Just getting started, 1972 Crossover Devon

Yay another Devon crossover ! Coooommeee on pleeeeaase can we have a Devon Cross over thread ( sneaks away giggling yet again) Hello, great restro going on hopefully we are not far behind you ! Looking very good , and the organic nature of the use of wood in the past is most inventive

 

Nice fabrication for the pillar repairs! I think I made a mistake in taking off the rear arch and corner at the same time as I haven't a true profile for the return and the repair panel for the corner seems a mile out.

Replaced the battery tray with a "genuine" item but will need to adjust the corner to suit once the outer arch is tacked in (inner arch was shot too so patch repaired and profiles slightly conflict!)
Rear arch lower finish at sill level not brilliant but I think there is enough to plug weld and trim to the outer sill profile without the use of a Upol hodd carrier

 

Just finding the time to update on a little progress made on woody, only get the odd hour or so once in from school and got kids to bed.

I repaired the nearside battery tray (pic wont load for now)

Welded in the new D pillar bottom I fabbed (again pic is not showing )

Then I fitted the new corner, the battery tray did fit to the corner, with a little pursuasion but it is all welded in place, ground welds back and zinc primed.


The welded on a return to the corner



Started to poke around on the nearside corner, cut the front edge off to find one panel welded on top of another got the rear arch panel and fabricted bits to repair c-pillar, thank you to DM's resto for pics helping with that.



As an aside, I teach Design and Technology and got my A-Level students to design and manufacture multipurpose campervan furniture, below is a close to finished buddy seat from one of my students (only 17) designed and built from scratch, will put the finished photos up soon. Also another student designed the surfboard inspired table with cupboards underneath, well happy with them.

 

You cant beat a bit of child labour to keep the cost down

 

A little more has been done to Woody over the last few days, got lots of work on over next 3 weeks so will be doing less

Trimmed off the rust on the engine lid to repair it, its had lots of previous repairs!





Cut of the offside rear corner to gain access to what was left of the battery tray to find that it was a pice of sheet metal cut to fit the space of the 2 old ones there before, it wasn't even welded in!




I then trimmed off the rot from the rear valance, thought i would repair this to give me reference points for the offside rear corner as its pretty bad.



Offside



Cut and welded in some new steel for the rear valance, just gotta grind the welds back now before fitting the bottom piece to the rear valance.





I have also taken the engine from this



to this, in preparation for renewing as many gaskets and seals as I can, the pushrod tubes and the rear flywheel seal



I look at the job I am about to start and keep thinking I have bitten off more than I can chew and it gets me down but by the time I finish a job I think "I can do this", there just seems to be little jobs that keep needing to be done, im worried about the end float on the engine but need to figure out a way to measure it and then to get the gland nut off need to buy a breaker bar and torque wrench which I need to find the cash for, but hey ho I am smiling

 

excellant work on Woody ! I think I have have sussed that getting a bit down about our van's is part of the whole Bay ownership thing

 

Nice work. Almost as bad as mine to start with, although I reckon mine takes the biscuit! 72 Devon crossover too!

It's in my signature below.

 

You can lash something up to check end float. "Something" attached to crankcase where you have the locking tool and cranked over flywheel with a bolt you can screw down to touch flywheel. Pull flywheel, adjust bolt to touch, push flyweel and measure the gap with feeler guages.

Keep going a bit at a time - all progess gets you nearer the end. It's time consuming but an hour a night is a day a week. Should be done in 5-10 years.

 

Cheers Zed, will give that a go

 

Done a little more today, been more a case of taking stuff off but seeing as engine is for the bin i have turned my attention to the bodywork again.



Rear corner filled and primered



Offside rear arch, looks like three panels at one point , and an intresting repair, looks like inner sill has been welded to bottom of rear arch and end of outrigger not welded onto anything



Also cut out the rot on the offside rear chassis and D post, will fabricate new panels at school this coming week to weld back on Have left some bits to use as reference points.

 

great work ....its good to see some new metal going on

love the idea about getting students to do the interior ....I bet they have come up with a few new ideas too

keep chipping away, you'll get there. There were a few times when I thought I'd bitten off more than I can chew.....but 4 years on I'm nearly finished

 

loving the wooden repair panels, thats definitely a new one on me lol
keep up the good work buddy!

 

Its been quite a while since i last updated as progress has been a little slow due to other commitments and the task overwhelming me a little. I am now on a mission to get woody sorted so we can use him, so to the update.



Welded some new bits in, i welded in new captive nuts for the bumper brackets too. The bumper seems a long way off.

I then cut off the repair I made to the rear valance as I thought it was a bit pants.


I then welded in a new reapair piece and tacked on a bottom repair section to the valance I fabricated


Then fully welded with a coat of zinc primer to hold off the rust till i put the last few patches in. Then I have a flat sheet to weld on to close the panel up. A little question, as I have made the panels the rear valance wont have the vertical tabs that stick out by the rear corners, should I fab them or leave it flat?



I also removed the petrol tank and the breather pipe to renew them, some looked like new but others were well past it.





A patch of rust to sort


The tank seems clean and no rust on the outside of it so assume this must be a good sign.

I hope to have the rear end sorted soon so an engine can be sorted and put in as the one i removed was kaput. I would like a rolling resto rather thn Woody being sat on my drive looking sad. Plus if woody can go it means I can attend forum meets and shows yay

 

Nice to see you back on here and making progress again

 

Nice work on the valance looks tidy what's up with your engine - how come its kaput?

 

@daniel_son ....here's a great project for your design technology students:
redesign the clutch operating mechanism on a type 2 , with 091 gearbox, to incorporate the use of a concentric slave cylinder fixed inside the bell housing. Will require a modification to the original clutch pedal arm, suitable bracket or mounting point for a master cyclinder, with a remote reservoir adjacent to the pedal, hydraulic line, and associated mounts and clearance for the slave cylinder....would make for an excellent project...involving geometry, fluid mechanics,design fabrication, measurement and testing....plus it'd make my life easier

Best of luck with the resto...keep ticking them off...

 

The main block has a crack in it this along with cracks in the heads. Thinking of taking the broken engine in for my engineering students.

Thank you for the replys, helps with the encouragement

 

New update, not done much for a while due to an operation on my knee and then 2 weeks after getting back on my feet I had a motorbike accident. Back on my feet again and done some more to woody.

We managed to save for an engine so I go to collect that on Saturday yay . In preparation for that I have cleaned up a lot of the existing tinware and engine parts ready to put them on the new engine. I have painted the tin the colour woody will eventually be on the outside.


After spending the time doing this I can now see why many of you say to send the tinware off to be shotblasted and powder coated, i am really pleased with the results though. This is painted using rustoleum.

I also cleaned up the fan housing ready to be painted along with the manifold.

 

Trying to get the engine comartment and petrol tank area sorted by half term ready to put engine in. The petrol tank area is in quite good condition i feel, just one major area of rust.



The patch of rust, in the most awkward of areas, was cut out. I had to cut off the tank strap first to get at all the rust. The same area the other side is fine



I plan to weld the patch i have made in. I was borrowing ths school welder but dont have access to this at the moment and the other one I had is as good as me trying to weld with a candle so had to order a new one, when that comes Ill crack on with the welding.

 

That rust looks familiar ;-)