Picked up the fuel tank, firewall and engine bay panels fresh from the blasters today so straight on with a few coats of epoxy:
I’ll finish these in Anthracite grey then I can get them in the van and out the way.
I’ve also fitted the brake pedal lever (no pics). I’d forgot the lever is a very tight fit, needing a club hammer to get it back in, so I’m going to have to repaint some of it!
Should get the rest of the cab loom back in this week as I’ve just about finished cleaning it up.
Today’s activities.
Instrument cluster reassembled with newly painted bezels. No-one will notice them but looks tidier than when I took it out of the van:
Re-assembled and fitted the gear shift rod with all new nylon guides, rubber boots and new rear cage rubbers:
I re-used the old rear cage and centre pin, as while the new cage was good quality, the centre pin looked like it had been made by a 5 year old compared with the original (Jim’s top tip: don’t paint the pin as it won’t fit back in; I ended up sanding it down):
Regreased and fitted the clutch pedal arm (apologies for the blurry pic):
Some further rebuild work over the last week or so.
These bits are off to the blasters this week for a clean-up, so should be back on the van soon:
Blasted, zinc primed, epoxied and top coated the engine hangers, rear bumper irons and gear shift rod:
And the same treatment for the driveshafts, clutch and brake pedal arms, gearbox mounts and shift cage, instrument panel bezels and steering box mount:
In between all this I’ve started to get the wiring back into the van. I repaired the main loom a while back and it’s been sitting in the garage for a while all labelled up ready to go back in.
I’ve run the main loom under the van. I didn’t weld in a new guide tube for this between the cross members, instead opting to run it through some convoluted tubing clipped to the chassis rails. Conveniently there were two perfectly sized holes in the rails to bolt it to:
And reconnected to the cleaned up fuse box:
I’m now sorting out the front loom, which on the whole is in good condition, but has a few dodgy repairs which I’m addressing before re-attaching.
With all of the above bits painted I can finish rebuilding the majority of the running gear over the next few weeks.
LPG tank fitted to the van tonight to get it off the workshop floor.
I ran out of time last weekend to paint the engine bay, so got it done tonight. What an awkward area to paint!
I also raptor’d both sides of the battery trays, underside of the engine bay surrounds, and this year’s must have van accessory; a colour coded LPG tank!
I’m starting to get bits ready to bolt back on, and in a bid to work smart and not hard (although a lot of times the smart way is the hard way on the van!) I’ve bought a small blast cabinet to speed up cleaning up bits before I paint and reattach to the van.
I had a little trial on some bits I had lying around, what a time saver.
For those that are interested here are some further pics of all the paint work from my long weekend.
Friday
Van inner all masked up, cargo area and cab upper painted in pastel white:
Van pushed out into the yard to make room for the doors, to spray the uppers. My first attempts with basecoat/clearcoat (Lechlar bsb and macrofan respectively). I’m not sure what all the fuss is about with basecoat/clearcoat being trickier than solid 2K? Yes it requires a bit more time but it’s not really any more difficult.
Soo shiny!
Saturday
Unmasked everything from yesterday. Starting to take shape.
Masked up the cab for some blue, painted and pushed out into the yard to make room for the doors:
Out with the doors to paint the lowers in blue. Masking up the dividing line was a bit of a faff, taking multiple attempts to get a clean line but finally all painted. Grateful for the hotrod guy opposite pointing out I should unmask them before the paint fully cures to get a crisp line!:
Lookin’ like a lagoon:
Sunday
A long day spent finishing prep work on the van upper, sanding the roof, front panel and filling some last minute pinholes. Mammoth task of masking up the van, but finally got it into paint late afternoon:
Monday
Finished fine sanding the lower half of the van, followed by a load more masking up. I’m surprised at how time consuming masking is, taking a good couple of hours to mask the whole van. Painted the van lower and engine lid (intended to paint this with the rest of the doors but had nowhere to hang it). Grabbed some early evening snaps, pleased as punch with the results, and off home for a curry.
I’m having a few days off this week to recover. I ran out of time/energy to do the engine bay so that still needs painting, then I should be onto to the rebuild!
Here she is in full colour! To say I’m chuffed would be an understatement. All of that hard work has finally paid off.
After 3 years of cutting, grinding, welding, sanding, painting and various other skills I’ve never done before the van is finally in her final coat of paint! I’ve gone far beyond what I originally planned to do but hopefully the results speak for themselves. To say I’m pleased would be an understatement. We’re a way off being on the road but this was a huge step for us.
I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard over 4 days, and pulled 2 14 hour days, a 13 and a 12 to get it done. I’ll upload some progress pictures later. And rest.
