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.
mumkin wrote:kev wrote:
This is the last, yes thats right, the last rust section to repair on the body.
Hooray!! It's been a long process. Do you have any idea of how many hours you have in so far?
Mmmhmm, i havent kept track but id say over the last 3 years ive spent about 1500 hours easy. Wow, when i put it like that, thats a lot of my life.
June part 2
Ive been busy this weekend. I really wanted to get this stage over so i was determined to get it all done.
With the body finished i started to prepare the shell for the primer.
Quite a bit to get it ready.
I went to my work and borrowed the D/A sander and smoothed down a lot of the inside. I used a combination of sander/wire-brush/wire-wheel and polyabrasive discs.
I then went over all the bare metal with the acid to eat any leftover pitted rust and then loads of water followed my degreaser.
Then the bit i have been waiting ages to do, the primer! I even bought myself a mid-range spray gun for it. Need to stop borrowing the works stuff so often. I used up the remaining litre and a half i had left.
And one with your handsome host ๐
Now i am happy. Now that the primer has been applied on the whole body i feel that this chapter has ended for me. Phew, what a relief. I look forward to starting on the suspension.
June update.
I've had quite a busy past few weeks. Had to skip a few weekends from the garage to move house. I only moved a few houses down to escape the benefit sponging neighbours and their kids that lived above me. So im a lot happier now and not so on edge anymore, phew!. The times ive managed to get to the garage have been busy. I was wanting to wait until i had sprayed the primer on the whole van for this update but i just checked and i have about 70 photos already so thought it would be wise to split this update for now.
I continued on the last few repairs to the body at the front. This is the little lip that runs under the door opening.
Then welded in.
I the tackled the last major piece of work. The rotten front corner and step. I had already done the drivers side but this one was a bit worse than that.
I started by cutting out the******to give me a good base to start rebuilding from.
As i was cutting the door post away on this side, i needed to put a brace in to stop it moving.
carry on chopping.
So, this is all what needs to be replicated.
I begun with the inner box section as everything else attaches to it. I measured all my sizes and put it on a nice piece of 1.2mm.
Then folded all the lips up.
Little bit of weld through primer and stuck it in place.
I made my little YouTube video for this section and just realised i never took any photos of me doing it. If you missed the video its here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNzCubyqqRU
I made the front section larger than i needed so i could cut it down to size once fixed in place.
Then i worked on the rear of the panel. I had to make the little panel to fill this gap.
Cardboard template came in handy for this.
I reused my jig from the previous side to get the curved channel.
The next weekend , Jana decided she would come down to keep me company. I gave her the old seats to strip down.
One of the better things about the wife coming along is the packed lunch she makes, yum! I usually end up just walking to the shop and getting a packet of pickled onion crisps and a red-bull but that day i had about 4 rolls, crisps and coffee, good woman ๐ .
Welded up the whole step panel.
Next up was the door post section. I cut all the rust away from the old post so i could re-use as much as i can.
cut out the new piece, ready to get folded.
The fold it and weld to the old post.
And tack it to the body. I had also tidied up the front section of the panel by this point.
Wee bit of primer.
Now to do the corner piece
Make a new one.
Get it stuck in.
I rolled the van over so i could tie in all the pieces underneath and weld them up.
Tack the pieces i removed for access earlier.
Outer corner being assessed.
Trying to use as much of the original as i can.
Then get it stuck in place.
Nearly done with the front corner.
As there was a bit of welding to do here i started to repair the front light bar hole. I wanted to minimise distortion so i let the welds cool and worked on this at the same time.
Exact same process as the other side.
Use the hole cutter to make a Nice hole for repair.
All welded.
And cleaned up.
With the major hurdle out the way it was just a few little pieces to replace.
Little bit under the grill opening.
Cut it out and shrink/stretch a piece of angle.
stick it on.
and clean it up
The corner of the grill opening was rotten too.
This is a good example of how something can look not bad on one side but far worse on the other.
"meh, not too bad"
"bugger"
I traced the rough shape of it on to a scrap bit of 1.2mm with a lot of excess to enable easier folding.
Then trimmed it and tacked it.
A little back piece completed the area.
And now, with out further ado. This is the last, yes thats right, the last rust section to repair on the body. Around the windscreen frame i found this. Actually, just realised something. The first area i tried was the windscreen surround so to finish on another part of the surround some how seems quite fitting.
So there we are. All major body work on the van body is done.
Its only been 3 years...... yeah i could have done more if i never had a full time job and life to get on with but i feel its an achievement. I really want to get on with spraying the epoxy primer on now, to me, that is when i will feel truly happy with it. So im going to go along today and make a start on the prep.
Oh, when i had finished the roof of the van i started to collect all the little piece of the body i cut off. So heres a little collage of about 80% of everything i had to repair , minus the roof sections.
Not long and i get to start on the mechanical side, yippee. Although, that means i need a new car. I have seen a car i really want and im considering buying, its a bit unusual so thats cool. I'll post pics if i buy it.
I've had quite a busy past few weeks. Had to skip a few weekends from the garage to move house. I only moved a few houses down to escape the benefit sponging neighbours and their kids that lived above me. So im a lot happier now and not so on edge anymore, phew!. The times ive managed to get to the garage have been busy. I was wanting to wait until i had sprayed the primer on the whole van for this update but i just checked and i have about 70 photos already so thought it would be wise to split this update for now.
I continued on the last few repairs to the body at the front. This is the little lip that runs under the door opening.
Then welded in.
I the tackled the last major piece of work. The rotten front corner and step. I had already done the drivers side but this one was a bit worse than that.
I started by cutting out the******to give me a good base to start rebuilding from.
As i was cutting the door post away on this side, i needed to put a brace in to stop it moving.
carry on chopping.
So, this is all what needs to be replicated.
I begun with the inner box section as everything else attaches to it. I measured all my sizes and put it on a nice piece of 1.2mm.
Then folded all the lips up.
Little bit of weld through primer and stuck it in place.
I made my little YouTube video for this section and just realised i never took any photos of me doing it. If you missed the video its here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNzCubyqqRU
I made the front section larger than i needed so i could cut it down to size once fixed in place.
Then i worked on the rear of the panel. I had to make the little panel to fill this gap.
Cardboard template came in handy for this.
I reused my jig from the previous side to get the curved channel.
The next weekend , Jana decided she would come down to keep me company. I gave her the old seats to strip down.
One of the better things about the wife coming along is the packed lunch she makes, yum! I usually end up just walking to the shop and getting a packet of pickled onion crisps and a red-bull but that day i had about 4 rolls, crisps and coffee, good woman ๐ .
Welded up the whole step panel.
Next up was the door post section. I cut all the rust away from the old post so i could re-use as much as i can.
cut out the new piece, ready to get folded.
The fold it and weld to the old post.
And tack it to the body. I had also tidied up the front section of the panel by this point.
Wee bit of primer.
Now to do the corner piece
Make a new one.
Get it stuck in.
I rolled the van over so i could tie in all the pieces underneath and weld them up.
Tack the pieces i removed for access earlier.
Outer corner being assessed.
Trying to use as much of the original as i can.
Then get it stuck in place.
Nearly done with the front corner.
As there was a bit of welding to do here i started to repair the front light bar hole. I wanted to minimise distortion so i let the welds cool and worked on this at the same time.
Exact same process as the other side.
Use the hole cutter to make a Nice hole for repair.
All welded.
And cleaned up.
With the major hurdle out the way it was just a few little pieces to replace.
Little bit under the grill opening.
Cut it out and shrink/stretch a piece of angle.
stick it on.
and clean it up
The corner of the grill opening was rotten too.
This is a good example of how something can look not bad on one side but far worse on the other.
"meh, not too bad"
"bugger"
I traced the rough shape of it on to a scrap bit of 1.2mm with a lot of excess to enable easier folding.
Then trimmed it and tacked it.
A little back piece completed the area.
And now, with out further ado. This is the last, yes thats right, the last rust section to repair on the body. Around the windscreen frame i found this. Actually, just realised something. The first area i tried was the windscreen surround so to finish on another part of the surround some how seems quite fitting.
So there we are. All major body work on the van body is done.
Its only been 3 years...... yeah i could have done more if i never had a full time job and life to get on with but i feel its an achievement. I really want to get on with spraying the epoxy primer on now, to me, that is when i will feel truly happy with it. So im going to go along today and make a start on the prep.
Oh, when i had finished the roof of the van i started to collect all the little piece of the body i cut off. So heres a little collage of about 80% of everything i had to repair , minus the roof sections.
Not long and i get to start on the mechanical side, yippee. Although, that means i need a new car. I have seen a car i really want and im considering buying, its a bit unusual so thats cool. I'll post pics if i buy it.
Wee tiny update, I know I said I'd keep the next one for when the front end is done but this update is a little different.
When i was doing the drivers door opening, a few people were asking me how i done the door rubber channel
So i thought id try my hand at making a video. The video describes how i make this piece from scratch.
I describe how i make the panel. It might not be right or the best way to do it but it works for me. The video is about 45 mins long. I was going to edit it to make it shorter but i thought its best to just leave it and you can skip bits yourself. I wouldnt make a good presenter or director, thats for sure. Also, i tend to talk quietly but the hammering is pretty loud so you might want to adjust your speakers.
Here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNzCubyqqRU
When i was doing the drivers door opening, a few people were asking me how i done the door rubber channel
So i thought id try my hand at making a video. The video describes how i make this piece from scratch.
I describe how i make the panel. It might not be right or the best way to do it but it works for me. The video is about 45 mins long. I was going to edit it to make it shorter but i thought its best to just leave it and you can skip bits yourself. I wouldnt make a good presenter or director, thats for sure. Also, i tend to talk quietly but the hammering is pretty loud so you might want to adjust your speakers.
Here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNzCubyqqRU
April update - part 2
More metal work plus a little extra good news, info at the end.
I've been determined to get the back end of the van finished so the last part to do was the cut out on the wheel arch. When i had done this one on the other side i had made a bit of a pigs ear of it. I went about it the wrong way and made more work for myself so this time i was determined to do it better. Instead of welding a few sections together to make the panel i opted to make it from one panel. So, first thing was to drill the rivets out of this panel. These were added by Dormobile to make space for the seating arrangements.
The aluminium panels are nicely made but they were quite rough when it comes to cutting metal out. Looks like its been burned out and the edges just left rough.
I broke the panel down into its measurements and drew it on to a sheet, then i cut it out.
A few folds in it then tacked it in place.
Then tidied up. I took a bit more time working this panel out and it paid off with the fitment.
I had a little bit left to do on the flooring section at the side door to finish.
Use the old bit i cut out as a template.
2 folds and its done, nice easy patch.
Then welded in place and cleaned up.
With the rear complete i moved forward to just behind the passengers seat area. Forgot to take before pics of these, this area has 3 panels that meet together so i cut out all 3 sections out at once.
These are the sections to make up.
So, get rid of the rust, tidy the area up a little and spray on some weld-through primer.
Nice simple patch, no folds or anything.
weld it up.
Smooth it down.
If you remember when i was doing the other side i had to make this whole panel up. Fortunately the passengers side wasn't as bad and just needed the bottom part replicated.
I started by getting a scrap piece of sheet and putting it in the vice and bending it over by hand. I didn't want a crisp edge, just a gradual curve.
Then i clamped the fold line in the edge and used the hammer and a piece of wood to form a lip. Then i cut a few lines to make folding the curved section easier.
Welded in place.
Then cleaned up a little, I'll neaten this up again later to smooth it in better.
I also replaced the other section i cut out, forgot to take photos of it as i done it though.
Thankfully this is the last piece of waist line section i have to replace. Just as corroded as the others.
Done the usual, cut out and replace.
The other half.
Just behind this panel was another bit needing done.
Put in place.
Then i had a little bit of the door post to contend with.
I peeled back the lip and cut out the rot. Then welded in a nice bit.
Buffed it down.
Nearly finished with the main body, im hoping for the next update it will be complete and i think I'll have to have a celebration.
I also bought myself a new toy. I got a pillar drill form a mate who is a fabricator. He sold it to me for a very good price along with a 12 ton pipe bender (roll cage!!) and a plumbers pipe bender. Really grateful for things like these at good prices. The drill is one of those ancient ones that never fail and always stay true. So much easier drilling holes in panels.
Now for the big news! I got an axle for the van. It started out by me asking a mate who is also restoring a Ford Thames about one of his Scimitar projects he had. I asked if he would sell me the Scimitar axle but at the time he had other plans for it. Then a couple of weeks ago, i was having a******day at work when he phoned and told me i could have the axle for free, which really cheered me up. Only problem was, i had to take the whole car.
A bit of a dilemma as i really wanted the axle but never had anywhere to put the Scimitar and i really didn't want to just rip the axle out and scrap the Scimitar as i hate seeing old classics being destroyed. I decided it would be best to see if i could find someone who was looking for a project. I put an Ad on a few forums saying i have a Scimitar for free, but i want the back axle, 4 link, shocks and watts linkage. After a few days a guy from rodsnsods contacted me and he came along and had a look at the car.
The next day he phoned me up to say he would take it complete, then when its at his i could go down on the weekend to take off what i want as he has an Aston martin axle waiting to go on ( fancy). A few days later, phoning to confirm i was still going along he told me he was bored and has already taken everything off for me, bonus! So, on Sunday there, me and my brother headed along and picked the axle up. The guy was really sound, if a bit eccentric. I'm just really glad to know that everyone has won in the situation. The car has gone from its previous owner who just wanted it out the way. I have a back axle and someone else has saved another car from the crusher.
Here is the axle, infront of it is the standard Thames one, you can see the pigs head is a lot chunkier.
Then my Bro helped me to put it roughly in place under the van. Looks good, forgot what a wheel looks like in there.
Looks like i will be needing to cut off the 4 link bracket and putting a new one on a few inches closer.
There is a lot going for these axles. They are a Salisbury unit that can cope with 400bhp standard, not that il ever need that much, just good to know its tough. They are also heavy, which is good for me as there wont really be a huge amount of weight over the rear wheels.
Thanks everyone!
More metal work plus a little extra good news, info at the end.
I've been determined to get the back end of the van finished so the last part to do was the cut out on the wheel arch. When i had done this one on the other side i had made a bit of a pigs ear of it. I went about it the wrong way and made more work for myself so this time i was determined to do it better. Instead of welding a few sections together to make the panel i opted to make it from one panel. So, first thing was to drill the rivets out of this panel. These were added by Dormobile to make space for the seating arrangements.
The aluminium panels are nicely made but they were quite rough when it comes to cutting metal out. Looks like its been burned out and the edges just left rough.
I broke the panel down into its measurements and drew it on to a sheet, then i cut it out.
A few folds in it then tacked it in place.
Then tidied up. I took a bit more time working this panel out and it paid off with the fitment.
I had a little bit left to do on the flooring section at the side door to finish.
Use the old bit i cut out as a template.
2 folds and its done, nice easy patch.
Then welded in place and cleaned up.
With the rear complete i moved forward to just behind the passengers seat area. Forgot to take before pics of these, this area has 3 panels that meet together so i cut out all 3 sections out at once.
These are the sections to make up.
So, get rid of the rust, tidy the area up a little and spray on some weld-through primer.
Nice simple patch, no folds or anything.
weld it up.
Smooth it down.
If you remember when i was doing the other side i had to make this whole panel up. Fortunately the passengers side wasn't as bad and just needed the bottom part replicated.
I started by getting a scrap piece of sheet and putting it in the vice and bending it over by hand. I didn't want a crisp edge, just a gradual curve.
Then i clamped the fold line in the edge and used the hammer and a piece of wood to form a lip. Then i cut a few lines to make folding the curved section easier.
Welded in place.
Then cleaned up a little, I'll neaten this up again later to smooth it in better.
I also replaced the other section i cut out, forgot to take photos of it as i done it though.
Thankfully this is the last piece of waist line section i have to replace. Just as corroded as the others.
Done the usual, cut out and replace.
The other half.
Just behind this panel was another bit needing done.
Put in place.
Then i had a little bit of the door post to contend with.
I peeled back the lip and cut out the rot. Then welded in a nice bit.
Buffed it down.
Nearly finished with the main body, im hoping for the next update it will be complete and i think I'll have to have a celebration.
I also bought myself a new toy. I got a pillar drill form a mate who is a fabricator. He sold it to me for a very good price along with a 12 ton pipe bender (roll cage!!) and a plumbers pipe bender. Really grateful for things like these at good prices. The drill is one of those ancient ones that never fail and always stay true. So much easier drilling holes in panels.
Now for the big news! I got an axle for the van. It started out by me asking a mate who is also restoring a Ford Thames about one of his Scimitar projects he had. I asked if he would sell me the Scimitar axle but at the time he had other plans for it. Then a couple of weeks ago, i was having a******day at work when he phoned and told me i could have the axle for free, which really cheered me up. Only problem was, i had to take the whole car.
A bit of a dilemma as i really wanted the axle but never had anywhere to put the Scimitar and i really didn't want to just rip the axle out and scrap the Scimitar as i hate seeing old classics being destroyed. I decided it would be best to see if i could find someone who was looking for a project. I put an Ad on a few forums saying i have a Scimitar for free, but i want the back axle, 4 link, shocks and watts linkage. After a few days a guy from rodsnsods contacted me and he came along and had a look at the car.
The next day he phoned me up to say he would take it complete, then when its at his i could go down on the weekend to take off what i want as he has an Aston martin axle waiting to go on ( fancy). A few days later, phoning to confirm i was still going along he told me he was bored and has already taken everything off for me, bonus! So, on Sunday there, me and my brother headed along and picked the axle up. The guy was really sound, if a bit eccentric. I'm just really glad to know that everyone has won in the situation. The car has gone from its previous owner who just wanted it out the way. I have a back axle and someone else has saved another car from the crusher.
Here is the axle, infront of it is the standard Thames one, you can see the pigs head is a lot chunkier.
Then my Bro helped me to put it roughly in place under the van. Looks good, forgot what a wheel looks like in there.
Looks like i will be needing to cut off the 4 link bracket and putting a new one on a few inches closer.
There is a lot going for these axles. They are a Salisbury unit that can cope with 400bhp standard, not that il ever need that much, just good to know its tough. They are also heavy, which is good for me as there wont really be a huge amount of weight over the rear wheels.
Thanks everyone!
