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.
February 2012
I have done a lot of welding since my last update. With the roof back on it gave me another boost to get on with it. The next task was 'How do i get an even gap between the roof and gutter'. After a bit of thinking i cut some 12mm thick MDF into rough 3 - 4 inch squares and wedged them in between the gutter and roof which gave me a good size of spacing and held everything down tight.
With the wood in place i could go inbetween them and tack weld the roof in place, then when i took the wood out i was left with a nice finish.
I started to weld it up once everything was tacked, starting with the front.
The majority of the roof was sitting nicely on the gutter but towards the rear the gap was huge, about 12mm in places. I just decided to put lots of weld down and build it up. Once it was welded it gets ground down anyway.
Once it was all welded and cleaned up I got a bit carried away and couldn't wait to start the lead-loading. I really wanted to lead the roof to fill any pin-holes that may have been left with the welding but i also wanted to lead between the gutter and body to add extra strength. I took more photos of this part but its not really relevant anymore, I will explain why.
I had spent about 2 hours or so on this bit, it was my first try with the lead and after spreading it about, heating it up and sanding it to a nice shape i realised i was wasting my time. You see, when i would go to put the lead inbetween the body and gutter i would have to re-heat the gutter area up again which would melt the lead and it would all fall out. I'm really glad i realised that before i had done the whole roof. Another one of those restorers lessons, think and plan always. The plan now is to do the lead-loading between the body and gutter first then i will use body-filler to tidy up the welds on the roof.
Easiest way to do lead-loading is on a flat, where gravity can help the process. Time to flip the van on its roof. I had never actually put the van a full 180 degrees over before so this was novel for me. I got Alastair ( guy i share the garage with) to help me roll it over as the weight of the chassis being at the bottom would now be at the top and just a bit more likely to keep going once i start to roll it. I did hurt my back though, i was trying with all my might to lift it and i never realised Alastair thought it was going to roll too much so he was putting resistance against me rolling. I did feel something in my back twang a little but it wasn't until the next day the pain started., anyway, it will heal. It was unusual to see the van upside down so i was quite excited to care about my back at that moment.
Heres how i have been doing the lead-loading.
First i get the grinder with a wire wheel attached and clean the metal up, then i get a rag with white spirit (turpentine) to remove any grease or oil that may be left.
Once thats been done i get my tinning paste and brush it on to the metal. Using a handheld blow torch i heat it up until it starts to bubble and all the lead in the tinning paste melts onto the body. Once its cooled down slightly i use a damp brush to wipe away the paste but leave the thin coat of lead on the panel.
Then i use the blow torch to heat the end of the stick of lead and kind of push and twist it on the body until it snaps off. Then using the wooden paddle rubbed in tallow i heat the lead up to different states depending on what i want to do with it, usually a buttery consistency. Then i use the paddle to smush/prod/poke it about until I'm happy with it.
Once I'm happy with it its time to file it down then sand it smooth with 80 grit. I will be going over it with a light skim of filler in the future.
I managed to get the whole drivers side and front done in the same way.
Getting there, slowly but surely i will be nearing the stage when i get to prime the upper half and thats the next milestone I'm looking forward to.
I have done a lot of welding since my last update. With the roof back on it gave me another boost to get on with it. The next task was 'How do i get an even gap between the roof and gutter'. After a bit of thinking i cut some 12mm thick MDF into rough 3 - 4 inch squares and wedged them in between the gutter and roof which gave me a good size of spacing and held everything down tight.
With the wood in place i could go inbetween them and tack weld the roof in place, then when i took the wood out i was left with a nice finish.
I started to weld it up once everything was tacked, starting with the front.
The majority of the roof was sitting nicely on the gutter but towards the rear the gap was huge, about 12mm in places. I just decided to put lots of weld down and build it up. Once it was welded it gets ground down anyway.
Once it was all welded and cleaned up I got a bit carried away and couldn't wait to start the lead-loading. I really wanted to lead the roof to fill any pin-holes that may have been left with the welding but i also wanted to lead between the gutter and body to add extra strength. I took more photos of this part but its not really relevant anymore, I will explain why.
I had spent about 2 hours or so on this bit, it was my first try with the lead and after spreading it about, heating it up and sanding it to a nice shape i realised i was wasting my time. You see, when i would go to put the lead inbetween the body and gutter i would have to re-heat the gutter area up again which would melt the lead and it would all fall out. I'm really glad i realised that before i had done the whole roof. Another one of those restorers lessons, think and plan always. The plan now is to do the lead-loading between the body and gutter first then i will use body-filler to tidy up the welds on the roof.
Easiest way to do lead-loading is on a flat, where gravity can help the process. Time to flip the van on its roof. I had never actually put the van a full 180 degrees over before so this was novel for me. I got Alastair ( guy i share the garage with) to help me roll it over as the weight of the chassis being at the bottom would now be at the top and just a bit more likely to keep going once i start to roll it. I did hurt my back though, i was trying with all my might to lift it and i never realised Alastair thought it was going to roll too much so he was putting resistance against me rolling. I did feel something in my back twang a little but it wasn't until the next day the pain started., anyway, it will heal. It was unusual to see the van upside down so i was quite excited to care about my back at that moment.
Heres how i have been doing the lead-loading.
First i get the grinder with a wire wheel attached and clean the metal up, then i get a rag with white spirit (turpentine) to remove any grease or oil that may be left.
Once thats been done i get my tinning paste and brush it on to the metal. Using a handheld blow torch i heat it up until it starts to bubble and all the lead in the tinning paste melts onto the body. Once its cooled down slightly i use a damp brush to wipe away the paste but leave the thin coat of lead on the panel.
Then i use the blow torch to heat the end of the stick of lead and kind of push and twist it on the body until it snaps off. Then using the wooden paddle rubbed in tallow i heat the lead up to different states depending on what i want to do with it, usually a buttery consistency. Then i use the paddle to smush/prod/poke it about until I'm happy with it.
Once I'm happy with it its time to file it down then sand it smooth with 80 grit. I will be going over it with a light skim of filler in the future.
I managed to get the whole drivers side and front done in the same way.
Getting there, slowly but surely i will be nearing the stage when i get to prime the upper half and thats the next milestone I'm looking forward to.
2/1/12
Happy new year everyone! , lets see how far I can get with the van this year.
I continued progress on the drivers side of the roof. After getting the first half of that section done it was time for the rear. My battery was going flat in my camera so theres not so much detail for this day.
I started by doing the rear corner then meeting in the middle.
I pretty much followed the same idea as the front corner, marked what i wanted to cut out and made a template.
Then cut it out, tap tap, tack in place, weld and dress up.
Corner sorted, time for the side. There was another larger section which held the Fiberglas pop-up roof in place that need replaced.
New piece in.
All the other smaller sections in and welded.
And cleaned up, this was when my battery did die so i couldn't get another shot of it from the rear.
That was that for that day. Before I left I checked over the other side of the roof and decided that the metal was still not bad and any little repairs i could do would be ok done on the van.
When i went back I figured out what i needed to do to re-attach the roof. I flipped it over upside down to inspect it.
I had intended to leave the ribs in place and clean around them but very quickly realised that to not do it would be foolish so they came out. (cross bracing was just to stop it warping.)
You can see the repairs from the other side with the joggled lip here. Quite a lot of surface rust from what im assuming would have been condensation. Luckily none of it had rusted through and the top was still smooth to the touch.
I took all the paint of the ribs first to refurbish them.
They were ok, just a few bits of weld to fix them from when i was removing them.
The smaller rear ones were also drilled out from the rivets and painted. I etch primed them, then a coat of normal primer and then i used some Citroen white from a job i done to paint inside the channels of the ribs, just to protect them. This is another thing i recommend, a white board. Its good to write lists, doodle pictures and communicate with the guy i share the garage with.
Larger ribs done. They had felt stapled onto them to stop drumming against the roof panel. I decided to just use heavy-duty sticky foam to do the same job.
Whilst i was doing the ribs and waiting on the paint dry i took all the paint of the underside of the roof. easier to do it on the table than the van. I etch-primed the areas that would be covered by the ribs.
With the piece on the front that had surface rust, i cleaned as much rust off as i could and gave it a coat of the special rust sealer primer then more etch.
Then I bolted the ribs to the body of the van. It was easier this way than to attach them to the roof first.
Then!, it was time for the next stage. The thing which i had been waiting on since taking the roof off. Now it was time to stick the roof back on. My dad came along with a nice welcoming flask of coffee and muscles. Alastair ( the guy i share the garage with) was also roped into helping with the lift. It went pretty smoothly, lifting it up and walking from the front to back and dropping it into position. I felt really quite excited to see it with a roof on again. Like im getting nearer and nearer. When big things like this get done it looks so different!.
less talk, more pictures.
I still need to tack the roof into position which means lifting and pushing to get the perimeter parallel to the guttering but its looking promising so far. The only thing thats annoying me is the passengers side rear corner which i think i may need to add metal onto but il see once i start tweaking and welding. I'm feeling quite happy and chuffed with myself, another big step made!.
He has his hat back on.
Happy new year everyone! , lets see how far I can get with the van this year.
I continued progress on the drivers side of the roof. After getting the first half of that section done it was time for the rear. My battery was going flat in my camera so theres not so much detail for this day.
I started by doing the rear corner then meeting in the middle.
I pretty much followed the same idea as the front corner, marked what i wanted to cut out and made a template.
Then cut it out, tap tap, tack in place, weld and dress up.
Corner sorted, time for the side. There was another larger section which held the Fiberglas pop-up roof in place that need replaced.
New piece in.
All the other smaller sections in and welded.
And cleaned up, this was when my battery did die so i couldn't get another shot of it from the rear.
That was that for that day. Before I left I checked over the other side of the roof and decided that the metal was still not bad and any little repairs i could do would be ok done on the van.
When i went back I figured out what i needed to do to re-attach the roof. I flipped it over upside down to inspect it.
I had intended to leave the ribs in place and clean around them but very quickly realised that to not do it would be foolish so they came out. (cross bracing was just to stop it warping.)
You can see the repairs from the other side with the joggled lip here. Quite a lot of surface rust from what im assuming would have been condensation. Luckily none of it had rusted through and the top was still smooth to the touch.
I took all the paint of the ribs first to refurbish them.
They were ok, just a few bits of weld to fix them from when i was removing them.
The smaller rear ones were also drilled out from the rivets and painted. I etch primed them, then a coat of normal primer and then i used some Citroen white from a job i done to paint inside the channels of the ribs, just to protect them. This is another thing i recommend, a white board. Its good to write lists, doodle pictures and communicate with the guy i share the garage with.
Larger ribs done. They had felt stapled onto them to stop drumming against the roof panel. I decided to just use heavy-duty sticky foam to do the same job.
Whilst i was doing the ribs and waiting on the paint dry i took all the paint of the underside of the roof. easier to do it on the table than the van. I etch-primed the areas that would be covered by the ribs.
With the piece on the front that had surface rust, i cleaned as much rust off as i could and gave it a coat of the special rust sealer primer then more etch.
Then I bolted the ribs to the body of the van. It was easier this way than to attach them to the roof first.
Then!, it was time for the next stage. The thing which i had been waiting on since taking the roof off. Now it was time to stick the roof back on. My dad came along with a nice welcoming flask of coffee and muscles. Alastair ( the guy i share the garage with) was also roped into helping with the lift. It went pretty smoothly, lifting it up and walking from the front to back and dropping it into position. I felt really quite excited to see it with a roof on again. Like im getting nearer and nearer. When big things like this get done it looks so different!.
less talk, more pictures.
I still need to tack the roof into position which means lifting and pushing to get the perimeter parallel to the guttering but its looking promising so far. The only thing thats annoying me is the passengers side rear corner which i think i may need to add metal onto but il see once i start tweaking and welding. I'm feeling quite happy and chuffed with myself, another big step made!.
He has his hat back on.
Pokey2 wrote:
Hi Kev โ
I have not read the entire 6 pages of this thread, but enough to be awed โ no other word will do! - by what you have taken on and what you have done so far. And that you are capable of doing it all.
What I canโt help wondering is, what with holding a full-time job and doing all this work on the van, how on earth do you find the time to take all these photos, label them, take videos for U-Tube, and do the accompanying write-ups? My hatโs off to you!!
Ha, It can take quite a while to write up a decent post. Having to change the size of the images, then upload them and write up a decent story can take about 2 to 3 hours.
I write as i go because i enjoy it, helps me to keep track of what im doing and i imagine it will be cool to look back at this post in years to come. Robsouth - If you want to see a finished van then this is the wrong thread.
December update
Its been quite a busy month at work. One of the guys got made redundant so its put my work rate up a bit. Its also meant having to work late and help out on Saturdays, extra money so i cant really complain but its meant less time at the garage.
Last time I wrote I had just laid the roof on the table, ready to get cut up. I thought I would start on the front corners and work my way round the drivers side. The first thing i done was take the paint off around the edges of the roof to assess the metal work underneath.
This was the first corner I started on, It was the worst front corner so best to get it done and out of the way.
I flipped the roof over to take the surface rust off the inside edge too. You can see the cross brace i welded in to help it keep its shape when I removed it from the van.
This is the offending corner upside down.
The corners are a compound curve so that made shaping it a little bit more tricky. I did a lot of humming and hawing at it. Trying to figure out how to go around making a repair section for this part. I came up with a plan of cutting it out and making a basic template to work from. I haven't tried a compound curve repair before, so this probably isn't the right way but it worked for me.
No use for you anymore.
I taped a thin bit of cardboard to the area.
Then after a bit of snipping and more masking tape I had the rough shape mocked up.
Cut it out and I have my template.
I seem to have jumped a few steps ahead here. Basically I traced the template onto a sheet of 1.2mm and cut it out. I clamped a piece of 50x50 angle in the vice so that it was clamped in a V shape. I then used a round head hammer to tap a concave and trying it against the roof numerous times, using my hands to give it a final tweek and shape. I tacked it into place, i cut strips into it to help me with the stretching and shrinking principle.
Then all welded up when i was happy with it.
And a good dress up.
Yey! a complete corner, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
The next again night i went back and started on the other corner. This one was in a bit better shape than the other.
Marked out, ready to get cut up.
I done this section in 2 patches, the mainly straight side and a tighter corner.
Tacked up and ready to weld.
*grind, grind, sand, clean*
Close enough to the opposite side for me.
I called it a night, looking forward to getting back to it again shortly.........
Unfortunately, the week before the caustic tank at my work burst. We use it to strip the paint off the old Cast fireplaces and radiators. Coincidentally, we have just got a lot of radiators needing done, quickly. The tank was made from plastic and had been repaired lots of times in its 20 year life span with Fiberglas so it was starting to look past its best. I checked out prices for other tanks big enough but the cheapest plastic one was pretty thin material and cost ยฃ1050. I thought it would be best to make a new one from scratch out of 3mm plate and 50mm angle. I was annoyed as it meant losing a weekend and a few nights on the van but it was actually good to do something different from the usual, a little bit of a challenge. I made it 8ft length, 45 inches tall and 2 foot wide. I gave it a lid and as it was metal i could add a heater. Caustics working properties increases tremendously when even a little bit of heat is added so i used a basic 27 inch central heating boiler coil. I also made sure to weld on a drain tap to this one, the plastic one had to be emptied via buckets and long waders, not fun. I added insulation to help with the heating and keep costs down.
Was really happy with how it turned out, lets see if this lasts 20 years.
I also had enough time to make a unique handle for my fiances boss's stove.
After the tank was done i had to miss a few nights at the garage to get the radiators done and ive just worked yesterday to give my boss a Saturday off ( he never gets them). So, back to today, the 18th.
Meet the newest addition to my growing garage stuff. This heater has been here since i moved in and its never been touched. I remember trying it out when i first moved in and it never worked so its been collecting dust ever since. Well since its now officially winter i thought id try to fix it. I changed the ignitor as it was looking quite duff but that never helped. I thought id service everything and that never helped, occasionally it would light up and go out, so id strip it all down again, try something new and it wouldn't work at all then it would etc.. After a lot of head scratching and time wasting i figured it wasn't making much pressure, all the seals were ok but on closer inspection to the back plate could see hairline cracks around the bolt mounts. I used soapy water to confirm my suspicions and yep, the back plate was knackered. All the air pressure was being lost. I ordered a new one and i thought id may aswell replace the filters. Since then its been great, works a treat and heats up the space fairly quickly with its 77,000 BTU rating. I'm using diesel to fuel it right now but will be moving onto paraffin when i get the time to get some as it burns cleaner and cheaper.
Enough of that crap. Back to the roof.
This is the drivers side, which was pretty bad all the way along. Oh, i forgot to mention. You may remember how i tried to make my own guttering which never worked very well and so i was left with 10 pieces of 50mm wide 1.2mm strips 4 foot long. They are now being put to good use as repair sections for the roof. Never through anything out, thats my motto! (probably got it from my dad).
I tried a couple of experiments before i got on with the roof, what would be the best way to put a curve on the strips. I tried the angle in the vice in a V shape first.
It kind of worked but I couldn't get enough pressure on it with the hammer so i flipped it around in the vice so the jaws pushed the tube into the angle.
That probably worked a bit too much, it did curve the strip but only in one place. The next idea was clamp the strip in 2 bits of angle and tap it around a piece of tubing. Like this :
This gave me the effect i was wanting, a nice gentle curve.
Back to the actual repairs, i forgot to take a photo of my first repair part. This piece of the roof held a hinge for the pop up roof and consequently had rusted a little higher up which required a bigger repair section.
New panel made up , i joggled all the top edges off the repairs to help with lining it up and clamping into place.
I done another repair after that and that was 3 sections all tacked up.
I was leaving to go home in the next hour so i thought id finish off this section.
The other difficult thing about the roof is trying to figure out far down the panel actually comes. The passenger side is pretty complete so ive used that as my reference and measured from the centre out and a bit of free hand to cut the edge off the panel.
A little before and after.
I then went home and had a nice roast beef and veg dinner, delicious.
The Christmas holidays are coming up soon which means i get a full week off. So with a little careful planing spending time with Jana and the van i should get more done. I would love the next update to be about the roof being attached back on atleast, we shall see.
