I made a post about a month ago about i got my Thames ( http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/24150005.cfm ). Since then ive made a start stripping it out and assessing all the******i have to do to get it back to life.
I figured out how the 'dining table' was set up
and how the seats fold out into 'beds'
This is the first weekend we went to the garage and the magic started.
My girlfriend has taken an unusual interest in helping me to restore the van. I think its great as if i was in the garage myself it could get a bit boring but its a good laugh having her around and helping me out. Its ok right now at the stripping down stage but i think she may get bored when I'm welding and cutting **** up. I was thinking i could buy her a sewing machine and she could re-upholster the seats and curtains etc..
Yeah, check out those comfy ugly slacks I'm rocking.
I got Jana started on removing the light lenses and units etc.. she even managed to get the rear bumpers off herself. I don't mean to sound patronizing but when someone calls a ratchet the "clicky-thing" its quite a big step for her.
I even bought her a special tool kit for the job, shes since bought herself a proper tool bag and pliers set.
First door removed. It was a ***** as the hinge bolts were rusted solid, lucky for me there is a huge tool store opposite the garage (machine mart) so i managed to get an impact screwdriver.
All the seats and interior came out easy, the gas cooker was a bit of a joke really, The cage that held the gas bottle underneath the floor was about 8 inches from the ground and about an inch from the propshaft, then the gas pipe went to the cooker where someone had used a T-piece for some reason, with one pipe going to the hob and the other pipe was bent round a few times to stop gas leaking.... i don't know why the never just used a single pipe. There was a lot of cork insulation which i think had been stuck on with tar. Oh what fun i had with a scraper. Jana 'helped', but well, she got bored of it a lot quicker than i did.
Handsome eh,
Then i got stuck into the wiring loom, there was a lot of house-hold wire in one colour for switches and lights all over the place. I know I'm going to be re-doing the interior lighting differently so those got binned and i kept the standard loom. Note the intensity of my concentration.
The next weekend we started on taking the pop-up roof off. The fabric of the roof its self isn't too bad. There is a rip in it but its along the seam so once stitched up it will be ok. It was held down with aluminium strips and brackets.
WEST SIDE Y'ALL
peek-a-boo
Starting to get quite bare now, in total we found 3 dead birds in the van, 2 of which were skeletons and the other was quite fresh looking underneath the radiator intake, perhaps from the drive home on the trailer, oops.
We got the other door off and then i set about the lower panels, there pretty easy to come off as there all bolt on panels, something Ford promoted as a key selling point apparently.
The right lower panel its self was not bad, just a bit of surface rust and a few dings. Even behind the panel it was not bad. You can see the battery tray is pretty much gone but thats not really a problem at all, its just a welded up box. Although a lot of rust came flaking off as you can see.
The back of the wheel well is the worst, good thing is a lot of the panels to replace are just flat sheet with bends in it.
The other side was a bit harder to take off as it had spot welds along the side door opening but it came off none the less.
During all this a few bolts were completely seized and i had to grind them off, sending sparks flying. I finally thought id be a lot safer doing all this **** with the petrol tank out. Only problem was the bolts underneath had seized and the only access was to rip the floor out and take them off from the top.
So out the floor it went. The guy that rents the other side of the garage popped down and gave me a hand. The floor was inch thick plywood and all the coachscrews holding it down were, as you could guess, seized. We came up with a plan of him using a big lever and me drilling lots of holes around the coachscrews. You can see the petrol tank is quite small for something to go travelling with, may need to find something bigger. Once i disconnected the tank i poured the petrol away and it was pure orange, like irn-bru. Must have been laying in the tank for years.
The weekend after my brother came along instead of Jana as i wanted to get the engine/gearbox and the rest of the glass out. We even managed to get the rest of the doors off.
Glass out
Checking out how to remove the engine. We disconnected the gearbox first and tied rope around the engine to lift it straight up.
My garage buddys engine crane came in handy.
CHEEESE!!
A full 53bhp or so of pure antique metal
This is the hole that has been left from taking the motor out, The plan is to replace it with a 3 litre Cologne/Essex V6, i know it fits as ive seen the set up before in a Thames van. I'm going to go for an automatic box too as i just want it as a cruiser and i hope to keep the column change and rig it up to the autobox.
Thats as far as ive gotten with the van. I'm pretty much at the stage where i need to take the suspension, steering and rear axle off but before i do that i need to make up a way of supporting the van off the ground. I was looking at building a rotisserie but i came up with a slightly different idea. I'm going to build 2 huge dodecagons that split into 2 pieces. That way i can roll it on its side and sandblast/repair underneath then roll it back, unbolt the top half of the dodecagons and work on the roof etc..
Only thing is its going to cost about ยฃ180 in material so i need to do a few homers to make up the money for that. I also just put down a deposit to rent a new house with Jana so money is quite tight. Next update will probably be in a few more weeks.
I figured out how the 'dining table' was set up
and how the seats fold out into 'beds'
This is the first weekend we went to the garage and the magic started.
My girlfriend has taken an unusual interest in helping me to restore the van. I think its great as if i was in the garage myself it could get a bit boring but its a good laugh having her around and helping me out. Its ok right now at the stripping down stage but i think she may get bored when I'm welding and cutting **** up. I was thinking i could buy her a sewing machine and she could re-upholster the seats and curtains etc..
Yeah, check out those comfy ugly slacks I'm rocking.
I got Jana started on removing the light lenses and units etc.. she even managed to get the rear bumpers off herself. I don't mean to sound patronizing but when someone calls a ratchet the "clicky-thing" its quite a big step for her.
I even bought her a special tool kit for the job, shes since bought herself a proper tool bag and pliers set.
First door removed. It was a ***** as the hinge bolts were rusted solid, lucky for me there is a huge tool store opposite the garage (machine mart) so i managed to get an impact screwdriver.
All the seats and interior came out easy, the gas cooker was a bit of a joke really, The cage that held the gas bottle underneath the floor was about 8 inches from the ground and about an inch from the propshaft, then the gas pipe went to the cooker where someone had used a T-piece for some reason, with one pipe going to the hob and the other pipe was bent round a few times to stop gas leaking.... i don't know why the never just used a single pipe. There was a lot of cork insulation which i think had been stuck on with tar. Oh what fun i had with a scraper. Jana 'helped', but well, she got bored of it a lot quicker than i did.
Handsome eh,
Then i got stuck into the wiring loom, there was a lot of house-hold wire in one colour for switches and lights all over the place. I know I'm going to be re-doing the interior lighting differently so those got binned and i kept the standard loom. Note the intensity of my concentration.
The next weekend we started on taking the pop-up roof off. The fabric of the roof its self isn't too bad. There is a rip in it but its along the seam so once stitched up it will be ok. It was held down with aluminium strips and brackets.
WEST SIDE Y'ALL
peek-a-boo
Starting to get quite bare now, in total we found 3 dead birds in the van, 2 of which were skeletons and the other was quite fresh looking underneath the radiator intake, perhaps from the drive home on the trailer, oops.
We got the other door off and then i set about the lower panels, there pretty easy to come off as there all bolt on panels, something Ford promoted as a key selling point apparently.
The right lower panel its self was not bad, just a bit of surface rust and a few dings. Even behind the panel it was not bad. You can see the battery tray is pretty much gone but thats not really a problem at all, its just a welded up box. Although a lot of rust came flaking off as you can see.
The back of the wheel well is the worst, good thing is a lot of the panels to replace are just flat sheet with bends in it.
The other side was a bit harder to take off as it had spot welds along the side door opening but it came off none the less.
During all this a few bolts were completely seized and i had to grind them off, sending sparks flying. I finally thought id be a lot safer doing all this **** with the petrol tank out. Only problem was the bolts underneath had seized and the only access was to rip the floor out and take them off from the top.
So out the floor it went. The guy that rents the other side of the garage popped down and gave me a hand. The floor was inch thick plywood and all the coachscrews holding it down were, as you could guess, seized. We came up with a plan of him using a big lever and me drilling lots of holes around the coachscrews. You can see the petrol tank is quite small for something to go travelling with, may need to find something bigger. Once i disconnected the tank i poured the petrol away and it was pure orange, like irn-bru. Must have been laying in the tank for years.
The weekend after my brother came along instead of Jana as i wanted to get the engine/gearbox and the rest of the glass out. We even managed to get the rest of the doors off.
Glass out
Checking out how to remove the engine. We disconnected the gearbox first and tied rope around the engine to lift it straight up.
My garage buddys engine crane came in handy.
CHEEESE!!
A full 53bhp or so of pure antique metal
This is the hole that has been left from taking the motor out, The plan is to replace it with a 3 litre Cologne/Essex V6, i know it fits as ive seen the set up before in a Thames van. I'm going to go for an automatic box too as i just want it as a cruiser and i hope to keep the column change and rig it up to the autobox.
Thats as far as ive gotten with the van. I'm pretty much at the stage where i need to take the suspension, steering and rear axle off but before i do that i need to make up a way of supporting the van off the ground. I was looking at building a rotisserie but i came up with a slightly different idea. I'm going to build 2 huge dodecagons that split into 2 pieces. That way i can roll it on its side and sandblast/repair underneath then roll it back, unbolt the top half of the dodecagons and work on the roof etc..
Only thing is its going to cost about ยฃ180 in material so i need to do a few homers to make up the money for that. I also just put down a deposit to rent a new house with Jana so money is quite tight. Next update will probably be in a few more weeks.
I havent actually done anythign to the van this weekend but, i did buy the donor vehicle for it.
Check it out, 1994 LS400 with all the goodies. 107,000 miles which isnt much on this V8. The cars good but it has a bit of slight damage to the front drivers side and a bit of a crack in the windshield. The idea is i will drive it until i need the engine so i can get used to the power and see if there is any niggles with the engine.
Heres the damage, apparantly during the winter the guy couldnt get it up a hill so he left it at the bottom and someone hit it and drove off with out leaving detail. Its not bad, just need to bolt the bumper back in place. It does have a crack in the windshield though, which i hope wont get worse.
And the reason i bought it.
Check it out, 1994 LS400 with all the goodies. 107,000 miles which isnt much on this V8. The cars good but it has a bit of slight damage to the front drivers side and a bit of a crack in the windshield. The idea is i will drive it until i need the engine so i can get used to the power and see if there is any niggles with the engine.
Heres the damage, apparantly during the winter the guy couldnt get it up a hill so he left it at the bottom and someone hit it and drove off with out leaving detail. Its not bad, just need to bolt the bumper back in place. It does have a crack in the windshield though, which i hope wont get worse.
And the reason i bought it.
Ask, and the shall recieve ๐
End of a good weeks worth of metal work on the van. I wanted to get the upper part of the van done so I could get ready to attach the guttering but I didn't quite get that far. I only have the front, above the windscreen to finish off but I think I made good progress none the less. First thing I started on was the upper channel just behind the drivers door.
This is how it looked.
So, I had to cut the******out which left me with this.
I considered cutting further down the panel, just below where the gutter would meet as it is quite pitted. I went over it with the wire brush in the grinder and it stayed in one piece so I left it as it is, if its strong enough to take wire hitting it at 11,000 rpm then that's good enough for me. I will fill the pits with filler later on.
You can see the panel that I cut out is missing what remained of the face that held the gutter. I cut it off so I could get a better gauge as to the curve it has. Its a very slight curve but just enough to make extra work for me. As the panel is 880mm long I decided it may be easier to cut two pieces at 440mm long and fold them separately.
I marked and cut them out. Notice that one them has the bracket that gets folded and bolts the roof down. I took a bit of extra time to work that out on the panel to where it should be. Then, halfway through folding it I realised I had folded it the opposite way to how it should have been, doh! . So I cut it off flush and decided to just cut one out and weld it in place when it was finished.
Now, I don't have any fancy shrinking/stretching machines and my skills aren't quite up to that task manually yet. I can do a wee bit of basic stretching but anything that has more than two faces just confuses me so I cheated. I cut strips into the panel so I could bend it then fill the gaps with weld later.
I tacked it to the body and clamped a bar inside to support the new panel and minimise distortion.
Then, after learning my lesson with the previous channel I made. I welded very patiently and checked it at every stage. It never distorted as much this time. I mean its not perfect but its passable.
A good tip for filling bigger gaps. Copper, its a welders dream. I never really thought about using it before for helping to fill big gaps until I read about a talented fabrication on the retro rides forum. You can see in the previous photo where the new panel meets the body just above the windows I had gaps that were about 10mm big in some places. Instead of cutting a strip and welding that in I used a bit of copper pipe that I flattened out with my hammer and held it on the inside. Then give it a few spots of weld and because the mild steel doesn't stick to the copper it just gives it something to rest on instead of blowing through. ( I don't know if I explained that very well).
With that done the next thing on my list was the rear. One of the corners was ok and just needed a good wire-brushing and a coat of the rust-converter. The other side, well.....
I began by cutting off the rust ( beginning to be quite a theme)
With the******out the way I managed to clean it up the best I could and sprayed some rust converter inside the box section using my ghetto pressure gun.
Its quite a tight bend so I decided to make it out of individual flat panels and tack them together.
Using the copper pipe trick it made it a lot easier to fill the gaps and as it was all tacked together to the body it never really distorted anything.
Here is the other side that I never had to do anything to for comparison.
Whilst I was at the back I remembered about all the rust that was spreading through the spot welds at the seams.
I drilled out the spot welds so I could separate the panels and clear out the rust and prepare the panels.
I then clamped them tight to weld them back up.
I also went around all the spot welds on the drivers side of the van and done the same to all the areas that needed it.
So far, the rear and both sides of the upper van are now ready for the guttering (which I still have to fold) . I was now at the stage to start on the front, above the windscreen. To do that I needed to attach the channel I made previously, just above the passengers side. After looking at the A post and humming and hawing, general procrastinating and filling my time by filling in some pinholes around the front windscreen.....
....... It occurred to me that it would be silly to attach the channel before I fixed all the holes going down the A post as they both get attached at the top left corner to each other.
The A post has an inner channel that is covered by the outer body panel so the only way to properly get access to it is by *gulp* cutting out the nice un-damaged body panel. I thought long and hard about any other way of fixing it without having to do that but in the end I don't want to do a half-arsed job, I want to do it properly and then I can forget about it.
I drilled out the spotwelds going along the inside.
Then thought about the best way to remove a section. I took about 2 hours building up the courage to cut the whole length of the A-post and make a start.
Now, here's where I feel a bit foolish. The exact moment I had cut the panel off I had a very late eureka moment. Instead of cutting down the nicely curved A-post. I should have drilled out the spot welds along the inside of the windscreen opening and then make 2 smaller cuts just above and below the opening, thus leaving the A-post intact, bollocks, oh well.
Anyway, im glad I did go the whole way and get right into the inner panel as its pretty rotten in there.
The inner channel was cut out and I done the usual, clean, rust treatment and etch primer.
With the inner cut out I could get all the sizes I needed to make a replica.
I cut and folded the basic form of the panel.
You can see at the top it spreads out and also curves in both directions. I cut the channel down one edge and spread them out. I even managed to do a little real stretching/shrinking along with the old cut and shut. I cut a V out of some sheet and curved it a little and tacked it into place. I must have lined it up with the body 100 times but taking the time to do that pays off in the end. The bottom detail of the original panel wasn't actually rotten so I was able to cheat a little and cut that piece off and attach it to the new panel.
A little bit of a clean up and voila, a new-ish panel to weld back in.
A little bit of a de-rail but if you intend on cutting a lot of sheet metal I really recommend buying one of these.
I got mine from machine-mart for about ยฃ45 . I haven't really seen it anywhere else but its came in really handy. In fact, its what I turn to most when cutting sheet. It can handle up to 1.6mm sheet and can cut slight curves. It works by placing the sheet between the two discs, the upper wheel is serrated so it grips the sheet and the bottom wheel is a blade. When you pull the lever down it pulls the sheet into the tool and slices through he sheet easily without distortion, It even handles slight curves.
Anyway, back to the A-post. I tacked the inner panel back in and seam welded it up.
After I cleaned it up I was able to spotweld the upper channel I had made previously above the door opening.
Then came the other moment I was dreading, the reverse of cutting the length of the A-post. The attaching of the A-post. I really really really did not want this to get distorted (obviously) so I took even extra more patience with it. I tacked it along the seam then as I couldn't clamp the spot-weld area I went and bought some rivets and riveted it to the A-post.
After about 2 hours of careful welding, and waiting for it to cool down then repeating I was left with this.
After cleaning it up I got this.
I don't want to blow my own trumpet but I think after all this practise and time spent on the van im getting quite the hang of it. Its obviously got a few slight bumps in it but nothing a light skim of filler wont fix.
I could then attach both new channels together at the corner.
And a view of what I was trying to achieve in the first place. (don't mind the lower part, that will be dealt with later, im sticking to the top 1/3 of the van first)
before:
After:
That's pretty much all I got done on my week off. I spent about 42 hours this week doing all this. It feels great to have gotten so much done in a short period of time. I wish I never had to work and I could do this all day long but alas, life doesn't work that way.
Also, ive said it before but i really do appreciate everyones comments and suggestions. It helps to keep the momentum going and makes me feel pretty good about what im doing, cheers!
End of a good weeks worth of metal work on the van. I wanted to get the upper part of the van done so I could get ready to attach the guttering but I didn't quite get that far. I only have the front, above the windscreen to finish off but I think I made good progress none the less. First thing I started on was the upper channel just behind the drivers door.
This is how it looked.
So, I had to cut the******out which left me with this.
I considered cutting further down the panel, just below where the gutter would meet as it is quite pitted. I went over it with the wire brush in the grinder and it stayed in one piece so I left it as it is, if its strong enough to take wire hitting it at 11,000 rpm then that's good enough for me. I will fill the pits with filler later on.
You can see the panel that I cut out is missing what remained of the face that held the gutter. I cut it off so I could get a better gauge as to the curve it has. Its a very slight curve but just enough to make extra work for me. As the panel is 880mm long I decided it may be easier to cut two pieces at 440mm long and fold them separately.
I marked and cut them out. Notice that one them has the bracket that gets folded and bolts the roof down. I took a bit of extra time to work that out on the panel to where it should be. Then, halfway through folding it I realised I had folded it the opposite way to how it should have been, doh! . So I cut it off flush and decided to just cut one out and weld it in place when it was finished.
Now, I don't have any fancy shrinking/stretching machines and my skills aren't quite up to that task manually yet. I can do a wee bit of basic stretching but anything that has more than two faces just confuses me so I cheated. I cut strips into the panel so I could bend it then fill the gaps with weld later.
I tacked it to the body and clamped a bar inside to support the new panel and minimise distortion.
Then, after learning my lesson with the previous channel I made. I welded very patiently and checked it at every stage. It never distorted as much this time. I mean its not perfect but its passable.
A good tip for filling bigger gaps. Copper, its a welders dream. I never really thought about using it before for helping to fill big gaps until I read about a talented fabrication on the retro rides forum. You can see in the previous photo where the new panel meets the body just above the windows I had gaps that were about 10mm big in some places. Instead of cutting a strip and welding that in I used a bit of copper pipe that I flattened out with my hammer and held it on the inside. Then give it a few spots of weld and because the mild steel doesn't stick to the copper it just gives it something to rest on instead of blowing through. ( I don't know if I explained that very well).
With that done the next thing on my list was the rear. One of the corners was ok and just needed a good wire-brushing and a coat of the rust-converter. The other side, well.....
I began by cutting off the rust ( beginning to be quite a theme)
With the******out the way I managed to clean it up the best I could and sprayed some rust converter inside the box section using my ghetto pressure gun.
Its quite a tight bend so I decided to make it out of individual flat panels and tack them together.
Using the copper pipe trick it made it a lot easier to fill the gaps and as it was all tacked together to the body it never really distorted anything.
Here is the other side that I never had to do anything to for comparison.
Whilst I was at the back I remembered about all the rust that was spreading through the spot welds at the seams.
I drilled out the spot welds so I could separate the panels and clear out the rust and prepare the panels.
I then clamped them tight to weld them back up.
I also went around all the spot welds on the drivers side of the van and done the same to all the areas that needed it.
So far, the rear and both sides of the upper van are now ready for the guttering (which I still have to fold) . I was now at the stage to start on the front, above the windscreen. To do that I needed to attach the channel I made previously, just above the passengers side. After looking at the A post and humming and hawing, general procrastinating and filling my time by filling in some pinholes around the front windscreen.....
....... It occurred to me that it would be silly to attach the channel before I fixed all the holes going down the A post as they both get attached at the top left corner to each other.
The A post has an inner channel that is covered by the outer body panel so the only way to properly get access to it is by *gulp* cutting out the nice un-damaged body panel. I thought long and hard about any other way of fixing it without having to do that but in the end I don't want to do a half-arsed job, I want to do it properly and then I can forget about it.
I drilled out the spotwelds going along the inside.
Then thought about the best way to remove a section. I took about 2 hours building up the courage to cut the whole length of the A-post and make a start.
Now, here's where I feel a bit foolish. The exact moment I had cut the panel off I had a very late eureka moment. Instead of cutting down the nicely curved A-post. I should have drilled out the spot welds along the inside of the windscreen opening and then make 2 smaller cuts just above and below the opening, thus leaving the A-post intact, bollocks, oh well.
Anyway, im glad I did go the whole way and get right into the inner panel as its pretty rotten in there.
The inner channel was cut out and I done the usual, clean, rust treatment and etch primer.
With the inner cut out I could get all the sizes I needed to make a replica.
I cut and folded the basic form of the panel.
You can see at the top it spreads out and also curves in both directions. I cut the channel down one edge and spread them out. I even managed to do a little real stretching/shrinking along with the old cut and shut. I cut a V out of some sheet and curved it a little and tacked it into place. I must have lined it up with the body 100 times but taking the time to do that pays off in the end. The bottom detail of the original panel wasn't actually rotten so I was able to cheat a little and cut that piece off and attach it to the new panel.
A little bit of a clean up and voila, a new-ish panel to weld back in.
A little bit of a de-rail but if you intend on cutting a lot of sheet metal I really recommend buying one of these.
I got mine from machine-mart for about ยฃ45 . I haven't really seen it anywhere else but its came in really handy. In fact, its what I turn to most when cutting sheet. It can handle up to 1.6mm sheet and can cut slight curves. It works by placing the sheet between the two discs, the upper wheel is serrated so it grips the sheet and the bottom wheel is a blade. When you pull the lever down it pulls the sheet into the tool and slices through he sheet easily without distortion, It even handles slight curves.
Anyway, back to the A-post. I tacked the inner panel back in and seam welded it up.
After I cleaned it up I was able to spotweld the upper channel I had made previously above the door opening.
Then came the other moment I was dreading, the reverse of cutting the length of the A-post. The attaching of the A-post. I really really really did not want this to get distorted (obviously) so I took even extra more patience with it. I tacked it along the seam then as I couldn't clamp the spot-weld area I went and bought some rivets and riveted it to the A-post.
After about 2 hours of careful welding, and waiting for it to cool down then repeating I was left with this.
After cleaning it up I got this.
I don't want to blow my own trumpet but I think after all this practise and time spent on the van im getting quite the hang of it. Its obviously got a few slight bumps in it but nothing a light skim of filler wont fix.
I could then attach both new channels together at the corner.
And a view of what I was trying to achieve in the first place. (don't mind the lower part, that will be dealt with later, im sticking to the top 1/3 of the van first)
before:
After:
That's pretty much all I got done on my week off. I spent about 42 hours this week doing all this. It feels great to have gotten so much done in a short period of time. I wish I never had to work and I could do this all day long but alas, life doesn't work that way.
Also, ive said it before but i really do appreciate everyones comments and suggestions. It helps to keep the momentum going and makes me feel pretty good about what im doing, cheers!
