The last week or so has been spent on restoring and painting the rear number plate and fabricating a replacement box for it and the original rear lights. The box was fabricated from zintec, I was able to fold it up all except for the rounded corners and their flanges which needed to be formed separately and welded in. A very time consuming job. I also cleaned the paint off the two porthole glasses which form the rear lights. The inner light (tail light) has a frosted red glass to reduce the light output and the outer (brake) light a plain glass. Illumination is by two 24v bulbs mounted behind the glasses.
Since the last entry, all the roof sheets have been fastened back to the nearside cant rail with the exception of the rearmost window which is still awaiting its glass.
When that job was complete, I replaced the rainstrip over the entrance door.
The paint around the front destination screen was stripped and the window beading and glass removed so that the interior of the destination box can be repainted, the blind installed and the lighting rewired.
The beading was replaced from the front destination box to the rainstrip above the door, this was a reclaimed piece which I’m not entirely happy with but will have to do.
The vertical beading between the front fairing and the entrance door was replaced too, with a new piece and finally today I made a plywood template for the replacement glass for the front destination box.
The paint is now all removed from the roof, the four ventilator covers (which are made from chromed tinplate!) and around the front and rear destination/route number boxes. This job was completed late yesterday. Today was spent fitting the fairing above the door and making a start on reattaching the lower edge of the cant panel/roof sheets above the nearside windows.
View of the roof in bare aluminium looking towards the rear from the front.
Roof ventilator covers.
Restoration diary of a 70-year old AEC single-deck bus and the trials, tribulations and adventures of our 1966 Bristol bus.
