Is there a contact for getting a piece of side skin steel that's 35 ft long? My non-bus suppliers are all scratching their heads.
Thanks!
CK IBP in Appoka Fla
Check with your local heating and cooling store and ask who their sheetmetal supplier is. Contact the supplier and see if they will sell you a coil of sheetmetal the length, width and gauge you want. That's what I did, got mine from Ryerson Steel.
If your skinning over windows 18 ga is lowest I would go. 16 ga is better. For wrinkles in sun. Experience here. If you want stainless with ribs IBP. Bob
IBP Industries in Florida:
http://www.ibpindustries.com/ (http://www.ibpindustries.com/)
They will match the fluting on pretty much any coach made.
They have worked with many busnuts on custom work, large and small.
Give 'em a call and see if they can help with your idea, or give you some new ones to chew on.
Has anyone heard anything from Rich in awhile? He used to be with this company, and then moved on to something else that escapes me at the moment...
happy coaching!
buswarrior
thanks for the info, I'll call in the morning. for now anyone know how much a steel skin for one side should run price wise? ball park would be fine.
No bus from the factory used a single continuous piece of sheet metal. You too should match the lower panels as to length-the bus manufacturers usually had many more engineers figuring these things out. Good Luck, TomC
5 stainless panels with correct pattern for banner area aprox 40 inches high $$2000. Cold roll 18ga in 4 by 10ft sheets about $160 each. I like the cold roll just seams to hold paint better and sun wrinkle less;old lesson from hot rod days-still prefer 16 ga. The weight differance in the big picture is in? I just bought the stainless for my damaged sideing on Prevost. Bob
Quote from: TomC on November 15, 2012, 10:26:17 PM
No bus from the factory used a single continuous piece of sheet metal.
Not wishing to be argumentative, but my bus certainly has full-length skins - one piece of galvanized sheet from front to back, held on with nothing other than polyurethene adhesive (ie Sikiflex or equivalent). I don't know how thick it is in 'gauge' terms, but it's at least 1mm thick I would say - I know that it's fairly heavy stuff to cart around beacuse I've had to cut large pieces out as part of installing the slideouts.
Jeremy
Mine is a continuous piece also.
I guess if I bought a 1000ft roll I could get a continuous piece.
I'm going to settle for tack welding on a 7 inch strip along the bottom and be done with it. I plan to bus-wrap our logo along that area anyway, so, as long as it's relatively smooth it should look fine.
Found a piece of 5x10' steel for $40 locally. Or better yet, a 20g piece of galvalume steel (which is what's on the bus now) for $70.
Looks like I will be tacking until Christmas.
Do it your way! with the gal make sure to rough (sp) the surface good to get good paint adhesion. You got to remember there is no rite or wrong for sure. Just what works for you.!!Let me know how the adhesive works. I've been chicken so far with all the problems Prevost had with the XLII and have spent millions re-doing coaches .. Bob
That worked better than I expected. I just clamped the new piece over the rusty area and used a grinder with a cutting wheel to cut thru both pieces. This left me a perfect cut out with a 1/16 gap. Next I tack welded the new piece in with a spot weld every 4 inches on the first past then every past thereafter I just devided what was left until I had a solid weld.
Grind that down and put a thin layer of primer and bondo. Ride by on a fast horse and it looks pretty good!
I know some of you say aluminum waves, but we used 1/8" thick stuff. No waves. Come see ours. Looks amazing. Just our way.
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When you install the metal, it needs to be on a hot day. If you put it on during a cold day, the metal is shrunk and during a warm day the metal expands to give you waves.
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I would have preferred aluminum skin but it does not come in 35 ft lengths. My old 82' had rivets all over the sides but the 92 has smooth sides. Kind of wanted to stay with that look.
On a different note. When I bought the bus a month ago I noticed the skins were bulging out noticeably. I thought the steel frames under the windows were rotted at the bottom and the skin was the only thing holding up the roof. When I looked under there everything looked great. ( partially due to the fact that the bottom sill is made of stainless steel). So what was causing the buldge you say? This year bus has sections of ridgid foam insulation in between the frame work. The foam was sticking out proud of the metal by 1/2 inch. It had to be built that way. Crazy. When you rivet the skin to the metal, at top and bottom, the foam pushes out the middle causing this slightly bloated look. I was happy to know the frame was fine.
What caused the skin rust?
The black rubber trim and channel covering the top row of rivets catches water. Eventually the water rusts out the center part of the steel rivets inside the channel and water leaks down the back of the skin and gets caught in the plastic wrap glued to the skin. There it sits and does it's evil work. I think I will just eliminate the channel and rubber trim and just paint over the rivets.
Hi Chaz,
Glad you found something that works for you. It would help a lot if you would put your general area ( country, state, province, etc. ) and the type of bus you have in your signature. You might find a bus nut lives close by and at least it help folks recommend places if they knew your general location.
Frank
Good idea, Frank. I actually went into the profile earlier today to try and update the picture and info and leave a link to a website but couldn't get it to gel. Must call in the experts. (my kids)
I drive a 1992 MCI 102c3 with a L10 cummins and a push button ht740 or hd740 Allison. With a little rust under the belly but a flawless interior and good looking outside. And what's more...every single little button on the whole bus actually still works. Amazing.
Quote from: chazwood on November 18, 2012, 07:16:38 AM
This year bus has sections of ridgid foam insulation in between the frame work. The foam was sticking out proud of the metal by 1/2 inch. It had to be built that way. Crazy. When you rivet the skin to the metal, at top and bottom, the foam pushes out the middle causing this slightly bloated look.
Chances are that the skin was installed first, and then expanding foam injected between the outer skin and inner panels (assuming there are inner panels). The expansion force of the foam is considerable, and will easily distort sheet metal
Jeremy
Quote from: Jeremy on November 19, 2012, 01:49:16 AM
Chances are that the skin was installed first, and then expanding foam injected between the outer skin and inner panels (assuming there are inner panels). The expansion force of the foam is considerable, and will easily distort sheet metal
Jeremy
That's what I was thinking, too. Because of this, there are now different "expansion" grades for spray foam installation (at least, they're available in the US -- I'm assuming that they are in the UK, too, Jeremy). Usually "door grade" spray foam has less expansion force so if someone's spraying into an area that's covered by a large flat piece of otherwise unsupported sheet metal, it might be good to use that.
FWIW, BH NC USA
Nope. This foam is cut to fit foam. Individual pieces inside the frame openings. Nice smooth beveled edges. Loose from the framing.
I sprayed in the foam on my 82 and this stuff is different. It's thicker than the frame material and therefore stands the skin off a bit.
Maybe the skin on the inside has bowed in and is pushing out the foam, but I seriously doubt it (having removed inner skins before.) These inserts just look too thick for the job.
Quote from: chazwood on November 19, 2012, 06:50:41 AM
Nope. This foam is cut to fit foam. Individual pieces inside the frame openings. Nice smooth beveled edges. Loose from the framing.
I sprayed in the foam on my 82 and this stuff is different. It's thicker than the frame material and therefore stands the skin off a bit.
Maybe the skin on the inside has bowed in and is pushing out the foam, but I seriously doubt it (having removed inner skins before.) These inserts just look too thick for the job.
Interesting. I'm stumped at that.
http://busconversion101.com/one_piece_blank_out.htm (http://busconversion101.com/one_piece_blank_out.htm)
I replaced the roof skin on my MCI EL3 - one piece nearly 40' long and 8.5' wide. got it from MCI - Just a thought. It is glued down and we streched it as it was installed - good time to have several good friends!
JimH
Jim, that piece you got from MCI, was it aluminum? And how thick was it
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