Author Topic: Driveway Mechanics  (Read 2452 times)

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Offline kinggeorge13

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Driveway Mechanics
« on: August 07, 2017, 07:06:45 AM »
I thought it would be fun to post pictures of where we do our hobby work, repairs, etc.   One day my dream is to build a garage in the back yard with a lift inside but for now I do what I've always done and use my driveway beside the house.   I have a large 14' x 14' sunshade canopy (which is mostly waterproof) that allows me to do stuff most days except really heavy rain.   When snow comes I have to bundle up my buses in tarps and take down the canopy for the season.    But this summer has been no rain and lots of outdoor work on my bus hobby.  One of the biggest pains is having to drag out all my tools/equipment each day I want to work on something and then drag them all back in again at the end of the day to keep them safe.   Here are a few pictures.  The bus under the canopy is my daughters 1975 Westfalia that was hit by a truck and we are replacing all the broken/torn metal parts along the entire drivers lower side/bottom.   While doing that we are replacing all the rusted out parts at same time (outriggers, jackpoints, dogleg, corner panel, parts of cross-members and inner rocker) by welding in new parts and some donor parts.   The floor under the sink area was all buckled/bent/torn up from the initial hit right into the back part of the drivers side front wheel well that we had to remove the sink cabinet to do floor repairs as well.  But I digress.   Here are a couple photos of my work area in my driveway.   The dog is Russell who is a lab-stabyhoun cross on her favourite dog-bed where she likes to hang out while I play with the bus. 
1975 Westy, Serenity
1975 Westy, Jack Sparrow
1979 Kombi, Pistachio
1979 Kombi, Oliver
1977 Tin top camper, Cosmos
1974 Westy, Garfield
1973 Tin top camper, Bart (now thinking he's 1976)
1974 gutted Riviera, Casper
1975 Westy, Stella
1979 Super Beetle, Penelope
1967 Fastback, Green Hornet

Offline kinggeorge13

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Re: Driveway Mechanics
« Reply #1 on: August 07, 2017, 07:32:46 AM »
And just for interest sake, here is a little of where I am with the bus as of last week that in the post about my driveway work area.   Underneath photo of the center outrigger/rear jackpoint and part of the new inner rocker.    The welding is not done yet and just spot welded to hold it all in place until I have it all pieced back together and fitting properly.   I generally first just do around 4 tack-welds until I get a couple parts in place to ensure it all fits and lines up and then I do a bunch of spot-tack welds (like this photo) and then when I'm done the area and I'm fairly sure no more surprises, I do up the rest of the welds to make it strong.   Then I (usually) grind down the high points of the welds a bit, clean the area, paint with rust paint and at the very end cover the area with rubberized undercoating.    And yeah, doing all this on the driveway not a comfortable process at all.   

2nd picture: This bus needed so much work that I made 5 large wooden "platforms" of cut up 2 x 12s (picked up free scraps from new houses being built in the area where there are lots of end pieces of 2 x 12" in their garbage piles).   I nailed together 3 of each piece (average size of 12" x 14" x 4.5".    When I get the bus jacked up bit by bit I end up with it well in the air on 4 @ 3 ton jack stands with each jack stand on the wood platform where it's super steady and stops the situation of the jack stands slowly cutting/sinking into  my asphalt driveway.   Another bonus is the jack stand does not have to be up at it's highest and most unsteady height because I've already gained 4.5" from the wide wood platform alone.   The wheel ramps in the earlier photo in this post are just there with wood on them to help catch the bus should the jackstands ever fail.   I cannot imagine how that would ever happen but while I'm under there working, it's nice to know it would not completely crush me flat if something catastrophic happened.   Sometimes I even add a bottle jack and floor jack in places to give me backup support.   Ya just never know....
1975 Westy, Serenity
1975 Westy, Jack Sparrow
1979 Kombi, Pistachio
1979 Kombi, Oliver
1977 Tin top camper, Cosmos
1974 Westy, Garfield
1973 Tin top camper, Bart (now thinking he's 1976)
1974 gutted Riviera, Casper
1975 Westy, Stella
1979 Super Beetle, Penelope
1967 Fastback, Green Hornet

Offline s3racing

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Re: Driveway Mechanics
« Reply #2 on: August 07, 2017, 12:57:49 PM »
Parkaid at my Dad's Dang that sucked. kills a lot of time just taking everything out and away again afterwards .