The van formerly known as "Tootle"

Finished seat belt bracket for the furniture side.





Also fitted my protex catches on my poptop, it originally had one of those rubber ones at the front which was utter rubbish, these on the other hand are top notch, they have a little catch on the side which prevents them being accidently opened too. Probably could have got away with one but better safe than sorry.


I like the way the curved part misses the gutter. I fitted them to the van rather than the roof after a comment that @zed made last week about them dangling down and scratching / catching the gutter when lowering the roof which is a great idea, however I can't help thinking they would have looked better the other way around, however function over fashion made me fit them this way .

I may trim the part you press down on to close the catch which overhangs by about an inch, it won't affect the usage or mechanism of the catch but may make them a little sleeker.



I also dismantled the u bracket from the sliding door mech, removed about 5 layers of paint, cleaned up, rust treated and primed.



Bodyshop is ready for the van but he's on his annual two week holiday from next Monday so I said I will just keep hold of it until he gets back. In the meantime I'm doing things like mock fitting catches and drilling holes for gas vents etc to save me doing it to a freshly painted van.

If I get chance I'm going to trial fit my propex too so the holes for that are done pre paint, it's just hard to decide where to put it when there's no furniture in there.

 

They're nice catches aren't they, I fitted a pair last week too.

 

They sure are, I love good quality parts, makes a nice change to be impressed rather than disappointed with something!

 

I ended up chopping the useless over hang on the latches, they still work exactly the same but are a little less bulky.

I also rebuilt the sliding door mech with the nicely stripped and painted u bracket.



The bits of latch that I cut off also went to good use.....now I don't have to save up for the simon cowell veneers I wanted!



I also replaced the lower wooden batten that the curtain rail screws to on the dormy roof, the curtains are attached top and bottom on the roof windows, however there had been a small leak or 40 years of condensation running down along the wood and it was starting rot.

I managed to find a couple of clamps to hold it in place whilst the pu adhesive sets!

 

Well after unforeseen circumstances from the painter and myself it's finally going on Friday for definite, tow truck booked for 1pm and I have the afternoon off

Not much else I can do to the body as it's all done, I've just been pottering about really, I took all the pedals out and the steering box. Once on the bench the steering box feels horrible rotating by hand, like a pepper grinder

I checked and it was full of nice clean oil.



After reading @snotty advice I took the box from the van before trying to remove drop arm, I never would have thought it would come out so easily with it still attached.

Puller no.1 kept spreading its legs as the tension grew hence the G clamp, I was living upto my username trying to get it off with this one to be honest! It's easy to handle though so thought I would give it a go.......no chance!



Puller no.2 was a big 3 legged affair (forgot to photo in the heat of battle with the box) it just kept slipping off before I could get any real tension on it.

Puller no.3 a lovely old Sykes pickavant hydraulic one, it's part of a kit with loads of different arms and backing plates, from my dad's days on the tools in ICI. Don't let the small size of the ram fool you this thing puts some extreme pressure on and lulls you into a false sense of security as it's so easy to wind the tommy bolt until things get really tight.



With Sykes and Pickavant on my side victory was always on the cards!



It sounded like a gun shot when it finally let go, I took it like a man though from behind my sheet of plywood

Stripped down to its components, all of the bearings in both races measured 7.94mm when checked in various positions so they're either meant to be like that or it's the most uniform wear pattern known to man! I'm not concerned about reusing them. The gears have little sign of wear and everything seems to look pretty good apart from one part.



The culprit for the grinding feeling is this...



You can see the scoring all the way around where the bearings seat, it's strange as the bearings have no marks on whatsoever, they must be made of good stuff as the gear shaft it absolutely rock solid but has still worn first. I would have contemplated putting it in my lathe and cleaning the score marks away but non of my tooling would stand a chance against this material. It looks as though some foreign body has been in there at some point causing the damage.

I've dropped it off at my local machine company who said they should be able to machine it, I asked him to note how much needs to come off incase I decide to shim the outer race at the other end of the shaft to compensate, it's not going to need much off to get it smooth again.

 

Nice work, @optimistic . I'd think the marks are probably trapped carp in the box. May/should be machinable, if they can get the radius right. Come off with a bang, don't they ?

 

Yeah! Glad I left the nut on.

I have good faith in the machine company, they make some very intricate low tolerance stuff.

 

@optimistic A few questions on the various paints :

What is this bondo stuff? How do you paint over it? Primer then top coat? No reactions? Does it have rust proofing properties?

Enamel: what did you use?

Black octopus paint: again what is this stuff?

Cheers! Really nice work!

 

Bonda is a non porous etch primer that is rich in zinc to help protect against rust, as recommended in brothernber1's book. It goes on great even with a brush and dries pretty hard. Apparently it's very stable and shouldn't react when over painted regardless of type of topcoat.

The enamel paint was called rustnot, not sure if you can still get it as it was an old can from years ago.

The octopus ink is a rust treatment that you paint on and leave on, it's made by flag and is from toolstation. I prefer using jenolite but this has to be wiped off, as this isn't always possible in nooks and crannies I used the flag stuff instead, not sure how good it is but you can definitely see a reaction to the rust underneath once it's dry, it can be over painted as is but I would personally rub down and prime first.

 

Well my bay finally left for the paint shop on Friday as planned.



Turning up to work this morning and it not being there was strange after fourteen months of trying to tinker with it everyday!

I was too impressed when the truck driver hit 80mph either!

 

Shaft came back today, he agreed it was very hard material but they managed to machine the marks out with no problems.



So with all the bits and pieces cleaned up and a seal kit from @Keith.H I set about putting it back together.



All the parts were cleaned up as much as necessary and no more, I've been down the route on previous projects of detailing parts you never see only for them to be covered in crud within a year, so not bothering this time.



It moves nice and smooth now.

 

That's the nicest steering box I've ever seen

 

Having a long overdue tidy up while the van is at the bodyshop and came across these pieces of steel.

Both 1mm thick and bought at exactly the same time (about 7months ago) both kept in the same rack in my workshop, my workshop is nice and dry.

If this isn't a good advert for zintec sheet I don't know what is!

I really can't understand why you wouldn't want to use it, yes it has a zinc coating so a little caution is required, however the coating is so thin it welds virtually identically as normal steel, you really can't tar it with the same brush as 'proper' galvanised sheet which you definitely shouldn't weld with out grinding the coating off!

The panel suppliers should be using the same material to help our endless battle with rust, out of all of the panels that weren't made by me (which they were many) the only one which was made from zintec was a sliding door outer sill from schofields.

The coating may be thin but the pictures speak for themselves.

 

I'm sure you will be able to see your face in yours when you do it!

 

Stripped down and checked out my starter motor next.

Paint dried a little lumpy but who cares?! Nobody's gonna see it, I just didn't want to bolt it back on looking like a rusty piece of carp.

 

Everything ok bud, no updates for a little while?

 

Well they haven't really, had a massive fight with the wife and ended up leaving and going back to parents for a while! both of us ended up so miserable it was ridiculous. I have literally just gone back this week I was missing my two children so much and the wife has been diagnosed with post natal depression which is now under control.

We are all back together for Christmas and she is in a lot better place now (not a physco anymore!) so its onward and upwards from here. The van is in primer and all flatted ready for its top coat and is looking great. I might have a tinker with the engine over Christmas but to be honest i just want to relax then it will be full steam ahead in January with regular updates as i hope to be camping in it by May.

Women!!! cant live with em, cant live without em! this last month must have taken 10 years off me

 

That's a bit parp, was thinking maybe painting problems, not life problems. Glad to hear that she is feeling better, my wife is 7 months, although the she's a bit mental anyway, so no difference

Your deffinately right thou, just chill over Xmas, concentrate on the family. The bus will still be there after, all the very best

 

Well it's been a while but here's a few paint shop snaps, I'm pretty happy so far, considering the huge amount of panel work I did it's not looking too shabby.

The colour is going on the bottom and inside in the next couple of days.

 

From the first picture to the second... OMG... You must be so chuffed.. Well done you