'79 Devon Moonraker resto.

Yep, good spot! Beautiful car, even if they did have to turn to the yanks for the engine!

 

Tidy work in the engine bay dude

 

Finished the engine bay bits and the rear corner now. apart from the rear outer valance and the outer sill under the sliding door, that's all the rear and middle of van done. well, apart from the window apertures and some gutter repairs.











The usual rot around the seatbelt mount.




On to the front now. As you can see, it's got no indicators.



someone had covered over the vent and indicator mounts, and mounted the indicators into the front bumper by cutting into the deformation panel to recess them.
However, I noticed that the screws for the air flaps were still in place and the control rod which conects the flaps to the levers in the dash pod was still there.


Sure enough, once i'd cut the metal away, the flaps were still there. One less thing to buy i guess :-

 

I've got a dilemma now, do I transplant this front end on, or do I replace all the panels individually?


I was planning to unpick the front panel and the inner windscreen panel and just use those, but this van has already had a new front panel and it's rusted through and obviously for quite a while water's been running down the inside because the inner front valance is shot as well. also, the front air boxes have also had a shunt pre the later front panel because it's dented and whoever did the front panel last time really gashed up the section where the 'box and front panel join around the grill. so in total it needs a new front panel, inner windscreen suround, deformation panel, inner valance, repairs to the airbox, new panel that the washer bottle sits in which joins the floor then joins the top of the inner valance,plus repairs to the bottoms of the A pillars. there's no point in unpicking it all, repair the a pillars then weld it all back into place, it'd be much easier to just graft the whole front on, but that means cutting the A pillars above the bulge line which I'm not eager to do, also the hinges are earlies and the panel the windscreen washer bottle sits in is diffrent to the really late vans. I know it makes no diffrence but I like keeping stuff original as far as possible. It would make it all look nice and neat though, with proper spot welds and would make a really good solid bus. What do you guys reckon?

 

Translant the whole lot dude

 

The whole lot.

 

whole thing buddy, your work has been awesome till now, so do the same with the front!

 

Cheers chaps ;D it would make a neater, quicker, cheaper job i know. I've just got reservations about cutting the A pillars, but in reality i guess it's only cutting an extra two layers of metal because you cut the outer layer regardless. I've always replaced the individual panels before. i noticed someone on here's had one done and they didn't even need to brace the a pillars when they cut them!

 

go for it mate

 

Got some more done the last few weeks, but it had to fit round paid work and I've been taking it slowly.
I started by preping the new front. this meant removing the remains of the cab floor, chassis legs and steps.






Then I removed the rotten front bit by bit. It's a good advert for why you should change your screen seal regularly and what happens if you ignore it and let water run down inside the front panel!
I think this van has been waxoyled from new, I've never seen a UK van with such a solid chassis. I took a picture inside the front of the N/S outer leg, usually these rot worse than the middle two legs and there's no rot at all, just waxoyl and spiders webs!


The inner valance and the deformation panel were completely shot though, the windscreen suround had rotted out under the seal and had obviously been leaking water. This had rusted through the top of the inner valance and the deformation panel.




Then i disconnected the cab wiring loom and stripped everything out.


I made up a frame to brace the A pillars and welded it all in before doing any serious cutting.



Then i cut the A pillars, I managed to remember to not plunge the grinder through the O/S pillar, cutting through the interior light wires which run up the middle. ;D exactly the sort of thing I'd normally do, adding a good few hours of work Then it was a case of slowly cutting up chunks of the inner valance untill it was all gone.


I got to the offering up stage before I ran out of time. It lines itself up fairly well. there's an indent in the panel above both of the centre chassis rails which locates them and also an indent in the centre of the floor which corresponds with a bit on the same panel where it meets the front of the floor, the panel with the washer bottle mounted on it, not sure what it's called, so it's hard to get it miles out either way and it's mainly a case of fettleing and making sure the screen apature is the right size. I took loads of measurments before i started and will double check everything before anything's welded in finally.

 

excellent work owen nw

 

Super job O0

 

Thanks again for the kind words ;D

I had a spare day today, so I managed to finish the front end. It certainly took a while, mainly because I kept checking and re-checking all my measurements. It's made a bit harder because there's slight diffrences from van to van, so the windscreen apperture on this van is slightly diffrent from the panel van by a few mm even though they were both assembled on a jig. It's also made harder because the pressings on the front panel below the windscreen aren't symetrical because of the position of the wipers, so you have to mark your own points an equal distance from each A pillar and then use those to make sure the whole front isn't slightly lopsided. Then once I was happy with the dimensions, I welded the inner bit of the A pillar and put a few spots between the chassis rails and the inner valance. then I had to check nothing was drastically wrong with the door gaps, one side needed a bit of attention, but the other side was spot on, so I welded the rest of the A pillar. I made a sleeve of thicker metal to replace a section of the middle skin of the pillar, to make sure the pillar would be as strong as it was.

Then I welded the outer skin back in. I'd cut the three layers in diffrent places so that the joins in each section was in a diffrent place.










Finally, I got to wind the welder up and do some proper welding to finish the chassis- valance welds of ;D





On to the front arches tomorrow.

 

wow, you've really got the skills to see it though 8)

Great job on staggering the cuts on the pillars for the strenght, its great to see you've really thought it through for a top job......and you must have some big balls to take on a front end swap and get it as good as you have

K+ 8)

 

Thanks diddymen , it's not to difficult really, just very time consuming. I made measurements in 6 places across the windscreen apature, and must gave rechecked each one about 10 times. I refitted the doors today, and got the n/s arch welded in, and the seatbelt mount panel. That took most of a day. Big projects are so time consuming! I'll stick up some more pics tomorrow.

 

That is some tidy work, I will be bookmarkng this thread for future use. This here little forum is a great resource.
You seem to get so much done and then complain that it takes you ages, I think that you are progressing nice and quickly....good work. K+

 

Wow! a whole middle sill.

 

Thats coming together nicely dude