Work on the nearside rear corner has been completed now and the panel has been primed and painted in undercoat, flatted and ready for top coat when the time comes.
The stainless steel corner bumper has been refitted along with the beading to the left of the boot doors.
After that, work turned to the offside with the removal of the rear most window adjacent to the emergency door. The steel frame of this was heavily corroded so I have been welding replacement sections to create a new mounting flange.
NS rear corner, finished ready for topcoat
OS rearmost window frame as found, being prepared for repair
I have been concentrating on finishing the nearside rear quarter panel for the last couple of weeks (with interruptions) but at last it is in undercoat after many hours of careful filling and sanding. I applied the first coat of undercoat using a roller but didn’t brush it out and I wasn’t really satisfied with the finish. The second coat was sprayed on and it much better. I will apply a third undercoat and flat that back when it is time to lay on the top coat. I also ground out all the gouges and scars in the stainless steel corner bumpers then polished them. They are not perfect but acceptable. And shiny!
Final job for this entry was the fitting (today) of the last two pieces of vertical bearding for the nearside, so apart from paint the nearside is finished!
Work was interrupted by the need to prepare the MW for Lodge’s Coaches classic vehicle show on the 22nd, the entire previous week having been spent polishing off the effects of the weather.
Filling and sanding of the nearside rear corner has continued and it is nearly ready for paint. Today I fitted the vertical beading that joins this panel to the one that surrounds the boot door opening. This necessitated fitting the small piece of vertical beading in the waistrail to ensure the lower beading was correctly aligned.
During this period I have been polishing the small stainless corner bumpers, which included grinding out the accident damage of many years and other scratches.
Restoration diary of a 70-year old AEC single-deck bus and the trials, tribulations and adventures of our 1966 Bristol bus.
