Rust Repairs

[tsh4432]

I can't believe the search feature came up with nothing for "rust". HAHA - I must have done something wrong.

I have some rust issues, the square tubing just in front of the front tires below where the torsion tubes connects. Almost failed a safety inspection, but, talked my way out of it, telling him it was non-structual and that it was the back of the spare tire compartment. Also a wheel well and square tube just below a bay door needs repairs.

I live in Virginia, is there somewhere within a few states that may be able to make these repairs over the winter and what kind of cost should I expect?

Thank you,

Thomas

[beltguy]

Hi Thomas

The search feature of our forum software leaves a bit to be desired. That is the reason I added the Google search feature. We are a pretty small forum and it took quite a while for Google to index our forum but it looks like we are getting some results. When I put the term "rust repair" in our forum search, it returns a statement that the term is too common to search Some of us are pretty familiar with the threads and can sometimes point a person in the correct direction.

There are quite a few places in the project threads that talk about repairing rust.

Almost any good welding shop can do the work. I would avoid big city shops and look for a shop in a farm community. Those folks know how to fix things. If you are handy, you can do part of the work yourself and then maybe call in a portable welder.

The tubing in our buses is metric, but most of the tubing can be replaced with 1 1/2 inch square tubing.

If the existing tubing is not too bad, you can always double tube the area. By that I mean weld a piece of new tubing beside the existing tubing. I have some pictures of that in my project pages.

Depending on the status of your bus, I would do a very thorough inspection of every place you can get to. If your bus has a big rust problem, you will have to decide how much you invest in the repair of the front suspension area. I used an ice pick and small hammer in the engine compartment area since that tubing seems to rust from the inside out.

If you get a chance to post pictures of the rust area, we might be able to offer more thoughts.

Jim

[tsh4432]

Thank you for the quick response. I'll spend some time viewing the info from the google search and post some pictures in a few weeks. Great job on the website.

Thomas