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On the Road!!

7 years ago we bought an old VW camper. Don’t think I’d done so much as change a car tire.

3.5 years ago we decided to take it off road to complete a much needed full restoration.
I can’t begin to describe the amount of time, effort, patience and money it’s taken to get to this point. My van related posts from the last few years give a bit of an indication of what it’s taken.

Today that 47 year old little camper passed its MOT! I’m super proud of what we’ve achieved.

Thank you Max, for putting up with an eternity of me coming home late at night covered in rust, grease and paint. For keeping me sane, not many others would. For keeping the lights on and our lives moving while I put everything else on hold.

Adventure awaits.

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Rear bumper and front build up

Rear bumper mounted with stainless fittings:

Front panel cut and polished:

Spent a few hours wiring up the hella spotlamps. The relay plugged nicely into the bottom of the fuse board, I fitted super seal connections to the lamps to make them easier to take on and off. They’re wired to come on when the main full beam headlights come on:

Front bumper and wheel mount bolted onto the front panel:

I tarted up the rear of the indicators as someone in the past had painted the van with them in and filled them with overspray. A few coats of silver made them look much nicer:

And front panel all built up. I absolutely love the way this has turned out!

Hopefully driving through the new forest at night won’t be quite so terrifying now!

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Rear Windows In

Both rear pieces of glass back in tonight with a huge hand from Max. These are quite simply horrible to fit.

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Cab doors and engine out again!

 More cutting and polishing this week, cab doors this time.

Both cab doors rehung on the van, and all built up with new handles and mirrors (you can just see the new wheels on too, love how these look):

I’ve started cavity waxing the life out of everything to try and preserve my work. Bumpers and track covers:

Rear valance and rear chassis leg sections cavity waxed and bunged up:

The van has always had a small engine oil leak which I assumed was just part of the old van charm. However with the engine back in the leak was now more than I was comfortable with (I should’ve addressed this years ago really!). The leak was coming from the front of the engine so I highly suspected it was the front oil seal.

So it was back out with the engine:

My mate Wayne came down to give me a hand as taking the engine out solo is a bit of a job. I didn’t get any pictures of the oil seal, but it was a rubbish silicone seal which was leaking a large amount of oil. We replaced the seal, the o-ring and the clutch (the old one was soaked in oil, no idea how it was still working!):

While the engine was out I also changed the faulty alternator for a new one. Engine all back in:

The engine now runs without a whiff of an oil leak, and the alternator is successfully charging the battery! I’ve also swapped out the 009 dizzy since this picture for the SVDA.

I’ve re-taxed the van and declared it MOT exempt for now. It’ll be getting an MOT for peace of mind though.

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A stack of Hankook RA18s ready to go on. I want to underbody wax the arches while the wheels are off first though.

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Sliding door and front repaint

One of the risks of doing all the paint myself is not quite getting it right the first time round. I sprayed the front panel far too dry when clear coating it, so when I came to cut and polish it I broke through to the base coat.

Flatted back and all masked up:

3 coats of clear later:

Much better:

I’ve already painted the sliding door two times already, but it still didn’t look right. I’d corrected some pinholes the second time, but not done a very good job of blending the repair into the paint, when flatted back you can see the section that sat a bit high:

So I flatted the whole panel and shot the base coat on, only to realise I’d not got all the clear off the panel causing it to bubble up horribly! 🙁 I went home at this point as I’d had enough of it, and felt pretty low.

Back down this morning and I made damn sure I had all of the clear off the panel:

And finally happy with the door. Third times a charm!

Finally got a video of the van running under her own steam too. So satisfying!

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Bumpers, Wheels and track covers painted

A lovely sunny day today so base and clear coated the bumpers, wheels and track covers in pastel white:

Sorted the running issues with the engine too. Turned out to be an air leak on the N/S inlet manifold flange due to a poorly pressed gasket (old right, new left). 

Fitted a new one and the engine now runs great. Drove the van for the first time around the yard, and reversed it into the workshop. Felt surreal driving it for the first time in a long while! I’ll grab a video tomorrow of it driving.

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Brakes sorted

Painted a few small bits last weekend.

New master brake cylinder to replace the old one which had a split rubber cup:

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Front belly pan and propex heater mount while I had the gun out:

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With the cylinder fitted I bled all the brakes and adjusted the parking brake so we now have working brakes. Having the right tools for the job makes it all so much easier. I bought a one man vacuum bleed kit which came with this little fill bottle that has a little valve to top up the reservoir. No more carefully trying to avoid spilling it.

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The rest of the week has been spent trying to get my engine to run properly, including cleaning and rebuilding the carb, refitting the old dizzy and ht leads and a lot of arsing about. I’ve now isolated this to an air leak in the flange between inlet manifold and cylinder head. New gaskets on their way to replace this and hopefully we’ll be running properly.

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Further Interior bits

My Madmatz set arrived this week. Very happy with these, and should look lovely once in:

Fancying a change I’ve moved onto sorting some interior bits. First up transforming it into the International Space Station with some silent coat sound deadening, followed by Dodomat for insulation:

I’ve started carpet lining the living area. We’ve gone with anthacite grey, feels very cosy (ignore the rough edges, I’ve not trimmed it down yet!): 

Fitted my slightly nicer fuel pump from heritage too:

I’m having a few issues getting the engine to idle properly. It will quite happily run with a small amount of throttle applied, but when released it fails to idle properly. I’m thinking it may be the idle jet in the carb not working as it should. The carb was one thing I didn’t look at when assembling the engine so I’ve stripped it down and will clean it all out to see if that helps. 

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Engine Lid and first start up!

Engine lid on tonight via sneaky use of a bit of paracord:

Number plate and door catch back on too, OMG! Just need to replace the plate screws with black ones at some point:

I fitted the cheapy fuel pump I bought a few years back to replace the old dead pump and lo and behold it only bloody started!

I’ve a better quality pump on the way so I’ll fit that, check it works, then refit the SVDA dizzy and set the timing etc and it shouldn’t be too far off a spin round the yard (brakes first though)!

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