Viking Restoration, Blood, Sweat, Tears, Tragik

@Diddymen has been waiting patiently for a year for me to answer his question above, so I thought I'd update this thread, I'm going to break it down into chunks as I've had plenty of time at work to put this together - and some bits are a bit lengthy!

I've been busy on the van but have not gotten round to updating here as it's been mainly small things of little interest - but they all add up, so heres a rundown of where I'm at with it, carrying on roughly where I left off.

Camped at Bugjam 2015 in it for the 1st time and made do with some old sheets bulldog clipped up for curtains, not ideal but pushed me into realising a full set of curtains were required with blackout lining, so used YouTube to learn how to use a sewing machine, and made a full set, sewed magnets in the bottom, well chuffed with them!







I wanted a full set of sisal/seagrass natural mats but didnt want to pay the prices offered by the usual suppliers, and also standard mats would be unlikely to cover all the areas I wanted, so I bought some big carpet remnants loccally on ebay for £40, and templated the areas required before cutting the carpet to suit, then paid to have the edges whipped for £130, and then used self adhesive velcro tape sewed through the mats to hold them in place where needed.

Before edge whipping:

After:




Then went to my first Techenders!

Fitted a new Durite splitcharge relay as the slightly cheaper one I had, had failed and as a result had killed the almost new cheap leisure battery as it was never being charged.

 

those carpets look great

 

Love seeing the dedication that goes into these restos

 

Agree they look good

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Lowering revisited - The single Bluebird adjustor fitted to the top tube of the front beam has always caused the van to drive harshly on the front with little suspension travel - I spotted some new 3" dropped spindles were being advertised on Facebook by a French VW Aircooled supplier for £210 delivered to the UK so snapped them up as they seemed cheap as chips. They arrived and I set to fitting them - and encountered my first problem that the front beam could not be returned to near stock height as the adjustor had been welded in at a low to stupid low position. I fitted it all together though and adjusted the beam to the highest it would go - the van could barely be driven as the tyres were scrubbing the front arches, and also the brake calipers were catching on the brake discs - so a couple of spacer shims were cut to go between the calipers and spindle mounting and a set of lower profile correct load rated 175/65/14 tyres were fitted which has solved the rubbing problem on all but the harshest of high speed bumps and steep speed humps when taken too quickly. Van drives surprisingly nice now with decent suspension travel.

With the front now sitting a bit further nose down than I wanted I needed to adjust the rear to suit, Another spline down at the back was easy as I've adjustable springplates - it means just moving the front section of the 2 piece springplate around 1 spline - less than 30 minutes to do both sides, it then became apparent the rear shocks would be too long so these were removed, the clearance to the rubber bump stops was minimal so these were removed and it looked likely that there would be contact between the rear chassis legs and A arms and driveshafts - a short testdrive confirmed this - so more hassle ahead - options were to fit horse shoe plates or notch the rear chassis, I'd read some bad reports of horse shoe plates with bolts snapping due to leverage and also the difficulty removing the rear wheels with them fitted, so decided to notch the rear legs with some small semi circle notches using 4mm tube to reinforce and line the notches.
All was going well until the van was moved to the barn I store it in, where I realised some massive dents like someone had kicked a football into both rear quarter panels. The panels had flexed and buckled where the chassis legs had been cut whilst being on a lift. Hacked off by now I sourced some 10mm plate, jacked the van on the engine mounts and welded a reinforcer fillet panel over the top of the legs between the top of the shock tower and tapered it down towards the torsion tube. Most of the dents were able to be pulled out with a suction cup, but the panels both need redoing to be nice. It all seemed such a good idea when I first see the cheap dropeed spindles! and to kick me while I'm down Coolair started stocking them shortly after for £190. New KYB gas shortened shocks were ordered and fitted and the bus now drives nice with no rubbing.

Dented quarter - look at the wobbly reflection!


How it sits now,


Marking out for notching,


Cut, welded, primed.


The carry on of the notching was topped off whilst getting my van off the workramp by ripping off the spare wheel cradle I had mounted under the centre of the van, it got caught and folded back on itself and was swiftly thrown on the scrap pile - a rethink on where to put the spare wheel space saver was required!
After a bit of thinking and measuring I decided to try fitting the spare wheel above the cab under the Viking poptop, there is a wooden base with small built in foam base suitable for a child, so this was removed and the wheel trial fitted, it fits snugly and the roof still closes if the tyre is let down - so cheap electric air compressor purchased and job's a goodun I think as it'll be mainly covered up with the upper panelling bunk support.




Just need to extend the existing vinyl bunk/cushion cover above the cab to completely hide the spare wheel now.

 

...Fitted a new Pioneer DAB, Bluetooth, 3 pre-out stereo, it's the model I've been waiting to reduce in price or come up 2nd hand, and when it came up on ebay £50 cheaper than anywhere else, I thought it was a good time to buy. It came with its own glassmount DAB aerial which I thought would be ideal, being discreet and not needing the bodywork to be drilled - I've a glass mount aerial on my daily driver Golf and it works ok most of time, but does lose signal just when you're listening to something good!

The fitting of the stereo was a easy as I'd prewired the van for 2/3 amplifiers and component speakers, I mounted the glassmount aerial at the side of the windscreen and then was disappointed when it failed to hold onto any signal it could pick up, In an effort to get some reception a further 2 cheapie discreet fitting aerials were tried, both with near non existent results.

Back to google and to research what works and why/why not, after lots of reading I went for a well reviewed and tested Kinetic FM/DAB amplified small bee sting aerial with the idea to mount it on the poptop, I read that when mounting it to fibreglass car bodies or boats etc that it is beneficial to have either some sheet metal or a reflective foil base mounted below with a radius footprint no smaller than the length of the aerial mast, this is apparently to maintain the dipole principle of how an aerial works - which is basically an air gap between 2 separate bits of metal. The aerial at £55 wasn't cheap compared to many available but included the 2 aerial extension leads for both FM/DAB, http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/Kinetic_DRA-6003_FM-AM_DAB_car_aerial.html
I know It's completely out of keeping with the era of the van - but I like DAB radio!
Fitting an aerial shouldn't have been difficult right? In most cars No, but this is a typical T2 camper where everything becomes a hassle - or perhaps it was just bad planning on my part!

I thought about routing the wiring above the cab headlining and down inside the A pillars to keep the inside tidy and free from wires on show - I was concerned at the size of the connectors on the aerial wires as I remember the holes in the top of the A posts for wiring not being that big, but as I had a spare wire already routed through there thought I would be able to use this as a draw wire to pull them through if they were taped on carefully.

I began threading the wire through from the back of the cab headliner but my initial suspicion was confirmed as there was no way the smallest connector would pass through the hole in the A post, so upon pulling the aerial wire back over the headliner towards the rear of the van something snagged and dislodged the headiner tension rod, the headliner dropped causing the front rod to drop aswell. I was gutted as the headlining was near perfect and as anyone who's fitted one knows - they are a pig to fit nicely, at this point I packed up and went home, thinking I would have to remove the front screen to refit the headliner.

Luckily I managed to pull the sides of the headliner down and reset the tension rods into position after putting new rubber boots on the rod ends - as 1 came off and got lost down the A post and another had worn through - these boots are essential for the rods to remain in position when fitting the headlining.



Where the headlining had been previously fitted and worked the edges were fragile where the securing clips had been hammered into place, so now most of the headlining is now superglued to the clips - and its holding so far - I've used a small plastic U profile to cover the edges and tidy it up.

So, back to where I started, I decided to route the wires down inside the B post, around the back of the drivers seat platform and under the cab floor by going through the hole where the brake fluid reservoir tube goes, the leads were about 5.5 metres which is just about enough to wire by this route.

Drilled a hole to fit aerial, cut through the pop top headlining! (It's being renewed anyway) and connected up the aerial leads - was a 2 man job to secure it with the additional thickness of some of sheet steel mounted below, then used the remote feed from the headunit via a relay to power the aerial's amplifier.

Scrap sheet steel base,


In situ, it's also earthed to the body.


A lot of hassle just for an aerial - but it works perfectly now, though looking a bit modern.

 

wow that sits so so well mate, such a good looking van! will read the full thread tomorrow! well done that man!

 

Just sat and read the whole lot this evening. Fantastic stuff. Absolutely love the cab flooring/carpets and blown away that you you tubed how to sew!!! Magnificent stuff.

 

Time for an update.....never really finished this thread off, as the bus was never really finished!

So I’d got this far with it, headlining all redone and temporary as a get me by upholstery in.



So about 3 years of roadworthiness have passed, but little use! I managed less than 1500 miles before giving up on the knackered 1600 engine - it made it miserable to drive, hence the lack of miles. So bitten the bullet and started a Subaru engine/gearbox swap, (separate thread!) alongside restoring the previously restored!

Mocking up engine cradle mounts with Subaru block.


A few bits need doing alongside the engine swap, it needs a repaint where it’s been damaged sitting in the workshop, and some previous bits were never right first time round.

Replaced the sliding door lower track/sill with an original panel cut from another bus, the JK panel I’d originally fitted wasn’t any good and was never going to be 100%. - serious amount of work splicing this in, but now happy with how the door fits and slides now.


This is the replacement panel!

But the track section on the underside was full of grease and and after cleaning it all out revealed a really nice condition panel that I could splice onto an Autocraft middle sill, I left the track and door threshold as one unit, the threshold just needed a good grind down to remove mainly surface rust, didn’t really take pics of the cutting/grafting it in, but there’s plenty of mess to sort out again now with inside/outside bits all needing prepping for paint again.




Hard work removing mig welded panels! Lots of of extra tidying to make it good again.




Rear chassis notches I previously cut in have been removed and replaced with better box sections mounted higher up the shock absorber towers to allow for driveshaft clearance when running low and using the Subaru gearbox - driveshafts now sit about an inch further back than before.






Rear sloping mid floor panel between rear wheel arches wasn’t available first time round about 8 years ago, so the flat sheet steel panel I welded in can now be replaced with the nicely pressed panel that looks spot on.

Work in progress, all cut out ready to go, Just got to make some closing panels for the arch tub sides, and redoing the seatbelt mounts as the tank is coming out and I’ll be able to make a nicer job of it than before.



Near side quarter panel was full of patches and welded up holes from before, compound that with all the filler and distortion/movement caused after cutting the notches in previously its time to replace rather than repair, so initially I was going to put a repair panel in, but now decided to go all the way up to the belt line, only got as far as cutting it off though!



I’m going to be busy over the winter.

 

Photos added so previous post makes some sense!

 

well w

well worth £13o to do that looks great

 

good to see you have been busy.

 

Any progress or updates?

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