Vendo 63 Restoration. My first machine!

[Evan E]

Greetings vending enthusiasts,

This is my first post and I'm using it to send a hardy thank you to all of you wonderful people who have taken the time to contribute to this forum.

So, my girlfriend's father spent a few decades as a lawyer for coke and as a result she goes nuts over anything Coke related. For her birthday this year I decided to go all out and restore a machine for her. Got this Vendo off of Craigslist and went to town. Completely disassembled each and every piece, sanded everything down to the metal, refinished every part, rewired, added a free vend switch, 3in1 starter, new insulation, and repainted. Everything works great and I did it all myself with zero prior knowledge armed only with the guidance of your posts.

Special thanks to the ladies of The Soda Jerk Works and Fun-Tronics. They were extremely kind, helpful, and shipped my orders super quickly.

Best of all, My girlfriend loved it and we are currently enjoying ice cold cokes and beers daily.


A few things I still need:

-  The pins in the main door latch have worn a bit over the years and the slack doesn't allow the door to close as tightly as I would like. It still works and shuts tightly but I'd be much happier with a more functional replacement.
-  Still need a coin catcher.
-  I found a set of bottle shelves in good condition but they're a bit short. The shelf section measures ~16" so I'm guessing they're from a V56?
If anyone would like to trade for the correct V63 shelves or has a great deal on any of these parts feel free to message me.

Sorry for the quality of the pics. If anyone wants better or different photos feel free to ask.

[Evan E]

A few more

[Evan E]

And still some more.

[Eric]

Great job... And Welcome to the site!

[cokecolaman]

I'm sure I have a coin catcher… Do you need the bracket also? You can reach me at Cokecolaman@Comcast.net

Ron

[RustyGold]

Nice 63!  I'm a fan of that machine and yours is an early one (or painted like one I should say) which I like the look of.  Awesome job.  Welcome to the site.

[Evan E]

Thanks. Going off the serial number it's from June 1960. Originally it was a Coke machine, turned into a Pepsi machine, and now it's back to Coke. I sanded through 2 shades of blue and 3 shades of red to get down to metal. 

[SodaShopNick]

I am just curious on how you treated the cabinet floor.  Looks like maybe POR15, but how did you fill the holes? 

[jholmgren]

I am just curious on how you treated the cabinet floor.  Looks like maybe POR15, but how did you fill the holes? 

Good eye - I was thinking that looked like POR15 as well.  I used  that in the trunk of my Spitfire on top of some small fiberglass patches.  Worked pretty well.

[Evan E]

You guys are correct. First I attacked everything with an angle grinder. Then, tons of rust remover. Then, more sanding. For the larger holes I used a metal epoxy and attached a few small galvanized panels from the bottom. These were mostly to keep the actual patch from falling through. For the patching I used a compound called Everglass. Its basically Bondo but has small fiberglass strands in it to all it to stretch across small gaps and is Kevlar reenforced. I got it from an auto paint supplier. It's a bit pricier than Bondo and much harder to sand but it is unbelievably strong, waterproof, and designed to stick to galvanized surfaces. It really does stick well. For the 2 spots that the cooling unit rests on I used  the punch outs from a metal electrical box to fill the holes and epoxied them into place. Lastly, everything was sanded, hit with a few coats of Por15 and then All interior parts were finished with silver Hammerite.