Return of Big Yellow

[dtracy]

Nice work Robert, very impressive.

My mother-in-law has a pickup painted National School Bus Yellow. Looks like it belongs to the school - duh.

Best regards and have a merry Christmas,
Dave.

[MP&C]

Well here's the saga of the latest bus repair. It seems a new driver at a local high school was attempting to back out of a parking space and missed the BIG YELLOW vehicle already occupying where he intended to move. Maybe they should change the color of those buses so you can see them coming.



Note door gap closed up here...















So from the onset, it looks like we need one new door, a filler panel, some "adjustments" to a couple door frames, painting and buffing.

Filler panel was fabricated out of 18 ga cold rolled steel, abraded with the DA, and prepped for SPI epoxy primer..



New door and filler panel have been sprayed with SPI epoxy, here shown after blocking with 400 grit..



New hardware getting prepped for painting...



Stainless hardware is used to stave off the rust issues. The bright polished finish does not provide good adhesion for a paint finish. Additionally, we've found that excessive paint build on these promotes cracking/chipping of the paint while driving them in during installation.. So to minimize the build on the hardware, we have eliminated primer on these parts. We media blast with 80 grit garnet media, blow off with air, and they get yellow urethane directly on the abraded fasteners. This method has shown to work well with NO chipping...









Dis-assembly..







The filler panel is actually sandwiched between two flanges at each luggage box, so the bus needed to be jacked up about 8" where the filler panel could be slid in place from the bottom, and bus dropped back down to level before attachment so we didn't have any twist in the boxes.







All door gaps addressed, painting, touch-ups, and buffing complete, ready for school!

[BobD]

Thanks for the educational look into the process of a master. I hope you understand what a pleasure it is to see these posts. From the aftermath of the crash to the finished product really helps a newbee understand the real work behind what he is trying to learn. Thanks for taking the time to help us along.
Bob

[Gojeep]

Thanks for passing on the tips you have learnt over the years.

[MP&C]

Thanks for the comments guys! I guess it has been a couple months....


Always a new challenge every day....







The strong winds this weekend knocked over a dead oak tree across the chain link fence at the local high school, and this was the bus that found the overhang..

[fred26t]

What are they doing off-roading these buses? Fred26T

[MP&C]

Tonight found us working on the bus to remove some of the damage from an oak tree. Here's our damage...





The headliner above the step area was cut out to give us better access to the roof skin..







We got much of the damage roughed out, but there's quite a bit of stretch in that roof skin still to remove.

[cliffrod]

Not that I don't enjoy seeing big dollar, esoteric or such projects but I really appreciate seeing this type of work being addressed and posted here, Robert. Thanks for posting. Keep it coming..

[Gojeep]

Nice contract to have as seem to keep you in business!

[Gando]

While a Big Yellow little people eater might not be as flashy as a hand built coach or sports car, Much helpful and interesting information can be found here. Thanks for posting!
Gando
David Gandy