their frozen in place state will sometimes cause the plastic holding their bolts in place to just disintegrate.   On the other hand, working with the brand new light assemblies you end up having to order is kinda nice even though they had zero to do with fixing the battery tray itself.   

Meanwhile, it's always interesting to find what previous owners have stuck in there to try and strengthen and prop up their slowly disintegrating battery tray area to delay the inevitable falling through of the heavy battery.   

These two photos are from Serenity, my 1975 Westy.   One is just the holes where there is no support left along the outer edge at all and much of what metal was left was very thin and brittle.  The second photo is the amazingly thick piece of fibreboard (or whatever it was) that was rammed in there trying to hold up the battery.   The photo does not exactly do it justice but it was around 2 inches thick.   

Anyways, today should be a nice rainy day to stay inside and do some cutting out of old rusty metal and start prepping to weld in a nice new battery tray.   
1975 Westy, Serenity
1975 Westy, Jack Sparrow
1979 Kombi, Pistachio
1979 Kombi, Oliver
1977 Tin top camper, Cosmos
1974 Westy, Garfield
1973 Tin top camper, Bart (now thinking he's 1976)
1974 gutted Riviera, Casper
1975 Westy, Stella
1979 Super Beetle, Penelope
1967 Fastback, Green Hornet

Offline gsun

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #122 on: March 11, 2019, 08:37:55 PM »
That fibre board didn't start out two inches thick.....
9 years and counting....

Offline kinggeorge13

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #123 on: March 11, 2019, 09:02:13 PM »
That fibre board didn't start out two inches thick.....

It's amazing, right?  That's a lot of acid and water affecting that poor thing for many years.   Reminds me of that Christmas when my dog ate a whole pack of gummy bears without taking the time to chew them (before she got caught) and then went outside in the wet snow and threw them all up.   The next day we had all these 20x size gummy bears in a pile outside the back door.   They were freaking huge!   
1975 Westy, Serenity
1975 Westy, Jack Sparrow
1979 Kombi, Pistachio
1979 Kombi, Oliver
1977 Tin top camper, Cosmos
1974 Westy, Garfield
1973 Tin top camper, Bart (now thinking he's 1976)
1974 gutted Riviera, Casper
1975 Westy, Stella
1979 Super Beetle, Penelope
1967 Fastback, Green Hornet

Offline kinggeorge13

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #124 on: March 14, 2019, 03:28:28 PM »
So here we go.  I've finally learned  how to embed photos after all this time.   All I had to do is read the instructions that were written here years ago and it worked like a charm!  Or  I guess we shall see how it works.    In the earlier threads on this post, I already showed the sorry state of my battery tray with most of one side just hanging in the air and most of the rest of it was a heavily rusted, thinned and holed piece of metal trying desperately to hold my heavy battery up.   As my 2nd photo (above in the earlier part of the thread) showed the very swollen/warped pressboard some previous owner rammed in there many years ago.   

So I got to use my oxy-acetylene torch (woo-hoo!) and cut out most of the old base but I purposely left around 1/4" to 1/2" around the edge where I could to help sit the replacement tray onto and give me more metal to weld to and generally keep it all as strong as possible.   Not the straightest cuts but not a lot of maneuvering space either:


I had to trim my new piece a little to make it fit, it was clearly too long by 1/2 - 3/4 inch.   Then I pre-drilled holes along the edge of the new tray so I could plug-weld down into the 1/2" old edge I'd left behind inside the battery compartment (I ground that edge inside there to make it nice and flat after oxy cutting it out).   Here is the new piece trimmed and drilled:


It was still a tight fit and you have to put the front down in place first so it does not get jammed into the large connector going to the ECU (I coulda taken it off, I suppose).   I banged it down nice and tight with a ball-peen hammer.   This photo is after I got a few of the plug welds done and it was on the home stretch now!


This is where I suppose I'll get some criticism-feedback.  I painted everything on the tray and up the sides a few inches with black rust paint. I did do light sanding first.
 

After that paint cured I then sprayed over it all with an orange rust paint and wayyy up the sides mostly just to make it match the orange colour a little.   The black stuff you see around the edges is a water-proofing automotive seam-sealer.  Not the prettiest but darned hard working in that small space and the main thing was to keep water from gathering in the seams and/or coming up through from below.   It's not perfect but it should last longer than doing nothing, I hope.  And it is as solid as a rock!  Later on I'll add some seam-sealer to underneath as well when I'm back working underneath the bus.


Now I'll let it cure and harden for a few days before dragging my battery back in there.  Need to pickup the threaded battery clamp thingie as well since the new base provides a handy connection point for it.  I imagine I'll get better and prettier at doing these as I have 3 more buses that need the same thing but heck now that I've finally done one, it seems far less intimidating.   
« Last Edit: March 15, 2019, 08:21:16 PM by kinggeorge13 »
1975 Westy, Serenity
1975 Westy, Jack Sparrow
1979 Kombi, Pistachio
1979 Kombi, Oliver
1977 Tin top camper, Cosmos
1974 Westy, Garfield
1973 Tin top camper, Bart (now thinking he's 1976)
1974 gutted Riviera, Casper
1975 Westy, Stella
1979 Super Beetle, Penelope
1967 Fastback, Green Hornet

Offline gsun

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #125 on: March 14, 2019, 08:31:51 PM »
No see pics.
9 years and counting....

Offline kinggeorge13

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #126 on: March 14, 2019, 10:07:07 PM »
No see pics.

Well, that sucks.   Back to figuring out a better place to host the photos for sharing other than Google photos.
1975 Westy, Serenity
1975 Westy, Jack Sparrow
1979 Kombi, Pistachio
1979 Kombi, Oliver
1977 Tin top camper, Cosmos
1974 Westy, Garfield
1973 Tin top camper, Bart (now thinking he's 1976)
1974 gutted Riviera, Casper
1975 Westy, Stella
1979 Super Beetle, Penelope
1967 Fastback, Green Hornet

Offline Brenticon

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #127 on: March 15, 2019, 08:07:09 AM »
I found Imgur quite simple of your using a desk top/laptop.
City figure it out on my phone.
Here is a tutorial link from another forum.

http://miacvw.proboards.com/thread/960/post-big-juicy-pictures-imgur

Offline kinggeorge13

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #128 on: March 15, 2019, 08:23:19 PM »
No see pics.
Ok, I think I have it fixed.  Anyone reading this post if you see my photos above of my installing the new battery tray, if you could let me know it's working, that would be great.   Apparently only I could see them before due to the permissions set by Google Photos.   Looked great to me but no one else could see them.   They should be able to see them now.   

Thanks!
-George
1975 Westy, Serenity
1975 Westy, Jack Sparrow
1979 Kombi, Pistachio
1979 Kombi, Oliver
1977 Tin top camper, Cosmos
1974 Westy, Garfield
1973 Tin top camper, Bart (now thinking he's 1976)
1974 gutted Riviera, Casper
1975 Westy, Stella
1979 Super Beetle, Penelope
1967 Fastback, Green Hornet

Offline gsun

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #129 on: March 15, 2019, 09:49:31 PM »
Works now. And I use Imgur too. easy.
9 years and counting....

Offline kinggeorge13

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Re: How are the Bay projects coming along?
« Reply #130 on: March 15, 2019, 10:09:50 PM »
Works now. And I use Imgur too. easy.
I found a way to use my Google Photos using a third party paste/redirect application.   I really don't want to have to upload photos to another host system after putting pretty much my life and family onto Google Photos.   In the end, once I settled on an application to do this, it works fairly easily all things considered.  Probably not as easy as having my photos uploaded to another hosting service like Imgur and just pasting one link but I do like having all my photos on just one hosting site and dealing with everything just from there.   Next time though I think I'll shrink the photos just a wee bit more.   I don't need super closeups to show my hamfisted repairs.

Anyways, I'm happy it's working.  Thanks for the help!

-George
1975 Westy, Serenity
1975 Westy, Jack Sparrow
1979 Kombi, Pistachio
1979 Kombi, Oliver
1977 Tin top camper, Cosmos
1974 Westy, Garfield
1973 Tin top camper, Bart (now thinking he's 1976)
1974 gutted Riviera, Casper
1975 Westy, Stella
1979 Super Beetle, Penelope
1967 Fastback, Green Hornet