2026 Week 34

August 17th - 23rd

More Priming and Door progress

Just a few items tackled this week.

First up was more priming. I had about a day left before the open epoxy spray primer solidified in the can, so I used it up on a couple of items, including a full window frame:

I also did some investigations around the floor area. Unfortunately, the drivers floor is showing some daylight in a few cracks right near the door. Not ideal. But, I’m officially kicking that can down the road.

I really want to get this potato of a vehicle back on the road, and I think having all doors installed is probably a solid safety requirement, so trying to get those back on with the hinges fixed up.

I didn’t take photos on the hinge fix, but essentially, the doors on these buses have a design flaw - the door has very thin sheet metal supporting the hinges. The top hinge was breaking through the material and needed reinforcement. I cut a 1/2" thick piece of steel to fit, and drilled it to match. Then I removed the old, broken rivets and replaced them with some bolts.

Previous owner had done this already to the bottom hinge on the door, but I drilled out the holes that were there and installed some beefier, higher rated bolts just to keep everything similar. Barely visible here:

While bashing on the hinge metal, I did have a helper holding things down.

The next challenge will be getting the door fit in the door hole correctly. I tried installing the hinges to the door pillar first, and that didn’t really work, as I ended up with a 1/2" gap on one side of the door. So instead, I just placed it in the right spot and will have to figure out how to keep it there and functional… eventually.

Maybe more priming, maybe more door fighting next week…