Wow, almost a year has past since i got the angle grinder out. Spent a chunk of time over the summer replacing all of the fluted panels. Fortunately the underside was in pretty good shape with only a couple of localised areas of rust. Had to replace 2 of the outriggers (they were full of sand? - must have got stuck at the beach once apon a time?)
reasonably happy with the gaps at this stage (it's been painted with aqua steel type stuff to stop surface rust) . The step was the worst panel to change. Much swearing.
she also had a new arse, mangaged to save the rear corners, they were a bit dented but not rusty. Had to cut them off to weld in the new rear sills then welded them back on again.
Thanks for the encouraging words! Yes still just up the road from you Jon though I've been doing most of the work down in dorset.
She is now 'half' painted, more pics to follow. determined to have an MOT by Easter, fingers crossed!
Anyone worked out where to get the little plastic inserts that hold the C O M M E R letters on the front. The Ford/Mini ones listed on ebay look too small?
i need to work out how to get the black tiger seal out from my finger nails before work tomorrow morning! been using it on the external panel joins this afternoon...
That's my plan B for letters, would stop them rattling too.
So - had a good summer and probably nailed just short of 500 miles without major incident. Had a Commer on Commer down near Wareham where we saw RAN in a traffic jam looking very shiny.
I've now started stripping out the cab to do a few jobs over the next few months. I want to change the oil cooler arrangement, fit a remote brake fluid reservoir (to make it easier to check), sort out an oil leak, maybe change the carb arrangement (still have the quad conversion calling).
I also plan to swap the back axle over to one with a better ratio (it’s got a 5.6? at the moment, and I’ve got a spare with a 5.1 that’ll bolt straight on, one day I’ll rebuild the diff with a 4.77 but that might have to wait until next winter). I’ll probably also fit telescopic rear shockers (I’ve got a spare pair of spax).
Question – has anyone tried fitting a rear anti roll bar – seems a fairly sensible thing to do on a van, I fitted one to my Morris Traveller hot rod many years ago (it was on th ITAL axle i fitted) and it made a real difference to how fast I could go around roundabouts…