Kevbarlas1
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Re: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
Thanks guys :) 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 :) . 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.491Views0likes0CommentsRe: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
Thanks guys, i really like the comments made on this forum :) , 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 £35, 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 :) . 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......491Views0likes0CommentsRe: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
Thanks guy :) . August 2015 Time for another belated update on the garage/life. Lets see, the last update was May so this is 3 months worth of stuff that's been going on. Ok, I got the rest of the trusses up without much hassle, that was the good thing about making them up on a jig., just repeat everything. When it came to the other end of the garage I did have a little problem joining the panels together as I only had 2 "corner" pieces that I had already used on the front of the garage. The panels are about 75-80mm thick so I bought a length of 80mm box section and used that as the corner posts. I drilled and tapped the holes to bolt the panels too them and also welded on base plates to help strengthening it up a bit. I then started on the purlins. To save even more money, I made use of what I already had and reused the 50x150 I had used for boxing in the foundations. I attached these using Tek-screws, wonderful things! Just like screws with inbuilt drill bits on the end so no need for pilot holes, just screw them in with a cordless like you normally would putting screws into wood. Put them in over a few days, then stood up on the highest point for the first time. Then it was time for the actual roof. I bought some 18mm OSB3 board as my first layer. I managed to rope both brothers to help me out with this as I wanted everything to be water tight in one day in case it rained (this being Scotland and all) Ross turned up first, raring to go. Starting to sheet it up. I borrowed the works rip-saw for the weekend which was very useful. Then the centre section. It was feeling pretty surreal actually walking on the roof, atleast it made me feel more confident about the strength of the whole thing. First layer done, ready for the vapour barrier, and pose. Vapour barrier all taped up. This was when Scott turned up and we reunited as team Barlas!, nothing could stop us now. Attaching the 50mm insulation panels. We worked out a way of doing the roof. The insulation panels were 1200mm wide and the roof panels were 1000mm so once we had one sheet of insulation down and pinned we then placed a roof section on top and put a few more tekscrews in to keep it down. I had decent length screws to get into the purlin underneath also. I also put sticky rubber between the roof section joints to help make it even more weather tight. Oh, I also used proper foil tape between all the insulation sections to make another barrier. Bit too much posing and coffee breaks for my liking ;) . Scott's pretty tall so it was handy having him at the ready to pass the panels up, after a while we started getting a good system going. One panel to go. To tidy up the apex and edges I cut a few lengths of 1.6mm galvanised sheets from work into strips then took them along to my old work and folded them over. I still had a few things to do at either end so I just put the centre up first and folded the vapour barrier over so the OSB and insulation wouldn't get wet in the mean time. Cut to a few weeks later. I neatend up the eaves of the garage with a metal cicular saw and a straight line. I had also installed the guttering but hadn't plumbed everything in yet. Oh, and you cant really see it here but I have the foam eave fillers in too. I couldn't find the right profile anywhere so I went to a local foam centre and was quoted £85 just for foam, no special shapes or anything, just a continuous section of foam!. So, being the cheap ass that I am I went around a few of the bargain shops and found a place that had foam knee pads that were made from 50x50 sections of foam, best thing was they were only 50p each and each knee pad had 10 sections. All I did was separate them , angle the ends and they fitted, so I saved £80.50. To seal the end trusses of the garage I used more OSB3 I had left over, cut the triangles out, painted them in extra thick bitumen paint to seal them from water and installed them using a mixture of screws and tek-screws. I also fitted the flashings by this point. I had then hoped to get straight onto the doors but shortly after fitting the gutters we had a huge downpour. Now, I was probably very naive thinking that I could use 2 x 25 gallon buckets and that I would empty them "everynow and then" because it had been raining for about an hour and each bucket was over flowing! Well, that means I better plumb in the roof water drainage. Got the pick-axe ( my dads one really, I cant seem to find mine, the running joke is its buried in the foundations somewhere ;) ) and shovel and started to dig. I had forgotten just how much of a work out it was. Good thing is I have a vent in my garden just outside the back door so I was able to tap into that using a clay to PVC adaptor. P-trap concreted in. As I could only really do stuff after work this was my temporary solution so I don't flood my garden, flood the council grass instead. I bought some drain channels on Ebay and set about laying them. I bought a few bags of cement and 24 bags of ballast to mix up. I really wish I had a mixer but I dint so all of it was done by hand, all half ton of it, my guns were aching by the time it was all done. Whilst I had a trench dug I thought id lay the power cable too. My dad gave me an old bit of 5mm thick wall piping so I ran a 10mm twin and earth cable though it which should be more than ample for what I need. Great, that was the drainage done, now back to the doors. As usual, I didn't want any flimsy nancy pansy wooden door, I wanted steel! So I took some measurements and drew up some plans. I wanted all the height I could get so I designed the doors to go right up including the anlged section. I took a weeks holiday from work......so I could then go to my work and make the doors.... I used 50mm box section for the frame. I used 1.6mm galvanised to sheet it out and made my own heavy duty hinges. After a weeks work my dad came round and helped me fit them. I was a bit anxious as I only left a 10mm gap all around but they fitted like the proverbial glove. Inside Then I used some 25mm angle and rubber beading to make a weather tight seal. Ive since fitted more sliding bolts. The beauty of it is there's no way to open it from the outside right now (that wont be until much later when I'm using the van) Even if someone cuts the hinges there's a back up system ;) . Now for the entry door, again it had to be metal but I didn't want it to look like an industrial unit so I made a faux 4 panel door. Framed and sheated then I cut up some wooden (bleugh) beading for decoration. I also have 2 nice anti-saw locks attached I managed to fit this door myself. I had 3 hinges on it to start off with but as the door has a slight bow in it the middle hinge was binding with the door frame so that whenever I opened the door it made the frame twist slightly. That caused the sealant to flex so I had to cut the middle one off, never mind. Il deal with the hole later. You may have also noticed in the last photo I have fitted my strip lights. I only have them wired to a plug just now so I can have light if I need to work inside when its dark until I get all the electrics connected up. My boss was throwing them out as he bought new ones for the showroom. Little bit paint and they were fit for purpose. They are a tad long though so I have had to stagger them , beggers cant be choosers and all that eh. Getting close to where I am right now. I've started doing the bit I've kind of been worried about. Rendering the upper part of the trusses and wall to match the rest of the garage panels. I've looked up a lot of information regarding how to do it and so I went and bought all the materials. To render onto wood it needs to have a mesh put on first, this is called lath. It needs to be as tight as possible so I attached it with about 120 screws and washers over the looser areas. Then my scratch coat. I used a 4:1 mix of sand and cement with some waterproofer/plasticiser mixed in and bought myself a good trowel. It was a bit daunting but I was getting the hang of it. I'm definitely not a plasterer though. Then I bought some galvanised beading to put around the windows so it looks neater then I gave the wall a scratch coat. To level everything out I gave the upper section another scratch coat as it was 10mm further back than the wall. Then that brings me nicely to today. I bought some small stone chips from a garden centre and started the roughcast coat. Now that is tricky! I messed up the first time as I had not made the wall wet enough before rendering so by the time I finished a section all the moisture had seeped into the wall and the outside was dry so the stones never stuck in. I s****ed it all off and started again, this time I really wet the walls then got on with it. I was a bit more successful this time but I can honestly see why this is a proper time served apprenticeship kind of job. The professionals make it look so easy too. The good thing is its all getting painted when I'm finished anyway, I think il use a textured masonry paint to blend it all in. I have already gotten the slate grey for the roof , just waiting for a few sunny days to do it. That's me completely upto date now. Once I have finished this wall I will move onto the back of the garage and do that end in the same way with the roughcasting. After that its just a few other little things to tidy up/finish then paint and the exterior will be done and I can move onto the inside to insulate and sheet. I think my boss wants me out pretty soon though so I think I will have to move a lot of stuff along to the garage and work around the van. Will be a bugger but will be pretty cool to have the van home as well :) . Until next time!469Views0likes0CommentsRe: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
May 2015, Wow, its been a pretty long time since I had any updates. As I mentioned the last time I've been building a garage as my boss wants his garage back. The good thing is he hasn't really been in too much of a rush to get me out. As with the van I've only been able to do the garage on the weekends and some nights after work if im not too busy, too tired, crappy weather, planets all a lined, blue moons etc... Its actually taken quite a bit longer than I hoped but I am getting there. I'm also too cheap to pay someone else to do things for me. So, to recap from my last post il add what I wrote before. So my new project that I'm going to have to rush though is a double garage. Scotland's rules regarding a garage without having to get planning permission are actually quite relaxed. Here are those rules. (1) The provision within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse of a building for any purpose incidental to the enjoyment of that dwellinghouse or the alteration, maintenance or improvement of such a building. (2) Development is not permitted by this class if- (a) it consists of a dwelling; (b) any part of the development would be forward of a wall forming part of the principal elevation or side elevation where that elevation fronts a road; (c) the height of the eaves would exceed 3 metres; (d) any part of the development would exceed 4 metres in height; (e) any part of the development within 1 metre of the boundary of the curtilage of the dwellinghouse would exceed 2.5 metres in height; (f) as a result of the development the area of ground covered by development within the front or rear curtilage of the dwellinghouse (excluding the original dwellinghouse and any hard surface or deck) would exceed 50% of the area of the front or rear curtilage respectively (excluding the ground area of the original dwellinghouse and any hard surface or deck); or (g) in the case of land in a conservation area or within the curtilage of a listed building, the resulting building would have a footprint exceeding 4 square metres. The only part of that which has been my biggest challenge is the 2.5 metres max within 1 metre of the boundary, due to my garden being about 6 metres wide and the garage being 5 metres wide. Ive spent a lot of time drawing and measuring so I don't need written permission (I,e a huge amount of money and time). This is the garden when I moved in. Since then I've had to lift all the stone chips and mark out my dimensions for the monolithic slab I will be pouring in. Underneath the blue tarp I have about 40 concrete sectional panels I got for a steal second-hand. The outer edges of the slab will be 300 x 300 then the centre will be 150mm thick, of course I will also have rebar and mesh in there too. Gives me a good indication size, really happy to actually start my dream of my very own double garage :). Which brings me to today. The trenches are dug and I'm now skimming the top layer for the centre of the slab. A few people have already asked me why I'm not just hiring a digger and skip to do it all but to be honest I'm absolutely skint. I managed to get a small loan for the material but if I can save myself money by digging and disposing of the clay/soil in a trailer at the local tip I will. (even if that means roping in my poor brother to lend a hand, cheers bro) I'm hoping next week will be the last weekend of digging. And I can get the rebar in and concrete poured maybe around mid February, we'll see........ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok, so I did manage to skim the top layer off but I stumbled across a bit of bad luck. The weather took a really bad change for the worse and it chucked down with rain for a solid week a few days after all the digging. The ground was complete mush, really sticky clay and it was soaked all the way through. I had hoped that it wouldn't rain as the clay was quite firm and I hoped to just pour directly over that. In a very vain attempt to do something I even covered it with tarp to see if a couple of weeks would help to dry out at least the centre. But it was no use. Once I took the tarp off it was just as bad. I felt really quite upset and a bit stressed out at this so I looked up what to do on google. So to remedy the situation I ordered 3 tons of hardcore to be delivered. To make space for all the hardcore though I had to go down another 150mm which my dad kindly helped me wit, thanks dad. Then I think it was the next day the hardcore was delivered. I had learnt my lesson not to have too much time between vital jobs. My dad came back along that day and helped me to spread it out and I hired a whacker plate from the local hire shop and after a few hours I had a really good strong, firm base to pour on. I bought a few lengths of 6x2 to use as shuttering with some 2x2 stakes and took my time laying it all out. Once I was happy with the shuttering I ordered the concrete and took a long weekend off so I could prepare the damp proof membrane and rebar to go down the day before it arrived so I wouldn't get puddles if it rained. I bought the rebar a little while before so for speed I had already welded these into long cube shapes so all I had to do was place it in, no need for tying them together with wire. The rebar is 16mm thick with 8mm mesh, its probably a bit more heavy duty than it needed to be but for the sake of £30 - £40 I thought id do it strong. Then the DMP went down. I also ran a small length of water pipe so I can run an electric cable through it when I'm finished. Also, to save a bit cash on mesh supports I just broke a few slabs into small bits which raised it to about 60 mm, the thickness of the foundation in the centre is around 120-140mm All ready ! I had ordered a mix of C25 concrete from a company that done a pretty good price. My brother and Dad came over to help out with the spreading. None of us had ever done this kind of thing so we may have made a few mistakes but the end product is pretty good. I had looked up a few videos on yotube about concrete pouring but I couldn't find one that covered pretty much all of the pour without being either sped up too fast or just a lot of editing to make the video short. I decided to record a full hours worth of video and I put it on youtube if anyone else is interested in the process. Here's the link to that video if anyone's interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTWCKyfLWgk It was pretty hard going, shovelling, raking, scooping really took its toll on us. Trying to do all of these things as quick as we could and keeping a level head to know what to do next was difficult, but we managed to get all the concrete poured in in about 45-50 mins so I didn't have to pay any extra to the driver and once he left I just had the skimming to do. I hired a long float from the same place as the whacker plate to get a more professional looking finish. At the end of the day I was left with a very expensive piece of concrete but I was really happy as it meant no more muddy shoes and clothes ! :) . The next few days I was pretty apprehensive, checking on it all the time to make sure there was no cracks forming and that it was setting well. After a couple of weeks I too all the shuttering off and it was still intact, phew! I had a few other things going on at the time so I left it another couple of weeks. I then ordered 60 concrete blocks to be delivered. The garage panels I bought second hand are only 2 metres tall, so to get a bit of extra height I wanted to build a small one row of blocks around to put the panels on top of. This is also the first time I've done any mortar/block work. My big book of DIY came in handy again for this. The only real bother about this is the fact I don't know 100% to the millimetre where the panels will end so I decided to build the front half of the garage first, then when I work back I can put the last few blocks in place when I know where the last panel will land. Once the blocks I needed were in place my brother came along and helped me put up the first corner. I managed to get 2 double glazed windows for free from my work so for that area I built a small wall up with blocks. Then when I was happy with the little wall I welded up a door frame. Few more panels put up. The panels join to each other with 4 M8 bolts. I managed to tap into the door frame so there attached to that also. I had also been making up my roof trusses after work during this time too. They are scissor trusses made from 50x3 angle and 50x50 box. When designing them I wanted all the joints to be extra strong so they overlap in some areas and braced in others. My boss was nice enough to let me use the workshop for this. The beauty of them is I needed 14 halfs to make 7 whole ones but 11 of them are identical so I only needed to make one jig. My dad and brother came back along to help me set the first end truss up plus put a few more panels up. Then when they left I put the windows in. Which brings me upto how it is today. Both my brothers were here yesterday and helped me get 2 of the trusses up into position and a few more panels up. To attach the trusses I bolted down a length of 50x5 angle to the top of the panels. Worked out the centres for them, then cut out a 55mm wide slot to drop them in place. Once I was happy with there position I welded them down. I wish I never took so long to do this update as I've forgotten half the details I was going to put in. I did actually think id have it done by now but so much is going on I'm strapped for time. I got a promotion at work so I'm now th eworkshop foreman which has been pretty good plus it means a little more per hour, yippee. Now I need to go outside and mortar the last of the bricks as I know where they are going to be so I can get the rest of the panels up and secured. I have also managed to buy insulation for the roof, 50mm thick foil backed foam as I'm making it a warm roof. I got them from gumtree from someone that bought some for his conservatory then changed his mind so there still brand new. I also managed to get some second hand box profile roof sheets, 0.7mm thick. That was a bargain! £80 for the whole roof. They had been in a firedamaged building. They still have all there integrity, just a little bit of soot on the underside. My biggest concern are the actual garage panels themselves. 80% of them are fine but the rest do have some fine cracks in them, I'm not really sure exactly what il do with them. I thought about some kind of crack injection repair but il have to look into that. In hindsight, I think I should have just built the whole thing out of concrete blocks. Too late for now, il need to see how it goes.469Views0likes0CommentsRe: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
Tvov wrote: Any updates? Did Santa bring you any gifts related to the camper? No camper gifts unfortunately, been a tight one this year. January 2015 update Yep, I'm still alive. Just with a lot more responsibilities and stress than before, hence the lack of updates on the van. Yet again nothing has happened with the van due to life getting in the way over the past few months. I did get the livingroom finished for xmas though. If you are interested in it continue reading , if not then head to the end of the post for van related news. When I first moved into the new house the livingroom was very um, 'granny' friendly. The typical 80's brick wall/fireplace inside around the walls was taking up about 2ft of space. Basic electric fire. uncomfy sofa and chairs, textured wallpaper, basically it was needing a complete refresh. The good thing about the house is there is nothing that needs urgent attention. One Sunday after lunch I was wondering just how easy it would be to take the wall down, I got my hammer and bolster and knocked a few bricks down. Then thought "well, looks like I've started the decorating now then" so I carried on. With the walls down I made a start on digging out the fireplace and hearth. The chimney was still there and unblocked so I got a chimney sweep in to give it a good clean and test. It all came through OK, just a little pointing to do around the chimney stack on the roof but nothing major. I broke out the hammer drill and with a chisel bit I lifted all the tiles and broke the hearth down to leave me the sub-hearth. Also, the wall above the fireplace had been covered in some kind of 80's wood laminate with what felt like superglue. That's the good thing about the salvage yard I work at. You have to be up for trying all aspects of the job, one of which is installing the fireplaces so I know how to remove one and clean the chamber out. It was going to be a lot of hassle to the walls skimmed with plaster so I opted to use plaster board. My boss told me the easiest way was to "dot and dab" it. Which is using an adhesive to attach the plasterboards. First I had to PVA the wall to seal it. Then the adhesive. I took my time to make sure everything was all square and level when I put the boards on. Then cut out the hole for the fireplace. I wasn't too keen on the dot and dab method. Sure it was effective at holding the boards up but I seemed to make a complete mess everywhere, seriously, everywhere. For the 2 other walls I just done it the traditional way of using 1/2 x 1 inch timber and screwed the boards to that. Then I had to fill the gaps. The whole time I was doing this was after work and weekends so it took a few weeks to do, the upstairs spare room became our livingroom for the time being. Anyway, at this point I was ready for the other side of the wall. I really wanted a slate hearth for my fireplace but I couldn't afford it, even through my work it would cost atleast £250 as it needs backfilled for a solid fuel fire. Instead I made a small shutter around the fireplace then poured it with the ducamix (heat proof concrete) and let it set. Oh, I also had to extend the electrical sockets to the new plasterboard. Then I got some nice porcelain tiles, 6 of them for £40 to use as the hearth. Filled in the gaps with tile grout and it was done, saved me about £180 over a s;ate hearth and in hindsight I'm really happy with the outcome as the porcelain tiles are so much more durable than soft slate. I temporarily put the combination in place to see what it would be like and try pout sample of wallpaper. This is the same combination I restored that I used as a dummy fireplace in my old rented flat. With those walls done I had decided to take a long weekend off work so I could repair the lexus starter motor solenoid and do a lot more to the house. Worst weekend I've had in a long time. The started motor is right between the V of the cylinders, underneath the injectors, air manifold, 2 water pipes, LPG injectors etc.. and basically, long story short I was at the garage form 10am to 2am, 16 hours. Had to leave the car at the garage and find my own way home and took a while to diagnose the rubber o rings in the injectors were leaking so I had to blow £30 on 8 little rubber washers to get it to run right. I only had 1 day to do the house, hence the exhausted and pissed off face on me. I was adding another power socket to the other wall as I wanted the TV to be between the doors and didn't want to run cables around the door frames. I smoothed and filled all the other walls once they were stripped and started to line them with lining paper. If anyone else out there is new to this house renovating thing I really recommend spending £20 in a good thick book about it, I got the readers digest diy manual which was good at explaining all of the things I was needing to do. Here I am checking out how you do wallpapering. Then trying it out, fairly easy once you get the hang of it. With all that done I got the gratebuilder from work to do the chamber work for the fireplace. I would have given it a go myself but when its something that has the potential to destroy the house its probably best to leave it to the professionals. First fire ever :) Next thing was the floor. The wife and I wanted to have a nice sanded floor so I hired a floor sander for the weekend. Oh, I had also painted the other wall at this point too, a kind of stone white for the walls on the fire place side and a light green on the others. I worked through all the grades, then used the edging sander and finally filled the gaps with pva mix and a top coat of pine wood filler. Took all weekend, very dusty and very noisy. All that was left was to fit new skirting boards and give everything a little tidy and I was done, next step, the furnishings. Im really happy with how it turned out and quite proud of myself to do pretty much 99% of it myself. I still go by the motto " you don't know if you can do it unless you try it". You might just surprise your self. I managed to finish about 2 weeks before the xmas holidays so I let myself have a good rest. Then I got some news from my boss that kinda annoyed me. Last time he was over from Florida we discussed when I would have a garage built assuming I moved into this house and I said June or July. To which he replied, "well, if we say July will be your last month at the garage would that be OK" so I agreed thinking id have plenty of time to build a garage. Then a few days before we broke up for the holidays he told me he needed me out by April....... Uuuuugggh, so that just added to my stress, if I knew that's what he was planning I would have started the garage before the livingroom. So my new project that I'm going to have to rush though is a double garage. Scotland's rules regarding a garage without having to get planning permission are actually quite relaxed. Here are those rules. (1) The provision within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse of a building for any purpose incidental to the enjoyment of that dwellinghouse or the alteration, maintenance or improvement of such a building. (2) Development is not permitted by this class if- (a) it consists of a dwelling; (b) any part of the development would be forward of a wall forming part of the principal elevation or side elevation where that elevation fronts a road; (c) the height of the eaves would exceed 3 metres; (d) any part of the development would exceed 4 metres in height; (e) any part of the development within 1 metre of the boundary of the curtilage of the dwellinghouse would exceed 2.5 metres in height; (f) as a result of the development the area of ground covered by development within the front or rear curtilage of the dwellinghouse (excluding the original dwellinghouse and any hard surface or deck) would exceed 50% of the area of the front or rear curtilage respectively (excluding the ground area of the original dwellinghouse and any hard surface or deck); or (g) in the case of land in a conservation area or within the curtilage of a listed building, the resulting building would have a footprint exceeding 4 square metres. The only part of that which has been my biggest challenge is the 2.5 metres max within 1 metre of the boundy, due to my garden being about 6 metres wide and the garage being 5 metres wide. Ive spent a lot of time drawing and measuring so I don't need written permission (I,e a huge amount of money and time). This is the garden when I moved in. Since then I've had to lift all the stone chips and mark out my dimensions for the monolithic slab I will be pouring in. Underneath the blue tarp I have about 40 concrete sectional panels I got for a steal second-hand. The outer edges of the slab will be 300 x 300 then the centre will be 150mm thick, ofcourse I will also have rebar and mesh in there too. Gives me a good indication size, really happy to actually start my dream of my very own double garage :). Which brings me to today. The trenches are dug and I'm now skimming the top layer for the centre of the slab. A few people have already asked me why I'm not just hiring a digger and skip to do it all but to be honest I'm absolutely skint. I managed to get a small loan for the material but if I can save myself money by digging and disposing of the clay/soil in a trailer at the local tip I will. (even if that means roping in my poor brother to lend a hand, cheers bro) Im hoping next week will be the last weekend of digging. And I can get the rebar in and concrete poured maybe around mid February, we'll see........ The only true van related news I have was I was in the December issue of classic ford which was nice. I'm missing not having done anything to the van for ages now but I guess I need to do all of these other things first so I can have the time and space to do the van, it should all be worthwhile in the end.413Views0likes0CommentsRe: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
October 2014 Well, what a hectic and stressful couple of months I've had. Moving house took up about 2 weeks of my life and about 2 years off it. Getting time to do anything just seems so hard, I'm about a month late with this update, but, Im so happy that I am now in MY house and not someone else's that I am paying their mortgage. Another thing about moving into my own place is I now have this strange obsession to decorate. I guess its because I have never had the freedom to do so in all the places I have rented before. Of course this means its something else that takes my time up. I don't want to bore everyone to death about decorating so I will keep this part short and just show a few progress pics, skip past them if its not your thing. Enough of that crap, back to the main thing, the van. I've been lucky to get just a few weekends down to the garage. I would normally go atleast once a week after work but the route to the garage from work has been closed for major bridge works and the detour adds about 40mins during rush hour traffic which I cant be bothered with. I also found it a bit difficult top get back into the swing of things from when I last touched the van before the small bike project. It was also because I had to start back on the van with a tricky area to sort out that left me frustrated at times, the front disc set up. Just to re-cap, the vented discs and 4 pot callipers are taken from a 3.5 ton long wheel base mk2 Ford transit. The same as this. I think I briefly mentioned a while ago that to get all this to fit I needed to modify a few bits. Because of the age of my van the stock wheel hub was a bit weedy compared to the later model ones so I managed to part exchange them with the owner of the Thames club for later versions, Here it is before having anything done to it. If I remember correctly ( it has been a few months), I got an engineer to get it in the lathe and skim the front and rear face a bit to make it true, then the rear of the hub was turned down a little for clearance and to make a ring for the disc to register onto then I also got 5 holes on a pcd of 5 x 100 so I could bolt the Transit discs in from behind. It cost £180 for the pair and he done a great job of it. He also skimmed the inner hole of the vented disc so it would sit behind the hub. Bolted together they make the complete hub/disc assembly. I was going to get him to press the wheel studs in but they hadn't arrived at that point so I will get that done later. With that sorted I had to get the calliper bracket mounted. Here is the standard stub axle. Those four bolts would normally hold the back of the drum assembly in place but I now need them to hold the calliper bracket instead. This is the standard transit calliper bracket, unfortunately its not a straight bolt on fit. Those holes are just ever so slightly the wrong pcd. To remedy this I cut 4 bits of 10mm bar and placed them in the holes. Quick zap with the mig and a clean up and I have a bracket ready for new holes. When I was working all this out I decided that I would keep the bracket at the same angle as the transit, that is, exactly at 90 degrees to the disc. I mocked it up to see what it was like. Everything was fine, until, I went to full lock. On full lock and the suspension fully extended the calliper would be hitting against the lower suspension arm, not good. By turning the calliper anti clockwise by about 5 degrees I was able to miss all the vital suspension parts on full lock. To get these holes done correctly I headed back to the engineers again and left them with him. I did try to drill one of the holes myself in the pillar drill but there was soo much wobble I couldn't get it to with in tolerances, the engineer done them in his milling machine so they turned out exactly correct. When I got them back I bolted it all together and with a 2mm shim to centralise the calliper everything was great. No more fouling of the lower arm at full extension. Plus, I think the look awesome. So, after a difficult re-start I managed to get it all to work. Well, the anti roll bar still hits the calliper but is much easier to move that back an inch than the rest of what I've done. Im sure these discs combined with the rear 9 inch drums will be adequate to the performance of the van. I also have a 1inch bore landrover mastercylinder installed and will be fitting a remote brake booster. I feel this is a good base to start from and can fine tune it once I get it running and can test drive it. I also managed to get a full set of 4 15 inch wheels from Sandy at the Thames owner club. I feel I will be taking another trip to the engineers so he can split these and I can get on with banding them. On another slight tangent, I'm getting kicked out of my garage. My boss knows I have just bought a new house and I told him I'm looking to get a garage built in the garden. He is being very reasonable about it though, I said I hope to have a garage installed before July next year so he has given me until then to get everything sorted. It makes sense, he could be renting the whole building out to someone and actually making profit and the same for me, I pay £100 a month which is very cheap for what I get but still, that's £1200 a year I will be saving. Oh, another little thing before I go, I managed to sell the bike. I wasn't sure what it was worth so my first Ebay adventure at £2500 was a test to see what kind of offers I would receive. A couple people offered £1500 so when it ended I put it back on starting at £1500. I kind of hoped id get a few people interested in it but it only got one bid, well, atleast I got my £1500. Bye-bye, After all my costs I made about £1000 not including labour which is a nice tidy sum I have put away to go towards the garage build. I am on the look out for a second hand double pre-fab concrete garage if anyone knows of one going cheap?. Well, that concludes this months work. I wish I could split myself up, one to go to work, one to be with the wife, one to go to the van, one to decorate the house and one to get on with finding and building a garage plus foundations. Oh, oh, one last thing, be sure to get the next issue of Classic Ford, they sent a photographer down and its going to be featured in the grafters section, yippee!.413Views0likes0CommentsRe: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
August update Some of you may have been thinking I've dropped off the edge of the planet. Well, don't worry, I've just been upto a few other things plus a wee holiday abroad. What's happened to the van since the last update? Nothing really. This update is about another little project I've been wanting to do for a long time but never got around to it for various reasons, but its time has now came. I wanted to just do one post about it so I've waited until it was finished and road legal. When I was about 14, like a lot of kids I was into riding my BMX and I just heard about 'Beach cruisers' . They are bicycles styled like chopper/bobbers and I really wanted to build one but I never had the skills to do so back then. I did get so far to do a drawing of what I wanted. Which I happen to still have. I kind of kept coming back to the idea of building one but as I grew older and lazier I thought it would be cool to have an engine in it. I started changing my plans to buying an older moped with pedals and a small 2 stroke engine and modifying that into chopper or bobber. I have even went so far as to going to look at some mopeds but they were either way over priced or missing loads of stuff so I put it all on the back burner. Fast forward to about 3-4 months ago. I was at my friends garage buying a small hobby compressor off him for my brother. As I was leaving he said "you wouldn't be interested in a Honda CB 125 would you?" I wasn't, but I had a quick look over it anyway. It was a bog standard CB that had been MOT'd the year before but that had ran out. He just lost interest in it and had spent quite a bit on parts, new piston and barrel, new tyres etc..I told him I'd think about it but it wasn't really for me. He even told me he just wanted £100 to get rid of it, which made me a bit more interested but at the time I had no plans for another project. A few weeks later, Jana and I went to Ibiza for a little break together. When I was there I just saw lots of small capacity bikes, all different styles and conditions. It started to peak my interest in that bike my friend was selling. Then it started to become my obsession. I looked up all the info on them much to the disdain of my sunbathing darling wife. Then it clicked!, I could use this bike for my foundation of the bobber / chopper I always wanted to build. A quick few txt's later and the bike was mine. I had decided to make this as low budget as possible so I settled on a bobber style, this meant I didn't need to buy longer forks for a chopper. It had to be a hard tail and kept in an Old skool style. First task was to go pick it up. The day after I got back from holiday I borrowed the work van and collected it then took it back to the garage. Here it is the day I got it, a 1981 Honda CB125T. Then I started to tear it down. It came apart really easy, about an hour later I was down to a bar chassis. I then cut the rear sub-frame off. Stripped it a bit more to leave just the frame then cleaned up left over bits from the sub-frame. As I was going to hard-tail it I needed to set my fork height first. I wanted the front to sit a bit lower so I took the bolt off the top of the forks, pulled the springs out and cut an inch and a half off to drop it a bit. I placed a sheet of stirling board on a bench I had to extend it and mocked up the basic lay out of the new hard-tail section. This is the standard wheel base. Oh, I had also went to my other friend who works in a motorbike scrapyard for some bits and bobs. Keen to keep the price down I also took along some of my stuff (tank, rear light/mudguard, lights etc..) to part exchange for some more bobber looking bits. I got a tank off a DT125 Yamaha with a few dents, 4 retro indicators, side stand, chrome headlight, chrome pod gauges and a few other things. I settled on a 6 inch stretch. I wanted it to be long and low. That's a 5inch bit of box section the frame is on for reference. I had some copper tubing found outside my garage that someone had dumped so I used that to mock up the frame. MMhmm, seems uncomfortable enough. I wasn't too sure how id do the exhaust but I did like the cone shape, I tried it on in its stock position as it was. Once I was happy with the mock up I started to get serious. Preparing now would save me having to do it all over again so I wanted to get things as accurate as I could. I chalked a line down the board and marked the critical locations. Tacked the frame to the box Added a few tabs for adjustment. Then squared the frame up. To stop the front wheel from moving I boxed it in. I cut the swing arm bits out that the wheel bolts to and tidied them up to re-use. Then I fabbed up a replacement for the rear wheel that I could screw down into place. Everything all set up its time to start on the rear frame. I bought a few sections of 1inch thick wall tubing from my work for about £30 and used my pipe bender to bend it. I know a pipe bender isn't the best thing to use for structural stuff but as all my bends weren't huge angles it didn't kink the tubing at all. I done one side by eye then used that as a template for the other side. With plenty of tacks in place I took the frame down and bolted the back wheel in to see how it looked. Then I had to come up with a seat. I made a cardboard template for my butt, cut it out in 3mm plate and curved it slightly. As this was going to be hard tailed I wanted to make it as comfortable for my posterior as I could. My dad gave me a small shock absorber off a mountain bike he had so I welded in another bit of tubing and made a few brackets to join it all together. I used a bolt as a temporary pivot at this stage. The old tank slipped into place with a little tab but the DT tank never had that so after rinsing the tank out with gallons of water (with a few nuts inside to dislodge any rust inside) I welded 2 M5 bolts to it then made appropriate brackets welded to the frame to hold it in place. The tank never had a fuel tap I could use either so I had to do something with that. I got a tap of another DT125 but this was a completely different way off fitting to to the tank so I had to modify the tank a bit more. I had to cut the old tap mount off, plate it, then used a bit of 10mm bar to make a new manifold to bolt the new tap to. It took a while as every time I made a weld I had to fill the tank up with water to make sure it was all fuel tight. Perseverance pays off though. The tank also uses 2 rubbers at the front which under friction keep the tank in place so I had to weld 2 chunks onto the frame for that. I also found that an old foot pedal rubber was perfect to stop the tank rubbing on the from and keep it at the required height. The steering lock was jammed so the easiest thing to do was to remove it and fill it with the Mig. Next up is the foot pegs, I thought of moving them forward, just in front of the engine but as its a twin it never left me much room I stayed closer to the stock location. I just tacked them into position for now but later made "cups" so they would still fold. The pegs I got from my dad as well. I had to buy a new chain as the old one was now a tad too short. I also tacked the side stand on, which I also had to shorten by about 3 inch's, don't know what it was off originally. The position of the exhaust was the next thing to sort out. I had another length of exhaust with a nice curve in it so I welded that in place then cut the original cone down to a nice stinger style. The chrome on the down pipes was quite tatty plus the new section I welded in was just bare steel so to tidy it all up I ordered some exhaust wrap which arrived later. My brother was down that day so I wanted to get the engine started and hear what it sounded like, he made a little video of it for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLFy8O4YtaA It was quite loud so I made little silencer insert that I bolted down inside. You can also see here that I had also added the 2 small chrome pods to the top of the bars. One of them has the idiot lights in them the other has a bicycle speedo I managed to modify to fit inside. Oh, I also mounted the rear mudguard. Originally this was off the rear wheel on an older CB125, I pulled it apart and the profile was pretty much perfect for the tyre. Later on I would round off the brackets. To make a bit more room for ground clearance I modified the rear brake lever. Which turned out fruitless as it still never gave me the ground clearance I wanted. I then made up my own lever to go above the exhaust, don't have any specific photos of that though, keep an eye out later on for it. I found an old aluminium fuse box that I was going to use as a battery/cable box but it just wouldn't sit symmetrically, nor would it have been big enough in hindsight. Did look cool though, may use it on something else later. I had to come up with another idea. I thought id make my own box for all the bits I needed to hide, to begin I welded a floor in. The bike uses 6V electrics so the battery was tiny. The box would have to contain the battery, rectifier, ignition switch and various wires. A few more measurements and templates I had the basic design of the box sorted. I also got a phone call from my brother. He had found a pair of carb trumpets he had lying around in his garage and said I could have the, bonus! Getting closer to the basic design being completed. One of the last things to do was the position of the rear light and indicators all round. I went for the classic bobber style of an off-set rear light to the right hand side. The indicators went where I thought looked cool. And that was that, a complete mock up done. Next up was to take it all apart, weld everything up then get it painted. I painted it at my work on a weekend. Going along with the retro them I mixed up 2 different shades of blue to get the colour I wanted. I also wanted it o be a 2 tone so I mixed a bit of white in there too. I never took many photos of this stage, infact only one of the frame before paint. Once painted it was time to put it back together. I really enjoyed this bit, seeing it all starting to become a proper bike. I also wanted to have white sidewalls for that classic look. I used spray on Plasti-dip for that and they turned out very well. I also made a chain guard form a piece of stainless sheet that was a cooker hood at one point. I also bought a retro Honda decal off Ebay I took the tank back into work to finish it off with the white and sprayed the rear wheel sidewall. The exhausts got the wrapping treatment. I covered the seat in some foam and vinyl I had lying around from when I done the pedal trike. I spent the next few days after work sorting out the wiring and cables. I did have an issue with getting the bike to run properly. It seemed like it would only start up one one cylinder then the other would kick in at higher revs. I gave the carbs a good cleans but that didn't really do much. I messed about with the adjustment screws etc.. But still , it wouldn't run right. It wasn't until after checking a few forums about idle issues that I thought maybe the carb is has a leak. So I started the engine, let it warm up then sprayed carb cleaner around the carbs and noticed that the side that wasn't firing right would build up in revs. I took the carb apart from the actual flange on the engine side and noticed that who ever put it together the last time forgot to add an O-ring. One O-ring later and the bike ran sweet as a nut. And that brings us up neatly to today, MOT day. The first proper test drive on the road was fun, I took it along to the MOT station and he sent me right back to go put a front mudguard on it. Fair enough, luckily the garage was only about a mile away. I put the mudguard back on and it passed first time, no issues! Then I took it for a nice drive around town. The Edinburgh festival is on in full swing right now so I was kinda showing off to all the tourists. I have had a really great day today, so happy the bike is now road legal and I can have fun with it, well, as soon as all this rain stops. Here's a few more pics of the finished bike. Oh, another little thing. No retro bike would look retro unless the rider was suitably dressed. Old second hand leather jacket and Easy rider style helmet ;) .264Views0likes0CommentsRe: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
May 2014 I got the hubs and discs away to the machine shop to get turned down etc.. So in the mean time I've been busy with making it all look a bit neater and making the shock absorber extension piece. To do the extension piece I first measured how much of a difference between the old and new shock was. It was roughly 30mm. I went to my old work and got a piece of tubing 60mm x 5mm wall. Should be plenty strong enough. I also used it to mark out on the shock mount. Plasma it out and use a grinder and die grinder to tidy it all up a bit. Then I cut a piece of tube to length and tacked it all together making sure it was all plumb and square (or round in this case ;) ) To get it to fit I had to slightly enlarge the hole on the suspension top mount using the die grinder again. Then I tested it in place. It looked good so I welded it up (pic later in post). I then moved onto cleaning all the suspension and steering components up. To get rid of the grease, dirt and old paint I dunked them in the caustic tank at work then washed them down with the jet wash. I was going to send them away to get blasted but the chassis paint I am using says I don't need to. As long as I get it clean with a machine wire brush it should be good enough. The chassis paint I am using is made by 'Rustbuster'. The same company I got the primer and rust converter from and I've been really happy with there products so far. I spent 2 weekends cleaning the parts up. After I cleaned them I washed them. Then I used an Acid wash to eat the little bits of pitted rust away then washed it all off afterwards. A very boring and tedious job. Now onto the paint. I thought that id give it all a good thick coat of this stuff so I will brush it on. It was going on thick but I hoped it would level out whilst it was drying. Unfortunately it didn't level out as much as I'd hoped. Here's a lower arm as an example. I tried to tell myself that it will do but I don't want it to be "that will do". So I bit the bullet and sanded everything again smooth so I could have a go at spraying it on instead. I didn't want to remove all the paint, just to smooth it. Another weekend gone. Hey, atleast it will have one good thick coat and one fine spray coat. Here's the same arm after all the hassle. Much better! . I had put an order in for bolts to re-do the whole front end, £105 it cost!! Just for bolts,copper grease and lock-tite. Bloody hell. I started by building up the cross member. Then the lower arms. I have the label of the shocks pointing forward so people can see there not standerd, I'm so vain. Then the top mount. At this point I quickly mocked it up before I went home to see what it would look like. I had re-greased the ball joints and they seemed OK, I guess that's what test drives are for. The bump stops are the original ones, I just sanded the top layer off and they came out pretty well. When I got back to the garage I had to compress the springs to get them to fit. I hate compressing springs at the best of times but these springs are tiny. I had to cut my compressors down a bit just to get them to fit. Also the top rubbers were pretty knackered so I doubled them up with some rubber used for roofing I had laying around. Then I started to bolt it all back to the van. I had painted the bits of chassis that will hold the front end in place but I will do the rest later once I have finished welding on the chassis. I started with the passenger side first. It was a bit of a pain getting the new bushes installed but once I figured it out the other side was a lot quicker. Im going to be going on holiday on Sunday so I wanted to get the van off the axle stands and back on its wheels just incase so that's what I aimed for today. I put the old hubs back on for now until I get the machined ones back. It looks better in real life under natural light. But I'm happy how it has all turned out. Really glad I decided to smooth it all back down and re-paint them. I guess its one of those life lessons you pick up on the way. I had a little panic moment when I went to try the suspension out. I jumped on the passenger side and it was nice and bouncy but the drivers side was still stiff. It wasn't moving at all. So I thought about it for 10 mins then decided to slacken the bush mounts. Got underneath, done that and it was still stiff. Another closer look I had realized that I forgot to pull out the "emergency" jack stand I placed further along the chassis just incase the main ones failed. Pulled it out and it bounced quite well, doh! Next up is the steering and brakes. I never had enough time to put the tie-rods and centre link together so I will do that when I get back. Also I should have the new hubs and discs back from the machinist by then. All that shouldn't take too long so I'm also hoping to get the engine back out so I can weld the engine brackets in place and give the engine a good clean up. I also want to take the engine and gearbox one step further and paint it in the old Ford green that the Thames would have had. Maybe get "Lexus" writing in old 50's style on the cam covers.263Views0likes0CommentsRe: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
April update- This month I've been busy getting the seat and 'bonnet' area sorted. I carried on fabricating the raised extension. I added a bit more to the flange that will bolt down to the body. Then done the exact same for the drivers side. With the main removable section tacked up I moved on to the radiator tunnel, I needed to raise that 85mm aswell to match the rest of the body. I marked out with my pencil where to cut. And used the grinder to cut the top off. I done a few measurements and cut out the extension piece to raise it. Then bent it around a piece of round bar I had lying around. I had to do it in 2 pieces to save metal. Then I tacked that to the body. I put the remaining pieces in place to mock up the final look Next up was to work out a way to get the opposite side of the seat rail raised up to allow the seats to bolt in place. I found a piece of 100mm x 50mm box section which I could use. Unfortunately it was 15mm too tall so I had to cut it down its length and tack it back together. I wanted it to have a bit of shape to it so I cut a piece of tubing in half and tacked that to the end. Then I plated the top of the half tubing and rounded it off to match the profile of the box. Perfect height for the seat now. I was really happy with how it was looking so I decided to weld it all up. I used the Tig to minimise dressing and distortion on the removable section. Then I mig'd the radiator tunnel as there was a few larger gaps to fill. And cleaned it all back up. I also marked out where I wanted the bolts to go that will hold it in place. I was going to use Dzus fasteners but after realising they were about £4.50 each and I needed about 20 I passed on that and used some nice Stainless domed socket cap nuts and bolts. The nuts will be welded in place so I will only need an Allen key to remove the large section. Oh, also the seat belt latch is the old one and isn't the one being used, I just never got round to removing it yet. Then I attached the seat rails. And put the seat in place, all done for this side. I made up a seat rail bracket for the other side and done the bolts aswell. This seat looks like it has seen better days. A view from the rear. I was so happy I decided to christen the van and have my first picnic in it. McDonald's, yum! Now, if you remember the last time I wrote I had just sold a car and had a bit of extra cash for parts. I got on with ordering a bunch of stuff for the van. I bought a full re-bush kit for the front suspension and steering, along with 2 brand new shock absorbers. I also had to buy new hubs and stub axles but I will explain why in a moment. I also got the radiator re-cored. The guy done a fantastic job and it was a semi-reasonable £168. ( I say semi-reasonable because I was quoted £130 at first) Now for the best thing I bought. I wanted a decent set of brakes upfront and ( boring history lesson coming up now) the easiest thing I could have done was get a set of solid discs with hubs and 2 pot callipers from a mk2/3 Zephyr or Zodiac as they would be a direct swap for the van hubs. I don't have any real knowledge of how powerful this set up is but I thought it would be cool to have something bigger and better. I have been emailing the owner of the 400e Thames club (Sandy Glen) and his knowledge of these vans is so vast its mind numbing. He suggested fitting mk2/3 transit solid discs and 2 pot callipers as he had done so before and according to him its a 30% improvement over the Zephyr or Zodiac brakes. I liked the idea of this and he sent me a few photos of how its done and an email with tips and advice about how to do it. I was quite set on this but I still wanted to try something a little different, so I can say I had my part on how the brakes were done. I found out that the long wheel base Transits came with 4 pot callipers and vented discs. Yep, this is what I wanted. Not only would it be and even bigger improvement over the 2 pots but they look pretty cool to boot. I found a polish website that breaks Transits and found a pair of 4 pot calliper for £105 including P&P, so I bought them. Then on another website I bought discs, pads and 2 calliper refurbishment seal kits. They look awesome eh. Now that I had the brakes I was trying to mock up how they would fit inside the wheels. When I came across a problem that took me forever to figure out. Sandy told me they should fit inside the standard Thames wheels as the transit also used 15 inch wheels but when I tried it seemed really tight, too tight infact. I spent about a week thinking the best way to overcome my problem. Actually, I better tell you what needs modified to make these brakes fit first then explain my woe. What you do is use the standard Thames hub. Knock off the old brake drum and then get the rear of the hub machined flat for the disc to sit flat on the back of the hub. The brake discs themselves are attached by 5 counter sunk bolts so you then need to drill 5 holes into The Thames hub at 5x100 PCD, the disc centre also needs enlarged slightly to sit on the back of the hub. Then the original wheel studs need knocked out and countersunk to fit countersunk wheel studs. This is one of the picture Sandy sent me to make it sound a bit clearer. Back to my problem, the only solution I could come up with was to use a spacer to push the wheel away from the calliper. I worked out I needed atleast a 25mm spacer to make it work. I used 5 M10 bolts to work out my spacer size. I was quite against that idea as it would put a lot of strain on the outer wheel bearing. I know I could just change the steel wheels but I want it to look as standard as possible (with the exception of being banded) from the outside. My brain started whirring into action and I realised something, That's it, the wheels! The wheels are wrong! That's why there not fitting! You know when something is staring you right in the face you don't see it anymore , well That's what happened to me. I got to the garage as soon as I could and checked the wheels out. 14 inch rims, yep, at some point over time someone changed the rims to 14 inch. These wheels were only ever fitted to mk4 Zephyr/Zodiac over about 2 years so it was abit strange but Sandy gave me a good reason for it. It was quite popular to do that as 14inch commercial tyres were a lot cheaper than 15 inch ones. Lucky for me there's a guy close to me who is also restoring a Thames and had a spare 15 Inch rim for me to borrow to double check I placed the disc and calliper in and it fitted a lot better. I think I may still need a spacer, but only about 5mm or so. This is because the 4 pot callipers are slightly podgier then the 2 pots. The reason I had to buy different hubs though was because I noticed mine were a lot thinner than the ones Sandy had shown me on his. If I were to do the same modifications then the part of the hub that gets machined down to accept the disc would only be down to about 6mm in thickness, not as strong as id hope for. I emailed Sandy about this and he told me about the 3 different generation of hubs that relate to the Thames (another history lesson coming up, copy/paste form the email Sandy sent me) :- "when the 400E was introduced in November 1957, the inside diameter of the inner or back) front wheel bearing was 1.0625 inches. This very soon proved to be a weakness, and from July 1958 a new stub axle was introduced using 1.125 inch inside diameter bearing. Ford also requested their dealers to upgrade all the earlier vehicles to the new parts, free of charge. Replacement parts to the first specification were also discontinued by Ford. A later service bulletin that Ford issued, is very insistent on this being done, sounding a bit panicky. This is before the formal recall system now in place. This too, proved to be not quite man enough, but not a major issue, and in March 1960 another new stub axle was introduced, with the inside diameter of the inner bearing now 1.25 inches. There was no campaign to replace the 1.125 inch bearings." My old hubs are on the left and the newer ones on the right, notice the thickness differences. Quite a lot of machine work I'm going to need done. Wish I had a lathe and 3 years spare to learn how to use one properly but I guess this is one of the things I will need to get someone else to do. Another thing that needs modified will be the shock absorber mounts. The new shocks I got are slightly shorter but much better quality than the reproduction ones you get now, plus they are adjustable so will be able to make them suit the extra weight over the front than stock. I just need to get a piece of tubing and lower the mounting point. I now need to get my plan worked out, I feel a bit like a head less chicken right now as I'm jumping from one thing to the other, trying to think everything out. In the mean time though I have started stripping the front suspension into its component parts ready to get cleaned up and painted with the new chassis paint I ordered from Rust busters. Im also measuring and making a list of all the nuts and bolts that I'm taking off to replace with new ones. Anyway, I better get back to it, cheers!263Views0likes0CommentsRe: The 1959 Ford Thames campervan restoration begins.
ernie1 wrote: Kev, What are the specs of your mig welder. I'd like to do aluminum too with my 220v mig but wasn't sure if it had the power. Did you also use the mig to weld the stainless? Its a 180amp mig, good for about 6-8mm of aluminium. If what you want to weld is more than say 3mm thick then mig welding is good. Any thinner and i'd use a Tig for sure. I used the Tig for the stainless, just a bit neater looking for something that will be seen. March update I haven't really done quite as much as I'd hoped to on the van but I was giving a great opportunity to make some cash so I jumped at it. My wife's old boss just bought a new car because her old one was coming to its end of life and was worthless, as she said anyway. Its a 2003 Toyota Avensis D4D with 110,000 miles. The main reason she bought the new car was because this one would slip out of 5th gear all the time and she didn't think it was worth getting fixed. She actually gave me the car for free!, she didn't think it was worth her while trying to sell on. I stuck it on my mates drive whilst I worked out what was needed to get it fixed. 5th gear is a very common fault on these toyotas. I found a tutorial on what to do to fix it on a Rav4 forum and ordered the parts, 6 in total. I contacted Toyota UK and they were wanting something silly like £650 for the parts but I found a great website called anayama.com that import genuine Japanese parts worldwide at a much lower cost, £280 for me including delivery and customs tax. Anyway, I took the car to the garage , repaired the broken gearbox and gave it a dam good clean inside and out. It made me realise why my dad never let me eat in the car when I was younger. There was rotten bits of orange under the seats and sweetie wrappers everywhere. I think I wont be letting my future kids eat in my car either. After about 20 hours of hard work I had it finished and sparkling. When it came to selling it on I wanted to get a fair price but not be stuck with the car for weeks so I went a little lower than the book price and put it up for £1495. Literally 5 minutes after the Ad went on I had a guy contact me wanting to look at it straight away. So I headed back up to the garage, showed the guy around, quick test drive and he bought. Knocked £95 off for him which left me with a cool £1400. Nice one! This means I have a pretty penny in the bank to splash out on the van when the time comes for all the bits I will be needing. Back to the van. I did manage to get a few things done in between sorting out the Avensis and day to day life. I needed to decide what my new seat height would be, after a bit of measuring I decided 8cm would give me enough clearance and still be driveable. I mocked up the seat height with a few bits of wood so I could physically sit in the right position. I needed to have a good, strong support for the seat rail but it also had to be removable for when it came to removing the engine whenever I need to. I used 50mm box for the uprights and 50x5 angle for the top. I missed a few steps but basically I used a piece of angle I had pre-drilled as a template for marking my holes and 4 bits of angle to bolt the top piece onto. After that I countersunk the holes on the top angle and welded nuts onto the uprights. Once I had both sides done I welded a plate to the chassis and tacked them on top. I then started to workout how I would box it all in at the back. I took the spot welds off the top cover and removed the back piece. I spent a little bit of time trying to figure out how to do it. I want the back to be separate form the top and it will hold into place with 4 bolts. I made a simple panel to fill in the gap that I don't need to be removable, its also wide enough to get a fixing on for the centre section. I marked out how I wanted to cut up the rear panel. Once I cut out what I was keeping I laid it in place and put the top bit back on to get a feel for it. I then decided I'd need to strengthen the other parts of the seat area to stop it flexing. (the area where my hand is.) I made up a simple bracket. Tacked into place underneath. That stopped all the buckling from happening. Back to the top cover. I folded a lip on a piece of sheet I had cut and plug welded it back into place. Now onto the sides. I don't want a really harsh sharp angle so I made up a forming stake. Which allowed me to tap a very slight curve into my side panel I had cut. I also tapped the upper panel and tacked them both together. The front of the panel also had the same treatment. tacked in. I managed to set up the drivers side with door to see how it felt from the drivers side. Got my arm lean spot on!. So, im getting there. I don't have anything else on my plate for the next few weeks so lets see how I get on next month. Oh, also , you may have noticed the throttle body is now facing the front. I think this will actually be better. As the area around the radiator is going to be 8cm taller it will be a great place to have the air intake coming through to get fresh air. It just means a little bit of modification to the "bonnet". The radiator is away getting re-cored as we speak aswell.263Views0likes0Comments
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