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.
January 2013
I got some good news this month. I won 2 online forum votes.
I won the retro rides build of the year poll - http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=rra2012vb&action=display&thread=142076
and Practical Performance Car magazine 'Thread of the year' - http://www.ppcmag.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10788
That gave me quite a good boost. It is really nice to be recognised amongst all the other projects people are doing. I really enjoy writing my updates for the van, It keeps me motivated and focused with the build. I always try to include as much details as i can so i can get advice or help someone else out who is tackling there own project. My project has been going on for about 2 and a half years now, doesn't feel like it though. I hope for it to be atleast road legal in the next 2 and a half years. I try not to rush things and stick to my original plan. I want it to be as such that it would be hard for someone to tell it has even been restored. There is some areas that i could have just cut out and replaced with a much simpler repair but i cant let myself do that.
I wanted to finish of the front drivers side corner, this is what i was left with once i had cut it off earlier.
The rear piece was made using the shrinker/stretcher
I cut all the rust from the damaged areas, added the rear section and a little patch for the bottom.
The rot i cut out was used as a template the new piece.
I forgot to take the inbetween photos but this is the repair section complete ready to get welded back in place.
Then I cleaned up the inside of this area on the body and gave it a quick spray of weld-through primer.
And attached the repair back to the body like this and gave it a good going over with the grinder.
Its nearly done, just need to make a new inner section for the post using the old as the template
In place and cleaned up
Finally i just filled the last of the gaps underneath and the corner is now finished.
Really happy with how this area has turned out. One step closer eh.
The next step is a little repair to the seat pan area and i may cut the A-post like i did on the other side and see how much rot is there. Then i will prime drivers side of the cab.
That is as far as i have been able to do this month as last weekend whilst driving to the garage the water pump on the Lexus seized. Luckily i caught it in time before it over heated but i have had to sort that out. I got it towed back to my mum and dads and ive been working on it outside the house. The thing about the water pump is its driven off the timing belt so im having to renew the pump, belt and 2 tensioners. I got all the bits last Friday there and started fitting them on Saturday but it wasn't until then that i noticed the new belt had a nick in it. I don't want the belt to snap and have to repeat everything so im going to send it back and just get a genuine Lexus one. Ofcourse all these kind of things happen just as the MOT and road tax run out at the end of this month, crap.
I got some good news this month. I won 2 online forum votes.
I won the retro rides build of the year poll - http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=rra2012vb&action=display&thread=142076
and Practical Performance Car magazine 'Thread of the year' - http://www.ppcmag.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10788
That gave me quite a good boost. It is really nice to be recognised amongst all the other projects people are doing. I really enjoy writing my updates for the van, It keeps me motivated and focused with the build. I always try to include as much details as i can so i can get advice or help someone else out who is tackling there own project. My project has been going on for about 2 and a half years now, doesn't feel like it though. I hope for it to be atleast road legal in the next 2 and a half years. I try not to rush things and stick to my original plan. I want it to be as such that it would be hard for someone to tell it has even been restored. There is some areas that i could have just cut out and replaced with a much simpler repair but i cant let myself do that.
I wanted to finish of the front drivers side corner, this is what i was left with once i had cut it off earlier.
The rear piece was made using the shrinker/stretcher
I cut all the rust from the damaged areas, added the rear section and a little patch for the bottom.
The rot i cut out was used as a template the new piece.
I forgot to take the inbetween photos but this is the repair section complete ready to get welded back in place.
Then I cleaned up the inside of this area on the body and gave it a quick spray of weld-through primer.
And attached the repair back to the body like this and gave it a good going over with the grinder.
Its nearly done, just need to make a new inner section for the post using the old as the template
In place and cleaned up
Finally i just filled the last of the gaps underneath and the corner is now finished.
Really happy with how this area has turned out. One step closer eh.
The next step is a little repair to the seat pan area and i may cut the A-post like i did on the other side and see how much rot is there. Then i will prime drivers side of the cab.
That is as far as i have been able to do this month as last weekend whilst driving to the garage the water pump on the Lexus seized. Luckily i caught it in time before it over heated but i have had to sort that out. I got it towed back to my mum and dads and ive been working on it outside the house. The thing about the water pump is its driven off the timing belt so im having to renew the pump, belt and 2 tensioners. I got all the bits last Friday there and started fitting them on Saturday but it wasn't until then that i noticed the new belt had a nick in it. I don't want the belt to snap and have to repeat everything so im going to send it back and just get a genuine Lexus one. Ofcourse all these kind of things happen just as the MOT and road tax run out at the end of this month, crap.
Wills250psd wrote:
You are one of if not the best metal fabricaters I ever seen and I have seen alot. I use to run a huge auto body shop and we had a guy from greece who was also very good with metal. Keep up the good work. Will
Thanks for that, nice confidence booster.
December update
Merry Xmas everyone. I've been quite busy the past couple of weeks in the garage. Quite a bit of progress but not as much as i wanted (as usual). Now that the roof is done, the drivers side is done and the rear is done it leaves me with the front and passenger side to do.
To give myself a break from repeating myself a lot i decided to do the front cab section. I think i had kinda started on it in the last update with this section.
So i had to make this piece once cut out, nice straight forward repair.
Used the old as a template and cut it out.
Welded in place.
Now the next panel was a bit trickier, this piece goes behind what i just welded in. Its about 10" long and one edge is flat then curves round and the other has 4 different fold in it. It took me a bit of time to get this right. Its probably the most complicated panel ive made from one piece.
Getting there, I know it doesn't look like much but there's also a slight dip that is hard to see, so it curves as well as being folded. I've found when making panels that at points it looks nothing like what your trying to create, its not until the end that it all comes together.
More perseverance
And done!
Before welding it in i thought it would be wise to do the little section that sits at the rear of the door. This section was actually good to make, it looks complicated but in the end it wasn't.
Cut it out for sizes and to use as a template.
After thinking about it for a while i thought it would be best to split it into 2 sections. Cutting the curved section out first and folding it.
Then using the shrinker/strecher i put a slight curve in it. Then the top piece was cut out and tapped with a hammer to give it a little flange.
Then weld the 2 to make 1. I liked making this, was quick to do and is big part of the door frame.
I welded both panels in place at this point too.
Continuing along from those i had to repair this piece.
cut it out. make a new piece and weld it in.
I was also left a little piece to patch here..
couple of folds in the patch piece.
Little tip, if the panel is too small to hold properly you can tack another longer piece of metal, in my case an Arc rod, and use that to hold it place.
Welded up and cleaned a little. I asked the wife for a Dremel for Xmas so i can get into the corners and edges better.
And a few other holes go the same treatment underneath so it is all sealed now, sweet.
Next up is the box section at the front.
Here it is the day i bought the van. I remember looking at this at first and not really knowing how i would fix it and hopefully it would all come clear when it came to it. But no, i was still a bit stumped. Particularly because the other side was the same and i never really had enough there to get dimensions from. I managed to get a hold of my mate who is also restoring a Thames, i went round to his to get some photos and sizes which helped a lot, so thanks George!
Here it is from the inside
And out
I drilled the spot welds out and removed the inner section.
Yeah.......great.
The post and front corner of the van are also needing replaced. I found a quality repair someone had made earlier though.
Oh wait, did i say quality, i meant crap. The old mesh and fiberglass technique.
Something that i still never knew was how it should all join up inside. Obviously i couldn't take my friends Thames apart to find out so this piece will be put together in the best way i can think. There's about 5 panels that all get layered here. Bit of a shame as ive tried to keep everything as original as i can with the restoration but i cant do anything else here.
I removed the front section as well
First thing to do is weld a new strip in here so i have something decent to weld to.
Then i had a little bit at the back to patch.
Back to the inner piece *sigh*
Made a few measurements (that were wrong, more on that later,bugger) and cut it out.
Folded it over , the curved lip was a bit of a pain, i used a pair of pliers and folded it little by little and used a hammer to neaten it.
Then the rear section was bent and tacked in.
The rear section would stretch too much so i had to cut slits in it.
tacked into position.
I never realized at this point but it is actually about 30mm too tall. You see at the bottom the lip is supposed to be in line with the front valance. I still hadn't noticed this so i carried on.
Before starting on the front cover i had to cut a few other pieces out to replace first. The inner post was rotting at the bottom so i had to gain access to that. Drilled out a few spot welds and cut some bits out.
post out.
valance corner off.
Heres the front off to repair. The main section was rotten but the top and lip were OK, so i decided to make a new main section and join it to the original.
The piece i need to make has channel in it for the door rubber to sit in. I remember seeing a forum that had some guys from Vietnam or Thailand, something like that, repairing VW vans and the guy showed an example of how he created these channels with hand tools so i thought id do the same.
I marked the channel on a bit of sheet then clamped the edge of it to a piece of 50mm angle.
Then i got an old chisel and made it blunt with the grinder. Then tapped it against the angle so it would create a little dip and carried along to the end.
After a little while i got a channel done, nice one!
Then i tapped out a curve and a few other details.
Welded the new to old and gave it a tidy up.
Placed into position for welding later.
Here is the door post. I don't know how this should look at the bottom so its a bit made up.
Cut the rotten out.
New piece tacked to old
A few more pieces and weld it up.
Then weld the post to the front. Now, this is when i realized the other section was too tall. I think where i went wrong was that i deliberately made the inner and outer piece a bit longer so i can cut them back to size later. But i went wrong somewhere and made the inner piece to have the lip too far down. I could just leave it because i don't think anyone will notice, i have tried to tell myself that but ive went this far trying to keep it original that i don't think i will be happy with it ever until i fix it. So i shall fix it. Its hard to explain by typing down but i will show what i mean in a future update once its been done.
As i was a bit few up with how the corner was going i thought id complete the rear as that is in the right place.
I cut the little piece i had left off and put another channel into a peice of sheet
Marked the rest, cut it out, drilled some spot weld holes and bent the flange up.
Put in place.
To complete it i made the little piece above the wheel arch.
Then tidied it up. I got my Dremel by this point (thanks wife) but i never had any cutting discs. I want to put the groves back into the areas that i had to weld to make it look more OEM.
Thats all for this time. I'm starting to realize that there's not really a huge amount of main bodywork left to do then i get to start on the mechanicals. I will do the doors and valance when im stuck with the mechanicals or after, just to give me a break from metalwork all the time.
I should also have some good news that should become clearer in a couple of months or so, and oh, thanks for whoever voted for me on the retro-rides 'best build thread of 2012' , means a lot.
mumkin wrote:
Congratulations to the lovely couple!! I had rather lost track of exactly where you were and hadn't realized that you were a Scotsman till I saw the kilt.
One can only hope that any sons that you may have will want to learn the amazing skills that you and your dad have perfected. (somehow I don't see daughters getting into welding and working with steel, but one never knows I guess) :C
As always we look forward to your next update.
Heh, i keep saying to Jana that if we have a daughter she will defintly be into welding, she doesnt share my joy though.
Mini - November part 2
Thanks everyone for the kind words about the wedding, really appreciate it. Things seem to be going great with the whole marrige thing, im still allowed out to the garage anyway;) .
I started to rebuild the rear valance of the van with the pieces i had made/fixed. I tacked the actual valance onto the 3mm top plate and dished panels i had welded in place earlier.
Then i flipped the van on its side to put the back panel i had made in place.
My clamps werent quite long enough so i had to do a bit of an extension on them.
When that was all done i decided to test it by standing on it. Made me feel a bit like brunnel in that famous photograph of him with his top hat on standing infront of a big set of chains.
With it all tacked i started on the welding. Done the back panel first with some Mig plug welding.
Then i seam weld the valance to the top and sides.
And going over with the grinder and flap discs brings it up a treat.
I welded a couple of pieces in to join the door seal part with the 3mm plate to neating it up.
I hung the doors back on to re-check for clearances, everything was ok.
With that all done i realised that the rear and drivers side were pretty much done metal wise. It had all started to get a light coat of surface rust which would make things harder if i just left it. I bought some more of the same epoxy primer i used on the roof and decided to protect what ive done so far. Its a non-porous primer so it should protect it until ive finished the whole body and reach the finishing stages.
I started on the inside and rear valance. Any piece that is going to be hidden from view such as the rear of the valance is going to be painted in chassis paint. Its a lot tougher and harder on rust but that will be applied after the top coats of paint, much later.
Heres the inside, still had some paint to remove and light rust to contend with.
Half-way there
A nice shiney coat of primer!
Before and afters - I like doing this, gives me a sence of achievment.
Then the next day i decided to do the outside. Looking pretty down-trodding here.
Using the poly-abrasive disks and wire wheels got it back to shiney.
I know it looks exactly like the previous photo but this is another step i do. I bought some "phoskleen" its called, basically its an acid that etches the surface and also neautralisis any light rust pits. It turns the metal a slight bluey yellow.
Then the coat of primer.
Its good to see everything i have done so far in one colour, it all 'flows' really well now.
Now that all my work is protected i will make a start on the drivers side of the front cab. I still have the passangers side of the van to do but this should break it up a bit.
Cheers
