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Rear cross member in

A little more from this week.

The loom is now fixed in place through the front cross member (a real pain getting the welding torch into position doing this one, but looks ok!):

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And onto the rear cross member, all clamped into place (I may’ve got carried away buying clamps as I’ve got a decent collection now):

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And welded in (feel pretty comfortable with plug welds now):

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Before I can get the Near side inner sill in there are a few bits of surrounding metal that need some attention (access would be tricky with the inner sill in):

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Rot cut out, and inner sill clamped into place to give a reference point to work out where to bend the repair panel:

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Repair panel made up in the vice (and checked against the replacement floor):

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And all welded in (I’lll repair the bit in front of it at a later point, I’ll be able to do that bit with the sill in). Ignore the beautifully rotten middle sill in the last picture!:

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Correcting the mistakes of the past

I’ve spent most of this week patching a few bits on the chassis rails which need doing before I can put in the rear cross member and O/S jacking points in.

Starting with this beaut around the rear torsion tube. 

A bit of rust treatment (Hydrate 80) before I put the repair in:

And all repaired and painted up (I also put some Epoxy mastic on the inside to help hold back the rust). Looking a lot better (I’ll come back to do the curved bit once I’ve got a bit more metal back in):

I’ll need to do the other side of that chassis rail too before the rear jacking points can go in.

I also patched up this hole at the front which didn’t need too much work:

Next week’s plan is to get the rear cross member in and hopefully some of the jacking points. I’ve got the floor support drilled ready for the cross member to go in. Things are progressing nicely!

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O/S Inner Sill complete

Some further work on the underside this week.  O/S inner sill clamped into place with all jacking points and outriggers in position to make sure they’ll fit correctly (I also trial fitted the floor pan half while I was there):

Inner sill plug welded to all of the floor supports:

And a quick clean up and light coat of electrox over the welds:

And before I can weld in the rear cross member I need to fix this ‘repair’ done by a previous owner (the welding wass pretty rough and the patch was straight over the rusty section underneath):

Repairing the curved section around the rear beam will be interesting as the panel dips slightly as it reaches the beam. I’ll see what I can come up with over the weekend.

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Middle Cross Member in

I managed to get a few hours on the van today and got the middle cross member welded in. 

I spent a fair amount of time practising my plug welds and stress testing them to make sure they were good and strong (doing them in the vertical position took me a while to get used to). 

Clamped in place:

welded to the chassis:

welded to the floor support:

and finished with a clean up and quick spray of electrox:

Really pleased with the results! This project also turned up for one of the guys in the unit across to me, which made me smile:

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Easter weekend progress

A little more progress from over the last few days.

Rear floor support welded shut again (I drilled out the spot welds as I didn’t want the inside to have no paint on it and promote rust)

Before I tack weld in the first and last floor support it seemed like a good idea to trial fit the floor to ensure the sills were sitting at the correct height. Very exciting to see the floor fits perfectly!

Now I know the floor and sills fit properly I can crack on with welding the sills, outriggers and cross members in over the next few weeks. 

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Starting to take shape

We’ve made steady progress over the last few weeks on the van (god knows how many hours!). Here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to.

New I beams fitted tacked into place (2, 3rd floor support):

Front top hat floor support cut down to size, new flanges bent into shape, and trial fitted to floor with outriggers, and inner sill:

Remaining chassis sections zinc primed and inside of box sections epoxy mastic’d (no way these will rust out for some time now!):

Max epoxy mastic’ing the bit I missed with the spray gun (once the front floor support is in I won’t be able to get to this section so paint on it now is important):

and Max grinding out the last of the spot welds from the old cross members:

I’ve got a day off next week so should hopefully get the inner sills welded in place and perhaps the outriggers and cross members! The underside is really starting to come together now, and it’s so much better than what was previously there.

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