Poppy the Devon / Dormobile / with no longer Westy interior!

This is my first post in restorations. Not really a restoration but work I am attempting before the season begins. When I bought my bus, I knew the drivers floor was not great.

A year on, and a hole appeared near the accelerator pedal - time to buy a welder as I have been stung recently by someone I had paid to weld two holes under the back seat. They just patched over the top, left crusty edges and left it unprotected (they painted the inside). Not happy.

So here we go...

Floor cut out and nice hole in chassis strengthening panel.



Now rooting around under the front I found more crustyness



I ended up cutting out all along the panel and a lot of rust fell out. The bottom edge of an inner panel has gone - or it is the original front panel which has been patched over by a previous repair. Better check my screen is not leaking.

The new VWH floor panel was cut to fit and it does not line up properly. The accelerator pedal hole and the nearest indent are too close together. If I line up the indent, the accel hole will be over the chassis.

These pictures are before I cut the floor out.





Bit disappointed - are most panels like this?

My garage is not big enough to do this indoors, so outside with me wearing six layers of clothing. My drive is gravel so made it interesting driving the bus back inside, trying to stand on the accelerator bar and drivers seat not attached yet.

 

best of luck. I've nearly got my basic welding setup so I can do some repairs on the van next year (mask on its way). Your thread title reminds me of our van, which started as a panel van conversion with dormobile interior. It's now got a westy (spaceroofs) roof, and will eventually have a devon replica interior!

 

This is my mask

 

Bit more cutting and welding today. Welding would have been better if I had not done half of it before I realised the gas was not coming through!

 

And new one in. I had to re-weld part of it as I was having gas problems.

 

New strengthening plate

 

A lot of the repair panels are like that, you can generally tweek them as required and get a decent finish.

Looks like you need to turn the amps up on your welder, if it starts to blow through just weld in very short sections so you don't put too much heat into it.

 

Which picture?

 

The plate on top of the chassis, the welds look a little tall and skinny, not saying they won't do the job but if mine looked like that I would up the amps a bit.

 

Cheers

 

Floor mostly painted.

 

What've you been painting it with out of interest?

 

You are going to scream at me but it is smooth Hammerite, brushed on. I have MadMatz carpets so will not see the floor. The top half of the bus is white, so it almost matches.

I don't have the budget for spraying it. The underneath will be scrubbed, de-rusted and probably black smooth hammerite.

You can see I have not painted the heater tube in the centre.

 

Some updates after a summer of camping. I have sold the interior and have Dav from Dubteriors visiting in November to fit a new one. So the preparations start.

Before



Interior out



Floor scrubbed and painted



Sound proofing going in



Sub floor test fitting - awaiting more sound proofing to arrive.

 

Way to go. can't wiat ti see the changes you're making for the new interior. Did you change the layout?

 

It is similar. Full width bed, head banger locker, kitchen pod instead of wardrobe, toilet/buddy seat and centre console between drivers and passengers seats.

 

Sound proofing finished and floor done as well. Vinyl top layer yet to go on.

 

Testing LED lights

 

Looking good!
I've got a moonraker interior I want to take out for floor repairs, but then pt back in afterwards. Can I ask Ho w difficult it was to take our your interior and did things just break along the way? In other words, would it be a nightmare to re install, do you think?

 

Apparently I have to buy a new rolling pin