After the impressive threads of peoples own often single handed resto's, you know the type "Never tried welding before... thought I'd have a go at spraying it myself on my driveway..." etc, I thought I'd let you in on my story. I have put it in this section as I don't have any pictures so I'll do my best to paint a mental picture...
Some of you may have read I got my van in May as a first time owner, absolutely no mechanical experience :? , and so it goes:
After some friends saw the van for the first time, a stray haphazard comment - "It'd look so much better if the bumpers were re-sprayed!" :evil: - got quickly picked up by the missus; "come on, we can do that, it'll be easy!" Let me clear this point up, so far there has been no we, but I'm getting ahead of myself!
After having the missus on my back for a while, and agreeing to go to the Moor Music Festival in Ilkley in August, I succumbed and agreed to sand down and respray the bumpers in time for the festival. So on an overcast Sunday afternoon in Leeds I climbed under the front and started undoing the bolts to take off the front bumper. No penetrating oil was necessary and all came off fairly easily, but unbolting the drivers side step I noticed some movement in the 'metal' above the bumper step as I turned the ratchet (BIG gulp! :shock: - no resto thread developing from here tho I'm afraid!) obviously there was fairly extensive rot with lots of patches of what I would diagnose as pretty rubbish previous weld jobs!
Anyway, the bumper was off, the rot will be tackled some other time (and by some other person!), so I removed the rubber steps, tow hook and bumper brackets - not that easily, somehow used a socket one size too big until one nut half turned in the socket and managed to wedge itself so tightly I had to knock it out from the otherside with whatever I had handy - a drillbit! The drill bit was maybe a tad too small as it sunk halfway through the nut and cut out most of the thread. Next I attempted to split the bumper into the three pieces for a more thorough sand down and spray. First bolt I attempted (no penetrating oil :roll: ) sheared off and at this point I was very close to putting it all back together and putting it back on the van :x
However, I decided that as the irons and tow hook were off, and made of pretty sturdy stuff, I'd see what damage I could do to these! Armed with a small domestic detail sander and a wire brush I started. After getting through several sanding pads each of the three pieces were showing some shiney metal
tho I decided to play ignorance to the inside of the tow hook! Each piece was given a coat of primer and put to the side for the night. I was pleasantly surprised the following morning that when I could actually see in the daylight, they didn't look half bad (IMHO) with an even colour all over them, so I gave them a coat of L90D pastel white, and althought they certainly aint shiney and new, they are at least to a certain extent shiney - tho now they have no waxoil on them :roll:
Now having been close to put the bumper back on and forgetting the whole thing, I am now keen as mustard to see what I can do to the whole bumper :lol: I didn't realise tho, quite how much paint I would use in just painting the irons! I had bought two 150ml cans of L90D off fleabay, and before I have even touched the bumper, I am down to one can. Now don't get me wrong I am certainly not a perfectionist, there will be no sanding and polishing I will just make do with the raw finish given by the spray can which I am quite sure I can get away with on the bumpers. The rear bumper however will test another, as yet undiscovered skill, panel beating as I attempt to put some shape back into (or bash a shape out of - not sure which way round it should be) the centre of the bumper!
I first need to find a larger can of paint, and you need to get yourself and coffee and give yourself a pat on the back for reading this far!! :lol: I love my bus and love being able to fix/add/adjust things but the minute I open the engine bay or crawl underneath I am out of my depth!
I just wanted to submit this post to represent the members of this forum who are not so adept at welding/removing engines/rewiring their buses themselves, but also to thank those with the knowledge to help the hopeless such as myself, hats what makes this forum such a great place to be a member of!
And again, thanks for reading!
Some of you may have read I got my van in May as a first time owner, absolutely no mechanical experience :? , and so it goes:
After some friends saw the van for the first time, a stray haphazard comment - "It'd look so much better if the bumpers were re-sprayed!" :evil: - got quickly picked up by the missus; "come on, we can do that, it'll be easy!" Let me clear this point up, so far there has been no we, but I'm getting ahead of myself!
After having the missus on my back for a while, and agreeing to go to the Moor Music Festival in Ilkley in August, I succumbed and agreed to sand down and respray the bumpers in time for the festival. So on an overcast Sunday afternoon in Leeds I climbed under the front and started undoing the bolts to take off the front bumper. No penetrating oil was necessary and all came off fairly easily, but unbolting the drivers side step I noticed some movement in the 'metal' above the bumper step as I turned the ratchet (BIG gulp! :shock: - no resto thread developing from here tho I'm afraid!) obviously there was fairly extensive rot with lots of patches of what I would diagnose as pretty rubbish previous weld jobs!
Anyway, the bumper was off, the rot will be tackled some other time (and by some other person!), so I removed the rubber steps, tow hook and bumper brackets - not that easily, somehow used a socket one size too big until one nut half turned in the socket and managed to wedge itself so tightly I had to knock it out from the otherside with whatever I had handy - a drillbit! The drill bit was maybe a tad too small as it sunk halfway through the nut and cut out most of the thread. Next I attempted to split the bumper into the three pieces for a more thorough sand down and spray. First bolt I attempted (no penetrating oil :roll: ) sheared off and at this point I was very close to putting it all back together and putting it back on the van :x
However, I decided that as the irons and tow hook were off, and made of pretty sturdy stuff, I'd see what damage I could do to these! Armed with a small domestic detail sander and a wire brush I started. After getting through several sanding pads each of the three pieces were showing some shiney metal
tho I decided to play ignorance to the inside of the tow hook! Each piece was given a coat of primer and put to the side for the night. I was pleasantly surprised the following morning that when I could actually see in the daylight, they didn't look half bad (IMHO) with an even colour all over them, so I gave them a coat of L90D pastel white, and althought they certainly aint shiney and new, they are at least to a certain extent shiney - tho now they have no waxoil on them :roll: Now having been close to put the bumper back on and forgetting the whole thing, I am now keen as mustard to see what I can do to the whole bumper :lol: I didn't realise tho, quite how much paint I would use in just painting the irons! I had bought two 150ml cans of L90D off fleabay, and before I have even touched the bumper, I am down to one can. Now don't get me wrong I am certainly not a perfectionist, there will be no sanding and polishing I will just make do with the raw finish given by the spray can which I am quite sure I can get away with on the bumpers. The rear bumper however will test another, as yet undiscovered skill, panel beating as I attempt to put some shape back into (or bash a shape out of - not sure which way round it should be) the centre of the bumper!
I first need to find a larger can of paint, and you need to get yourself and coffee and give yourself a pat on the back for reading this far!! :lol: I love my bus and love being able to fix/add/adjust things but the minute I open the engine bay or crawl underneath I am out of my depth!
I just wanted to submit this post to represent the members of this forum who are not so adept at welding/removing engines/rewiring their buses themselves, but also to thank those with the knowledge to help the hopeless such as myself, hats what makes this forum such a great place to be a member of!
And again, thanks for reading!
