Working away

Before I left for holidays this summer....right before....I had a bad day. Not terrible, but the kind of day you keep looking up to see if there is a dark cloud over your head. Among other things, George from Texas very gently told me when I asked his opinion about the radiator position, that I had a problem. The ram air chute, being an integral part of the strength of the bus needed to be replaced. Regardless of where I decided to put the rad, that needed to be rebuilt, otherwise my rear end would start sagging.....not one snicker out of any of you....
So I am in the process of rebuilding the ram air chute, or tower. While I do that I am also finishing the positioning of the rad. I decided to place the rad in a side mount position, similar to it's location and application in the donor vehicle. I will still use the ram air chute to house the transmission cooler but the engine rad is going to the side.


First Job was to fabricate the stands. I got a good start on that before I got the news about the chute, so I continued on and played with more sparks!

1/8" plate steel on the bottom reinforced with angle iron underneath. That is welded to the stand and then bolted to the frame.

The other side is mounted on the wheel well, reinforced to the side and front with brackets. You can see the dummy rad in a test fit. It sits on the stand with a rubber isolator. I had to remove a second bracket from the bottom that helps to stabilize the rad from rocking on the stand.

The new bracket is simply 1/8" corner brace. I cut it to size and re-drilled the correct hole size I need.

The only issue is the bracket was zinc plated, aaaaannd I wasn't keen on welding to zinc coating...or breathing the fumes from that too. So I had to strip the surface of the bracket prior to welding.

Here it is in place ready to go. I am ready to put the rad in the bus......but I can't lift it by myself, and by the time I was ready to move it....it was 11:00pm....and most of my friends in the area are old and gone to bed by then...(that was for you Brad if you're reading this)
I am off to Manitoba again this weekend, so no work on Fillmore. Stay tuned!!