First Ride of the Year!

I picked out some felt at the fabric store for covering the seat "pedestals".  I cut, shaped and glued the felt to the steel and tucked the outboard edge into the metal tuck edge along the door on each side.  I left a flap on the bottom a the floor so it would lay under the carpeting.

On to the kick panels.  I used the original press board panels as templates.  I traced out the shapes onto a couple of pieces of the FRP and cut them out with my, now extremely dull, saber saw.  I sanded the edges and pupped them in.  They looked pretty good.  The white was a bit stark, so I scuffed them up with Scotch-Brite and painted them with some gray paint.  When they were dry, I just slipped them into place.

Next up was to re-install the seats.  I touched up the black paint on the tracks and mounting brackets and bolted them in place.

After the seats were in, I took the original rubber floor mat and traced out the shape into some carpet to make a new floor mat that matches the back carpet.  After a couple of attempts, this is what I came up with.

I scrubbed up the rubber mat that fits between the front seats and put that in for now.  It doesn't look very good, so I will have to make a replacement for that soon.
I had placed all the seat belts into a bucket and set them in the corner of the garage until I was ready for them. I looked in the bucket and decided that the seat belts looked just plain nasty dirty.  I poured about a cup of really powerful cleaner and about three cups of water into the bucket and started scrubbing the belts.  It wasn't long until the water turned the color of coffee!  Nasty.  I scrubbed them up for about 15 minutes and rinsed them with the hose.  I set them in the sun to dry.  While the belts were drying, I installed the glove box and my new sun visors.  It's nice to have a new clean set up there.  Once the belts were dry, I bolted the front belts back in and it was time for a little test ride!

The big day.  I started it up , let it warm up for a bit, and headed out down the street.  A quick lap around the block and return home to be sure everything was functioning properly and I was off.  I drove around for a half hour or so with a big smile on my face and the windows rolled down.  It was very good to get it out.  Being couped up in the garage all winter makes for pretty boring scenery.  After I got home, I decided to give it a bath and put it away.  It was a very good weekend for my old bully.

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.