working with the Selene

[BearCreek Majors]

We’ve been busy this last weekend getting the pumpkins out and plowing the boss’s garden. Got the parts for the County last week so I need to get her back together soon but the kids got me going on another project, chopping and dropping a 55 Ford bus that was a RV my dad had built when I was a kid.
Apparently I have too much time and money!

Pat



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This is how she spent most of her summer

[Steven B]

Is that a pumpkin or a planet?

[JC]

Pat, you're having way too much fun. Do we get to see some pics of the bus project?

[BearCreek Majors]

OK, I don’t want to post a bunch of pics here on the New Major Forum so I’ll try to get just a few here and later when the weather is bad I’ll post a bunch in the Miscellaneous Topics Form.
I do believe in one of my very first post I mentioned something about being a little weird, maybe sick and twisted…….you’ve been warned.
My dad purchased and converted the buss into a RV when I was in 4TH grade, I’m sure my mom still has pictures of me helping him sand and paint it. In its day it was a pretty neat unit and it made at least five if not six trips back and forth from Wisconsin to Florida (2,600mile round trip) not to mention untold miles around Wisconsin and Michigan. When my dad passed I ended up with it and mostly did some local camping out in my grandmas woods on the river and as the kids got older we would just leave it out there all summer and they would spend most weekends out there. The old girl has been sitting around deteriorating for several years and the other day I mentioned to the boys that I didn’t have the hart to junk her but the shape she was in the only thing it would be good for was to make a Rat Rod out of her. At that point the wife and I went to town and when we got back they had her in front of the shop and completely gutted….. what else was I to do!





Pumpkins…..I actually grow the white (White Lumen) ones for amo….I don’t have enough time for the whole story tonight, you may want to Google cabbage chucking.

Pat

[icom102]

what happened the windows in the bus ?

[BearCreek Majors]

we took all the glass out, cut the roof off, and then droped it almost 10 inches, the height of the lower set of windows. this will leave me a 8" widshield with the weatherstripping reinstalled. then we cut the last two window sections off shortning it over 4 foot and reatached the back. soon I hope to be putting all the glass back in and some of the interior panels. I can drop the entire thing probably 8 inches by reworking the existing suspension, if I decide I want to drop it more I will have to channel the rear frame and move the front ax out in front of the engine. If I go to this extreame I will remove most of the front clip leaving the engine out in the open, luckly I have an old Ofinhouser intake with six Strombergs sitting in the shop that will bolt on to the old 292. Im sure some of you are shaking your heads in disbelife but the Rat Rod craze over here is the in thing and right up my alley. I just got my last issue of Hot Rod and the cover car would have goten laughed out of any car show only a few years ago..... if not chased with pichforks and clubs!
Ok now dont hate me for this.... I would like to find a high crop Major, flip the rear ax gearboxes around to drop it, rework the front to drop it, and paint it flat black with orange rims.....again, I may be a little sic and twisted!

[Dandy Dave]

Ok now dont hate me for this.... I would like to find a row crop Major, flip the rear ax gearboxes around to drop it, rework the front to drop it, and paint it flat black with orange rims.....again, I may be a little sic and twisted!

As long as you paint the Grill the right color.... ... Dandy Dave!

[icom102]

Wow thats sad it would have been nice to see it restored properly and not in this fasion

[BearCreek Majors]

Again I apologies for this subject being in the New Major forum, and I don’t necessarily disagree that it’s a shame to cut and butcher the old girl. I may have made it sound as if we just decided in a whim to start hacking but this is not the case at all. I am a very sentimental person and did not take the decision lightly, if not it would have been made into a new Hondas years ago. What the pictures don’t tell is how bad of shape she really is in, every seam on the roof , in the floor and most on the sides are bubbled and rotted at the rivets and spot welds. You can see daylight in several of these areas. Some of the glass is broken and sadly the rear curved ones as well. The front left fender had gotten hooked a few years ago and the top front edge rolled back at least half a foot, the fact of the matter is it would have been a horrible vehicle to attempt a total restoration on. At some point while it was parked out back rotting away I had to face reality and realize that it would never be useful as any kind of a good vehicle again. Its biggest value was per pound. I had thought of gutting it and using it for storage, and we all know what the end result would have been, again at some point it would have gotten pulled out of the dirt and off to the scrap yard. Doing what we are is I feel the best possible outcome for her, she will be back on the road turning heads, my boys have spent every spare minute over here the last two weeks helping me with it….as I did as a young boy with my dad.
I’m not even trying to justify what we are doing for your sake, this is my justification for what I have done and being able to live with it.

Dave the grills in the Ratson would be orange!

Pat

[icom102]

Ok but i do think its sad i am big into bus preservation and love to see old buses fully restored that but to the right person is prob worth a lot well was worth a lot

[The Swanndri Guy]

Pat, no need for apologies, if we only did what other people approved of, then nothing would be done differently.Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as proved by JC with the Deere trike. If you ever build the "Ratson", post it on here.(But with white/silver/grey grills!) are made to be broken!!!TSG

[BearCreek Majors]

Moved Rat Bus to Misc. Topics.

Pat