Major milestone in my project

[Jeremy]

This last weekend saw the roof of my bus being raised, which is a big step forward in my project. I spent months thinking about the best way of doing the roof before making a start, and now it's done I can get on with lots of other aspects of the interior conversion which couldn't be started until the roof was up. The photo shows the roof just after it was raised into it's final position - lots of welding and bodywork still to be done, but you get the idea. As can be seen I have raised the central panel of the roof without touching the sidewalls of the body - there were various reasons why it wasn't practical on my bus to raise the roof by the more conventional method of cutting through the window uprights.

The biggest job by far was cutting the roof panel out before raising it - there are twenty roof beams on my bus, and as I would be welding to the 'cut' surface of every beam the cut itself had to narrow and perfectly vertical; this meant everything had to be laboriously cut by hand from below with a single-ended hacksaw. Cutting the beams themselves wasn't too bad, but there were also four large areas of puddle-weld which I had to cut through which absolutely soul-destroying. I've got bigger arm muscles now though!

Each time a beam was cut through a 7" vertical spacer was welded on one side of the cut, with a length of threaded rod beside it welded to the other side. Once the all the beams had been cut it was relatively straightforward to wind the roof up on the threaded rods before welding everything into the new position.



I now need to make up fibreglass front and rear caps and side panels to cover the gap in the roof. The front and rear caps will also cover curved, telescopic awning arms that will be mounted across the whole width of the bus and thus extremely strong whilst at the same time being totally hidden whilst not in use.

Jeremy

[wvanative]

Nice Job Jeremy, That extra time you spent in planning pays off in peace of mind while you are doing the job. I can't wait to see the finished project. Is that a transit bus you are doing the raise on? I think it's going to look great when you are done.

WVaNative

[Busted Knuckle]

Jeremy,
Cool job there ! Now that's whay I love about busnuts! How much more out side the box could the plan you come up with be? One thing though I noticed you put the door on the wrong side! LOL!    BK  

[Busted Knuckle]

Jeremy,
Cool job there ! Now that's whay I love about busnuts! How much more out side the box could the plan you come up with be? One thing though I noticed you put the door on the wrong side! LOL!    BK  

Opps don't ask me how I did this cause I don't know! LOL!

[Jeremy]

Nice Job Jeremy, That extra time you spent in planning pays off in peace of mind while you are doing the job. I can't wait to see the finished project. Is that a transit bus you are doing the raise on? I think it's going to look great when you are done.

WVaNative

Hi WVaNative

No, it's a highway coach but a short wheelbase version as I didn't have space to park a 40 footer. It seated 35 people rather than the usual 55 or so, and has the engine in the middle rather than at the rear.

Jeremy

[wvanative]

Good morning BK, I see your up nice and early today, but then no self respecting bus opperator would be sleeping this late would he LOL.

WVaNative

[wvanative]

Jeremy, This is the first time I have seen a raise done this way, and I think when you get the front and rear caps tied in it's going to look great. The fact that you'll have awning out of sight will give you a very clean look on the sides. As BK said you are thinking outside the box. Nice Job

WVaNative   

[gumpy]

Yeah, this will be interesting to see the final results. This is the first time I've seen it done this way.

A word of caution, though. If those windows are intended to remain in the coach, you might want to cover them with something thick, or you're likely to end up with embedded metal in them from the welding sparks.

craig

[wvanative]

Grumpy, the small details don't escape you at all do they. I would have forgot to do that. Nice work Grumpy.

WVaNative

[Jeremy]

For those who are interested, here is a photo taken from the inside whilst the roof was going up



As you can see the spacer pieces were only tack-welded on initially, and some were left off entirely at this stage as the roof panel turned out to be both lighter and stiffer than I had feared, and it was much easier trying to co-ordinate screwing nuts up a dozen threaded rods than twenty. All twenty will ultimately be welded back on though.

Before I could start cutting the roof cross-beams I had first to remove smaller sections of steel that ran longitudinally between each cross-beam under the joint in the aluminium roof panel (where the old sealant can be seen in the photo). To add some strength back I now need to weld back in some longditudinal bracing, which will also overlap and strengthen the joints in the vertical spacers. The longditudinal bracing is also required as a support for the aluminium skin.

I was very concerned about damaging the windows either by welding heat or sparks, or by the sidewall flexing after the roof beams were cut. I covered the windows in a thick board when welding to protect against sparks, and fortunately the unsupported walls still seemed quite rigid, so that danger didn't materialise. I'm still concerned about heat-soak from welding the steel sections into which the windows are mounted - I've had no problems yet, and am hoping that the mastic the glass is bedded into will act as a thermal break to protect the glass even if the steel gets very hot. Time will tell - but I am certainly hoping to get away with it as those big double-glazed windows are one of the biggest things I like about my bus

Jeremy