vwlove - Ray Ley Restorations

N/S inner sill and jacking points in

Iris-Camper

A bit more from this week.

Drilled and prepped the jacking points and inner sill (used my new air punch for the holes; a great time saver!)

Lots of clamps to hold everything in place:

And weld away:

End result. All N/S jacking points plug welded to the top hats and chassis, seam welded to the cross members, and inner sill welded to top hats:

I’ve also bent and fitted a new N/S brake cable guide tube (the old one snapped in half when I removed the rear outrigger). The replacement is stainless steel so shouldn’t rust out. I got the guys at my local metal fabricators (Elite Fabrication & Welding) to flange the end of the tube when I picked it up so it looks just like the factory tube.

May 14, 2016/by Jim Ley

Rear cross member in

Iris-Camper

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!):

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):

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

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):

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

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

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!:

April 30, 2016/by Jim Ley

Correcting the mistakes of the past

Iris-Camper

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!

April 24, 2016/by Jim Ley

O/S Inner Sill complete

Iris-Camper

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.

April 14, 2016/by Jim Ley

Middle Cross Member in

Iris-Camper

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:

April 10, 2016/by Jim Ley

Easter weekend progress

Iris-Camper

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.

March 29, 2016/by Jim Ley

Starting to take shape

Iris-Camper

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.

March 22, 2016/by Jim Ley

Fresh Metal (at last)!!!

Iris-Camper

I’m finely at the stage of putting some of the new metal into the van.

With the old inner sill cut out:

The new one gets clamped into place to provide a fixed point as I replace the cross supports (all are going bar one which I’m saving):

Trial fit of the front outrigger which didn’t need too much fiddling to get in the right position (I think?):

Fifth floor support cut out (far right where the space is):

And new one clamped and tack welded to the chassis:

Middle Outrigger trial fitted to the new floor support (fit seems good):

It feels good to be finally putting some metal back into the van after months of cutting it to bits.

Now to just carry on with replacing the rest of the floor supports. This is why I’m replacing most of them; the I beams were bulging with rust:

February 20, 2016/by Jim Ley

Shot Blasting

Iris-Camper

I finally got the shot blaster in yesterday to clean up the underside for me. I was down there for a mammoth 12hrs as I needed to completely empty the unit for the guy, move everything back in after (inc. Engine, Front Beam, Roof, all doors, tools etc) and give it a coat of paint.

All out:

Shot blaster in:

I knew it would be messy work but the entire workshop was covered in about an inch of sand afterwards (it looked like a beach!). It took me nearly 2hrs to completely clean the workshop (it only took the guy about 1hr to blast the entire underside!).

And the finished result, I’m dead impressed with it: