Wheel arches all prepped and masked off. Out with the underseal gun and tinted raptor stonechip, and the wheel arches finally coated with 2 coats of raptor!!
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Underside now all seam sealed. Possibly a bit thick in places but better than not having enough. Next to prep the wheel arches for 2 coats of tinted raptor stonechip for extra protection.
Started gathering all the components I’ll need to get Iris back on her wheels soon so treated her to a full set of Koni Shocks. Fully adjustable and with a lifetime warranty, they should be the only shocks I’ll ever need. Plus they look the balls.
There is a guest author writing the blog today, my ineffable wife.
Hey guys, I’m Max, Jim’s wife and seeing as I spent the day doing the majority of the work 😉 Jim asked me to write the blog this week.
So initially yesterday, Jim spent the day masking up the majority of the underside of the van ready to get the seam sealer out to make her water tight. Today I finished masking up the rest of the underside. The only thing that got me through laying on a cold, dirty workshop floor with a strategically placed torch, was spicy salami sticks and a great playlist! Check out David Ramirez and Nathaniel Rateliffe.
Once we got all the underside taped off after a looooong time, mostly due to me checking if I needed to do a certain section and making awesome geometric shapes to fit some particularly awkward metal, we began the seam sealing.
Thank fully Jim bought me a new special tool. An air compressed seam sealant gun. I felt like Linda Hamilton in The Terminator (without a mullet thankfully).
We used tiger seal and a Clarke pneumatic caulking gun. Once we got the pressure adjusted right, I began sealing while Jim hung back for about 10 mins so he could smooth it off. I managed to seal very quickly due to the brilliant gun and then helped smooth off the sealant with a finger dab into paint thinner, making sure it’s flat and evenly spread before peeling off the tape to leave a gorgeous line. You know that sunburn peeling feeling of relief? Yep, that!!!!!! I even went over some of Jim’s work, I must have got far too into it but the MOT guys that will look at the underside will completely appreciate the factory fresh look we achieved. We managed to get the cab floor completely done and the rest will be done by mid week next week.
That’s it for now from me, I need red wine and a lie down after spending nearly an hour in the bath scrubbing seam sealant off my hands. GLAMOUR.
Peace and love folks!
Van underside all prepped and ready for its final coat of epoxy mastic.
Van underside all prepped and ready for its final coat of epoxy mastic.
I’ve stripped down all of the running gear. Thankfully most of it is in good nick. I’ll need a new drag link, and one ball joint, and I’ll renew all the rubber boots as they’ve seen better days and the bolts.
Ready to go off to the shot blasters:
All blasted and looking like new (shot blasting is such a time saver!)
And back down the workshop for a coat of zinc primer. Very Satisfying!
Keen for us to have a bit of heat in the van I’m installing a propex heater under the driver’s seat.
I made up a little platform for it to sit on in the metal folder:
Then very tentatively cut a hole in the driver’s cubby space to allow the propex to drop into the void:
I packed out the platform with some sections of 20mm and 40mm box section so that the heater sits level:
And then finally cut the holes into the wheel arch for the inlet and exhaust pipes. I’ll be fitting rubber grommets to stop water getting through:
I was keen to fit an underslung LPG tank to our van to free up valuable interior space, and to me it seems safer keeping the gas outside the van.
I opted for a Gasit 20L easyfit tank. This makes fitting the tank really easy as it comes with welded feet that simply need attaching to the underside of the van to ensure the tank is sat at the correct angle. This is the tank:
It comes with all of the fittings pre-installed and pre-tested, with a heavy duty plate covering the valves:
Gasit do sell mounting kits for other vans, and a generic mount designed to attach to the floor, but it seemed easier and cheaper just to make my own. I paid around £10 for a metre of angle iron and a meter of flat bar from my local fabrication shop.
I made the mounts out of 3mm angle iron with a piece of 3mm flat bar lap welded underneath the angle iron (overlapped by around 3mm). Both the angle iron and flat bar were 25mm wide and cut down to match the span of the feet (180mm):
I opted to lap weld to give a bit of clearance under the floor supports that the mounts will attach to:
The mounts then bolt onto the sides of the 2nd and 4th floor support from the front with 4 M8 bolts:
Hopefully in this picture you can see how lap welding the joint allows the mount to sit inline with the bottom of the floor support:
The tank then gets gently jacked into position and bolted to the mounts:
As I still have the van on the rollover jig I also got some pictures with it rolled over:
Gasit also sell the fill point which I’ll be fitting just in front of the rear jacking point.
I’ve finished up the heating ducting this week. Y piece welded in:
Repaired the piece that sits under the walkthrough, and welded back in:
Fabricated a tube to pass through the cross member as the original was beyond repair. I’d thrown the old one out so had nothing to go from, I kept it simple and just made two tubes of the right diameter to match the cardboard tube and metal pipe:
Hopefully we might get some form of heat into the cab now!
I also made up some brackets for our new LPG tank which will run our heater and cooker. I’ll be doing a separate post on how I installed this.
