Parts and Info

Now that I had a large piece of yard art I needed to get bus figuring out how to put it back together. I started by assessing what was good and bad.

To start, the mechanicals were in great shape. Major concerns were the holy radiator, the vacuum fuel pump had been disconnected, and the starter/generator kept blowing the fuse.

Next the frame and suspension which were rusty, were solid.

The sheet metal was mostly rotted along the floor but solid above 4".

The roof was gone, but the frames and some of the roof slats were good.

The cab sides were OK but needed replacing.

The wood in the doors was still good and the windows still worked.

I needed a seat.

Some of the gauges needed to be replaced.

I needed a steering wheel.

The tires were rotted and not road ready.

This is a partial list of the problems which need to be dealt with. A new post will cover each area as it is dealt with.

I now started hunting for pictures and parts. Pictures so I new what I should look like when I am done, and parts to do it with. I started keeping a sharp eye on EBay and the only Graham Brothers web site for parts. This is when I wished that I had bought a Model T. While parts are available, they are not common.

Gradually the parts came in. Hood latches, steering wheel, gauges, and hand crank. The best finds were the sales brochures and magazine ads showing the different models that were available. In a 1921 cabs and bodies catalog I found the body I would build. I will marry the 1921 model 2010 canopy body with my 1925 model 205 cab. While this is not a real factory option I prefer the wood sided older body style to the newer metal clad style.

Wheels and tires became the big problem. I never saw a listing for my size. Then I saw the listing for a parts truck. The wheels and tires were the right size plus there were two extra.
There also appeared to be some other parts that I could use so I won the auction and drove to western Ohio and picked it up and was chased home by a snow storm.

At the beginning of this blog I talked about irreplaceable parts. I did not realize it when I started but I was missing one. The dash light which is made of soft aluminum was broken and the one time I saw one on EBay it sold for a lot more than I dreamed. When I got home with the parts truck I realized that it had a perfect dash light. So for less than the price of one new tire I now have three whole wheels and the last missing piece of interior hardware. I also have spare parts for the brakes and transmission.

The parts truck also gives me a test bed for dismantling and storing parts properly.

The body will require some special hardware that I will either fabricate myself or have made but that is for a later post.