Hello everyone, I've never really posted much but I've enjoyed looking at other folks work on here for as long as I've had the Tigermoth which is around 5 years. When I bought the van it was the best I could find for what I had to spend and has served me well covering around 10k a year for the first of those 3 years. However being left outside all that time the weather has taken it's toll and my bodged bodywork repairs didn't last long..... you're probably bored now so I'll a couple of pictures. Fully loaded I'll follow up with some interior shots later as I've removed and sold theDanbury interior.
I'm surprised how nice it looks it in the Pictures (then again I always think it looks nice) and here's some of the now removed interior.
Thanks for the welcomes. My wife calls me various names starting with old, but pilot isn't one of them so I guess not . The van was advertised as being Tiger green (not Taiga) so it was originally named Tiger, a couple of days later I was driving and pulled the sun visor down releasing a huge moth which flew straight at the kids in the back and so the Tigermoth was born. The van looks pretty good in the pictures but the windscreen surround, both the front and rear wheel arches were rotten as well as the sills and some corrosion to the sliding doors, there's more which I will remeber as I go along. I never planned to put any of this on line and it all started around October last year, so as to be ready for January this year....... ok time for some more pictures. The windscreen which had been letting a lot of water in The wheel arches which totally crumbled when poked with a screwdriver I will post up some more soon but do let me know if my pictures of rust are boring?
I wasn't planning on doing this work myself as I have no where to do it and much as I enjoy it I didn't want to spend years of what little spare time I have learning (hats off to those who do) I was ridiculously pleased with myself when I fitted reversing lights and before getting the moth I had never even changed the oil in a vehicle, now I tinker but all very minor, just enough to keep it going with a little help when I need it. So I set out to get some prices for the work required, this took longer than expected as some were quite a distance and they had to be chased to provide a price, the quotes were big one in particular was huge! and one garage I twice spent a day travelling to and from, the first time he eventually answered my call (I was 10 minutes away)and said he had a personal emergency and would't be there, hadn't received my texts with my number on to let me know, I was gonna call it a day with him but my wife said it might be genuine, so we arranged to see him again we turned up and he wasn't at the garage and he didn't reply to my message, you live and learn and I'm going on a bit now.... So I decided to stay local and when I told my friend Steve the mechanic how much the quotes were he couldn't believe it and said he thought he knew someone who could do it. So off we went and arrived at a very dodgy looking street behind the M1 services which was the home of a breakers and scrap metal merchant who will also buy your unwanted gold for cash.... I felt like turning around before a giant magnet dropped onto the roof, but we called the mobile number we had and a guy emerged from a row of garages, his name was mark and he seemed happy to see the van, it turns out he has one and has restored 3 in the past, things were looking up he looked i tover and we agreed a price which I was happy with, he also said stripping it down was time consuming and I could save another £1500 if I stripped it down myself, I was a little concerned about doing this but took up the offer on the basis he would put all the glass back in. If you've read all that you deserve some pictures so I'll log into photobucket and get some, back in a mo.
I never liked this carpet in the back and was happy to see the back of it The interior came out easier than expected and the pix aren't very exciting Frame that held up the rear seat and provided storage Seat belt mounts (more lovely carpet) Brackets that held up the support for the back of the passenger seats Drainage from the sink That's about it for removing the interior, much easier than I thought it would be
so once it was all out how did it look inside? Pretty good actually. The cargo area had some hole drilled to keep the damn carpet in place but other than that it looked good The rear floor of the van was pretty good as well, just some surface rust (I thought you only got that with US imports) in one corner where condensation seemed to be pooling The rusty bit And one more
And a couple of dents in the rear where a very apologetic young lady bumped me up the rear while stationary Some more progress ( I suppose I can call it progress) And on to removing the glass, not much rust at the back And my NOS colour coded clock for the dash
The clock above is a genuine dry import I picked up in Oz so no problems there There will eventually be some work done on this van but for now more snaps of bits coming off, this got a little harder as I was doing this outside during last years storms. no rust here My tools
So far nothing had been much of a shock But I was very surprised to see the state of the seat belt mounts, once the belts were removed I did this both sides with hardly any pressure at all And a couple of pix of those who've been helping... I could bore you with more pictures of the van in various states of undress and many pictures of the locks which were the hardest things to remove and which I'm most dreading putting back! Anyway 27th January 2013 off she goes for an estimated 6 weeks! But it's the 8th May and she's still not back, to be honest I never expected it to be done in 6 weeks but I didn't expect it to take this long either.
So while I was waiting I decided to clean up the locks, here's a door lock that didn't look too dirty to me I spoke to a guy at Custom & Commercial who suggested cleaning them with some parafin, so here goes And after a quick dip and a brush I think it came up nicely, not that I'll ever see it once it's back on the van I ordered some graphite lube on line and a can the size of a lipstick turned up, great stuff but ran out after only 2 locks so the rest have been done in WD40
