Here’s the video update from the last two weeks of work on the red bus.

It was a pretty quiet weekend here, but I’m still trying to get warm-weather things done before the cold weather hits. I did some work on the door cards I got up in Massachussetts to get them ready for paint. They were covered in about three inches of grease and dirt, so I played a hunch and used Easy-Off oven cleaner to clean them off. When I had all the crud removed I could see where the rust lived. Originally I was going to sandblast them but I figured that would take forever, so I just used the wire wheel to remove all of the bad stuff. Meanwhile I covered the back sides with Rust Converter to keep them clean.

Friday afternoon I went to the local Sherwin Williams Automotive and had them match and mix a quart of base color from the beat-up original door panel on the truck. I had them match from the area behind the door escutcheon, which hadn’t been dulled by UV rays over 60 years. After some back and forth I used some of their paint matching chips to get as close as possible in the sunlight out in front of the store. The best price I could get was on a quart of base coat in satin, which is going to need a final clearcoat at some point in the future. But the difference being roughly $200, I was happy to go with the more inexpensive option.

On Sunday morning, I cleaned everything off with acetone and got my table ready to shoot everything. All four panels needed two light coats for good coverage—the base was a lot thinner than the other paint I’ve been shooting.

Then I shot the heater box and heater cover. Everything flashed very quickly and within two hours was more than dry to the touch.

I hung all four-door cards on the truck to keep them out of the way and make sure they didn’t get scratched up in the garage.

Meanwhile, I was working on new mounts for the west coast mirrors. What I decided was to mount these using existing holes in the doors. There were, over time, about four different mirror installations on the truck, one of them being perfect for the mirrors I have. I bought four regular steel bolts and pushed them through the back sides of the doors to weld in place. Then I ground the backsides down as much as possible to give clearance for the weatherstripping and doors.

The passenger side still needed to be worked on: all the old holes had to be ground out and welded over like I did on the driver’s side. Then I cleaned those up, feathered some filler over them, and sanded it smooth. As of Sunday evening, both mirrors are hung on each door with a quick coat of basic rattle can red over everything.

The Sherwin Williams guy told me about some inexpensive clear coat I could get on Amazon much cheaper than in his store, so I’ve got that in my cart for next weekend. It’s a satin finish so it won’t be as dull as the original cards, but if it protects everything I’m not going to complain. And when the heater box is finished, I can reinstall that and get more of the stuff under the dash completed, which is one of the fall projects on my list.

Well, the end of a fun and educational chapter has now come to a close. The green truck was towed off into the rainclouds yesterday, after I picked some final parts off Friday night. I’d been trying to get the passenger wheel well off since last weekend, and of course it proved to be more difficult than I figured it would. The spot welds came out easily but the lower edge was part of a sandwich between the inner fender skirt and the lower lip of the rear floor, so I wound up trimming about 2″ from the bottom of the well and carving a big hole into the front of the C-pillar to release the whole thing. I have no idea if I’ll ever need it for anything, but it’s a very complex compound curve that I’d never be able to replicate in a million years, so I’m keeping it.

Then I put two good tires on the back of the truck, put the one good tire back on the front, and threw the other two junk tires in the front floorboards with the spare bench setback that was taking up space in the garage. I threw a bunch of other junk inside, vacuumed out the interior, and tied everything down with some old rope.

That evening, a guy reached out on the Binder Planet to ask if I was keeping the square seat bases on the floor, and I told him they were going with the truck the following morning. After thinking it over, I figured I might be able to beat the rain if I got an early start the next morning (the pickup was scheduled between 1-3PM) so I took the dog with me to Harbor Freight and picked up another spot weld cutter, ate some breakfast, and got to work. It was drizzling but the roof of the truck made for a nice cover, so I set up camp inside and started on the passenger side. I got both mounts out in about an hour, then tied everything back down.

When the truck arrived, it was a newer Chevy pickup with a trick wheel lift boom. The driver backed up to the truck and had the front wheels off the ground before he even got out of the cab—the whole thing was done with a remote control and a monitor on the dashboard. That must be how repossessions are done these days. There was a little bit of confusion about the lack of a VIN, but I consulted my records and wrote it down on a Post-It for them. He gave me a $100 bill, I signed the paper, and they were on their way. I really felt a pang of guilt about cutting up and selling the green truck, but I only have so much room and spare time—and it was more of a project, in the long run, than the red truck. So it’s out of the driveway, leaving behind an oil slick and a pile of rust that I have to go sweep up when the rain stops.

So I did order a bunch of gaskets from IHPA with my counter credit last week: a rear quarter window gasket, and the pillar and outer door gaskets. With these in hand, I should be able to both reinstall the rear window, which will get rid of a 1″ gap at the bottom where water has been trickling in and down the inner fender, and around all four doors. The door gaskets on the red truck are all in rough shape and I really want to seal the outer edges to keep as much water out as possible. I’ll have to peel all the old stuff off, clean the gunk off down to the paint, and reinstall. For two of the doors I have to actually adjust the hinges before I can do anything else—the driver’s door in particular needs some serious attention. One of the gaskets is on backorder, so they’re going to wait until it’s in stock before they ship the whole thing out.

The other gasket I ordered was for a different IH product completely: I found a cheap source for the e-shaped gasket on the beer fridge, which has been leaking for a while now. I measured the amount and ordered two extra feet in case of stupidity, and that should be enough to get things started. That one has already shipped, so I should be able to make a project of that this week.

This is an update of the second half of last week—roughly Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, where I'm continuing to fight the steering box and column until I got it off, and stripping other parts off the engine and interior.