Before
Raffle Bus #35
1966 LHD Walk-through
Split Window Bus
This bus is gonna be
After ?
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Feb. 27, 2026
2026 Jamboree Splitty
A quick update on what was done on the raffle bus so far this week. On Tuesday I filled the transaxle and both RGBs with gear oil. Not very difficult but just a slow tedious process. Supposed to take 3.5-4 qts and I managed to get 3 qts in so we must keep an eye on it and check it again after its first drive.
Thursday was a lot more fun. David started in on replacing the rocker panel. A lot more exacting and difficult than it looks. He cut out the old one and the trimmed the cut areas and the new panel to fit just so. This kind of precision takes hours and not many can do it well. He’s one of the best. He did a much, much harder rusted panel/floor combination replacement on my van a few years back and it’s perfect. But wouldn’t you know it, when he was ready to weld it in the welder ran out of wire and we didn’t have the correct wire to replace it with. So Sunday we’ll be back at it and hopefully get it welded in.
Wayne was there working on the dents and such on the body. Took care of a crumpled spot in the left rear corner and of course it looks great. Also straightened out a weird dent in the big panel along the driver side. That one looks good too.
Then Wayne and I spent some quality time sanding on the dash. It was pretty rough but we have it almost ready for primer. An hour or so more with some 320 or 400 grit should do it. So it was a good day.
Tomorrow Bill Ross will be welding in some more patch panels in the floor. I’ll be taking pictures and showing off some more work on our bus.
Author: John Manning
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Feb. 22, 2026
Shout out to Wayne Olsson who painted the window trim for the raffle bus. Thanks, Wayne!
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Feb. 18, 2026
Good day with the brakes at Russell’s today. Followed the video instruction as best I could. Removed the old clutch bushings, cleaned things up to prepare for the new ones, installed them and the clutch pivot arm went right in and feels just right. Nice smooth action.
The brake pivot arm was a touch more problematic. There’s a very strong return spring that’s really hard to get in place while installing the arm. It’s more a matter of luck than anything else but it finally went in. The adjustable shaft that goes into the front of the master cylinder was pretty tricky. The clearance into the master cylinder has to be adjusted just so and it’s a matter of feel. I don’t have any real frame of reference, but I think I got it right. Someone definitely needs to double check. The pedal shaft bolted right up to the swing arm and when I gave it a good push, the travel was ok and the pedal was absolutely firm. So I think it’s going to be ok. Need to adjust the shoes a little tighter but that’s for another day.
Author: John Manning
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Feb. 12, 2026
2026 Jamboree Splitty
Had a really good day working on the bus today.
Took care of three things, torqued the rear drums in place, filled and pressurized the brake system, and successfully bled the lines. At least as well as I could without a pedal.
The rear drums torque to 210 lbs and then advance the nut to the next hole in the axle that allows the cotter pin to fit with out exceeding 250 lbs. The 250 maximum is important not to exceed or the bearings life span will be shortened or they will just be immediately ruined.
I installed and filled the master cylinder and attached my pressure bleeder to it. Brought the pressure up a little to find the drips at the fittings I had forgotten to tighten and then pressurized it to 15 lbs. Tightened things up some more to completely eliminate any tiny leaks left and then went around and opened the bleeder fittings to let the air out. The air bled out easily at all four corners. Repressurized to 15 lbs exactly and left it for 20 minutes with absolutely no drop in pressure. Was going to leave it overnight but decided that wasn’t really a good idea. If there had been a failure, it could have been a real mess. Russell would not have been happy.
Tomorrow’s plan it to install the Pedalworks brake pedal and see how the pedal feels. I’ve never installed one before so I’m hoping I can get Mike over there and show me how it’s done. He and Wayne are the experts because they watched the video.
I’ll keep you posted.
Forgot to mention that I was also able to spray the media blasted window frames with acid etch primer. I’ll go to Space Age tomorrow and get some of their really good regular primer so we can sand them smooth and have them ready for Wayne to paint them.
~ John Manning
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Feb. 5 & 7, 2026
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished February 5 & 7, 2026.
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Raffle Bus 35 Update - Feb. 2, 2026
2026 Jamboree Splitty
I started in on the passenger rear brakes Monday morning and I wish I could say it was easy. But it seems like each component wouldn’t fit just right and needed tweaking. Took all morning but finally got everything together. Tuesday the plan was to put the drum in place and bleed the system. But the drum would go on over the shoes! One drum fit on both sides and the other one didn’t fit on either. They had both been freshly turned when we got them and looked great. So I measured them and the diameter of the one that wouldn’t fit was 4mm less than the good one. I wasn’t sure what to do so I called Dan at Competition Engineering to see about having them turned again. Come to find out the one that fit was a correct VW drum and the other one was an aftermarket one for a ‘68-? …. But Dan came through for us again. He had a correct drum out in his parts stash that he turned for us and I’ll install it tomorrow. Seems like Dan always comes through.
~ John Manning
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Feb. 1, 2026
Sunday Brian Grimaldi volunteered to pick up working on the windows where David left off. There are about 50 miles of tiny channels that hold the many pieces of sealing rubber in place. On these windows they are all rusted and corroded and filled with years of dirt and grime. I thought that they MAYBE could be cleaned out with a dremmel and some of the very small attachments that might be able to get into those channels.
See the John's full blog post.
Brian working on the miles of very tiny channels trying to clean them out. Glad he is such a patient guy.
~ John Manning
Very good video of what we're trying to do on our raffle bus. Only we're right now doing everything to get us to the point of actually painting.
~ John Manning
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Jan. 31, 2026
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished January 31, 2026.
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Raffle Bus 35 Update - Jan. 29, 2026
Quick update. Wayne worked on the floor patch and got it looking really good. Then he smoothed out any filler in all the patches, primer’d them all and now they’re ready for paint. Thanks Wayne. It’s just a lot of work. I was able to get the remaining brake line bent correctly and in place. Tubing benders are just mysterious things that I usually try and stay away from. Next year it’s someone else’s turn….
~John Manning
Click images to enlarge
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Jan. 24-27, 2026
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished January 24-27, 2026.
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Raffle Bus 35 Update - Jan. 18, 2026
2026 Jamboree Splitty
Another day under the bus! Successfully installed the line from the left front wheel to the master cylinder area. Tomorrow I’ll run the one from the passenger side front wheel to that area and then I’ll have the tricky part to do, as if running the lines wasn’t tricky enough. Because we are converting to a dual circuit master cylinder, both of those lines need to go into a T fitting somewhere close to the master cylinder and then a new line from the T to the front circuit of the master cylinder itself. Not looking forward to that part at all. It’s very tight up in there and doing the T fitting in that enclosed area isn’t fun. And to compound the difficulty involved, I have to make allowances for the front pan to bolt up in place and cover everything up….. It really limits where the lines can be routed. But I’m getting closer every day…
John
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Jan. 15-16, 2026
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished January 15-16, 2026.
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Raffle Bus 35 Update - Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026
From: John Manning
Turned the first picture...
Into the second picture. Way way harder than it should have been.
The axle shaft passenger side has been hit with a BFH for whatever reason and bent the threads just out of shape enough that the bid axle nut doesn’t want to start. Was able to file the threads a little straighter but don’t like the way it feels. Anyone have an M30-1.50 die? New one is $75 and if someone has one it would save us that cost??? Thanks. 🙏
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Jan. 10, 2026
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished January 10, 2026.
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Raffle Bus 35 Update - Dec. 18, 2025
David and Mike worked on rebuilding the transaxle for the bus and John gave it a couple coats of black high-heat spray paint. We'll let you know when it gets installed.
Raffle Bus 35 Update - Nov. 19-23, 2025
Read John's journals on everything he worked on in these images. John's blog post on what was accomplished November 19-23, 2025.
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Raffle Bus 35 - Nov. 12-13, 2025
Tuesday, Nov. 12th
Mike did his best to show me how to correctly rebuild the linkpins with the correct number of inner and outer upper and lower shims so the tires wear evenly, install a steering knuckle and lock everything in place. It’s way more involved than it sounds but Mike is a great teacher and I really learned something today. Thankfully for me he’s also very patient.
We owe him a lot. ~ John Manning
I can't take credit, it's fun to work with John. Team effort that despite our best attempts to screw it up came out really well. Glad that is behind us for sure.
On to the next steps. ~ Mike Baleda
Thursday, Nov. 13th
The link pin cinch bolts are drilled for cotter pins. One of the bolts was not drilled and too short so I spent this morning trying to remember how to drill a hole in the replacement bolt. It actually came out ok. I’ll know for sure when I try to install it. 🙏
I had no idea rebuilding link pins was soooo difficult. Got all the way to the last step of installing the dust caps and discovered I had missed a critical step. So both of the steering knuckles had to come all the way out and I basically started over. Sheesh! So we won’t be able to roll the bus at all and can’t have a work party this Saturday. I know how much we were all looking forward to sanding for hours 😁, but maybe we’ll have this all sorted out, correctly this time, by next week. 🙏 I’ll keep everyone posted……
~ John Manning
Raffle Bus 35 - Nov. 4-6, 2025
Getting serious about renewing the brakes on the bus. Left backing plates were cleaned by Russell and Brian Saturday. About ready for rust converter and paint. Should look pretty good. The ones on the right are for the front and will take at least two days to prep for their rust converter and paint. We have new shoes, cylinders, and hardware for all four corners so it hopefully will be good as new when we’re done. Maybe even stop the bus, too. 🙏 We’ll replace all the hard lines when these are done.
Right now the bus is up on jack stands in the garage so we can’t sand the way we want too. It would just make a mess of Russell’s garage. So when the brakes are done and we have a rolling chassis again, we can have work parties. Probably not this Saturday but definitely the following one. Say, 11/15 ?
A little before and after cleaning the backing plates. The much thicker steel of the original ones is so much better than the cheap thin aftermarket ones that it’s worth the work to do our best to save them. They’re now ready for minimal rust converter and then paint.
~ John Manning
Raffle Bus 35 - Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished November 1, 2025.
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Raffle Bus 35 - Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished October 30, 2025.
No pictures today.
Raffle Bus 35 - Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished October 26, 2025.
No pictures today.
Raffle Bus Update: Friday, Oct. 24, 2025
Reuben and our new member, Filipe, worked hard removing all the fine sandblasting media left behind after the sandblasting, along with some other tedious work. Thanks guys! Russell and John followed up with some additional details.
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished October 24, 2025.
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Raffle Bus Update: Oct. 20-23, 2025
We're sandblasting the bus to remove surface rust and ready the bus for metal work and painting.
Looking good guys! By the way, that's David in the NASA suit... 😁
Check out John's blog post on what was accomplished October 20-24, 2025.
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Raffle Bus 35 - Oct. 17, 2025
Now we're starting to work on the bus. See the M Codes on the last two images.
Raffle Bus 35 - Saturday, Aug. 9-18, 2025
Taking inventory of everything that came with the bus.
