My 72 Devon Moonraker Resto (beware 2 1/2 years worth of photos!)

Ok, I'll try to be brief I'm sure some of you will of already seen and been bored by this ;D

I'm always making excuses for what is probably my lack of enthusiams at times, my own anal perfection'ism which I cant match with my abbility :- but all that said I do work away a lot and dont get to spend as much time on her as I would like.

There are a lot more photos but i've kept it short :

This is about 2 1/2 years of work...

As bought, my dad actually found this van through a mate of his it had been taken in px for another newer motorhome and the dealer who had it just wanted rid.

It appeared to be in average-good condition but how things can be misleading, also for some reason that i’ll probably never know the original owner had decided to paint the ENTIRE interior with what looks like magnolia emulsion. Oh and I mean everything and probably with a roller judging by the finish, door cards, headlining, all the interior cupboards etc etc





After a quick strip, shotblast and overhaul of the front axle she was lowered to tera firma and with the addition of some new wheels studs a nice cheap set of merc alloys followed.

All of this....






Lead to this...



Which lead to this...



Then things started going downhill, after a bit of poking this happened.




Inch of filler anyone?



It was just botch after botch



But things started to turn around, I converted the rear arches to early ones as I prefer the look but I am now starting to regret this decision so may end up changing them back.




All this was done outside me dads as I had a Caddy in my garage at home, which wasn’t really ideal. Just a few more random body work photos

Botched battery tray




Engine bay repairs




This looks a little better



So with things being alot worse than we thought the van was moved up to my garage and my poor caddy was turfed outside, this was mainly due to not wanting the weather getting to the van.

A quick one of my Caddy, full roll cage and a VR6 engine was destined but never happened. Sadly/stupidly? sold it to a mate at the end of last year.



So home she came, (excuse the mess!)



Where the rust and the filler just kept on coming.












Now I had already started to make this to use on the Caddy, but since I knew the van was here for the long haul I adapted it. I was actually experimenting with a pipe bender (while make the roll cage for my Caddy) to see if you could bend square box tubing with it, turns out you can!!










Lots of digging and scraping later...





And it didn’t take long for the holes to start to appear







So only one thing for it, start cutting it all out...





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And start replacing it with good steel.








I was starting to get really anal with it, this is the reason why everything I do is so SLOW.

All the repair panels that would fit in the shot blaster where cleaned, prepped and painted with rust protector





Yet to find out how good this stuff is, not cheap but not as expensive as some (por15 for example)



Belly pans needed a fair old bit of work







But getting there




I have recently started work on the van after probably an 18 month lay off due mainly to work and laziness if I’m honest.
Trying to complete one side of the underside of the van so it can be dropped and rolled the other way

Plenty more rust, oh and guess what more botches and filler.






I removed this plate with my hands, it was just tacked on and filled over!!



Plasma cutter made short work of the rest. I’m going to wait till the van is upright so I can line all the arches up then they will be tacked up and fully welded once the van is rolled again.




Managed last weekend to get the rear arch closing panels finished, its almost ready to be put back on its wheels again!! And I can get it outside and give the garage a good cleaning.

This just needed a little extending



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And thats basically the bodywork up to date, I have missed loads off (phew I hear you all say) but you can only have so many photos.
LOL, in the meantime though I also built this for the van but not going to use it now as I want to convert the van to diesel... more on that later.
This is my dads engine, its a 1776cc built with all new parts (apart from tinware) bought from America.

Out with the old



Nice little delivery




And a few bits picked up at vanfest



Led to this, built in my dads living room.










Quick mock up



And tonnes of work needed with the tinware, some of it was literally in half.






Originally was thinking of going brown again with the van but thats changed now too..




Starting to flat it off, there not perfect but then its not going to be concours





heres my most recent update.







I cant believe how ******* poor thin the repair panel is on this sill piece, I'm hoping lots of waxoil will keep it safe for years to come.

Since the other half was working yesterday I had a little time to myself,

I dont know why everything I do seems to take so long but I really need to pull my finger out as everybody is giving my grief about it now

Van been on its side now nearly 3 years which is a bit embarassing

Been putting this one off for a long time, in the end I made the B post repair panel myself which saved me £18 but probably cost meabout £100 to make in time and electricity!

Cill is now all welded in place, its not perfect and i'm looking to lead/solder fill this as I dont want it cracking in the future.















Doesnt look much in photos but that a day and a half's work for me, slow and steady

Big day today, unearthed after nearly two years on its side

Still lots and lots of work to complete, every time I look at the van I find more botches and filler. Going to sort the front panel, arches tacked in etc then roll it back the other way so I can fully weld the arches from underneath and theres a little repairs to do on the sliding door sill.









10" wide on the rear?? maybe not



You can probably tell a lot of that is copied and pasted, It would take ages to sit and type it all out again from scratch.
That will do for now, thanks for sticking it to the end

Beleive it or not I've skipped alot of photos

 

Your doing a grand job dude

 

What a project, only a brave person would have taken that on.

I'm sure it will be fab when it's finished, plus you'll have the satisfaction of knowing it's been done properly

 

great work mate, and to a high standard too

looking forward to updates

K+ for posting

 

Thanks guys,

It does seem to take forever but I cant let myself cut corners, as I've said elsewhere I collected my new 71 Deluxe Thursday this week and thats going to be getting a quick light resto (hopefully!) to give us something to use this year as I'm sick of turning up everywhere in my works van :-[

Sorry I know its not a LB but heres a few of my new toy 8)

Under the paint its so solid and apart from the damage its super straight too.



We got it all cleaned out today and this is the only rust,



And once I weld this in tomorrow that will be all sorted ;D



A few of our local vw club members came over to have a look at her and I got them to work pronto, they cleaned all the rear out and started prepping for paint.

Before





and after







So sadly there'll be no Devon updates for a while but if people dont mind i'll post the 71 stuff up in the meantime?

 

Nothing worst than that feeling of a scraper through rust, good to see it been fixed tho. And what an impressive amount of filler lol

 

good work keep it going and keep em coming

 

Fantastic read, well done for taking this resto on, fair bit of work you have to do but all looking really well done.

Is it wise to put the belly pans back on??? I thought they are water traps leading to rot out all the new you have done????

I could be wrong.


So what the difference between Devon Moonraker and a Devon?????


Cool stuff, well done dude, i need to do pretty much the same with my '73 Devon

 

Wow. Great work

 

I'm not sure on the differences tbh, there usually pretty subtle like cookers, sinks and tables etc in different positions but I'm not expert. I'm pretty sure the Moonraker ran for many years and changed quite alot so you may (probably do) have a moonraker but it wont necessarily be the same as mine or anyone elses.

This is a good website, where there trying to make an archive gallery of all the different interiors.

http://www.camperinterior.webfotos.co.uk/

As for the belly pans, if yours are welded on good luck getting them off as there a right pain in the ass. Get yourself some good spotweld drills thats all im saying

I think this shows it quite well, you can see where the rot is basically up to and just under the lip of the pan but inside its was all loverly and rust free

 

Great work on the LB
The early looks a good one

 

WOW that is a big project. Good luck with it. keep the pics coming.

 

ruddy hell how much filler did you find glad to see another van getting restored to her former glory
Ps keep the pics coming

 

great work, if you can get all that prep done in an afternoon you can send your mates my way to help out ;D

quite happy to see pics of the early too ;D

 

nice update

............feel free to go OTT with pics ^-^

 

Photos as promised, I know they dont belong here but since a few people asked ;D

Saturday was a complete disaster weather wise, so I spent the day modifying my roller to take the prototype bay, when i built the rollers to take my Devon I originally wanted roll it without the front axle in place but since i'd already overhauled the axle on the van I didnt want to take it off again

Anyway here a few boring photos, because the engine mounting is different on the prototype bay I couldnt mount the roller like I did with the Devon, so I came up with this...

Stay with me, i'll try to be quick

This is the original, mounting which bolts to the engine mounts on a late bay.



This is now a mount for the front axle but I should still be able to use it as I did on the engine bay of a late.



The tricky bit was getting it all to line up square, so I came up with this using a spare axle (thanks Mark ). I can also use this for when I narrow my axle.



Really I should of made two but I was rushing a little to get it finished.



Finished 8)



So I spent this morning finishing all the welding off on the roller, then after a quick tidy up I moved the vans about with the help of the other half.



In its new home.



First job up, gearbox came out.



Should be all ok with a clean up, lick of paint and an oil change.



Front axle was next up, for once it came out pretty easy although I had one ball joint I couldnt budge so ended up cutting the chassis which was cutting corners :-[ but I was loosing light and it will be a simple repair. I also had to cut the clutch cable but i'm changing that anyway.



It needs work, all four ball joints are shot and for some reason (im assuming the heat) all the grease in the hubs has dried out.





Then the moment of truth, not bad for a bit of hill billy engineering even if I say so myself 8)







So she all ready to roll now, hopefully tomorrow if I get home handy from work.



I also found the first signs of a critter living in my van at some point, im glad I took my time pulling this off..



Eggs?



I'm motivated with it now, not bad so far considering its really only been 3 days work 8)