Dinesh C
New Member
Dear Commer Fans,
My name is Dinesh (I am not writing my surname as it may be difficult to pronounce!) and I am from Sri Lanka.
I am not a collector and own few oldies and I was lucky to get a Dodge space van.
Here is my story.
Although I have seen older version of Commer Vans in my childhood I have never seen Dodge version till I saw the pic in an advertisement and when I contacted the seller who was an old gentleman and former automobile engineering lecturer I got the sad news that I was too late someone had got that.
Some time had passed and I went to purchase an old Double Cab and the owner had the beauty I missed - The Dodge Spacevan.
I requested from the person who had it did you purchase this recently from somewhere in Colombo and he answered yes. Then after long discussion he agreed to sell this Spacevan back to me.
I had purchased not only one double cabs but 2 from this generous person plus the spacevan!
After taking it to my home the very next day we had started on tinkering the body. I tried to restore the body as far as we can to original status. We have stripped all layers of coatings to the bear sheet body and utilized only 2K type primers and paints through out. This project has now taken almost an year and now it is painted jet black.
The engine was in good shape but had to fix the gearbox.
This did not had original hand-break parts and therefore we did add the hand-break to all 4 wheels!
The original running board was also not there and we had modified what we had with mechanically operated in-out running board and this would be motorized next.
However, I had decided to add new comforts like seats and air-conditioning as we are a tropical country and at later stage I want to add power steering also to this.
The new seating arrangement can now take 12 passengers excluding the driver (although originally this was 10 seater) and all seats are removed from a brand new latest Japanese - TOYOTA HIACE and only this type of spacevan can be fitted similar seating arrangement like wide bodied HIACE!
Now have to do matching interior work as I did not had any original interior except the dashboard and meter cluster.
I had fixed new Ampere Meter, Temperature Gauge and Fuel Gauge as they were not in working order and original SMITHS Odometer had just 80000km was intact.
Electrical system was a complete mess and we had completely redone it and all wires and sockets are now tagged so anybody can easily find the origin of faults.
Since original rear lights was missing we had added what we thought best and now rear indicator lamps have reverse lamps as well (I had also added in-dash indicator lamp of reverse to the meter-board as well)
After doing everything now I have to update ownership title and other things before drive on the road.
I will post pics later.
Thanks for reading.
Dinesh C.
My name is Dinesh (I am not writing my surname as it may be difficult to pronounce!) and I am from Sri Lanka.
I am not a collector and own few oldies and I was lucky to get a Dodge space van.
Here is my story.
Although I have seen older version of Commer Vans in my childhood I have never seen Dodge version till I saw the pic in an advertisement and when I contacted the seller who was an old gentleman and former automobile engineering lecturer I got the sad news that I was too late someone had got that.
Some time had passed and I went to purchase an old Double Cab and the owner had the beauty I missed - The Dodge Spacevan.
I requested from the person who had it did you purchase this recently from somewhere in Colombo and he answered yes. Then after long discussion he agreed to sell this Spacevan back to me.
I had purchased not only one double cabs but 2 from this generous person plus the spacevan!
After taking it to my home the very next day we had started on tinkering the body. I tried to restore the body as far as we can to original status. We have stripped all layers of coatings to the bear sheet body and utilized only 2K type primers and paints through out. This project has now taken almost an year and now it is painted jet black.
The engine was in good shape but had to fix the gearbox.
This did not had original hand-break parts and therefore we did add the hand-break to all 4 wheels!
The original running board was also not there and we had modified what we had with mechanically operated in-out running board and this would be motorized next.
However, I had decided to add new comforts like seats and air-conditioning as we are a tropical country and at later stage I want to add power steering also to this.
The new seating arrangement can now take 12 passengers excluding the driver (although originally this was 10 seater) and all seats are removed from a brand new latest Japanese - TOYOTA HIACE and only this type of spacevan can be fitted similar seating arrangement like wide bodied HIACE!
Now have to do matching interior work as I did not had any original interior except the dashboard and meter cluster.
I had fixed new Ampere Meter, Temperature Gauge and Fuel Gauge as they were not in working order and original SMITHS Odometer had just 80000km was intact.
Electrical system was a complete mess and we had completely redone it and all wires and sockets are now tagged so anybody can easily find the origin of faults.
Since original rear lights was missing we had added what we thought best and now rear indicator lamps have reverse lamps as well (I had also added in-dash indicator lamp of reverse to the meter-board as well)
After doing everything now I have to update ownership title and other things before drive on the road.
I will post pics later.
Thanks for reading.
Dinesh C.
