More interior work this weekend.

It was a pretty good weekend for the bus project!  I got a chance to spend a fair amount of time working.  I started out by cutting the drivers side wall trim panel for the camper section out of the FRP material I have been using.  I sanded it a bit to smooth the edges and popped that in place.  Next I cut a piece of the FRP to trim out the area behind the spare tire.  This, traditionally, didn't have a trim piece, but it looks pretty good trimmed out!

The next project was to reinstall the Z-bed base and armrest.

On to the carpet.  I made up patterns for the 3/8" (9mm ish.) base plywood that sits over the bare floor steel out of cardboard.  I then cut out the plywood shape with my saber saw.  Test fit, adjusted and installed the sheet with about a half dozen screws.

Next was the carpet.  I just measured and cut and measured and cut till I had the piece fitting nicely into the opening.  It went pretty well.

I applied some adhesive to the edges that were not trapped under some piece of trim or cabinetry.  I set boards and weights on the carpet to let it dry in place.  I used a ceramic wall tile adhesive to hold the edges of the carpet, I will know in a day or so how it works.  I will need to work out some sort of edge treatment for the exposed edge of the carpet by the slider door.  This will get pulled back when moving things in or out of the bus.  I am leaning toward an aluminum carpet edge strip just like for the house.  They are held down with screws and look pretty good.  The edge is straight, so no curves to contend with.

After the carpet, I set the jump seat in place to see how it would look.  I haven't mounted this in yet, but that will be soon.  "There, done for the weekend!"  I went in, took a shower, and got ready to take it easy for the evening.  I sat down in front of the TV and surfed around for about 10 minutes, all the while thinking about bus sitting out there in the dark garage without it's seats installed.  The lure of the project settled in and being unable to find anything even mildly entertaining on the TV, I headed back to the garage! I thought I would just set the "Z-bed" bottom cushion in place to see how it looked, well, one thing led to another and I got the base and the seat back installed!

On to the curtains next I think.  I am going to have to start thinking about making new door panels for the front doors soon.  I had better get to ordering some clips I guess.

A few more pieces

My bus was missing the side trim panel that went inside the passenger side wall wardrobe (US Westie).  This panel covers up the exposed sheet metal and insulation on the outside wall of the bus and gives a nice "trimmed" look to the inside of the wardrobe.  I made up a pattern using cardboard and cut a left over piece of the FRP to shape.  I attached this piece using the same screw mounting method as the rest of the trim panels.  I didn't take a picture of that yet.  I will add that soon.  I reinstalled the wardrobe and put the head knocker back up last night as well.

Interior panels for the slider and hatch

I decided to duck out to the garage last night and work on the interior a bit.  I took a couple of the left over pieces of FRP from the headliner and figured they would make nice interior trim panels.  I had the OG slider door trim so I just laid the old part onto the sheet and traced the outline, cut it out with the saber-saw and drilled the holes.  I decided to give it a quick sanding on the edges to neaten it up a bit and it popped right on and fit well.

The rear lift gate trim was missing, but all the clips were there.  I measured and trimmed and cut until the panel fit nicely.  I don't know what the cutout for the real door lock/release thingy is supposed to look like, so I took a guess.  Seems to be OK I suppose.

Overall I am pretty happy with how they came out.  I am missing two of the little clips for the slider so I will have to see if someone on the Samba list sells these.  The only thing I am a bit worried about is the sound.  The new panels buzz when you tap them.  I am afraid I am going to have to install a thin layer of felt, or some kind of vibration stopper between  the panels and the body metal to stop this.  The first test ride will tell all!

New Headliner

I had a chance to work on the headliner this weekend.  I started off by pulling down the remainder of the fiberglass insulation that was still clinging to the roof steel.  The good part is that it came down perfectly using the shop vac.  All I needed to do was slide the end of the hose over the glass remains and they broke off and sucked right up at the same time.  Not too bad. 

Next I sprayed some 3M Super 90 adhesive on the roof steel and onto the back of the 3M Thinsulate insulation I was to install.  I Waited a little for the adhesive to get tacky, then sprayed both surfaces again because it wouldn’t stick, and then pushed the insulation up to the steel.  It worked great.

Next I laid the original (floppy) headliner pieces onto the back of my new pieces of FRP I got from Lowes and traced out the shapes.  I then cut all the pieces and lightly sanded the edges.  Turns out the FRP stands for Fiber Reinforced Plastic, It also turns out that the word Fiber, in this case stands, for fiberglass.  This makes for an itchy job and it also destroyed my saber saw blade.  I was able to cut all three panels with one blade, but that’s the end of it.
I cleaned up the show surfaces of the aluminum connectors/trim strips with 0000 steel wool, they polished up nicely and look like new.  All that was left then was to “pop” the panels into the bus.  Everything went well, however, I needed to remove and trim the center piece a bit.

Job complete.  All together, it took about 3 hours to do the whole thing.  The only reason it went that fast was because the bus interior was completely removed.  It would, of course, take longer if I had to include cabinet removal as well.  Next project is to attach a piece of the FRP to the bottom side of the "head knocker" overhead cabinet.

The interior is painted

After a bunch of wiping, cleaning, taping, and Scotchbriting, I got a chance to paint the interior this weekend.  The OG paint is very difficult to stick to.  I remember this from 35 years ago when I was working with my Dad in the body shop.  It always required an extra bunch of work to get the paint to lay down nicely.  I probably should have sealed it before I painted, but the OG paint really just needed to be freshened up, it wasn’t very rusty, or damaged.  It seems to have come out pretty nicely.  I won’t know till tonight, how much paint got under my masking job and got all over the dash.  I am sure there will be some re-work required there.