Old vs new

Here's one of the new clamps beside its original one. remember its upside down. I was not even able to get the nut off of the old one while it was still mounted on the bus. The other side is rusted nearly through itself. These clamps hold the copper tank to the bus so after they are welded and painted in place I will line them with a thin piece of rubber to keep the two different metals apart. The rubber will also be good to protect from vibration noise.

One clamp for coolant tank

Here's the first one ready for welding the bolts in. You can see the lower part of the clamp I made out of 1/8 inch thick steel. That leaves' it flexible enough to get onto the bolts. This is same as original plan. The thicker half is on the top and welds to the bus frame.

Hardware

Here's the hardware for one clamp. The soft steel nuts on the left are to use to hold the bolts in place for welding and then the next nuts are grade 8 non locking for mock up and finally the nylon locking nuts are for final assembly. All 7/16 th

Bits and pieces

Now that the main part of the frame is completed from front to back. I am going through it one more time and making all new weld on mounting tabs and hanging brackets such as this. Sorry I have not posted lately as I needed a short break last fall and now the pictures are flowing again. The old part of frame you see here is the original stretcher just above the engine access door. Mater of fact, it IS the part of the frame that the engine access door bolts to. It is laying upside down in this picture. I have all ready replaced it and kept the old part till I had these clamps made. The clamps are for mounting the coolant fill tank for the engine. The tank mounts parallel to the ground and just above the top of the door. Here I have bent (with a hammer and anvil) the 3/16 thick upper half of the clamp and drilled new holes to weld the new mounting bolts into.