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.
Thanks everyone, Its great to hear what everyone thinks.
June update - Quite a few photos, may have to wait a bit for them to load.
OK, so its been about 3 months since the last van update. I have been quite busy and haven't done as much as i wish i could have done. What with the trike to do, work and other stuff for myself. Anyway, the last time i wrote i was doing the drivers side of the van, where the lower part of the body joins the removable side panels.
You can see that all the way along its rusted and pitted. The awkward thing about patching this area is the panels are flat and so have some tension in them. I knew that as soon as i cut the panel would lose that tension and buckle, no way around it unfortunately.
I marked up the first panel to replace. The side isn't completely straight, its bows front to back as well so i couldn't do sections much larger than 300mm to keep the curve.
Once cut it let me see another section i will be needing to replace, as usual.......
I peeked inside the drivers door and thought i may as well cut out the other piece i need to replace whilst i have access.
The offending article.
With that cut out it revealed yet more horrors to replace. I found this to be a recurring theme as i was going along.
Inside:
Outside:
I thought about replacing these piece first but no, i decided to do the side first and i shall. Back to it then.
I used the original as a template. Cut a piece of 1.2mm out and mark it up.
Then using my folder and joggler i go t close to what i need.
Then tacked in place.
If you can forgive the shakey blurred photo you can see what i mean by the panel buckling/warping. This is supposed to be convex but its the complete opposite,, concave.
I wasn't too sure how to deal with this issue. The first thing i tried was to ol' cut and shut. Cut vertical strips, then push it out and re weld.
Then clean up
And check
Which did work ( the front edge is supposed to be that curved) . The draw back to this was that the panel had still lost some of its tension and would "oil-can" ( when the metal can pop in and out with your hand) . I carried on regardless anyway, I guessed i could come up with something to stop it popping later.
The next section cut out
There are 3 struts inside the van that go up against the body of the van to add some strength to the side. I was going to leave these in place but decided that i really should cut them out, glad i did as it looks like the felt vibration proofing stuff was holding the moisture in and rusting the panel from the inside out. The struts aren't so bad, il just clean them up and re-use them.
eep!
The next weekend i got another few more patches done.
I had also done a bit of research to combat the oil-canning effect. I read and watched a few videos on you tube on how to deal with it. It involved using a slapper to get the shape of the panel to pop out then use a blow torch (this is where i got nervous) to heat an are about an inch to red hot then use a wet rag to quench it. Doing this causes the panel to stretch then cool down quickly. The first time i tried it it felt like i was doing something wrong, Everything in my body was telling em that heat will distort the panel not fix it, but, it worked. the area i had treated had built up a resistance to being pushed in. You can see the first little spot i tried at the front of the drivers side.
Oh, i mentioned using a slapper, if you don't know what it is its basically a large flat hammer made from toughened steel. You can buy them for about ยฃ50 each or if your cheap like me you can use 2 old files and heat them up to bend a handle then buff the teeth off.
The next time i was at the garage i kept on with the sections. I bought a couple of magnets to help me hold the sections in whilst tacking.
As i had a bit more done i thought i would have a go at the whole heating up and cooling down thing again. I gave the panel a good hiding with he slapper to get some shape back then heat it up. I used the body file to highlight the areas that are too proud now, i think i will need to do a lot of work on this to get it smooth again.
That was the majority of the side done, to finish it off i just needed to do the rear corner. Alas, like the front this area also had some hiding rot to deal with, unlike the front though, i had to do this work before i could do the corner.
Namely, the rear door frame channel was rotting and the back of the arch has gone.
So, cut the door frame channel out first.....
Here's the little blighter here, whats left of it anyway.
Yes, that is a blockage made entirely of rust, no , i did not expect it to form like that either.
On the operating table, whats the stats?.
Evidently, not good.
The top part that holds the door hinge in place was OK, which is good because that piece has a complex set of curves that would have been a pain to replicate, just cut it off and make the rest.
I cut out the side piece and top separately as the side piece has a slight curve with a lip, i used the stretcher to stretch the curve on the side first then tacked the top on.
Welded up and then the hinge piece was tacked in with the aid of my magnets.
Cleaned up i had one section of the channel done.
Now for the back. As this piece was non existent on the rusty original Ive had to guess that this is how it looks. Not really much to go wrong with it anyway.
Before i welded them together i held it in place in the van to double check it was all OK.
Not bad, now to fold the little piece over to create something to weld to.
Joined together, holes drilled and tube inserts in for the hinges and side panels. All cleaned up, quite happy with it.
Few comparison shots.
At this stage i had to leave it again to do a set of railings for my sister-in-laws parents, took a few weeks but i got back to the van today (10/6/12).
The next piece i wanted to replace was the rear of the inner wing.
Like the door frame (everything else actually) it was rotten and not much left of it.
The trickiest part for me to do was the domed area that allows for the rear of the lights and wiring. I haven't tried to dome out a sheet before so this was new for me. I made a little template for me to work out how deep it was to be.
I missed a few steps out here (sorry) but i cut a sheet of 1.2mm to around 450mm square, then marked where i wanted the circle to be. I got my ball-pein hammer in the vice with the ball end up the way then starting from the centre of the circle and working out i tapped it with a flat face hammer to get the bump started. Then after it was defined i moved over to a bag of sand ( not a sand bag, just a plain old plastic bag of sand) and twatted it with the cross peon hammer to get it more sunk in then a lighter body hammer to planish the marks out and make it smoother. Then i measured and guesstimated a few of the sizes and marked it out using the dome as a reference. The dome came out quite well for my first go, thankfully.
There was 7 separate pieces i needed to fold up and getting them all in the folder or vice wouldn't be easy. I then remembered reading about body pliers in a book, i looked in the frost catalogue but they want ยฃ30 for just one so i made my own from an old pair of pliers and a flat HSS blade lying around.
With the edges folded up i welded the corners and curve pieces in then cleaned it all up.
To be honest, i was really proud of this piece, and it only took me a day to make, i think all this practise is finally paying off. I held it in place to make sure it all fitted like it should.
That's all folks.
Oh, good news. I have a week off beginning the 17th of June so i should get a lot more done. I'm actually getting it ready for a car show that I'm going to trailer it to, the Scottish ford day in Stirling on the 1st of July. I think it may be interesting for people to see it as it is now, then next year, then the year after etc,.. until it is done. This also means i now have to weld up a tow bar for the Lexus....
June update - Quite a few photos, may have to wait a bit for them to load.
OK, so its been about 3 months since the last van update. I have been quite busy and haven't done as much as i wish i could have done. What with the trike to do, work and other stuff for myself. Anyway, the last time i wrote i was doing the drivers side of the van, where the lower part of the body joins the removable side panels.
You can see that all the way along its rusted and pitted. The awkward thing about patching this area is the panels are flat and so have some tension in them. I knew that as soon as i cut the panel would lose that tension and buckle, no way around it unfortunately.
I marked up the first panel to replace. The side isn't completely straight, its bows front to back as well so i couldn't do sections much larger than 300mm to keep the curve.
Once cut it let me see another section i will be needing to replace, as usual.......
I peeked inside the drivers door and thought i may as well cut out the other piece i need to replace whilst i have access.
The offending article.
With that cut out it revealed yet more horrors to replace. I found this to be a recurring theme as i was going along.
Inside:
Outside:
I thought about replacing these piece first but no, i decided to do the side first and i shall. Back to it then.
I used the original as a template. Cut a piece of 1.2mm out and mark it up.
Then using my folder and joggler i go t close to what i need.
Then tacked in place.
If you can forgive the shakey blurred photo you can see what i mean by the panel buckling/warping. This is supposed to be convex but its the complete opposite,, concave.
I wasn't too sure how to deal with this issue. The first thing i tried was to ol' cut and shut. Cut vertical strips, then push it out and re weld.
Then clean up
And check
Which did work ( the front edge is supposed to be that curved) . The draw back to this was that the panel had still lost some of its tension and would "oil-can" ( when the metal can pop in and out with your hand) . I carried on regardless anyway, I guessed i could come up with something to stop it popping later.
The next section cut out
There are 3 struts inside the van that go up against the body of the van to add some strength to the side. I was going to leave these in place but decided that i really should cut them out, glad i did as it looks like the felt vibration proofing stuff was holding the moisture in and rusting the panel from the inside out. The struts aren't so bad, il just clean them up and re-use them.
eep!
The next weekend i got another few more patches done.
I had also done a bit of research to combat the oil-canning effect. I read and watched a few videos on you tube on how to deal with it. It involved using a slapper to get the shape of the panel to pop out then use a blow torch (this is where i got nervous) to heat an are about an inch to red hot then use a wet rag to quench it. Doing this causes the panel to stretch then cool down quickly. The first time i tried it it felt like i was doing something wrong, Everything in my body was telling em that heat will distort the panel not fix it, but, it worked. the area i had treated had built up a resistance to being pushed in. You can see the first little spot i tried at the front of the drivers side.
Oh, i mentioned using a slapper, if you don't know what it is its basically a large flat hammer made from toughened steel. You can buy them for about ยฃ50 each or if your cheap like me you can use 2 old files and heat them up to bend a handle then buff the teeth off.
The next time i was at the garage i kept on with the sections. I bought a couple of magnets to help me hold the sections in whilst tacking.
As i had a bit more done i thought i would have a go at the whole heating up and cooling down thing again. I gave the panel a good hiding with he slapper to get some shape back then heat it up. I used the body file to highlight the areas that are too proud now, i think i will need to do a lot of work on this to get it smooth again.
That was the majority of the side done, to finish it off i just needed to do the rear corner. Alas, like the front this area also had some hiding rot to deal with, unlike the front though, i had to do this work before i could do the corner.
Namely, the rear door frame channel was rotting and the back of the arch has gone.
So, cut the door frame channel out first.....
Here's the little blighter here, whats left of it anyway.
Yes, that is a blockage made entirely of rust, no , i did not expect it to form like that either.
On the operating table, whats the stats?.
Evidently, not good.
The top part that holds the door hinge in place was OK, which is good because that piece has a complex set of curves that would have been a pain to replicate, just cut it off and make the rest.
I cut out the side piece and top separately as the side piece has a slight curve with a lip, i used the stretcher to stretch the curve on the side first then tacked the top on.
Welded up and then the hinge piece was tacked in with the aid of my magnets.
Cleaned up i had one section of the channel done.
Now for the back. As this piece was non existent on the rusty original Ive had to guess that this is how it looks. Not really much to go wrong with it anyway.
Before i welded them together i held it in place in the van to double check it was all OK.
Not bad, now to fold the little piece over to create something to weld to.
Joined together, holes drilled and tube inserts in for the hinges and side panels. All cleaned up, quite happy with it.
Few comparison shots.
At this stage i had to leave it again to do a set of railings for my sister-in-laws parents, took a few weeks but i got back to the van today (10/6/12).
The next piece i wanted to replace was the rear of the inner wing.
Like the door frame (everything else actually) it was rotten and not much left of it.
The trickiest part for me to do was the domed area that allows for the rear of the lights and wiring. I haven't tried to dome out a sheet before so this was new for me. I made a little template for me to work out how deep it was to be.
I missed a few steps out here (sorry) but i cut a sheet of 1.2mm to around 450mm square, then marked where i wanted the circle to be. I got my ball-pein hammer in the vice with the ball end up the way then starting from the centre of the circle and working out i tapped it with a flat face hammer to get the bump started. Then after it was defined i moved over to a bag of sand ( not a sand bag, just a plain old plastic bag of sand) and twatted it with the cross peon hammer to get it more sunk in then a lighter body hammer to planish the marks out and make it smoother. Then i measured and guesstimated a few of the sizes and marked it out using the dome as a reference. The dome came out quite well for my first go, thankfully.
There was 7 separate pieces i needed to fold up and getting them all in the folder or vice wouldn't be easy. I then remembered reading about body pliers in a book, i looked in the frost catalogue but they want ยฃ30 for just one so i made my own from an old pair of pliers and a flat HSS blade lying around.
With the edges folded up i welded the corners and curve pieces in then cleaned it all up.
To be honest, i was really proud of this piece, and it only took me a day to make, i think all this practise is finally paying off. I held it in place to make sure it all fitted like it should.
That's all folks.
Oh, good news. I have a week off beginning the 17th of June so i should get a lot more done. I'm actually getting it ready for a car show that I'm going to trailer it to, the Scottish ford day in Stirling on the 1st of July. I think it may be interesting for people to see it as it is now, then next year, then the year after etc,.. until it is done. This also means i now have to weld up a tow bar for the Lexus....
thats some good advice hotsparks, cheers.
I have been busy but not with the van, but just as cool.
April update
I haven't posted in a while but I've been pretty busy. Not with the van but with another little project that i have been wanting to do for a while. Some of you may remember that last year i made my nephew a digger for his birthday.
Well, it was getting close to his birthday again and i had toyed with the idea of a near enough 1/2 scale replica of my dads trike for him to cycle. He loves looking at my dads trike and sitting on it so to have one of his own would be pretty cool.
To start with I had to find some parts. I asked my mate that works in a motorbike scrappy if he had any old mini-moto dirt bike front ends and a small quad back axle. I managed to get the two of them, plus a cool headlight for ยฃ40. I bought a length of 25mm tubing from a metal fabricators that I used to work for for ยฃ10. Then i went to the nearest council recycling tip and found an old BMX. I offered the guy that was in charge ยฃ5 but he told me just to take it, nice guy.
With all the major parts i needed i started on scaling my dads trike down to match the wheel sizes. I took a side photo of my dads trike and traced around it in Adobe Illustrator. I then printed it out to the size i needed on bits of A4 paper and taped the them together.
First thing i needed to do was weld the new headstock. Luckily when i bought the front forks it can with the front end of the old frame so all i had to do was grind the frame off to leave me the tube that the bearings sat in. Then i drew the rough outline of a headstock onto 12mm plate and cut it out with the grinder. Clamped it all down with spacers and tacked it up.
I borrowed my mates pipe bender for the curves in the frame. This is the down tube bent and tacked into place. I checked it was all ok with the plans.
Then i got a slightly bigger piece of tube and tacked that across. This acts as the swing axle housing on my dads trike.
Trying to do the 'tank' was a pain. The bender i had couldn't give me a tight bend, the former was about 200mm diameter so i had to mess about a bit with a few ideas. Even if i did have a former that tight the tube would have just kinked anyway. I used a bit of both bending and cutting lots of slices in the tube and bending. The tightest bend on the left is pretty much made up fully of weld and then ground down to resemble tubing. I used 3 pieces of tubing to make the shape of the tank.
With that done i tacked another down tube piece up and made a couple of brackets to attach the rear axle on and then bolted the forks on to get an idea of how it looked. I got pretty excited to see it starting to take shape.
So excited infact that i had to set my camera up to take a photo of me sitting on it. using the old BMX handlebars and a piece of wood with a knee pad on it for the seat.
Unfortunately the piece of wood with a knee pad wouldn't suffice for the final fit so i had to finish off the seat frame. Using some practise pieces from the bender and more tubing.
And ofcourse it has to have the king and queen seat so Roo can take all his girlfriends on trips on the back seat, aaaaaiiii.
. I tacked the new handlebars into place aswell. My dads trike has 2 tall uprisers that go into flat bars so i used the old BMX bars and the bars from the mini-moto forks and cut them and tacked them to look like my dads.
One thing that i was worried about was gearing. Roo is only turning 4 so it had to be easy enough to get it going but then i don't want him peddling 100rpms to move a few feet in length. Solution is gearing, I spent a little bit thinking of attaching derailleur gears but then i had a brain wave. If i could find a Sturmey archer wheel i could cut the hub out and weld a new cog on the drive instead of powering a tyre. I got a hold of my brothers mate that works in a bicycle shop and he gave me a complete wheel for the price of 6 beers, another good guy. So, snip, snip, snip the spokes and we get what i need.
Then i cut the crank assembly out of the old BMX frame, i liked the pattern on the crank so that was cool.
I got pretty hungry and went to the corner shop for sweeties and the meal of champions, a pot noodle. Unfortunately once getting back to the garage i realised i never ha d a suitable utensil to eat this fine meal. Not to let anything get between me and my food i made a ghetto spoon, yum!
With some sustenance in me my mind cleared and i could concentrate on the gearing once again. I used some 25mmx 3mm and 25mm tubing for the hub carrier. The rear axle has a built in adjuster aswell but the carrier also needed adjustment so the hub is bolted into grooves. You can see the other cog that i welded onto the hub here aswell.
The front crank was then offered up. It was with a bit of guessing where this should be. I measured Roo's inside leg size which was about 18 inches. I tacked it roughly into place where i thought it should be (it wasn't in the right place but more on that later).
Now it was functioning i took it for its first test drive. Which made me panic. When i tried to turn it would just go straight. The lack of a differential and a light front end meant there was no way it was wanting to turn. I did get a little dis-heartened at this. I took one of the rear wheels off and stripped the hub off aswell. Very luckily for me this 'grips' onto the axle with splines. Using the grinder i ground down the spline which made the right hand wheel free-wheel. Put it all back together then tried it again, great success! it would now turn, phew.
My dads trike a fully functioning wheelie bar which i thought would be cool thing to replicate.I got some 12mm round bar for the main frame and 8mm for the diagonals. I had also ordered some wheel bearing for the front wheel earlier. And it worked out cheaper to buy a pack of 10 than 2 so i used 6 of them for the wheelie bar wheels and made a cradle for them to fix into. You can also see the i cut the front handle bars again, they had too much rake on them, so that was 5 pieces just to make a set of handlebars. I had also raked around my dads box of bits (every dad has one of them in their shed) and found a gear change for the Sturm archers, this thing is about 30 years old apparently. I had to go to the cycle shop and buy a cable for it, about ยฃ9 i think.
Messing around trying to tension the chain i noticed it would slacken itself off after a bit of use so i had to make a fixed adjuster, using some 25mm x 3mm and a couple of bolts attached to a bit of 10mm plate welded onto the cradle. I also managed to put a slight bend in a few pieces of tubing to weld the front crank to.
This is also the point when i thought that the crank was too close to the back. There was a chance he could hit the back of his heel on the hub carrier.
I toyed with moving the hub carrier back but thought it would be easier to move the crank forward and hope that he could still reach the pedals. I moved it forward about 2 inches and added extra links to the chain.
Then i cycled it outside and took a few photos infront of the Lex.
The sissy bar i made can fold down for a larger adult to have a bit more space.
I was thinking about how to make it more safer for Roo and his friends sitting on the back and the best thing would be to cover the rear wheels with mudguards and a chain guard. The chain guard was easy, make a cardboard template and then make it out of metal.
The mudguards, well, I could have just curved a piece of sheet and called it a day but that would look horrible and a quick fix solution. I looked at mudguards for trailers but they were expensive and i would still need to cut them up to fit anyway. My first attempt was to cut a sheet of 1.2mmand tap the lip over a round former. I just couldn't shrink the metal enough to get a neat lip, too many peaks. Then i remembered the shrinker/stretcher i had bought for the van roof. Next attempt was another sheet of metal with 2 lips folded up on the home made bender.
Then slip it into the jaws of the shrinker and nip it a few times then flip it around and nip the opposite side.
Repeat the process about 100 times over the space of an hour, checking it against a circle i had drew on a bit of wood, then realising i went too far and having to swap the jaws to stretch then back to shrink, tweaking it here and there by hand etc,...over the space of an hour or 2 and i got a decent enough mudguard, great now i had to do it all over again for the other side, my favourite......
I also started the template for the seat pan.
Both mudguards done and mocked up in place using the hose pipe trick i had seen on American chopper.. I had bought 2 rear lights from a pound shop for, well, 2 pound that got taped on for now and i also made a bracket to attach the front teardrop shape headlight.
This was the main structure done. I moved it along to my work as i was getting close to the painting stage and wanted to use the works spray room.
My next obstacle was the rear brake. The axle had came with a disc but no calliper. I had a small cable operated calliper the same as the front one but that was designed for a smaller and thinner disc. My brother gave me a disc that fitted but a completely different bolt pattern to the quad axle holder. With a bit of careful measuring and cutting i made one good disc out of the 2.
The mudguards still had a gap where the passengers feet could get trapped so i wanted to make the mudguard bracket cover it but look stylish at the same time. I used another thicker piece of tubing for the foot rest and cut a nice shape out of 3mm sheet. Then another piece of 12mm round bar to act as a top bracket/hand rest.
A couple of tabs cut from 25mmx3mm to mount the rear lights.
The frame done i stripped it all back down again so i could grind the welds down and get it ready for painting.
As i had to make a new disc for the rear axle i also had to come up with a bracket to mount the calliper.
Problem :
Solution : more 10 mm plate cut to shape.
The frame got a coat of primer then gloss black. If i had more time and money i would have used a better quality paint, this is just bog standard gloss black thinned down with white spirit. Its cheap but takes ages to dry!. The other pieces that got painted silver was with smooth-rite, good tough finish.
Mudguards also.
Along with the rear axle.
Whilst the paint was still drying i made the seat. I forgot to take photos of the seat pan. The seat pan is made up of 3mm plate with a lip all the way around. I had bought some look-a-like leather and little buttons to cover in leather. The lip of the seat pan had thin pieces of wood screwed to it for the staples to attach to. I also bought some pinstriping for the front wheel and painted the rear wheels red and silver. I also bought new pedals as the BMX ones were quite scuffed. But even those couldn't be simple. They were a 9/16 thread and the crank is a 1/2 thread. I looked in another shop for other pedals but all i could find were 9/16 . In the end i had to take both set of pedals apart, cut them in half then extend the old pedal shaft to bold the new pedal on, gggrrrrrr. Worked in the end though and defiantly worth it. when the paint was dry it was time to reassemble. The headlight was also a pain as the bulb was for a 12v battery so i had to go to maplin and buy a 6v bulb, a bulb holder a switch and 4x AA battery holder and wire it all up to fit inside the headlight casing.
The trike was now complete. Just had to finish up the cables, i wanted it to look neat so they go through the frame. The 'tank' needed more definition so i put some pinstriping around it then washed and dusted the whole thing down.
The day before i gave it to Roo i took it to my mum and dads house to get a few photos of it beside my dads trike. I was really happy with how it turned out and so was my dad. I can imagine my dad taking his trike to shows and taking Roo'pedal trike to sit next to it as a neat touch.
The next day we went to my brothers house to give Roo the trike. I rolled it over to his house and covered it in a big blanket. It was cool to see him all excited about what it could be underneath the cover. he ripped the cover off and jumped straight on. He didn't need any encouragement and his little legs reached the pedals and he was off. I let out quite a sigh of relief to see that it moved under his own power plus the pedals were close enough for him to reach, something that had been playing on my mind since i had started the project!.
Roo and my bro.
And ofcourse i had to have a shot.
It was good to have a little break from the van to do something completely different for a little bit. Now i need to get back onto the van.
I have been busy but not with the van, but just as cool.
April update
I haven't posted in a while but I've been pretty busy. Not with the van but with another little project that i have been wanting to do for a while. Some of you may remember that last year i made my nephew a digger for his birthday.
Well, it was getting close to his birthday again and i had toyed with the idea of a near enough 1/2 scale replica of my dads trike for him to cycle. He loves looking at my dads trike and sitting on it so to have one of his own would be pretty cool.
To start with I had to find some parts. I asked my mate that works in a motorbike scrappy if he had any old mini-moto dirt bike front ends and a small quad back axle. I managed to get the two of them, plus a cool headlight for ยฃ40. I bought a length of 25mm tubing from a metal fabricators that I used to work for for ยฃ10. Then i went to the nearest council recycling tip and found an old BMX. I offered the guy that was in charge ยฃ5 but he told me just to take it, nice guy.
With all the major parts i needed i started on scaling my dads trike down to match the wheel sizes. I took a side photo of my dads trike and traced around it in Adobe Illustrator. I then printed it out to the size i needed on bits of A4 paper and taped the them together.
First thing i needed to do was weld the new headstock. Luckily when i bought the front forks it can with the front end of the old frame so all i had to do was grind the frame off to leave me the tube that the bearings sat in. Then i drew the rough outline of a headstock onto 12mm plate and cut it out with the grinder. Clamped it all down with spacers and tacked it up.
I borrowed my mates pipe bender for the curves in the frame. This is the down tube bent and tacked into place. I checked it was all ok with the plans.
Then i got a slightly bigger piece of tube and tacked that across. This acts as the swing axle housing on my dads trike.
Trying to do the 'tank' was a pain. The bender i had couldn't give me a tight bend, the former was about 200mm diameter so i had to mess about a bit with a few ideas. Even if i did have a former that tight the tube would have just kinked anyway. I used a bit of both bending and cutting lots of slices in the tube and bending. The tightest bend on the left is pretty much made up fully of weld and then ground down to resemble tubing. I used 3 pieces of tubing to make the shape of the tank.
With that done i tacked another down tube piece up and made a couple of brackets to attach the rear axle on and then bolted the forks on to get an idea of how it looked. I got pretty excited to see it starting to take shape.
So excited infact that i had to set my camera up to take a photo of me sitting on it. using the old BMX handlebars and a piece of wood with a knee pad on it for the seat.
Unfortunately the piece of wood with a knee pad wouldn't suffice for the final fit so i had to finish off the seat frame. Using some practise pieces from the bender and more tubing.
And ofcourse it has to have the king and queen seat so Roo can take all his girlfriends on trips on the back seat, aaaaaiiii.
. I tacked the new handlebars into place aswell. My dads trike has 2 tall uprisers that go into flat bars so i used the old BMX bars and the bars from the mini-moto forks and cut them and tacked them to look like my dads.
One thing that i was worried about was gearing. Roo is only turning 4 so it had to be easy enough to get it going but then i don't want him peddling 100rpms to move a few feet in length. Solution is gearing, I spent a little bit thinking of attaching derailleur gears but then i had a brain wave. If i could find a Sturmey archer wheel i could cut the hub out and weld a new cog on the drive instead of powering a tyre. I got a hold of my brothers mate that works in a bicycle shop and he gave me a complete wheel for the price of 6 beers, another good guy. So, snip, snip, snip the spokes and we get what i need.
Then i cut the crank assembly out of the old BMX frame, i liked the pattern on the crank so that was cool.
I got pretty hungry and went to the corner shop for sweeties and the meal of champions, a pot noodle. Unfortunately once getting back to the garage i realised i never ha d a suitable utensil to eat this fine meal. Not to let anything get between me and my food i made a ghetto spoon, yum!
With some sustenance in me my mind cleared and i could concentrate on the gearing once again. I used some 25mmx 3mm and 25mm tubing for the hub carrier. The rear axle has a built in adjuster aswell but the carrier also needed adjustment so the hub is bolted into grooves. You can see the other cog that i welded onto the hub here aswell.
The front crank was then offered up. It was with a bit of guessing where this should be. I measured Roo's inside leg size which was about 18 inches. I tacked it roughly into place where i thought it should be (it wasn't in the right place but more on that later).
Now it was functioning i took it for its first test drive. Which made me panic. When i tried to turn it would just go straight. The lack of a differential and a light front end meant there was no way it was wanting to turn. I did get a little dis-heartened at this. I took one of the rear wheels off and stripped the hub off aswell. Very luckily for me this 'grips' onto the axle with splines. Using the grinder i ground down the spline which made the right hand wheel free-wheel. Put it all back together then tried it again, great success! it would now turn, phew.
My dads trike a fully functioning wheelie bar which i thought would be cool thing to replicate.I got some 12mm round bar for the main frame and 8mm for the diagonals. I had also ordered some wheel bearing for the front wheel earlier. And it worked out cheaper to buy a pack of 10 than 2 so i used 6 of them for the wheelie bar wheels and made a cradle for them to fix into. You can also see the i cut the front handle bars again, they had too much rake on them, so that was 5 pieces just to make a set of handlebars. I had also raked around my dads box of bits (every dad has one of them in their shed) and found a gear change for the Sturm archers, this thing is about 30 years old apparently. I had to go to the cycle shop and buy a cable for it, about ยฃ9 i think.
Messing around trying to tension the chain i noticed it would slacken itself off after a bit of use so i had to make a fixed adjuster, using some 25mm x 3mm and a couple of bolts attached to a bit of 10mm plate welded onto the cradle. I also managed to put a slight bend in a few pieces of tubing to weld the front crank to.
This is also the point when i thought that the crank was too close to the back. There was a chance he could hit the back of his heel on the hub carrier.
I toyed with moving the hub carrier back but thought it would be easier to move the crank forward and hope that he could still reach the pedals. I moved it forward about 2 inches and added extra links to the chain.
Then i cycled it outside and took a few photos infront of the Lex.
The sissy bar i made can fold down for a larger adult to have a bit more space.
I was thinking about how to make it more safer for Roo and his friends sitting on the back and the best thing would be to cover the rear wheels with mudguards and a chain guard. The chain guard was easy, make a cardboard template and then make it out of metal.
The mudguards, well, I could have just curved a piece of sheet and called it a day but that would look horrible and a quick fix solution. I looked at mudguards for trailers but they were expensive and i would still need to cut them up to fit anyway. My first attempt was to cut a sheet of 1.2mmand tap the lip over a round former. I just couldn't shrink the metal enough to get a neat lip, too many peaks. Then i remembered the shrinker/stretcher i had bought for the van roof. Next attempt was another sheet of metal with 2 lips folded up on the home made bender.
Then slip it into the jaws of the shrinker and nip it a few times then flip it around and nip the opposite side.
Repeat the process about 100 times over the space of an hour, checking it against a circle i had drew on a bit of wood, then realising i went too far and having to swap the jaws to stretch then back to shrink, tweaking it here and there by hand etc,...over the space of an hour or 2 and i got a decent enough mudguard, great now i had to do it all over again for the other side, my favourite......
I also started the template for the seat pan.
Both mudguards done and mocked up in place using the hose pipe trick i had seen on American chopper.. I had bought 2 rear lights from a pound shop for, well, 2 pound that got taped on for now and i also made a bracket to attach the front teardrop shape headlight.
This was the main structure done. I moved it along to my work as i was getting close to the painting stage and wanted to use the works spray room.
My next obstacle was the rear brake. The axle had came with a disc but no calliper. I had a small cable operated calliper the same as the front one but that was designed for a smaller and thinner disc. My brother gave me a disc that fitted but a completely different bolt pattern to the quad axle holder. With a bit of careful measuring and cutting i made one good disc out of the 2.
The mudguards still had a gap where the passengers feet could get trapped so i wanted to make the mudguard bracket cover it but look stylish at the same time. I used another thicker piece of tubing for the foot rest and cut a nice shape out of 3mm sheet. Then another piece of 12mm round bar to act as a top bracket/hand rest.
A couple of tabs cut from 25mmx3mm to mount the rear lights.
The frame done i stripped it all back down again so i could grind the welds down and get it ready for painting.
As i had to make a new disc for the rear axle i also had to come up with a bracket to mount the calliper.
Problem :
Solution : more 10 mm plate cut to shape.
The frame got a coat of primer then gloss black. If i had more time and money i would have used a better quality paint, this is just bog standard gloss black thinned down with white spirit. Its cheap but takes ages to dry!. The other pieces that got painted silver was with smooth-rite, good tough finish.
Mudguards also.
Along with the rear axle.
Whilst the paint was still drying i made the seat. I forgot to take photos of the seat pan. The seat pan is made up of 3mm plate with a lip all the way around. I had bought some look-a-like leather and little buttons to cover in leather. The lip of the seat pan had thin pieces of wood screwed to it for the staples to attach to. I also bought some pinstriping for the front wheel and painted the rear wheels red and silver. I also bought new pedals as the BMX ones were quite scuffed. But even those couldn't be simple. They were a 9/16 thread and the crank is a 1/2 thread. I looked in another shop for other pedals but all i could find were 9/16 . In the end i had to take both set of pedals apart, cut them in half then extend the old pedal shaft to bold the new pedal on, gggrrrrrr. Worked in the end though and defiantly worth it. when the paint was dry it was time to reassemble. The headlight was also a pain as the bulb was for a 12v battery so i had to go to maplin and buy a 6v bulb, a bulb holder a switch and 4x AA battery holder and wire it all up to fit inside the headlight casing.
The trike was now complete. Just had to finish up the cables, i wanted it to look neat so they go through the frame. The 'tank' needed more definition so i put some pinstriping around it then washed and dusted the whole thing down.
The day before i gave it to Roo i took it to my mum and dads house to get a few photos of it beside my dads trike. I was really happy with how it turned out and so was my dad. I can imagine my dad taking his trike to shows and taking Roo'pedal trike to sit next to it as a neat touch.
The next day we went to my brothers house to give Roo the trike. I rolled it over to his house and covered it in a big blanket. It was cool to see him all excited about what it could be underneath the cover. he ripped the cover off and jumped straight on. He didn't need any encouragement and his little legs reached the pedals and he was off. I let out quite a sigh of relief to see that it moved under his own power plus the pedals were close enough for him to reach, something that had been playing on my mind since i had started the project!.
Roo and my bro.
And ofcourse i had to have a shot.
It was good to have a little break from the van to do something completely different for a little bit. Now i need to get back onto the van.
March 2012
Reached another mile-stone in the project, i'll talk more about that later.
I eventually finished the lead loading, once it was all spread and melted in i gave it all a light sanding down. I did use the grinder with a sanding pad, which your not supposed to do from a health and safety point of view but well, it sure is a lot faster, i did atleast have a proper face mask on atleast.
With that bit done, It suddenly dawned on me that all the metal work on the roof was complete! Even before i had bought the van, i knew the roof was going to be one of the biggest challenges, and here it was, complete. I felt pretty good.
I was thinking about how I should protect the metal work now. I know I need to put some body filler (bondo for you non UK people) on bits of the roof , I was quite certain I would do that first, then the primer. But after thinking about it i realised that putting the epoxy primer on first would protect the metal even if the top coat got scratched as filler is porus. So the idea changed to epoxy primer first then filler much later when i get the whole body done.
Preparing for the primer gave me a lot to think about aswell, I wanted the nice clean metal to be bare for as less time as possible so i decided to seperate the job over two days, Doing one half of the roof a day.
This is just before i started to get the metal super clean.
I used various tools to clean it all up. I used paint stripper to soften up the paint then got a poly-abrasive disc in the grinder and remove it. Swap over to a flat wire brush disc to get into the guttering and other areas, then various twist brushes in my drill to get into all the the nooks and crannies.
I had bought some panel wipe and tack cloths to remove any grease or contaniments that could cause an issue with the primer not adhearing properly. Once wiped and tacked down i mixed up the epoxy. Its a good quality paint from rust.co.uk. The same company that does the rust converter paint i had used previously. Its not cheap at ยฃ35 for 1.25 litres but I think its wise in paying a bit extra for quality. The primer has won various tests in magazines and always gets good reviews.
My dad is a bit of a stickler for cheap stuff and he used some cheap paint on his trike which unfortunatly went brittle and just chips off so he has to spend more time to fix it, theres a lesson learnt for me ๐ .
When i was planning on applying the primer I had intended to spray it on. which meant sweeping the floor, building a little spray shelter and covering everything to catch over spray. I looked at the data sheet on the primer and it said you can roll/brush it on, so thats what i done. I defintly wouldnt roll paint on but as this primer coat is just to protect the metal whilst i do other welding and will be getting sanded down i thought why not. With the paint mixed up and a roller in my hand, i made haste.
Everything looks better in one solid colour eh!. The next again day i done the exact same thing after work, which meant it was about 10pm when i got home but my fiance was quite sympathetic. I cant really think of many woman who would give me sympathy after spending all night in the garage, shes a good woman really.
So, there it is, the roof is done and I can move on to the lower section now. Ideally i would paint the body down until just under the waist line but that will have to wait a month or two until i can affored more primer.
Heres a few progress pictures of various sections of hassle ive been through as a little montage.
Nearside front corner :-
Rear off-side corner :-
Various :-
I can now have a little sigh of relief that the roof is complete. But its no time to dilly dally about as ive made a start on the drivers side lower where the side wings bolt onto. Il leave that update until next time but heres a few shots of what ive to replace.
Wish me luck, until next time......
Reached another mile-stone in the project, i'll talk more about that later.
I eventually finished the lead loading, once it was all spread and melted in i gave it all a light sanding down. I did use the grinder with a sanding pad, which your not supposed to do from a health and safety point of view but well, it sure is a lot faster, i did atleast have a proper face mask on atleast.
With that bit done, It suddenly dawned on me that all the metal work on the roof was complete! Even before i had bought the van, i knew the roof was going to be one of the biggest challenges, and here it was, complete. I felt pretty good.
I was thinking about how I should protect the metal work now. I know I need to put some body filler (bondo for you non UK people) on bits of the roof , I was quite certain I would do that first, then the primer. But after thinking about it i realised that putting the epoxy primer on first would protect the metal even if the top coat got scratched as filler is porus. So the idea changed to epoxy primer first then filler much later when i get the whole body done.
Preparing for the primer gave me a lot to think about aswell, I wanted the nice clean metal to be bare for as less time as possible so i decided to seperate the job over two days, Doing one half of the roof a day.
This is just before i started to get the metal super clean.
I used various tools to clean it all up. I used paint stripper to soften up the paint then got a poly-abrasive disc in the grinder and remove it. Swap over to a flat wire brush disc to get into the guttering and other areas, then various twist brushes in my drill to get into all the the nooks and crannies.
I had bought some panel wipe and tack cloths to remove any grease or contaniments that could cause an issue with the primer not adhearing properly. Once wiped and tacked down i mixed up the epoxy. Its a good quality paint from rust.co.uk. The same company that does the rust converter paint i had used previously. Its not cheap at ยฃ35 for 1.25 litres but I think its wise in paying a bit extra for quality. The primer has won various tests in magazines and always gets good reviews.
My dad is a bit of a stickler for cheap stuff and he used some cheap paint on his trike which unfortunatly went brittle and just chips off so he has to spend more time to fix it, theres a lesson learnt for me ๐ .
When i was planning on applying the primer I had intended to spray it on. which meant sweeping the floor, building a little spray shelter and covering everything to catch over spray. I looked at the data sheet on the primer and it said you can roll/brush it on, so thats what i done. I defintly wouldnt roll paint on but as this primer coat is just to protect the metal whilst i do other welding and will be getting sanded down i thought why not. With the paint mixed up and a roller in my hand, i made haste.
Everything looks better in one solid colour eh!. The next again day i done the exact same thing after work, which meant it was about 10pm when i got home but my fiance was quite sympathetic. I cant really think of many woman who would give me sympathy after spending all night in the garage, shes a good woman really.
So, there it is, the roof is done and I can move on to the lower section now. Ideally i would paint the body down until just under the waist line but that will have to wait a month or two until i can affored more primer.
Heres a few progress pictures of various sections of hassle ive been through as a little montage.
Nearside front corner :-
Rear off-side corner :-
Various :-
I can now have a little sigh of relief that the roof is complete. But its no time to dilly dally about as ive made a start on the drivers side lower where the side wings bolt onto. Il leave that update until next time but heres a few shots of what ive to replace.
Wish me luck, until next time......
