72 Dormobile resto on a budget!

I brought this bus in may and it did have an MOT although i'm not sure how....

I started just by changing the fuel lines, cleaning the carbs and changing the dizzy for a vac to get the engine running nicer as the engine was rough.



It was going straight in for another MOT until I had an initial inspection and the tiny hole i found turned into this!!



So it's turned into a project, great! I cut cut the passenger side chasis legs off as they were rotten to the core;



The driver side was knackered too, I just pulled the steering box through the rust as i couldn't get the arm off it. The accelerator was well boggy too;



Cut it off;



I drew the steering box holes on autocad to get them in the right place, drilled the plates and turned some tubes up to make the bit the steering box bolts to;



The bottom threaded tube the beam bolts on to had rotted away so it was only held by three bolts so I turned a new tube and tapped it M12 X 1.5 and welded it on.



1 leg done;


2 leg done;


passenger side is done to. Next job is to get it in the garage before i freeze and do the lower front panel because the outer looks wrong and the inner is missing....

Would have been so easier to get cuts off a van but i've seen them going for £250 per side!! Cost me £30 in metal from tamworth steel so far!

good on ya mate - its not easy keeping them going and avoiding the 'scene tax' but you're doing a good job.keep the pics coming

I wish I got a pound for every time someone buys a bus thinking it will just need a little TLC :lol:

Some nice work going on there and good luck with the rest of it

gninnam said:

I wish I got a pound for every time someone buys a bus thinking it will just need a little TLC :lol:

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thats quite a few of us isn't it?

looks like some nice work going on there, and if you have the skills to save paying out for o/g cuts or repro stuff use it. i wish i did.

thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated.

I got the bus for £1500 so couldn't expect it to be perfect really. Although it did have an MOT so I was a little cut by the state of them legs, had just been patched once to many times.

so far i've done £30 on steel, £30 on SVDA, £60 on pertronix and £25 on some fuel line and fuel tank valve, £10 on carb rebuilt kit... So up to £1655 so far,

I just want to get it looking half decent, solid and reliable to be used for the summer and I reckon if I can get that for around £2k mark it won't be a bad result at todays prices!

managed to crack on a bit the weekend,

sliding door was accident damaged, doesn't look to bad in the pic but the skin was done in and wasn't tight on the frame anyway;



cut it off, did a couple of repairs around the edges and painted some por-15 inside;



and fitted the new skin i got from JK. Unfortunately the skin didn't seem to have quite the right curve in it and wasn't sitting flat on the frame. I'd planned to just use some adhesive to the frame but ended up having to force the skin down and drop some tacks so will need some filler when I come to paint it to make it look straight. Just blasted it in red oxide for now to keep the rust mites away;



took the dash out, needs new inner and outer. I could see the filler squeezing through before even taking the paint off the outside;



So I nitromorsed the front and cut the bottom few inches off the panel, turns out it was screwed on and fillered over :lol:



and the bottom of the A post had disintegrated, so I called it a day

done a bit more hacking into the van, looking forward to actually putting something back on it!! always seems like a weeks cutting to a days welding.

I decided to brace the front to be on the safe side, I copied the design off a pic i found on google if it looks familiar;



then cut the arch and tub off;



got some decent access to start repairing that A Post next

Nice bracing 8)

You are doing some nice work there dude

gninnam said:

Nice bracing 8)

You are doing some nice work there dude

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cheers dude. Trying to pick up the pace a little, hoping to use it this year, think i'm going to have to start calling in the favours! I saw your crossover thread, it's amazing what you find when you take the paint off. Looking good though.

Got a little done this weekend to repair both the bottoms of the a-posts;

bluenose said:

I saw your crossover thread, it's amazing what you find when you take the paint off. Looking good though.

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Yep - It can get you a bit down when you remove what you think should be a little bit of damaged metal to find another kn@ckered panel underneath.....

Keep up the good work my friend

Time for an update after a few cold winter nights spent in my garage I've managed to take a few steps forward and several backwards;

lower inner front panel and end pieces ready to go;


and all welded in along with a layer of por-15 to protect, I had the incredibly stupid idea of filling this section with waxoyl prior to welding it so had to deal with liquid fire and a right mess while I was trying to weld it in :lol: ;


my next plan was to fix the rear of the wheel arch and do the b-post. Straight forward I thought until I started cutting and found the top hats don't exist ;


Its screwed all the way across anyway. I was expecting all the tops hats to be ok considering the outer riggers were all new but hey ho. I really don't want to take the whole floor out so I'm going to try and remove sections of floor to replace the top hats which are shagged;


previous work when i replaced the passenger side chassis legs;



I think my plans to have the bus on the road this summer are going to have to be shelved along with my budget!

Looking good so far,just keep doing bits at a time and you`ll get there.Its all worth the effort.

Amazing work so far, anything that serious would scare the life out of me. Good on you for sticking with it, it'll be worth it in the end .

Agree with the others.

Good work done so far so take it easy, a deep breath and keep going

good work dude, thats some project u got there, keep right on, dean

bluenose said:

Time for an update after a few cold winter nights spent in my garage I've managed to take a few steps forward and several backwards;

lower inner front panel and end pieces ready to go;

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Good work!
Where did you get these end pieces from? I have just done the same job on my 69 and had to fab my own as I couldn't find anywhere that makes them.

thanks for the encouragement guys i'll get there eventually, i've put too much time into it to give up now.

It scared me a bit at first when i saw the state of it all, considering I only went out to patch a hole the size of a penny :roll: I never planned for this

As for the end pieces. I ended up with them by accident really. I asked Schofields if they could do the bottom 6 inches of an A-post to make repairing them easier and that's what they sent me... They'd never made them before but they have a jig for them now. I decided to keep them and use them anyway despite not being what I asked for.... They came in quite usefull as the arches and front panel were welded (and screwed on :? ) on wrongly so I had no real reference points, so i've used them pieces as reference really so hopefully it will all line up when it goes back together.

nice work 8)
its a bit of a kick in the nuts when what you think is a small job turns into a resto. feel for ya.

what colour you doing it in bud,same again?

Doris said:

what colour you doing it in bud,same again?

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no definitely changing it. It looked too dark and wrong for my liking. The missus has said she's picking the colour anyway doh :msn4: . It will be two tone though as I want the top half or at least the roof white because i think it looks better with the pop top, then the bottom half will probably end up snot green or something