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 £180 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 £180 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.
27/11/2011
I got the guttering all welded up.
I think it was around 200 of those little slits to weld (booooooring), it has distorted slightly but ive been able to get the worst of it out. I went and bought a new toy to help me, a sliding hammer. Similar to this one.
It came in handy as i cant actually get a hammer in to tap the gutter out. and if i used a bit of wood , the angle i have to hit it at would push the gutter down at the same time. With the sliding hammer i can pull it out horizontally...... if that all makes sence? it does in my head anyway.
Unfortunatly, just as i got to welding the joining pieces of the guttering on the outside i ran out of Argon gas, bugger. I now need to sort that out, I usually get my gas through BOC which costs about £80 for a yearly rent, £60 a re-fill, and £15 misc. Ive heard of a place local that does it for £57 a bottle and a refundable £55 deposit, think il check them out.
In the mean time i thought i better cut the bracing out of the door frames and check to make sure the doors still fit and the guttering looks ok with the doors inplace.
Passanger door looks ok, the frame doesnt have the rubber seals in so the door is fitting further in than it will be when finished. the gap looks pretty even all-round.
Mmmhhmm, looks like this door skin and frame will need a bit of work too.
Drivers side looks not bad either, there is a bit of a bigger gap at the top between the frame and gutter, mabey about 3 or 4 mm bigger but i could make up for that in the door frame if it comes to it.
This door skin and frame isnt quite so bad.
When i went to the garage today i had planned on just washing my car but i decided to start the roof plans. I had to make a table 4 and a half foot wide and just over 11 foot long. My brother got me 2 old tables that his work was going to chuck out so using them and two bits of 50x50 from the bracing i made a frame for the table. I then screwed down some MDF down to make a large work surface.
My mate Crighton came over after his work and helped me to put the roof ontop of the table. It was good to see the roof at a better angle again, ready to asses what needs done. 3 of the corners are pretty******and all along the drivers side has rotted too.
Passangers side front corner.
drivers side front corner.
drivers side rear corner (probably the worst corner).
along the driver side.
The main panel overall isnt that bad though, just around the edges.
The plan is to now cut off the remainder of the old guttering on the roof, strip the paint and rust, repair the sections that need done and re-attach. It has a few strengthing ribs inside that bolt to the main body of the van and originally a lip that went aroudn the perimeter of the rood that would be spotwelded to the guttering. Im not going to do that though as the chances are, water could go in the seams and start the whole rust proces again. Instead, im going to not do the lip and i will run a continous weld all around the roof. With the tig it should keep it neat.
More picture of the roof repair to follow when i get some more argon.
I got the guttering all welded up.
I think it was around 200 of those little slits to weld (booooooring), it has distorted slightly but ive been able to get the worst of it out. I went and bought a new toy to help me, a sliding hammer. Similar to this one.
It came in handy as i cant actually get a hammer in to tap the gutter out. and if i used a bit of wood , the angle i have to hit it at would push the gutter down at the same time. With the sliding hammer i can pull it out horizontally...... if that all makes sence? it does in my head anyway.
Unfortunatly, just as i got to welding the joining pieces of the guttering on the outside i ran out of Argon gas, bugger. I now need to sort that out, I usually get my gas through BOC which costs about £80 for a yearly rent, £60 a re-fill, and £15 misc. Ive heard of a place local that does it for £57 a bottle and a refundable £55 deposit, think il check them out.
In the mean time i thought i better cut the bracing out of the door frames and check to make sure the doors still fit and the guttering looks ok with the doors inplace.
Passanger door looks ok, the frame doesnt have the rubber seals in so the door is fitting further in than it will be when finished. the gap looks pretty even all-round.
Mmmhhmm, looks like this door skin and frame will need a bit of work too.
Drivers side looks not bad either, there is a bit of a bigger gap at the top between the frame and gutter, mabey about 3 or 4 mm bigger but i could make up for that in the door frame if it comes to it.
This door skin and frame isnt quite so bad.
When i went to the garage today i had planned on just washing my car but i decided to start the roof plans. I had to make a table 4 and a half foot wide and just over 11 foot long. My brother got me 2 old tables that his work was going to chuck out so using them and two bits of 50x50 from the bracing i made a frame for the table. I then screwed down some MDF down to make a large work surface.
My mate Crighton came over after his work and helped me to put the roof ontop of the table. It was good to see the roof at a better angle again, ready to asses what needs done. 3 of the corners are pretty******and all along the drivers side has rotted too.
Passangers side front corner.
drivers side front corner.
drivers side rear corner (probably the worst corner).
along the driver side.
The main panel overall isnt that bad though, just around the edges.
The plan is to now cut off the remainder of the old guttering on the roof, strip the paint and rust, repair the sections that need done and re-attach. It has a few strengthing ribs inside that bolt to the main body of the van and originally a lip that went aroudn the perimeter of the rood that would be spotwelded to the guttering. Im not going to do that though as the chances are, water could go in the seams and start the whole rust proces again. Instead, im going to not do the lip and i will run a continous weld all around the roof. With the tig it should keep it neat.
More picture of the roof repair to follow when i get some more argon.
cheer everyone.
12/11/2011
I've been concentrating on the guttering since the last update. The last time i wrote i had just tacked the front gutter in place. Continuing from the front i went along the passengers side.
I've tried to keep the gutter sticking out 10mm from underneath. I'm not being too critical, +/- a couple of mm wont hurt and probably keep it more authentic looking.
You can see that i actually had to cut the back angle off the guttering. It turns out that I should have had 2 different angles of guttering made up but , well, i had already spent £85 on this stuff so lets not waste it eh. It wont affect the strength or anything. It just meant i had to be more careful about the angle it laid at.
The bits above the doors were a little more awkward. The roof and guttering curve yet the door is actually flat. So at the widest point you actually see about 18mm of guttering. I couldn't fit the doors as i have the braces welded in place. I drilled 2 screws into the body of the van and tied a bit of string taught so had a straight edge to substitute for the door frame.
I then decided to make a curved piece to join the front and side together. It went easier than i thought and it was another good use of the shrinker/stretcher i bought.
Like i said earlier, i had to cut the back edge of the guttering. To help with making sure it would stay at the right angle now i tacked a piece of 12mm Square bar to the body and clamped the gutter to it. That way i could tack it and know it wouldn't distort.
I made my way to the rear. The rear gutter will actually stick out 15mm from the doors. Which isn't stock but i think it looks ok none the less.
Another corner piece.
Then the last piece to join the side to the rear.
Another corner piece shrunk to shape.
If you were wondering how i managed to get the curved sections this is what i done.
First i got a piece of thin card (tesco sell them in the art section quite cheaply) and traced the curve and cut it out to match.
Then i measured 10mm outwards and drew the curve. Ikea is a good source of free pencils 😉
Cut a small section of guttering.
Use the shrinking jaws to make the curve.
Then check it everynow and then with the template until you get it near enough bang-on.
After a little tweak, adjusting and cutting you end up with a corner piece ready to be tacked on.
Its been a little tricky trying to join the sections together to make it look like on piece without kinks.
Last few section to tack on the drivers side.
And were done. The whole guttering tacked into place, yey!
Looking slightly different to how it was when i bought it. I like looking through my old photos to see how far ive came along.
Now i get to start another tedious task of welding up the slits i made to make the guttering more flexible. I cut every 50mm on the gutter and there is roughly 10 metres of guttering so that is nearly 200 slits to now weld up, not so yey.
This is how I am planning to do it without making more work for myself and to hopefully not distort the guttering much.
Using the old copper plate trick again i experimented on a little bit. I cut a piece of polished copper and clamped it into place underneath a slit.
Then used the Tig welder to fill in the gap.
As the mild steel doesn't stick to the copper it leaves it flush underneath, the bit that everyone will see. this is exactly how it looked once i took the copper off, doesn't even need ground down. The good thing about the copper is it acts a bit like a heat sink too so it should hopefully help to keep the distortion down.
I continued on for about another foot. Stitch welding the gutter to the body as well
After a little tidy up with the grinder and a light coat of etch primer i got this, not bad. It added a lot of strength back into the gutter too.
It had moved slightly but il wait until its all welded in place before i mess around neating it up with the hammer and dollys. Hopefully it wont take me too long to get through the welding then i can make a start on the roof panel.
12/11/2011
I've been concentrating on the guttering since the last update. The last time i wrote i had just tacked the front gutter in place. Continuing from the front i went along the passengers side.
I've tried to keep the gutter sticking out 10mm from underneath. I'm not being too critical, +/- a couple of mm wont hurt and probably keep it more authentic looking.
You can see that i actually had to cut the back angle off the guttering. It turns out that I should have had 2 different angles of guttering made up but , well, i had already spent £85 on this stuff so lets not waste it eh. It wont affect the strength or anything. It just meant i had to be more careful about the angle it laid at.
The bits above the doors were a little more awkward. The roof and guttering curve yet the door is actually flat. So at the widest point you actually see about 18mm of guttering. I couldn't fit the doors as i have the braces welded in place. I drilled 2 screws into the body of the van and tied a bit of string taught so had a straight edge to substitute for the door frame.
I then decided to make a curved piece to join the front and side together. It went easier than i thought and it was another good use of the shrinker/stretcher i bought.
Like i said earlier, i had to cut the back edge of the guttering. To help with making sure it would stay at the right angle now i tacked a piece of 12mm Square bar to the body and clamped the gutter to it. That way i could tack it and know it wouldn't distort.
I made my way to the rear. The rear gutter will actually stick out 15mm from the doors. Which isn't stock but i think it looks ok none the less.
Another corner piece.
Then the last piece to join the side to the rear.
Another corner piece shrunk to shape.
If you were wondering how i managed to get the curved sections this is what i done.
First i got a piece of thin card (tesco sell them in the art section quite cheaply) and traced the curve and cut it out to match.
Then i measured 10mm outwards and drew the curve. Ikea is a good source of free pencils 😉
Cut a small section of guttering.
Use the shrinking jaws to make the curve.
Then check it everynow and then with the template until you get it near enough bang-on.
After a little tweak, adjusting and cutting you end up with a corner piece ready to be tacked on.
Its been a little tricky trying to join the sections together to make it look like on piece without kinks.
Last few section to tack on the drivers side.
And were done. The whole guttering tacked into place, yey!
Looking slightly different to how it was when i bought it. I like looking through my old photos to see how far ive came along.
Now i get to start another tedious task of welding up the slits i made to make the guttering more flexible. I cut every 50mm on the gutter and there is roughly 10 metres of guttering so that is nearly 200 slits to now weld up, not so yey.
This is how I am planning to do it without making more work for myself and to hopefully not distort the guttering much.
Using the old copper plate trick again i experimented on a little bit. I cut a piece of polished copper and clamped it into place underneath a slit.
Then used the Tig welder to fill in the gap.
As the mild steel doesn't stick to the copper it leaves it flush underneath, the bit that everyone will see. this is exactly how it looked once i took the copper off, doesn't even need ground down. The good thing about the copper is it acts a bit like a heat sink too so it should hopefully help to keep the distortion down.
I continued on for about another foot. Stitch welding the gutter to the body as well
After a little tidy up with the grinder and a light coat of etch primer i got this, not bad. It added a lot of strength back into the gutter too.
It had moved slightly but il wait until its all welded in place before i mess around neating it up with the hammer and dollys. Hopefully it wont take me too long to get through the welding then i can make a start on the roof panel.
