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.
Keeping up the momentum. Cab door inner bottoms into Neptune blue. Glad I stuck with the original colour. Four days off now to paint everything else. See you on the other side
Door inners into pastel white tonight! Pretty sure the inners now look better than the outers did before I started.
And started wet sanding the rear of the van down.
O/S rear quarter and front arch rubbed back tonight with 400, and made a good start on the roof.
Just an hour or so tonight, but got two big panels rubbed down with 400 grit.
Long panels on the van re-primed (much happier with the arch profile on the N/S now). And started the final rub down.
