1959 Ford Thames camper van restoration

hello Kev!

BADA$$!!!

Vanadian wrote:This is awe-some I checked on this a while back. Great progress. You should just start your own Scottish
Custom Van Company. Bravo Kev!

Well, i kind of aspire to having my own resto-busines later in life. I'd love to have a nice house in the country with a big yard and garage to work away at home as i please.

March 2012

Reached another mile-stone in the project, i'll talk more about that later.

I eventually finished the lead loading, once it was all spread and melted in i gave it all a light sanding down. I did use the grinder with a sanding pad, which your not supposed to do from a health and safety point of view but well, it sure is a lot faster, i did atleast have a proper face mask on atleast.







With that bit done, It suddenly dawned on me that all the metal work on the roof was complete! Even before i had bought the van, i knew the roof was going to be one of the biggest challenges, and here it was, complete. I felt pretty good.
I was thinking about how I should protect the metal work now. I know I need to put some body filler (bondo for you non UK people) on bits of the roof , I was quite certain I would do that first, then the primer. But after thinking about it i realised that putting the epoxy primer on first would protect the metal even if the top coat got scratched as filler is porus. So the idea changed to epoxy primer first then filler much later when i get the whole body done.
Preparing for the primer gave me a lot to think about aswell, I wanted the nice clean metal to be bare for as less time as possible so i decided to seperate the job over two days, Doing one half of the roof a day.

This is just before i started to get the metal super clean.




I used various tools to clean it all up. I used paint stripper to soften up the paint then got a poly-abrasive disc in the grinder and remove it. Swap over to a flat wire brush disc to get into the guttering and other areas, then various twist brushes in my drill to get into all the the nooks and crannies.




I had bought some panel wipe and tack cloths to remove any grease or contaniments that could cause an issue with the primer not adhearing properly. Once wiped and tacked down i mixed up the epoxy. Its a good quality paint from rust.co.uk. The same company that does the rust converter paint i had used previously. Its not cheap at £35 for 1.25 litres but I think its wise in paying a bit extra for quality. The primer has won various tests in magazines and always gets good reviews.
My dad is a bit of a stickler for cheap stuff and he used some cheap paint on his trike which unfortunatly went brittle and just chips off so he has to spend more time to fix it, theres a lesson learnt for me .
When i was planning on applying the primer I had intended to spray it on. which meant sweeping the floor, building a little spray shelter and covering everything to catch over spray. I looked at the data sheet on the primer and it said you can roll/brush it on, so thats what i done. I defintly wouldnt roll paint on but as this primer coat is just to protect the metal whilst i do other welding and will be getting sanded down i thought why not. With the paint mixed up and a roller in my hand, i made haste.




Everything looks better in one solid colour eh!. The next again day i done the exact same thing after work, which meant it was about 10pm when i got home but my fiance was quite sympathetic. I cant really think of many woman who would give me sympathy after spending all night in the garage, shes a good woman really.






So, there it is, the roof is done and I can move on to the lower section now. Ideally i would paint the body down until just under the waist line but that will have to wait a month or two until i can affored more primer.
Heres a few progress pictures of various sections of hassle ive been through as a little montage.

Nearside front corner :-




















Rear off-side corner :-

























Various :-







































I can now have a little sigh of relief that the roof is complete. But its no time to dilly dally about as ive made a start on the drivers side lower where the side wings bolt onto. Il leave that update until next time but heres a few shots of what ive to replace.








Wish me luck, until next time......

Whenever I get a little over body work on my car I can always open this thread and be inspired.

Truly a labour of love.

I here ya zuffen...I keep thinking of pulling the dent out of the nose on mine and fixing my front floor panels, and think where do I start and then I see the updates on this post and all the hard work that's been done and that really keeps me going, and believing that I can fix this and it will be just fine. Great work as always Kevbarlas my hat is off to you. keep up the excellent work.

I bet the roof is better than new know with all the hard work you done. Your work has given me ideas to fix my roof areas and I hope my repairs come out half as well as yours have.

I just read your whole story and all I can say is WOW!!!! You really have done a great job. I must say you have a lot more patience than I do. My truck is a daily driver so the thought of letting it sit in the garage for months or even years is unthinkable. I do what I can on the week ends, and hurry off to show my friends the progress. The upside is that I'm enjoying my truck now, the down side is that it will take me much longer to finish. One funny side note tho, My wife asked what I'm going to do when I finish it. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it will never be DONE.

Wow, you guys in the Old Country are as batty as we are here in the colonies. I guess that would stand to reason as were technically cousins. LOL You have done a superb job on this project. My Econoline pickup will not require as extensive body work but it will be down for about a year. Looking forward to seeing the finished project. I put my pickup aside for now to restore a 1965 Ford Falcon. At least the Econiline pickup is drivable.

Regards,

T.W. Day Virginia, USA

I have a van here I should send you to practice on,not to mess yours up.Great job !

April update

I haven't posted in a while but I've been pretty busy. Not with the van but with another little project that i have been wanting to do for a while. Some of you may remember that last year i made my nephew a digger for his birthday.








Well, it was getting close to his birthday again and i had toyed with the idea of a near enough 1/2 scale replica of my dads trike for him to cycle. He loves looking at my dads trike and sitting on it so to have one of his own would be pretty cool.
To start with I had to find some parts. I asked my mate that works in a motorbike scrappy if he had any old mini-moto dirt bike front ends and a small quad back axle. I managed to get the two of them, plus a cool headlight for £40. I bought a length of 25mm tubing from a metal fabricators that I used to work for for £10. Then i went to the nearest council recycling tip and found an old BMX. I offered the guy that was in charge £5 but he told me just to take it, nice guy.





With all the major parts i needed i started on scaling my dads trike down to match the wheel sizes. I took a side photo of my dads trike and traced around it in Adobe Illustrator. I then printed it out to the size i needed on bits of A4 paper and taped the them together.








First thing i needed to do was weld the new headstock. Luckily when i bought the front forks it can with the front end of the old frame so all i had to do was grind the frame off to leave me the tube that the bearings sat in. Then i drew the rough outline of a headstock onto 12mm plate and cut it out with the grinder. Clamped it all down with spacers and tacked it up.








I borrowed my mates pipe bender for the curves in the frame. This is the down tube bent and tacked into place. I checked it was all ok with the plans.





Then i got a slightly bigger piece of tube and tacked that across. This acts as the swing axle housing on my dads trike.





Trying to do the 'tank' was a pain. The bender i had couldn't give me a tight bend, the former was about 200mm diameter so i had to mess about a bit with a few ideas. Even if i did have a former that tight the tube would have just kinked anyway. I used a bit of both bending and cutting lots of slices in the tube and bending. The tightest bend on the left is pretty much made up fully of weld and then ground down to resemble tubing. I used 3 pieces of tubing to make the shape of the tank.








With that done i tacked another down tube piece up and made a couple of brackets to attach the rear axle on and then bolted the forks on to get an idea of how it looked. I got pretty excited to see it starting to take shape.








So excited infact that i had to set my camera up to take a photo of me sitting on it. using the old BMX handlebars and a piece of wood with a knee pad on it for the seat.





Unfortunately the piece of wood with a knee pad wouldn't suffice for the final fit so i had to finish off the seat frame. Using some practise pieces from the bender and more tubing.





And ofcourse it has to have the king and queen seat so Roo can take all his girlfriends on trips on the back seat, aaaaaiiii.





. I tacked the new handlebars into place aswell. My dads trike has 2 tall uprisers that go into flat bars so i used the old BMX bars and the bars from the mini-moto forks and cut them and tacked them to look like my dads.

















One thing that i was worried about was gearing. Roo is only turning 4 so it had to be easy enough to get it going but then i don't want him peddling 100rpms to move a few feet in length. Solution is gearing, I spent a little bit thinking of attaching derailleur gears but then i had a brain wave. If i could find a Sturmey archer wheel i could cut the hub out and weld a new cog on the drive instead of powering a tyre. I got a hold of my brothers mate that works in a bicycle shop and he gave me a complete wheel for the price of 6 beers, another good guy. So, snip, snip, snip the spokes and we get what i need.





Then i cut the crank assembly out of the old BMX frame, i liked the pattern on the crank so that was cool.








I got pretty hungry and went to the corner shop for sweeties and the meal of champions, a pot noodle. Unfortunately once getting back to the garage i realised i never ha d a suitable utensil to eat this fine meal. Not to let anything get between me and my food i made a ghetto spoon, yum!





With some sustenance in me my mind cleared and i could concentrate on the gearing once again. I used some 25mmx 3mm and 25mm tubing for the hub carrier. The rear axle has a built in adjuster aswell but the carrier also needed adjustment so the hub is bolted into grooves. You can see the other cog that i welded onto the hub here aswell.








The front crank was then offered up. It was with a bit of guessing where this should be. I measured Roo's inside leg size which was about 18 inches. I tacked it roughly into place where i thought it should be (it wasn't in the right place but more on that later).








Now it was functioning i took it for its first test drive. Which made me panic. When i tried to turn it would just go straight. The lack of a differential and a light front end meant there was no way it was wanting to turn. I did get a little dis-heartened at this. I took one of the rear wheels off and stripped the hub off aswell. Very luckily for me this 'grips' onto the axle with splines. Using the grinder i ground down the spline which made the right hand wheel free-wheel. Put it all back together then tried it again, great success! it would now turn, phew.


My dads trike a fully functioning wheelie bar which i thought would be cool thing to replicate.I got some 12mm round bar for the main frame and 8mm for the diagonals. I had also ordered some wheel bearing for the front wheel earlier. And it worked out cheaper to buy a pack of 10 than 2 so i used 6 of them for the wheelie bar wheels and made a cradle for them to fix into. You can also see the i cut the front handle bars again, they had too much rake on them, so that was 5 pieces just to make a set of handlebars. I had also raked around my dads box of bits (every dad has one of them in their shed) and found a gear change for the Sturm archers, this thing is about 30 years old apparently. I had to go to the cycle shop and buy a cable for it, about £9 i think.





Messing around trying to tension the chain i noticed it would slacken itself off after a bit of use so i had to make a fixed adjuster, using some 25mm x 3mm and a couple of bolts attached to a bit of 10mm plate welded onto the cradle. I also managed to put a slight bend in a few pieces of tubing to weld the front crank to.





This is also the point when i thought that the crank was too close to the back. There was a chance he could hit the back of his heel on the hub carrier.








I toyed with moving the hub carrier back but thought it would be easier to move the crank forward and hope that he could still reach the pedals. I moved it forward about 2 inches and added extra links to the chain.





Then i cycled it outside and took a few photos infront of the Lex.














The sissy bar i made can fold down for a larger adult to have a bit more space.








I was thinking about how to make it more safer for Roo and his friends sitting on the back and the best thing would be to cover the rear wheels with mudguards and a chain guard. The chain guard was easy, make a cardboard template and then make it out of metal.





The mudguards, well, I could have just curved a piece of sheet and called it a day but that would look horrible and a quick fix solution. I looked at mudguards for trailers but they were expensive and i would still need to cut them up to fit anyway. My first attempt was to cut a sheet of 1.2mmand tap the lip over a round former. I just couldn't shrink the metal enough to get a neat lip, too many peaks. Then i remembered the shrinker/stretcher i had bought for the van roof. Next attempt was another sheet of metal with 2 lips folded up on the home made bender.





Then slip it into the jaws of the shrinker and nip it a few times then flip it around and nip the opposite side.





Repeat the process about 100 times over the space of an hour, checking it against a circle i had drew on a bit of wood, then realising i went too far and having to swap the jaws to stretch then back to shrink, tweaking it here and there by hand etc,...over the space of an hour or 2 and i got a decent enough mudguard, great now i had to do it all over again for the other side, my favourite......





I also started the template for the seat pan.





Both mudguards done and mocked up in place using the hose pipe trick i had seen on American chopper.. I had bought 2 rear lights from a pound shop for, well, 2 pound that got taped on for now and i also made a bracket to attach the front teardrop shape headlight.








This was the main structure done. I moved it along to my work as i was getting close to the painting stage and wanted to use the works spray room.


My next obstacle was the rear brake. The axle had came with a disc but no calliper. I had a small cable operated calliper the same as the front one but that was designed for a smaller and thinner disc. My brother gave me a disc that fitted but a completely different bolt pattern to the quad axle holder. With a bit of careful measuring and cutting i made one good disc out of the 2.





The mudguards still had a gap where the passengers feet could get trapped so i wanted to make the mudguard bracket cover it but look stylish at the same time. I used another thicker piece of tubing for the foot rest and cut a nice shape out of 3mm sheet. Then another piece of 12mm round bar to act as a top bracket/hand rest.





A couple of tabs cut from 25mmx3mm to mount the rear lights.





The frame done i stripped it all back down again so i could grind the welds down and get it ready for painting.








As i had to make a new disc for the rear axle i also had to come up with a bracket to mount the calliper.


Problem :




Solution : more 10 mm plate cut to shape.




The frame got a coat of primer then gloss black. If i had more time and money i would have used a better quality paint, this is just bog standard gloss black thinned down with white spirit. Its cheap but takes ages to dry!. The other pieces that got painted silver was with smooth-rite, good tough finish.





Mudguards also.





Along with the rear axle.





Whilst the paint was still drying i made the seat. I forgot to take photos of the seat pan. The seat pan is made up of 3mm plate with a lip all the way around. I had bought some look-a-like leather and little buttons to cover in leather. The lip of the seat pan had thin pieces of wood screwed to it for the staples to attach to. I also bought some pinstriping for the front wheel and painted the rear wheels red and silver. I also bought new pedals as the BMX ones were quite scuffed. But even those couldn't be simple. They were a 9/16 thread and the crank is a 1/2 thread. I looked in another shop for other pedals but all i could find were 9/16 . In the end i had to take both set of pedals apart, cut them in half then extend the old pedal shaft to bold the new pedal on, gggrrrrrr. Worked in the end though and defiantly worth it. when the paint was dry it was time to reassemble. The headlight was also a pain as the bulb was for a 12v battery so i had to go to maplin and buy a 6v bulb, a bulb holder a switch and 4x AA battery holder and wire it all up to fit inside the headlight casing.








The trike was now complete. Just had to finish up the cables, i wanted it to look neat so they go through the frame. The 'tank' needed more definition so i put some pinstriping around it then washed and dusted the whole thing down.








The day before i gave it to Roo i took it to my mum and dads house to get a few photos of it beside my dads trike. I was really happy with how it turned out and so was my dad. I can imagine my dad taking his trike to shows and taking Roo'pedal trike to sit next to it as a neat touch.


























The next day we went to my brothers house to give Roo the trike. I rolled it over to his house and covered it in a big blanket. It was cool to see him all excited about what it could be underneath the cover. he ripped the cover off and jumped straight on. He didn't need any encouragement and his little legs reached the pedals and he was off. I let out quite a sigh of relief to see that it moved under his own power plus the pedals were close enough for him to reach, something that had been playing on my mind since i had started the project!.




















Roo and my bro.





And ofcourse i had to have a shot.





It was good to have a little break from the van to do something completely different for a little bit. Now i need to get back onto the van.

Extremely cool trike. Amazing fab. skills!

Yes Quit play'n around and get back to work! ....lmao...That is one of the coolest mini-trikes I have ever seen. Great job..

What will you make him next year?

A scale copy of your van (finished)?

Has he wore out that digger yet?? LOL. No that he's on wheels, they'll be no stoppin him now.

Duane in Tennessee

Zuffen wrote:What will you make him next year?

A scale copy of your van (finished)?

Ha, i think this is the last of the big presents, he has a wee brother now and he woul dbe expecting stuff too.

June update - Quite a few photos, may have to wait a bit for them to load.

OK, so its been about 3 months since the last van update. I have been quite busy and haven't done as much as i wish i could have done. What with the trike to do, work and other stuff for myself. Anyway, the last time i wrote i was doing the drivers side of the van, where the lower part of the body joins the removable side panels.
You can see that all the way along its rusted and pitted. The awkward thing about patching this area is the panels are flat and so have some tension in them. I knew that as soon as i cut the panel would lose that tension and buckle, no way around it unfortunately.









I marked up the first panel to replace. The side isn't completely straight, its bows front to back as well so i couldn't do sections much larger than 300mm to keep the curve.



Once cut it let me see another section i will be needing to replace, as usual.......



I peeked inside the drivers door and thought i may as well cut out the other piece i need to replace whilst i have access.



The offending article.



With that cut out it revealed yet more horrors to replace. I found this to be a recurring theme as i was going along.

Inside:


Outside:



I thought about replacing these piece first but no, i decided to do the side first and i shall. Back to it then.



I used the original as a template. Cut a piece of 1.2mm out and mark it up.



Then using my folder and joggler i go t close to what i need.



Then tacked in place.





If you can forgive the shakey blurred photo you can see what i mean by the panel buckling/warping. This is supposed to be convex but its the complete opposite,, concave.



I wasn't too sure how to deal with this issue. The first thing i tried was to ol' cut and shut. Cut vertical strips, then push it out and re weld.





Then clean up



And check



Which did work ( the front edge is supposed to be that curved) . The draw back to this was that the panel had still lost some of its tension and would "oil-can" ( when the metal can pop in and out with your hand) . I carried on regardless anyway, I guessed i could come up with something to stop it popping later.

The next section cut out



There are 3 struts inside the van that go up against the body of the van to add some strength to the side. I was going to leave these in place but decided that i really should cut them out, glad i did as it looks like the felt vibration proofing stuff was holding the moisture in and rusting the panel from the inside out. The struts aren't so bad, il just clean them up and re-use them.



eep!



The next weekend i got another few more patches done.





I had also done a bit of research to combat the oil-canning effect. I read and watched a few videos on you tube on how to deal with it. It involved using a slapper to get the shape of the panel to pop out then use a blow torch (this is where i got nervous) to heat an are about an inch to red hot then use a wet rag to quench it. Doing this causes the panel to stretch then cool down quickly. The first time i tried it it felt like i was doing something wrong, Everything in my body was telling em that heat will distort the panel not fix it, but, it worked. the area i had treated had built up a resistance to being pushed in. You can see the first little spot i tried at the front of the drivers side.



Oh, i mentioned using a slapper, if you don't know what it is its basically a large flat hammer made from toughened steel. You can buy them for about £50 each or if your cheap like me you can use 2 old files and heat them up to bend a handle then buff the teeth off.






The next time i was at the garage i kept on with the sections. I bought a couple of magnets to help me hold the sections in whilst tacking.









As i had a bit more done i thought i would have a go at the whole heating up and cooling down thing again. I gave the panel a good hiding with he slapper to get some shape back then heat it up. I used the body file to highlight the areas that are too proud now, i think i will need to do a lot of work on this to get it smooth again.







That was the majority of the side done, to finish it off i just needed to do the rear corner. Alas, like the front this area also had some hiding rot to deal with, unlike the front though, i had to do this work before i could do the corner.



Namely, the rear door frame channel was rotting and the back of the arch has gone.





So, cut the door frame channel out first.....





Here's the little blighter here, whats left of it anyway.



Yes, that is a blockage made entirely of rust, no , i did not expect it to form like that either.



On the operating table, whats the stats?.





Evidently, not good.

The top part that holds the door hinge in place was OK, which is good because that piece has a complex set of curves that would have been a pain to replicate, just cut it off and make the rest.



I cut out the side piece and top separately as the side piece has a slight curve with a lip, i used the stretcher to stretch the curve on the side first then tacked the top on.




Welded up and then the hinge piece was tacked in with the aid of my magnets.



Cleaned up i had one section of the channel done.



Now for the back. As this piece was non existent on the rusty original Ive had to guess that this is how it looks. Not really much to go wrong with it anyway.



Before i welded them together i held it in place in the van to double check it was all OK.





Not bad, now to fold the little piece over to create something to weld to.







Joined together, holes drilled and tube inserts in for the hinges and side panels. All cleaned up, quite happy with it.








Few comparison shots.









At this stage i had to leave it again to do a set of railings for my sister-in-laws parents, took a few weeks but i got back to the van today (10/6/12).

The next piece i wanted to replace was the rear of the inner wing.







Like the door frame (everything else actually) it was rotten and not much left of it.





The trickiest part for me to do was the domed area that allows for the rear of the lights and wiring. I haven't tried to dome out a sheet before so this was new for me. I made a little template for me to work out how deep it was to be.



I missed a few steps out here (sorry) but i cut a sheet of 1.2mm to around 450mm square, then marked where i wanted the circle to be. I got my ball-pein hammer in the vice with the ball end up the way then starting from the centre of the circle and working out i tapped it with a flat face hammer to get the bump started. Then after it was defined i moved over to a bag of sand ( not a sand bag, just a plain old plastic bag of sand) and twatted it with the cross peon hammer to get it more sunk in then a lighter body hammer to planish the marks out and make it smoother. Then i measured and guesstimated a few of the sizes and marked it out using the dome as a reference. The dome came out quite well for my first go, thankfully.





There was 7 separate pieces i needed to fold up and getting them all in the folder or vice wouldn't be easy. I then remembered reading about body pliers in a book, i looked in the frost catalogue but they want £30 for just one so i made my own from an old pair of pliers and a flat HSS blade lying around.



With the edges folded up i welded the corners and curve pieces in then cleaned it all up.









To be honest, i was really proud of this piece, and it only took me a day to make, i think all this practise is finally paying off. I held it in place to make sure it all fitted like it should.






That's all folks.

Oh, good news. I have a week off beginning the 17th of June so i should get a lot more done. I'm actually getting it ready for a car show that I'm going to trailer it to, the Scottish ford day in Stirling on the 1st of July. I think it may be interesting for people to see it as it is now, then next year, then the year after etc,.. until it is done. This also means i now have to weld up a tow bar for the Lexus....

Wow, just WOW!

Very nice as always. Great work on the fabricating and if your taking her out to the show, don't forget to prime all that bare metal. Wouldn't want to see any rust on any of that painstaking work you have done so far.

June part 2

I had quite a good productive week off in the garage. I would like to have gotten more done but then I'll always say that until its finished.

I was looking over the other corner of the van at how bad that was.



Pretty much just as rotten as the other side...... great!



I was going to get start cutting the metal away on the other side but i thought id be best to leave it alone for now as a reference for the side i was working on. I did need to cut the rear valance out of the way so i could get the door frame repair welded in and finish the metal work on the corner i was working on. Here's a few pics of the rotten valance.







And now removed.





The usual, lots of holes and rust.





I used the spot weld cutter in the drill to remove it into its 3 sections plus brackets.







I will be repairing the main valance and making up the other 2 pieces from scratch.

Lets start with the repairs, nasty rot.



I used the wire disc in the grinder. i like to use the wire disc as its quite abrasive and hard. Therefore it will burst holes in the thin rusty sections but just clean up the good thick stuff. Gives me a better indication of what i need to repair. I used a bit of chalk to mark out what i needed to cut out first.



I found myself humming and hawing about whether this was the best approach to fixing this piece. In the end i just grew a pair and cut it.



I flipped it back over and made a patch for the corner piece. The rough shape.



Then tapped the edge over a little to follow the curve and trimmed the end.



Finally i put a curve in the piece to follow the shape and tacked it into place.



Next step was the upper inside piece, this piece only has a slight curve but as it gets to the other repair piece i made it has a compound curve that flows into it so i cut this into a round shape and tacked it on.



Nice easy flat piece with a slight radius on the tacked edge to help the corner flow.



This bit was quite tricky. I used a bit thin cardboard for the basic shape, then traced it out. to get the 'conical' shape i opened the jaws of my vice to about 80mm then used a piece of tubing as a hammer and beat the panel whilst turning it like a fan ( hard to describe). then i used a body hammer to planish most of the bumps out. when happy i tack it in and also tacked in the last piece which was the lip at the bottom.



All tacked and ready for welding.





All welded up.



Then after making love with the grinder we get a nice looking panel which just need a little bit of tidying up with the hammer.



old vs new-ish



I clamped it back into place to get a better idea of what it would like.





i clamped the other repair section with the dome in it just behind for better effect.



No time to sit in my own pleasure, get cracking with the other side Kev!

Cut a bit more out, thankfully not as much as the other



A lot of it was pretty much what i done already so I'll just let the picture do the talking.







Panel is now finished, except for a lip that i need to weld on all along the top. I will come back to that later though as i can now get the corner finished.

I took a little break from the van to get the towbar sorted. My dad gave me his old towbar which i think was last used on his Volvo 340 from years ago.



My original plan was to use the existing holes that are already pre-tapped on the Lexus bumper. Before i started cutting stuff up i thought i better check the threads are still OK. They weren't. Looks like someone has stripped them already or the rust has gotten to them because the bolts wouldn't tighten at all. That left me with the only option of un-bolting the tow hooks from either side of the underside. (2x M12 + 1 M8)



And making up some brackets and use the whole existing towbar. I got some 100mm x 100mm x 10mm angle and cut them about 130mm long. I drilled the holes in the brackets and bolted them in place. Then placed the towbar roughly where i needed it. It needed to come further out by about 40mm so i cut some 80mm x 70mm plates and welded them onto the angle as extensions. Then tacked it all up. I cut 2 x 80x80 gussets and tacked them in place also. I placed a brace between the 2 angles and welded it all up using 3.2mm rods at about 130 amps for good penetration using the Arc welder. Even with the brace the angle4s pulled in by about 8mm so afterwards i used the original Thames screw bottle jack to push them apart enough to bolt the towbar in place.





In place and a quick lick of black paint to make it look a bit more professional. Just need to buy the electrics and wire it up. At least now i know (weather depending) I'll defiantly get the van to the Scottish Ford day on Sunday.









Back to the van and i wanted to get the corner section done.



Eeeugh, time to get the door frame repair section tacked in place. I took a bit of extra time to make sure i got this right as there is 3 axis of movement to get wrong.



When i was certain it was right i welded it up then cut the other repair sections and tacked it.



Top repair.



Welded it up.



Then tarted it up a bit.





With that done i was getting closer to having the corner finished. Cut the lower lip out and welded it in.



Then the top lip, as its the corner its double skinned for strength, i think....



That was it for the week. Like i say, i would like to have done a lot more. I had bought some extra epoxy primer as i hoped to have gotten a some on the pieces that were finished. I do intend to go after work this week to get some more don before the show but we'll see.

Looking forward to the Scottish ford day, after selling My Consul Ive missed taking something along to shows so even if it is a very incomplete van it should be good.

Looking great as always. Go easy on the Haggis when you get there.

Any updates?

Just read through the whole thread, amazing work!! I thought that van was a goner for sure!

That is one lucky van coming back to life!!

Cheers everyone.

July update


This wedding planning and saving money stuff has dented my productivity on the van this month. Oh , i was also on holiday in Slovakia for 2 weeks so that kinda got in the way too.


You know the Scottish ford day i was looking forward to, well , it got canceled due to the typical Scottish weather, bugger. I did feel quite upset because i had been looking forward to taking the van there for a while but ohwell, always next year.


Last time i wrote i was just getting round to finishing the rear corner of the side part of the van





As it is the corner the sheet metal had lost its shape a little due to being cut. Luckily i had taken a template of that corner before cutting. I cut a bit of sheet and angled it.





A little bit of time in the shrinker/stretcher and tacked it in place.





Then weld and tidy up, the usual.











With that done the whole bottom waist line of the van was done, yippee. Another thing to check of the list.


Little patch under the wheel arch.








When Dormobile made these vans i don't think finesse was a major factor in there work. To make room for the seat/bed in the back it looks like they just burned a section of the rear wheel arch out then riveted a steel plate on top. I decided to neaten it up a bit by cutting /drilling it out then making it look like a factory panel.











I never had any cardboard to hand so i done a lot of measuring, unfortunately, i had a few gaps when tacking it all together so right now its still just tacked, i may re-start this piece.








As i was deciding what to do i stripped the paint from the inside of the van and applied a wipe-on phosphoric acid which eats into the metal and converts any light rust and seals the metal from moisture for a little bit.


Something that has been playing on my mind a little has been the roof section i repaired. The roof its self is good but where the spot-welded seams have been i can see rust coming through the non-porous primer. This is a bit upsetting as the only way to deal with it is to drill our the spot welds , clean the metal underneath then reweld and hope for the best, or, and this is a big expensive or which i am now contemplating as a long term solution, finish all the metal work on the van and send it away to a place to get dipped into a big tank of chemicals which eats all the rust then a coat of zinc primer. That way its guaranteed rust free, downside is it will cost roughly £1200 to do, which i don't have. So a lot of thinking to do. My biggest concern is i don't want rust to come through after 2-3 years.



Thats pretty much all ive done to the van lately because of other stuff happening. One cool thing i made w as a wheelie bar for my friend. He has a ZZR1400 trike and wanted it to be a bit more safer when it came to not flipping it, as you would.


I started by making a few sketches then when i was happy with the design I made a scale drawing.





I then bought 2x75mm castor wheels from toolstation, binned the castor piece and made my own brackets up. The rear brake light is in a V shape so i tried to incorporate that in the design.





To minimize and distortion when welding it up i made a Jig to hold it altogether out of scrap pieces i had lying around. First bar in place.











Next bar in. To get the angles right i held it in place then judged it and marked with a pencil, these flat cuts were easy compared to the fish-mouthing/notching later.





One more side in.





Now the bracing. I know you can buy fandangle machines which will notch the tube for you and even some software that you type in the thickness of tube and angle then it prints it out and you tape it round the tube. I decided to eye-ball it. If you can imagine where the centre line of the tube will meet and mark it, turn the tube 90 degrees to face you and imagine how the circle would fit, it kinda works. I used a cutting disk in the grinder to get it roughly to shape then used a flap disc to sweeten it all up.





Bottom cross section in.








Then the top and its all tacked together ready for welding.








Welded it up, alternating from one angle to another to minimize warpage.





First pass with the grinding disc





Then the flap wheel to neaten it up and its done.





I primed it for my mate then he came round to my house and we bolted it on. He used 4 x handlebar risers clamped to the back of the frame which acted as mounts.











He was really happy with it and so was I. Its good to make something different , another thing to add to the portfolio.


Lets see how this month pans out, although i know not a huge amount will happen. My wedding is in October and i have to work 6 extra Saturdays to make up for extra time off work. I'm trying not to lose sight of my dreams.

With the rust and the spot welds have you thought about rolling the van on its side and filling the area with phospheric acid to neutralise the rust.

Then when it's dry use an epoxy rust paint to fill the area.

Whilst I imagine it would cost you 50 quid for the acid and paint it should be effective.

One advantage of spending the 1,200 quid is you then know the whole body has been done.

Good luck with the wedding. You're off to a good start as your Fiance clearly embraces your dream.

August update

Ok, so, I got through all my Saturdays at work. The only time ive had is a few Sundays and a few hours a week after work some days.

I had a little bit left to do to finish off the drivers side rear quarter. I had just tacked in the wheel arch piece last time, well I got it all welded up and cleaned. I wasn't really happy with how it was when I first tacked it, so I cut the top flat piece off and welded a bigger section on. Looks a bit neater now than what it used to look like.





The next piece I done joins the van body to the chassis which had rotted out a bit.





So I cut it all out.



Made a pattern piece.



Cut it out and made a few folds, same thing with other little piece.





All welded in place.



And cleaned up.





So that is now the drivers rear quarter officially finished, hurrah!



After that I had the sudden realisation that "what if I never welded the bottom leg that holds the rear door hinge in the right place." To find out I had to cut the rear brace away. Which I should have done earlier as with the roof being fixed it doesn't need it anymore.



With it cut away it felt like I had so much more room. All those times I was welding inside the van in really awkward position, all those times I got myself in the 'cage' and realising I had forgotten a tool on the bench and had to climb back out, were gone!



I offered the doors up and crossed my fingers.





Great success! I even clamped the rear valance in place for better effect. Now, if you shut one eye and squint with the other it looks a lot like a proper van, wouldn't you agree?. Look, they can even open.



It was actually a good boost to put the doors on. I forgot what it looked like, its been that long. Doing that gave me the determination to get the passengers side rear quarter done. ITs a bit of a pain as its all the panels ive made but in a mirror image. Starting with the leg, this one was just as bad as the drivers side.





I cut the front piece off like I did with the last one and set about saving it.



ta-daa!



The next time I went to the garage I forgot my camera so there's not much in the way of how I done this part, but nothing was missed really. In fact, you could scroll up to where I done the drivers side and hold a mirror up to the monitor and that was the exact same process for the rest of the leg.





I had to tidy up and weld a new section in on the wheel arch section, you can see the bit I cut out just to the right. Then I put my brave face on and welded the other leg in place with lots of careful measuring and tacking.



Little top piece made up to finish it off.



And a quick hit with the grinder.



Whilst I had the wire brush wheel in the grinder I thought id just double check that what I perceived to be nice solid metal was actually nice solid metal along the passengers side. That would save me a lot of hassle.



bugger. Ah well, ive stopped expecting an easy job with any of this now.


I decided to put the doors back on again and have another check now that both legs were welded on.

I think I managed to do pretty well.



Check those door gaps, obviously there's adjustment in the hinges and the door rubbers aren't on yet.









I also done a little experiment. If you remember a while back I was trying to figure out how to put some tension back in the long side panel. I got a spare length of 25 x 8 flat bar and tacked it on along the inside every 80mm or so.


It worked pretty well. I sprayed a light coat of primer onto he side then used a piece or flat perspex , about 500mm long and attached some sandpaper on it and went along the panel to get a gauge of the low spots. Not too bad, still a bit of tapping to get it better but nothing a light skim of filler wont fix.





That's all for this time, I have my wedding coming up in 4 weeks so wish me luck everyone, cheers.