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 guys ๐
January 2016
Happy new year! , lets see where I get to in this one.
I spent the first week of my holiday doing absolutely nothing, it was great to just not do anything. I started the garage in the last xmas holidays so every weekend/nights/holidays I had I spent building the garage. Then when that was done I was helping my bro to do up his new house then when that was done I spent about a month and a half remodelling my hallway/stairs. So to be able to just sit on my butt and relax was amazing!
But, I cant be lazy all the time so I went into the garage in the second week to continue the van. I started by just recapping what I had done before and familiarizing myself with where I had put everything. After some time I settled myself back into the front suspension set up. I had remembered that the anti roll bar was now being fouled by the 4 pot callipers so I had to do something about that.
I figured id need to move it further back by 35mm so I first redrilled new holes in the chassis I brought the brackets further back.
Then I had to extend the lower mounts which re attached to the A arms.
Cut it off with the grinder.
Which left me with this.
Then I used some 3mm sheet to extend it, weld, grind, clean.
Welded it back on. Much better position.
To try and stop any fatigue now that it was longer I also welded in 2 braces.
Put the link in and Ta-da, The callipers now clear it on full lock. I repeated the same for the other side.
Now that that was done the front end is pretty much ready for connecting and testing the brakes. Before I do that though I want to get the rear end finished. I have the axle and stuff fitted already but I still need to buy new bushes and paint it all. Something I need money for so that will have to wait for a few weeks.
Now for something not van related again but it is classic car related.
I was asked by a guy at the pre67 Ford forum to have a look and fix his wings and front valance for his Mk2 Zodiac so I got started on them.
This is his original valance which had 2 dents underneath and the corners had fatigued.
I started on the smaller ding first.
It wasn't really that bad so I was able to just use the hammer, dolly etc.. To knock it back out.
The other side was quite a bit worse. The metal had stretched quite a bit too much to knock out.
Luckily he had a spare valance. The lower half of which was rust free so I cut that section out.
Then I cut the same area out of the old one and tacked this section in its place.
Weld it up and clean it off.
And there we go, one fixed valance.
Upnext was the offside wing. The paint was blistering around the rear edge so I started to sand it down to get an idea of what was going on.
Quite a bit of filler was removed from a previous "repair".
I suspected that this was just a patch welded on top of rusty metal, which it was.
So to fix this I cut slightly larger than the patch right out. That also revealed the inner part had rusted right through also.
I needed to repair this inner piece before I could do the skin.
Then put a new section in flush with the skin.
Weld it up and grind it down, beautiful.
Then I added a new lip and tidied that up.
Quick wee spray of primer to stop it surface rusting in the mean time, seamless ๐ .
Upnext is the headlamp area. You can see how water has ran in between the wing and headlamp plate and has just rusted away at the bottom and pushed the metal apart in other place.
To get the old headlamp plate out I used my spotweld drill but .
And the offending plate that's too far gone to be repaired
I had to make this section up. Looks simple enough but it had a double lip, the inside and outside edges.
I started by getting my sheet out and tracing out the shape slightly larger to allow for the lip.
Easiest way to cut it out was using my old slightly knackered plasma cutter, does the job though (I should really fix it up one of these days). I then traced the shape of the plate out to its correct size in marker pen.
To get the fold started I used long nose pliers with a little bit ground off one jaw (flatter end for internal bends). Then I got a bit of 5x50 flat bar and cut a small grove in it to bend the lip up more.
Once I got it raised I used a hammer and former to finish it off.
I repeated the same for the outside lip and after a bit of time and fettling I had a replacement for the old one.
To attach it I began to wirewheel inside the wing when I noticed another bit of rust. Its a bit hard to see but its where the water would have been running down below the headlamp area. Which I thought of as odd as externally the panel seemed fine.
So, sander /wire wheel out I wanted to investigate what was going on.
Yep, you guessed it, another patch over rotten metal. That's why it looked OK externally.
Ok OK, cut it out and time for a proper repair.
ITs a bit of a tricky repair. Looks simple but that shape was quite complex to put into a flat sheet. I managed to tack it into place.
Welded, dressed and started to repair the other rotten bit around the bowl area. I also repaired a little bit that ran underneath and into the grill area but I forgot to photo that, dam.
Then I clamped and welded in the new headlamp plate.
Last little piece to fix.
Fixed.
Little spray of primer to stop surface rust and that was this wing done.
Now I just have one more wing to go.
I really enjoyed fixing those up. I forgot just how much I like to do bodywork. Maybe il make a career out of it one day :).
Hopefully next update il have made enough money for bushes, paint and new shock absorbers.
January 2016
Happy new year! , lets see where I get to in this one.
I spent the first week of my holiday doing absolutely nothing, it was great to just not do anything. I started the garage in the last xmas holidays so every weekend/nights/holidays I had I spent building the garage. Then when that was done I was helping my bro to do up his new house then when that was done I spent about a month and a half remodelling my hallway/stairs. So to be able to just sit on my butt and relax was amazing!
But, I cant be lazy all the time so I went into the garage in the second week to continue the van. I started by just recapping what I had done before and familiarizing myself with where I had put everything. After some time I settled myself back into the front suspension set up. I had remembered that the anti roll bar was now being fouled by the 4 pot callipers so I had to do something about that.
I figured id need to move it further back by 35mm so I first redrilled new holes in the chassis I brought the brackets further back.
Then I had to extend the lower mounts which re attached to the A arms.
Cut it off with the grinder.
Which left me with this.
Then I used some 3mm sheet to extend it, weld, grind, clean.
Welded it back on. Much better position.
To try and stop any fatigue now that it was longer I also welded in 2 braces.
Put the link in and Ta-da, The callipers now clear it on full lock. I repeated the same for the other side.
Now that that was done the front end is pretty much ready for connecting and testing the brakes. Before I do that though I want to get the rear end finished. I have the axle and stuff fitted already but I still need to buy new bushes and paint it all. Something I need money for so that will have to wait for a few weeks.
Now for something not van related again but it is classic car related.
I was asked by a guy at the pre67 Ford forum to have a look and fix his wings and front valance for his Mk2 Zodiac so I got started on them.
This is his original valance which had 2 dents underneath and the corners had fatigued.
I started on the smaller ding first.
It wasn't really that bad so I was able to just use the hammer, dolly etc.. To knock it back out.
The other side was quite a bit worse. The metal had stretched quite a bit too much to knock out.
Luckily he had a spare valance. The lower half of which was rust free so I cut that section out.
Then I cut the same area out of the old one and tacked this section in its place.
Weld it up and clean it off.
And there we go, one fixed valance.
Upnext was the offside wing. The paint was blistering around the rear edge so I started to sand it down to get an idea of what was going on.
Quite a bit of filler was removed from a previous "repair".
I suspected that this was just a patch welded on top of rusty metal, which it was.
So to fix this I cut slightly larger than the patch right out. That also revealed the inner part had rusted right through also.
I needed to repair this inner piece before I could do the skin.
Then put a new section in flush with the skin.
Weld it up and grind it down, beautiful.
Then I added a new lip and tidied that up.
Quick wee spray of primer to stop it surface rusting in the mean time, seamless ๐ .
Upnext is the headlamp area. You can see how water has ran in between the wing and headlamp plate and has just rusted away at the bottom and pushed the metal apart in other place.
To get the old headlamp plate out I used my spotweld drill but .
And the offending plate that's too far gone to be repaired
I had to make this section up. Looks simple enough but it had a double lip, the inside and outside edges.
I started by getting my sheet out and tracing out the shape slightly larger to allow for the lip.
Easiest way to cut it out was using my old slightly knackered plasma cutter, does the job though (I should really fix it up one of these days). I then traced the shape of the plate out to its correct size in marker pen.
To get the fold started I used long nose pliers with a little bit ground off one jaw (flatter end for internal bends). Then I got a bit of 5x50 flat bar and cut a small grove in it to bend the lip up more.
Once I got it raised I used a hammer and former to finish it off.
I repeated the same for the outside lip and after a bit of time and fettling I had a replacement for the old one.
To attach it I began to wirewheel inside the wing when I noticed another bit of rust. Its a bit hard to see but its where the water would have been running down below the headlamp area. Which I thought of as odd as externally the panel seemed fine.
So, sander /wire wheel out I wanted to investigate what was going on.
Yep, you guessed it, another patch over rotten metal. That's why it looked OK externally.
Ok OK, cut it out and time for a proper repair.
ITs a bit of a tricky repair. Looks simple but that shape was quite complex to put into a flat sheet. I managed to tack it into place.
Welded, dressed and started to repair the other rotten bit around the bowl area. I also repaired a little bit that ran underneath and into the grill area but I forgot to photo that, dam.
Then I clamped and welded in the new headlamp plate.
Last little piece to fix.
Fixed.
Little spray of primer to stop surface rust and that was this wing done.
Now I just have one more wing to go.
I really enjoyed fixing those up. I forgot just how much I like to do bodywork. Maybe il make a career out of it one day :).
Hopefully next update il have made enough money for bushes, paint and new shock absorbers.
Thanks guys, i really like the comments made on this forum ๐ , means a lot to me.
November 2015
Its been roughly 3 months since my last update but I've been a very busy boy.
The last time I put an up date I had just started doing the harling on the walls so I'll carry on from there.
I carried on doing the harling a section at a time, just mixing enough myself by hand so as not to waste much. It was also at this point I had chosen my colours for the walls and bought a couple of tester pots.
All the harling finished on the front.
Then I moved onto the rear of the garage and that got the same treatment.
After all that I wanted to get on with painting the walls. As the garage is made from concrete sections I bought some proper gap sealant designed for these panels and ran it in between all the panels. I didn't bother filling the gap at the bottom between the blocks and walls as inevitably water will find a way in and that gap should let the water evaporate rather than containing it. I got home from work on an unusually warm day in Scotland and went into beast mode.
Once the front wall was painted I went and bought a nice dark green for the door. I repaired the hole I had cut in it from removing the middle hinge. I also got another colour for the block work at the bottom as a nice contrast. If you look closely to the roof flashing you will notice a few pairs of vice grips. I had noticed when it rained a lot of water would come running down the flashings and drip randomly on the ground. Not a big deal but it kind of annoyed me. To remedy this I wanted a small mini gutter. I thought of getting some thin sheet metal and folding a U in it but then I had a good idea to use plasterers beading. Its already in a U shape plus being galvanised it was also protected. So I used that and stuck it on with some generic builders adhesive in a tube. Works a treat, now the water collects and drains from the side.
I liked the colour I used for the block work so I also painted the flashings the same colour. I also managed to get around to painting the roof panels in a nice slate grey, made them look brand new.
Then I moved on to the rear and painted that too.
I haven't done the side walls yet. I don't have much room right now as that's where I've been dumping my excess stuff and its just aesthetics right now which can wait until next year once the weather gets better again. I was focusing more on making what I see from my house/back road nice.
Exterior done, now its the inside needing done. I knew that as I was going to be spending quite a bit of time in there that I would want it to be comfortable, dry, warm, basically a happy place to be. First thing I done was order some 3x2 to make the studding, 13 sheets of 9mm ply for the walls.I chose ply for strength compared to plaster board and its also a lot easier on the eye compared to OSB board. Then I took a long weekend off work and got started.
I was a bit unsure of how to attach the studding to the garage walls and then I came across these L brackets. There intended to be used to tie in blocks to a wooden frame when building. I found with a bit of cutting the longer end I could use them with some washers to keep the frame tied to the wall.
A bit like this. I know I could have made my own but these were like 32p each and I needed 94 of them so it was a no brainer.
A few things I had ordered hadn't arrived yet so I couldn't put the insulation in at this point. I didn't want to waste my time off so I got on with cutting all the ply for the walls.
Once I had the whole thing framed and ply cut, I then took all the ply back off again and started looking for insulation. My cavity space was around 100mm, not much but better than nothing. I had thought of using the rigid board stuff like I used for the roof but changed my mind , due to price and the fact that each cavity wasn't really a easy shape to cut and it would be left with a few empty spaces. I went to B&Q and they had an offer on for attic insulation, 5 rolls of 100mm for the price of 4. Worked out to about ยฃ35, deal done! .
The rolls they came in were already pre-cut to 400mm wide, which was close enough to my spacing , bonus. Once the insulation was cut and teased into place I then moved onto running my electric cables, I put 6 double sockets in on a ring circuit using 2.5mm cable on a 32amp breaker. I also added 4 more fluorescent tubes and wired them in using 1.5mm cable on a 6amp breaker. Lastly I used 6mm cable for the dedicated 16amp socket for my welder. All fed by a 10mm cable running on a 40amp breaker in the house to a consumer unit in the garage on a 63amp RCD main.
I thought that if I'm going to the effort of insulating it I will go the whole hog and buy proper vapour barrier ( this is what had not arrived dfor my holiday in time) and got that into place.
Next up I put all the ply back on the walls and moved onto insulating the doors. This is when I did use rigid insulation board. I had some 50mm left over from the roof and my brother gave me some 100mm stuff that I cut in half for the front door. I had also painted the floor by this point. Oh, also , if you look closely a the bottom of the doors you will see the rubber seal that was stuck to the ground to stop any rain, dust, leaves etc from being blown in.
Getting there, so close now!!. To neaten things up inside I filled the joints and gaps with a cheap wood filler, I also added some nice skirting boards which you cant see here yet. I bought a small 3Kw heater and I tell you what. The garage may not have tons of insulation but it holds the heat really well. If its around 11-13 degrees outside I can put the heater on for around 45mins and I'm toasty. Once I get it to a comfortable temperature I put if off and haven't found myself having to put it back on for another 2-3 hours.
Atlast, the garage was complete inside and out. Now I needed to move all my ****. I spent the next 3 weekends in a row borrowing my work van. I didn't want to bring useless stuff along so I made a few piles, scrap, recycle tip, garage etc.. And sorted it all out. I had bought 2 nice shelving units ages ago so I built them up. My boss was kind enough to let me have the work bench that I used in the old place.
Id go there on the Saturday, move the stuff I needed into the garage, Sunday was dumping **** day and then id spend time after work organising shelf's, roof space, hooks etc... Until all but one thing was left. The van!
I thought of borrowing my friends trailer and doing it myself but then I remembered that the guy I sold what was let of the Silver Lexus LS400 could maybe help me out. I managed to get a hold of him and organised him to collect it on his loader and drop it off. I also got my dad to come along and help too.
Cut to this Tuesday (10/11/2015) around 10am and I went to the garage to take this last photo of the van in the surrounding its been in for the past 5 years (has it really been this long already!).
We rolled the van out on a really heavy rainy day and got it loaded. Looks tiny compared to a modern Mercedes Sprinter van.
Then we got to my freshly built garage and got it in ๐ . The guy that dropped it off for me is a top bloke. Done it for a great price and wasn't shy to help unload it and get it in the garage, cheers James!
Oh, you can also see the metal shutter I made for the windows here. Stop people looking in and a bit of extra security.
Plenty of space between the trusses and roof of the van.
I cant say how happy I am for this right now. Its been literally around a year since I drew my first plans for the garage and now I'm here, atlast. My van is in the garage I designed, researched, bought, built, etc.. I feel really proud right about now. The day I brought it back I was actually just happy to sit in my garage and reflect on what I've achieved for a good hour or so. I have everything I need here, inside is nice to look at, I have electricity, Its warm, Its water tight, still plenty of space to work around , heck, it even has Wi-Fi.
So of course this is the point where I say I'm back to working on the van. Id love to say that but as its nearly xmas the wife wants some piece of the house to be re-decorated. I think she made her point when she started to half strip the hallway about a month ago then abandon it so I have to finish it off now, yippee..........
Never mind, 2 weeks holiday from work over Xmas and I'm getting myself stuck in the garage then!
Expect an update around then, so long......
November 2015
Its been roughly 3 months since my last update but I've been a very busy boy.
The last time I put an up date I had just started doing the harling on the walls so I'll carry on from there.
I carried on doing the harling a section at a time, just mixing enough myself by hand so as not to waste much. It was also at this point I had chosen my colours for the walls and bought a couple of tester pots.
All the harling finished on the front.
Then I moved onto the rear of the garage and that got the same treatment.
After all that I wanted to get on with painting the walls. As the garage is made from concrete sections I bought some proper gap sealant designed for these panels and ran it in between all the panels. I didn't bother filling the gap at the bottom between the blocks and walls as inevitably water will find a way in and that gap should let the water evaporate rather than containing it. I got home from work on an unusually warm day in Scotland and went into beast mode.
Once the front wall was painted I went and bought a nice dark green for the door. I repaired the hole I had cut in it from removing the middle hinge. I also got another colour for the block work at the bottom as a nice contrast. If you look closely to the roof flashing you will notice a few pairs of vice grips. I had noticed when it rained a lot of water would come running down the flashings and drip randomly on the ground. Not a big deal but it kind of annoyed me. To remedy this I wanted a small mini gutter. I thought of getting some thin sheet metal and folding a U in it but then I had a good idea to use plasterers beading. Its already in a U shape plus being galvanised it was also protected. So I used that and stuck it on with some generic builders adhesive in a tube. Works a treat, now the water collects and drains from the side.
I liked the colour I used for the block work so I also painted the flashings the same colour. I also managed to get around to painting the roof panels in a nice slate grey, made them look brand new.
Then I moved on to the rear and painted that too.
I haven't done the side walls yet. I don't have much room right now as that's where I've been dumping my excess stuff and its just aesthetics right now which can wait until next year once the weather gets better again. I was focusing more on making what I see from my house/back road nice.
Exterior done, now its the inside needing done. I knew that as I was going to be spending quite a bit of time in there that I would want it to be comfortable, dry, warm, basically a happy place to be. First thing I done was order some 3x2 to make the studding, 13 sheets of 9mm ply for the walls.I chose ply for strength compared to plaster board and its also a lot easier on the eye compared to OSB board. Then I took a long weekend off work and got started.
I was a bit unsure of how to attach the studding to the garage walls and then I came across these L brackets. There intended to be used to tie in blocks to a wooden frame when building. I found with a bit of cutting the longer end I could use them with some washers to keep the frame tied to the wall.
A bit like this. I know I could have made my own but these were like 32p each and I needed 94 of them so it was a no brainer.
A few things I had ordered hadn't arrived yet so I couldn't put the insulation in at this point. I didn't want to waste my time off so I got on with cutting all the ply for the walls.
Once I had the whole thing framed and ply cut, I then took all the ply back off again and started looking for insulation. My cavity space was around 100mm, not much but better than nothing. I had thought of using the rigid board stuff like I used for the roof but changed my mind , due to price and the fact that each cavity wasn't really a easy shape to cut and it would be left with a few empty spaces. I went to B&Q and they had an offer on for attic insulation, 5 rolls of 100mm for the price of 4. Worked out to about ยฃ35, deal done! .
The rolls they came in were already pre-cut to 400mm wide, which was close enough to my spacing , bonus. Once the insulation was cut and teased into place I then moved onto running my electric cables, I put 6 double sockets in on a ring circuit using 2.5mm cable on a 32amp breaker. I also added 4 more fluorescent tubes and wired them in using 1.5mm cable on a 6amp breaker. Lastly I used 6mm cable for the dedicated 16amp socket for my welder. All fed by a 10mm cable running on a 40amp breaker in the house to a consumer unit in the garage on a 63amp RCD main.
I thought that if I'm going to the effort of insulating it I will go the whole hog and buy proper vapour barrier ( this is what had not arrived dfor my holiday in time) and got that into place.
Next up I put all the ply back on the walls and moved onto insulating the doors. This is when I did use rigid insulation board. I had some 50mm left over from the roof and my brother gave me some 100mm stuff that I cut in half for the front door. I had also painted the floor by this point. Oh, also , if you look closely a the bottom of the doors you will see the rubber seal that was stuck to the ground to stop any rain, dust, leaves etc from being blown in.
Getting there, so close now!!. To neaten things up inside I filled the joints and gaps with a cheap wood filler, I also added some nice skirting boards which you cant see here yet. I bought a small 3Kw heater and I tell you what. The garage may not have tons of insulation but it holds the heat really well. If its around 11-13 degrees outside I can put the heater on for around 45mins and I'm toasty. Once I get it to a comfortable temperature I put if off and haven't found myself having to put it back on for another 2-3 hours.
Atlast, the garage was complete inside and out. Now I needed to move all my ****. I spent the next 3 weekends in a row borrowing my work van. I didn't want to bring useless stuff along so I made a few piles, scrap, recycle tip, garage etc.. And sorted it all out. I had bought 2 nice shelving units ages ago so I built them up. My boss was kind enough to let me have the work bench that I used in the old place.
Id go there on the Saturday, move the stuff I needed into the garage, Sunday was dumping **** day and then id spend time after work organising shelf's, roof space, hooks etc... Until all but one thing was left. The van!
I thought of borrowing my friends trailer and doing it myself but then I remembered that the guy I sold what was let of the Silver Lexus LS400 could maybe help me out. I managed to get a hold of him and organised him to collect it on his loader and drop it off. I also got my dad to come along and help too.
Cut to this Tuesday (10/11/2015) around 10am and I went to the garage to take this last photo of the van in the surrounding its been in for the past 5 years (has it really been this long already!).
We rolled the van out on a really heavy rainy day and got it loaded. Looks tiny compared to a modern Mercedes Sprinter van.
Then we got to my freshly built garage and got it in ๐ . The guy that dropped it off for me is a top bloke. Done it for a great price and wasn't shy to help unload it and get it in the garage, cheers James!
Oh, you can also see the metal shutter I made for the windows here. Stop people looking in and a bit of extra security.
Plenty of space between the trusses and roof of the van.
I cant say how happy I am for this right now. Its been literally around a year since I drew my first plans for the garage and now I'm here, atlast. My van is in the garage I designed, researched, bought, built, etc.. I feel really proud right about now. The day I brought it back I was actually just happy to sit in my garage and reflect on what I've achieved for a good hour or so. I have everything I need here, inside is nice to look at, I have electricity, Its warm, Its water tight, still plenty of space to work around , heck, it even has Wi-Fi.
So of course this is the point where I say I'm back to working on the van. Id love to say that but as its nearly xmas the wife wants some piece of the house to be re-decorated. I think she made her point when she started to half strip the hallway about a month ago then abandon it so I have to finish it off now, yippee..........
Never mind, 2 weeks holiday from work over Xmas and I'm getting myself stuck in the garage then!
Expect an update around then, so long......
