Last weekend, Paul and I hit the road into the Karoo to salvage it. We stole an extra day off work too just for some extra travels and time in the wonderful place. It was only slightly on the cold side, our first night it fell to -8.
First snow fall sighting on our way.
We took our time travelling the back roads and of course stopping to look for kombi's.
After a 750km drive we stayed over in town on one seriously cold night.
We got up early the next morning and headed on the roads towards the farm. After about 12 farm gates and some pretty rough road sections, not as bad as the trip for my 59 bus, but still 45 minutes off even a main gravel road we got to where this poor bus had been lying for nearly 30 years. The bus would never have been found unless someone has specifically gone to the farm, its seriously remote.
First sighting of the farm.
First sighting of the bus from behind.
The original farm owners son with the bus.
Myself pretty chuffed that the bus still had its motor and gearbox.
Pic of the motor and this one hideously heavy rock the poor bus had been resting on all these years.
At first glance it was going to seem easy enough with 3 farm workers at hand to get this bus loaded, but it would just not budge from its resting spot. Having loaded the fleetline single cab so easily on a trailer without wheels before made me think we could do this one too, but it was no go. So we took out our running gear we brought with and got it on wheels. I had some cut up reduction gears from my 59 (ex windmill gears) that I just simply bolted to the spring plates. Once we had the front suspension in, everything bolted up we got it out of its resting spot from the last 20 to 30 years.
Bus loaded up.
