The selfbuild rebuild

[TheBig1]

lol I have just worked it out lol are u talking about cassette type window aka seitz windows mine are the orig style caravan windows hinged at the top plastic double glazed

thats a cost saving you will later regret:Sad:

great to get a cheap source, but they were never designed for vehicles and they are not very secure. add to that, if one gets cracked or the vacuum between them fails you will have issues getting a matching replacement to fit the hole

 

[lee52]

thats a cost saving you will later regret:Sad:

great to get a cheap source, but they were never designed for vehicles and they are not very secure. add to that, if one gets cracked or the vacuum between them fails you will have issues getting a matching replacement to fit the hole

I know they are not as secure as a seitz type window, as far as scratches even seitz windows will scratch (should be able to polish out most scratches) as far as breakages windows are from a swift corniche so a fairly common caravan to get windows
and caravan windows are not vac sealed anyways

but the main reasons been I cant afford the 200+ quid a window

 

[lee52]

well went to visit the ole bus today between finishing job1 and startin my night time job :Sad:. and it was a oven, the roof is the orig blue colour and I have been in 2 minds to paint it or not ( impossible to see from ground level) and after the temps inside its defo getting a few coats of white to try and kill the temps it was 22c outside and inside 34c and I will have to get that a/c unit fitted Its been sitting in the garage and I have been thinking about selling it. not a chance now its going on the roof now

 

[Terry]

thats a cost saving you will later regret:Sad:

great to get a cheap source, but they were never designed for vehicles and they are not very secure. add to that, if one gets cracked or the vacuum between them fails you will have issues getting a matching replacement to fit the hole

Sorry BIG1 (I agree with you on source but it also saves a lot of money- except)--Since when are any windows vacuum sealed ?Windows are sealed with air inside (or gas) in fact when we had big units the weight of the glass meant that the glass would touch in the middle when this happened we had to get a air line and blow air in to force them apart then seal the unit quickly -If you vac-ed plastic windows they would simply squash together
edit Caravan windows are just as secure as M/H ones
terry

 

[lee52]

Well we had some nice weather over the weekend so instead of been stuck inside of the bus I would tackle the roof. I only have some before pics as I have left my digi cam at the bus, the roof on a whole is not in bad nick considering its 26 yr old paint and probs not been washed in that time.

dug all the old sealant and sikaflex out of all the seams (26yr old again and was signs of water ingress ) reseam sealed the whole roof 2 of the 3 skylights where leaking when it rained so these have been removed and cleaned and resealed. In some of the pics you can see 2 of the orig airvents these where made from mild steel and badly rusted. so these are now removed and the holes filled with a ali patch underside sikaflexed in place and filled topside to smooth off. in one pic you can see a hole someone had made as a vent (was inside toilet shower room) but they had never fitted a vent and "sealed" the hole with gaffa tape which after 14yrs was a little frayed, hole patched the same as others. the remains of a sat dome also removed. after all that whole roof rubbed down but certainly not to a perfect standard ( no one will ever see it) etch primed on bare ali next job is to paint the whole roof in white (not looking forward to that lol)

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[lee52]

well not much to report as I have been banned by my OH from spending anytime this weekend on the bus but whilst doing my pizza deliveries tonight I picked up a billy bargain theres a old yard thats full of someones collection of unusual vehicles (kinda a private scrapyard) in the yard theres loads of old yank tanks, anyways I spotted a few weeks ago in the yard as i drove past I saw there was a old chevy MH with the body removed and just lying on the chassis was a captains chair so a few weeks on I finally spotted someone in the yard tonight had a chat with the guy and now I am the owner of a matching pair of american RV captains swivel chairs they are in pretty good nick covers are shot (but I am getting everthing recovered anyways) mechanically work fine and all for the princely sum of 60quid

 

[TheBig1]

nowt wrong with bagging a bargain.....will look great when the bus is done:thumb:

 

[lee52]

nowt wrong with bagging a bargain.....will look great when the bus is done:thumb:

been looking for ages for some yanky rv captains chairs and they are hard to find and pull silly money I am well pleased with them.

 

[lee52]

well been thinking about my hab batt charging the bus is 24v and the hab 12v the easy answer is to dip my hand in my pocket and buy a batt 2 batt charger

buts funds wont allow that at the mo more important things to buy like wall boards etc...

this is my temp idea not the most efficient system but it will work



Btw already got all the kit lying about

 

[scotjimland]

well been thinking about my hab batt charging the bus is 24v and the hab 12v the easy answer is to dip my hand in my pocket and buy a batt 2 batt charger

buts funds wont allow that at the mo more important things to buy like wall boards etc...

this is my temp idea not the most efficient system but it will work

View attachment 25594

why not just take a 12v tapping off the engine batteries to charge the hab battery via a relay ?

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[mitzimad]

just read your bit about the heater matrix not being man enough ive got some ally finned copper piped heat exchangers brand new i was going to scrap them but if you wanted a couple make good passive heaters or you could fan them let me know ill get the sizes see if you can fit them in pm me an e mail and i will get pics to you

 

[lee52]

why not just take a 12v tapping off the engine batteries to charge the hab battery via a relay ?

that will work but not good for the engine battery and one batt will be 120ah and the other will be 480ah when charging so not good :Sad:

 

[TheBig1]

doesnt have to cost a fortune
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[lee52]

I already have some 24v to 12v droppers but they are no good for charging as the output is 12v you need 13.8 - 14.4 to charge :Sad:

 

[TheBig1]

not all of them, some give 13.8v via and adjuster pot:thumb:

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[TheBig1]

12amp 13.8v
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plenty about just have to dig a little deeper:thumb:

 

[lee52]

not all of them, some give 13.8v via and adjuster pot:thumb:

mmm now thats food for thought I have a hand full of the cheap chinese ones like the listing you had which are fixed at 12v with no pots in them but am sure I could retro fit a pot to tweek the reg they just use the common o garden L7812CV so easily done. to be honest I could get away with not charging on the move and only charging on ehu my batt bank is 630ah.
my bus is on ehu at the storage yard so they are always fully charged and I would get a lot of wildcamping out of a batt bank that size

 

[lee52]

12amp 13.8v
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plenty about just have to dig a little deeper:thumb:

well dug a little deeper so now the complicated system idea is scrapped and I have ordered a 38amp 13.8 dropper

 

[Snowbird]

A much better long term solution to your 12 volt charging is a second alternator. My bus is 24 volt and to get round the 12 volt hab charging they have fitted a second 12 volt alternator. Wow, does that baby charge :thumb:.No relays to go wrong and a completely separate circuit.

 

[lee52]

A much better long term solution to your 12 volt charging is a second alternator. My bus is 24 volt and to get round the 12 volt hab charging they have fitted a second 12 volt alternator. Wow, does that baby charge :thumb:.No relays to go wrong and a completely separate circuit.

like you say thats the ultimate charging system a nice 75+ amp alt when the cummins 5.9 was fitted to ambulances they ran a dual alternator system so I am on the look out for the dual alt brackets of a 5.9 cummins

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[lee52]

)

the windows I am fitting are caravan double glazed units (got a set of 9 for 45 notes) the big issue was the window seals standard caravan seals only seem to come in a max width of 40mm unfortunately the walls in the bus are 50mm, and have you seen the price of the caravan seals cheapest I found was 4quid a meter. so after a bit of head scratching I decided on using a 90degree bulb seal (like the ones on car doors) went to my local scrappy and got 2 full sets from ford focus's for free:thumb:. after making some hardboard templates fitted 3 windows so far and then had loads of rain this weekend and not one leak, unlike 2 of the windows fitted by the previous owner View attachment 25208

well not a great deal done at the mo to much work and not enough play time
finished framing the window frames using the idea I had posted before turned out quite smart looking (well I think it did lol)
couple of pics for you of the window seal/framing View media item 11391View media item 11389View media item 11388View media item 11387

 

[lee52]

Been wanting to sort the buses bum out as it had a tailgate fitted (badly) so the orig idea was just to keep the orig rear lights and ali panel the hole up (bit plain jane) but got lucky this morn and got not 1 but 2 bailey senator full rear panels (dont need 2 but if I mess up I have a spare) for wait for it! free from a local caravan place that had replaced them (insurance jobs) one has a 2 inch crack and the other is scuffed

 

[lee52]

Well time for a bit of a update. got a week off work so been getting cracked on with the bus, the aim is to get the body work sorted before the summers over as it is weather dependant (bus is in outside storage). there was 2 things that where bugging the life out of me.
1 was the ally window infills the previous convertor had filled the old bus windows in with ally sikaflexed and riveted, but it looked like the rivets had been put in with a machine gun, so I painfully spent hours drilling the old rivets out countersinking the holes and reriveting with countersunk rivets and a skim of filler, I have no idea how many rivets I used but I bought 2 x 500 boxes and have used 1 box and about a third of the other box.

the other job was the rub rail on the bus the previous owner and removed some of the rub rail and most of the rubbers where missing. I never liked the style of the rub rail huge and dated, so the plan was always to remove the old rub rail and replace with something lower profile. unfortunately its not as simple as unscrewing the old and screwing the new on, the rub rail doubles up as the hinge for the 5 side lockers. and the rub rail hides the upper body and lower body joint (10mm gap) so it has to have something down the waist line. the locker doors have been cut (to lower the hinge line) rehung, first one took 3 hours the rest where a 45min job after that. the next bit was to buy and fit the rub rail I dont know if you have ever priced up a rub rail or ally profile but its bloody expensive for cheapo rubber it was going to cost 120 quid and for the nice ally profile rail 300 quid. I did it for 23 quid end of the day I wanted something wide enough to cover the joint line/rivets and as shallow as poss. I am undecided if I am going to paint it body colour or leave it polished ally bling.



and finaly all the seams have cleaned out and resealed and now in the middle of the mammoth task of prepping the whole lot for paint

 

[lee52]

 

[Terry]

Hi Lee I just hope they don't blow in a couple of yrs down the line I did a similar job on a work van looked great for a couple of yrs not saying your one will but mine did
terry

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[lee52]

I didnt think the bus was that big till I started rubbing it down its endless, to keep myself sane I am prepping panel at a time and etch priming then once the whole thing is primed it will need a full guide coat sand then the colour. it is all been roller painted I am using combicolour paint, I roller painted a 1m square scrap panel and the paint flows out real nice very little orange peel flats back with 8oogrit and polishes up very nice

 

[voyagerstan]

i paint my van with rusolium two years ago still as good wouldnt hesitateusing aroller again only thing is getting consistancy of paint right . STAN

 

[lee52]

i paint my van with rusolium two years ago still as good wouldnt hesitateusing aroller again only thing is getting consistancy of paint right . STAN

do you have any pics of the paint job

 

[voyagerstan]

no pic im afraid but watched a few vids on tube only pics ive got are similar to my profile pic STAN

 

[lee52]

well I am back !

Bus has kinda been on hold for a year I had bought myself a mx5 and turned it in to a turbo track car and then my OH was made redundant so I was working 12 hour shifts to pay the bills etc..

anyways work recommenced 3 months ago and probs spent a month just standing in the bus starring at it LOL (wondering what the hell the next step was).

One the plus side I now have the full backing of my OH to finish the bus, she was pretty much a camping virgin and i had bought a trailer tent earlier in the year and she loved the trips away but hated the "canvas cottage" so been told the bus has to be finished so we can go away in it next year.

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