External

The external look of the bus would be largely dependent upon the internal layout. The placement of windows needed to be considered for the best use of viewing as well as for ventilation. The windows chosen are the Australite series of windows supplied from Camec Industries. They are a single hopper, four and some two cornered radius with toughened and tinted safety glass. The original front roof line is to be lifted and finished inline with the existing roof. This front section is fibreglass and I have enlisted the help of a shipwright friend to assist with this task. The diagram/sketches below give a general image of the intended finished look of the bus. They are roughly drawn to scale so proportions are close. The roof hatches, air conditioners and any lights etc have been left off these drawings.

Work on the outside of the bus began with the removal of the sign writing and the sanding back of the roof in readiness for the Thermashield finish. The painted sign writing came off the painted areas by carefully using wet and dry sandpaper. The signs on the bare stainless areas were removed using paint stripper and oven cleaner. This worked well with the added caution of ensuring that the paint removers did not run down onto other areas. There were signs of water entry around the fibreglass air-intake breather which is situated on the rear passenger side of the bus. Many of the rivets holding it in place were loose and water had been entering the roof cavity causing rust damage above the rear passenger side window. The air-intake was 4 roof panels long and a little damaged due to age and some obvious knocks here and there. I realised that it was made to take in air as far forward of the rear wheels as possible so as obtain air as dust free as possible. Even with this in mind I decided to shorten it down to fit only on the one panel and block up all unnecessary rivet holes. As I will not be doing anywhere near the kilometres that many commercial buses would, I figured an extra filter every few years would be a small price to ensure that water did not cause any more problems. The next process was to make good any other external problems around the bus. Weather shield strips on the roof for each roof hatch were both in need of removal, repairing and resealing. The bin doors also needed attention but due to time constraints they have been given a short term repair but will need complete removal and repairs made over the next few years.