The repairs to the two halves of the half shaft can clearly be seen
The refurbished brake servo is refitted to the chassis.
The drivers cab area is now getting put back together, still a bit more to do to compete the job.
The cast steel gearbox oil level plug shattered when removing it, the break was an old one. We now have a replacement.
The new floor boards have been bolted down we now have somewhere to work
The original gear linkage ball and cup mounted onto a new chassis bracket.
The passenger door opening mechanism is now cleaned up and ready to be refitted.
New propshaft grease shield made and bolted in place
Engine and Gearbox finally in the chassis.
The front chassis extension can be clearly seen, this wa originaly the front chassis section off a Ford Trader
The replacement power unit as delivered to Reliance Busworks
One of the three New aluminium wheel arches that was too far gone to repair.
A peculiar picture this, in the foreground is the front engine mounting bracket which was made by B/Palmer engineers when the bus was redesigned to mid chassis under floor and in the back ground we can see the original front engine mounts fitted by commer when delivered.
A brand new cross member to replace the fire damaged one, after recieving several coats of silver paint its ready to be fitted.
The picture shows two new crossmembers in place, the the Red Oxide paint is beginning to spread across the chassis.
The rearmost crossmember was one of three found to be rotten and will be replaced
This is the cross member that bought about the buses demise from service. From what I can gather an engine oil fire damaged the cross member and the ministry would not recertify the vehicle for further service and so 1965 saw NHH482 enter a long period of storage and pass through several owners.
The first job was to strip the the old tongue and groove floor boards to expose the timber crossmembers, this revealed that three of them will have to be replaced.
Interesting picture of NHH482 under construction circa 1957. All aluminium frame construction and the front entrance doorway for one man operation, incidently the bus carried a condutor all its working life.
One of the wheel arches showing signs of corrosion, three out of the four arches will need heavey repair.
First job was to clear the inside of the bus and here one of the two engines is removed
OH dear the interior has seen much better days the seat frames on top of the pile don't belong to the bus and will be trown out, thankfullly all the original seats are still with the bus. Underneath the debris you can just see one of the two engines supplied, the idera was to make one good unit out of the two. As it turned out niether unit was serviceable and a complete replacement was found near Congleton, Cheshire.
Even without the outer aluminium trim the Commer looks happy to be in its new home. Ther will be one more movement for the bus once its permanent space has been cleared.
NHH482 at rest in its new spot ready for restoration to begin
Easy does it NHH482 inches its way down the steep ramp
The artic driver did a great job in getting it round the tight corner down to our barn.
NHH482 has just arrived on site and after a quick cup of tea it was time to take it round the rear of the farm.
NHH482 is trying to hide away in the backgroun from the cutters torch, no matter where I went in the yard it kept looking at me.
That larger than life emergency door is due to the only way the engine and gear box can be put into the chassis,
A few people have commented that the back end looks like a serving hatch for a mobile chip shop but I like it. That rear window is rarther on the small side.
This is how I found the Commer, that come and buy me look in that one head light. It took about a milisecond to decide to bring the bus back home and by December 2011 the bus was
delivered to its Uttoxeter base.