Burt had to be moved out of the barn I was in. Luckily there was an empty workshop from someone who made concrete patio slabs. It is likely only for a few months, but I hope we're on the road by then. It has worked out well as I've built a blasting tent for driving the media blaster.
Fantastic work! You make it look and sound so easy! Wish I had had space for a roll over jig when doing my resto. Looking forward to more updates.
Thanks, it is getting there. The target was originally busfest this year, but that went out the window when we got into the welding. Some of the old metal (and new metal) is so thin it is either take it very slowly of spend time repairing then grinding to a finish. New target is Volksworld show 2016, on the 2nd April.
The roll over makes it a lot easier. I wish we had it for the strip down too, I recon we would have saved at least 2 months on the time it took us to strip. I probably turned it side to side 4 or 5 times today alone, makes getting to bits really easy and you are pretty much always at the right angle. We did strengthen it from version one, as the legs could fold too easily and there was movement front to back, meaning it could have collapsed pretty easily.
Thanks, it is funny how my approach and opinion has changed over the resto so far. When I got it I was looking at JKs and VWH thinking I could only cope with new parts to bolt on and minimal welding. Now the response is pretty much always,'well there will be a way with some fabrication.' Went to Bristol Volksfest and picked up a rear bumper for £20. It will need pretty extensive patching and welding. I was waiting to pay for it when I heard someone say, 'its amazing the rubbish some of these traders will bring to these shows and actually try and get money for.' 12 months ago that would have been me. This time I was desperate to get them out the way as I thought I had just landed on a goldmine! It even came with the rear brackets.
Good luck with your target of the volksworld show. At this rate you are going to make it. I remember I took mine off the road in early 2005 for some resto work with Vanfest that year as my target. Didn't finish it until June 2014! Actually, it's still not finished.
Not a huge amount of progress this week, mainly just the rear O/S corner fitted and glued. The screws are in just to hold while the glue went off and have now been removed. The inner join has been glued and then spot welded. The line down the side is pretty good. There will be a bit of fettling, but in general the side look pretty good and we shouldn't need to put the 5mm of filler back on to get the shape!
The nearside is beginning to take shape. This is the first offering of the panels to the van and no prep work has been done to get the fit right.
Holey crap, you'll have a better than factory Van once you get it going down the road. It will out live you then. Congrats, and keep up the great work.
progress has been quite slow on the bus the last couple of weeks. I ran out of Mig wire....got some mig wire....ran out of gas....got some gas.... Then my house sale and moving out got in the way. Having removed all the furniture and emptied everything I have realised none of us have cleaning OCD. Given the work she has put in I can now officially call the war department a scrubber. I may not be granted a key to the new house when we get it if I carry on doing it though. So, back to the bus. The rear corner has been a real bitch to get the fit right. You really can work out the build order when you are trying to put full panels in place, but it should be going on early next week. What is now finished is the blasting to clear any surface rust formed and the priming. I bought one of the eastwood blasters, which works really well now I have learnt how to set it up. The first few outings I spent more time unblocking the nozzle than I did blasting. With a bit of practice I have now put about 4 tanks of glass through without a blockage. The first time through the crushed glass is really quite abrasive, so I have been running it through cleaning up the chassis etc. Then pushing it through a sieve to get contaminants from the shop floor out before using it on the thinner metal or panels. It is then quite a lot less coarse second and third time round. After blasting the area I fired up the spray gun and etch primed the whole area, to make sure we have good coverage for when the panel goes on. If you look closely you can see I also had to take away the metal which supports the quarter panel. To let the paint go off properly I moved onto the window on the other side. There had been a previous repair, which was done very badly Even my welding is better, and the first time I picked up a gun was for this van. Interestingly we have the receipt for when the work was done. I certainly wouldn't have paid for what we were left with. Annoyingly I didn't take a before picture, but here is an action shot of the repair going in. and a couple of top up weld point where I got a git heavy handed on the clean up and the rough curve added back in to the window opening. 24 hours later it was back to the rear quarter and the missing supports. This was next on the list and has been welded into place, but not yet cleaned up. I used 20 gauge stainless steel for it, which is very strong, but caused its own challenges. There is such a difference in quality of metal that to get enough heat into the stainless to take the weld, I had frequent blow through on the inner panel. I ended up using more of a continuous line of spot welds rather than a run, as it wouldn't take the runs without blowing through. More practice needed there. It is still slightly oversized, but that is intentional rather than taking out too much.
With the welder still in hand it was time to join the cab floor to the chassis rails and clean it all up. There was some cheese grater metal in a couple of places after the tin worm had it's feast. so these have been cut out ready for patching. Once those are in I will run the blaster over and then etch to protect.
Great work. Almost everything you weld on a bus is done in small increments (apart from chassis) Even when you can get a run going without blowing through i always stop after about 15mm as it would warp anyway.
coming along really well! Good luck for VoWo 2016, I for one hope you succeed its good seeing hard work come to fruition & a bus back on the road!
I found the piece of the window I cut out and took a picture. It is not the best, but you can see the level of finish put on it. The invoice was for £167.50 18 years ago. the level of clean up is poor, and no wonder we got tinworm in there again. No sealer or protection at all, it was just under the rubber. with some primer and paint on.
Plenty of progress this week. Looking at the back of the engine bay, there was a fair amount of corrosion under the rear valance. The best solutions was to take off the valance, repair the inner section then put on a new valance. This is it repaired, blasted with the glass media and primed. Action Shot! Gilly with 60 grit sanding disc for preparation left hand end of rear valance in place Right Hand End The middle Valance is now in and secure, just some clean up of the welds to go.
Next was some attention to the floor. None of them are clean enough, and were joining to some pretty average metal. Plenty of zap - zap - zap.....Bugger....zap - zap - zap.....***** going on here. Even taking it very slowly I was getting some blow through. I probably should have taken the metal back further, but the joins were in a nice place so I thought it was worth persevering. There are more to come, but I have managed to lose them from the phone!
I rebuilt the inner support for the rear quarter panel and the window and arch panel using 20 gauge stainless steel. The mix of metal strength between new and old raised it's head as always, but we got through it. Before After From the inside it looks really messy at the moment. this is for 3 reasons. 1. Everything was primed and painted before welding. I used the dremel to reveal pin head size targets to start the weld on. The brown staining is the burnt back paint from the heat. This will be taken back with the gilly before repainting when the welds have been ground down, but at least there is no bare metal under and in the vent section or the rear quarter panel. 2. the existing metal next to the window was thin, so took some repair. 3. I drilled the holes on the wrong place and therefore had to fill them with weld.....tuesday_wildchild and finally the rear corner and wheel arch have fitted and been welded in place! seems like a massive amount of work for the one corner. I'm really glad the taller repair panels that have the whole light cluster have been made, the other side was so much simpler. It's coming on....
Wow. The last post was October 2015. The good news is we finally finished, and are incredibly pleased with the results we have. Unfortunately it now means it is time for Bert to find a new home to make way for the next project, this time a RIB I accidentally bought on ebay too. What did we end up doing? Bodywork Details of Work and New Parts On initial inspection the bodywork, whilst needing work didn't look too bad. However, on closer inspection it was evident that to achieve our goal of a CamperVan fit for another forty years, extensive restoration was required. But, how to eradicate corrosion and prevent it re-occurring? Eradicating corrosion After a full strip down to a bare body shell, all areas showing signs of corrosion were cut away. The body shell was taken to Surface Processes Limited (SPL) in Dudley. There the body was subjected to two processes, one to remove everything that wasn't metal I.e. paint, filler sealer etc.. and the second to neutralise corrosion. In both processes the body is completely immersed ensuring the whole body is treated and areas otherwise inaccessible were treated. i.e. inside body sections, welded seams etc. Once Bert was back home as an extra protection he was treated with a corrosion converter. Extensive online research lead us to choose FERTAN which is widely used in car restoration. Having now got a corrosion free bodyshell we set about restoring it to its original condition. New panels were welded into place and areas repaired with stainless steel plate.. New Panels fitted:- (Listed front to rear) Deformation Panel Front Panel Front Panel to Windscreen Panel Left and Right Hand cab floor Sections Left and Right Inner Wheel Arches Left and Right Hand Cab Door Outer Skins Left and Right Hand 1/4 Light Frames Left and Right Outer Wheel Arch Assemblies 'B' Post lower Section Repair Panels Left and Right Inner, Middle and Outer Sill Panels Sliding Door Lower Half Repair Panel Left Hand Complete Rear Corner Panel Right Hand Corner Lower Half Repair Panel Left and Right Battery Trays Rear Valance Outer Panel Plus other small infill panels On completion of restoring Bert's bodywork to its factory condition the next steps were painting, rust proofing and sound insulation Paintwork Preparation The welded joints for the new panels were filled and sanded to create the correct profiles. The whole body was hand sanded and degreased ready for the first coat of primer. An Acid Etching Primer from UPol was used. Two coats were applied. Next came several coats of UPol High Build Primer followed by hours of hand sanding and re-priming to achieve the desired surface finish ready for the colour coat. What colour to choose. We wanted something more colourful than the original off white and a colour faithful to Bert's age and heritage. After much searching we opted for Sand Yellow body inside and out with a white roof, dash, bumpers and wheels. The actual colours are RAL 2002 and Mini Pepper White. In keeping with Bert's original finish we opted for cellulose paint which is also easier to maintain and repair. The colour coats were applied in our own custom made heated paint booth and took several days and lots of flatting and repainting to get the desired finish. Finally, the bodywork was machine polished with three grades of polishing compound to get the result you can see today. Bodywork Restoration Preservation and Comfort Rust Proofing Having spent lots of time and money restoring the body we wanted to ensure that it would last for another forty years. To help with this the complete underside of the body and the panels that are bolt to it were primed and finished with UPol RAPTER. This is a very tough coating designed to protect against arduous off road use protecting against abrasions and salt water, chemicals etc. Next the body cavities were injected with DINITROL corrosion protector Sound and Heat Insulation The body was sound proofed using the kit from SOUND DEADENING. This uses pads bonded to the inside of panels to dampen out vibrations. On top of this a layer of butyl foam is added to further eliminate sound penetration to the interior and also provides a high level of heat insulation, Just what you need in a CamperVan Bodywork Restoration Finishing Touches Having spent many months and thousands of pounds restoring and improving the body shell we turned our thoughts to the finer details of the body. New chrome handles and locks were fitted to the cab doors, sliding door, tailgate and engine bay lid to improve overall appearance and security The external appearance was further enhanced with chrome wheel trims, four new tyres and black rubber inserts for the front and rear bumpers. New Laminated Windscreen, new six window seals for all fixed glass windows New Seals and window channels for cab windows, New Cab door window glass New bright metal trims round cab door windows New Door Mirrors New aperture seals for doors, sliding door, tailgate and engine lid
