Now came the time to cover the sides. Chittybang actually sat with her “skirt off” for a month or so I think before we got around to doing the hinges, but it got done! We ordered these piano hinges off of amazon here, made sure they were weldable too.
Then we welded one side of the hinge to a piece of 16 gauge cold rolled steel we cut to fit the rest of the length of the bus so it looked more fluid and camouflaged as much as possible. You don’t want everyone to know you have your crap under your bus…even if they are locked.
On the backside of the steel we welded a small piece of angle iron with a hole in it, then drilled a hole on the angle iron holding the boxes. Now we can latch the big doors down while we travel. I purchased some cotter pins and hitch pins that work well!
And here they are…ready for paint! We corrosealed the steel before painting. This became a good habit for us anytime we added steel to the bus. Rust preventive/converter/primer first!
One door up on the other side…one to go!
Both doors on both sides are UP! You can see that we used corroseal here and it was drying:)
We attached more steel where we cut too much of the lower part off. SO to make it look more flush and appealing to the eye, we trimmed it all up by riveting pieces like this up.
This is gonna blend right in once ChittyBang isn’t Franken-ChittyBang anymore!
Success! Can’t wait to get her painted!
TheCrabsHomestead 
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