vauxhallviva.com

got the old welder out today and with some box and angle braced up the tub area of the shell in an attempt to stop it sagging anyfurther when I start chopping the living daylights out of it....


7 metres of 25mm box and 25mm by 3mm angle later (yep it ALL went in the cab) it is braced enough for me to remove the cills .



this tickled the missus silly "look its Mickey Mouse" she said..


heater is a touch FUBAR


home made Inner sill.. 1.8 metres of it x2


got Hadrian bought outer cills which only go as far as the bottom of the door but the tops of mine are ok so thats not an issue..

will get some more done tomorrow and will check back in !

ight then.. evening all !! with teh onset of a 3 day weekend with supposedly gorgeous sunshine I have been busy making panels so I can get the welder out again and make some progress...

This . . . .

+

= one side of the underbonnet scuttle area fixed (got to make the triangles tomorrow at work as forgot my dimensions after oversleeping this morning)

and of course for the other side...



if I can get the triangles and closing panels made tomorrow then I have everything I need to get the cills and the bulkhead back on scratch ! so stay tuned !

Well done, looking good so far. Dont think you should make them out of empty Coke cans though!

Peter

all in 1.5 plate in these areas as they seem weak points..
floors will be 1.2 as its thicker than normal and main rails will be 1.5 . it surprising how hard a short length of 1.5mm plate is to bend.. I nearly popped a muscle jsut doing those little lengths of angle....

heres hoping the weather is nice tomorrow , sunday and monday as I have a busy schedule of welding..to do..

made these today and they are the final piece of the jigsaw (well amost)





now I know they arent perfectly straight (bender was being a pain) and they dotn ahve the hump where the seat crossmember is but I am going to add that afterwards as its a nightmare trying to equate that into the panel otherwise.. but they are in 1.5mm steel and surprisingly heavy

woke up this morning and looked out onto the greyest skies I have seen since friday when the hail and rain lashed our work, gave it till 12 to clear (walked dogs etc) and decided to get out there and just go for it and hope for the best, its a haul getting the welder round the front from the shed as its a heavy old thing, decided to get started on the scuttle tops as had the panels ready made and started on the NS one first as it was the worst..

started off looking like this,

offered up top plate to make sure it was somewhere near what it should be...

then decided to repair the part underneath this so I had something to put this onto


and the little bit near the a-post


then chopped the top out of the scuttle ready for the big plate to go in

before tacking plate into place

and final welding

by this time I had also put in the lower front edge under this plate but cant find the pic on the camera so will add this to the next update as van is covered up again now..
next came front leading edge of bulkhead
cut out as far as the lower repair panel will come up to

and welded up (had to repair the kick panel a bit as well as it was a touch on the thin side.. strange that...


and thats it really.. trying to sort out my pc as it has died a death so had to finish early check back in tomorrow when I will have tried to get the drivers side to the same point and this side actually done

Cor real metal....

i know.. only took a year lol.. would ave been quicker taking it to quick fit

So where are we with this rot box then

where are we??? ill tell you where we are... slightly further forward


decided to get the last few bits out the van today and work out just WTF I am going to do first on the reassembly side of it all...

started with jacking it up (centre of gearbox tunnel where bracing is welded to it)
and popping the front wheels off to see out of interest what the brakes looked like, drivers side appeared to be sporting new wheel cylinders and shoes so my mojo rose a small bit but got to passenger side and found it had been ground well and truly to the rivets and then they had simply put the new shoes into that...nice..........

ridge in drum


then dropped off the front suspension unit by snapping the bolts off the lower part and undoing the top part, it was still reluctant to come off so a fwe good hammer blows seemed to help, the reason for it not releasing was soon found to be gripfill/fibreglass ype substance on NS fixing points...

nice repair whoever you were...


the reason for using filler etc will be revealed in a minute so bear with me, I then got the fuel tank out and miraculously the 5 litres of wee coloured fuel that was still stuck in it..

and no I couldnt find a funnel.. so had to prop can on tool set and wiggle the fuel out that way before you ask why im laying down doing it..


steering column was next
a simple cotter type pin like a bike crank had was all that held that onto the rack and amazingly undid and came out without any hassle at all


found a few more horrors of MOT bodgedness..
this was NS chassis to crossmember mount


this was OS one..


one last bit to get off and I figured I would call it a day...

"with a flick of my wrist........." from this....


to this......


ok yes it was a ballsy thing to do but i had no choice....

the reason I said they had used filler was revealed once I could flip the front clip over..
brace yourself for the best bodge on this little van yet...


now i must point out I have not touched this.. this is as found on the van all cut and folded in and filled with boggo, gripfill an fibreglass..

OS one wasnt in much better shape


this shows full extent of rot on the rails at the front.. anyone got dustpan and brush?


well ill try and get the welder on it tomorrow now I can get to the bulkhead easily and maybe finally some decent progress can be made...

thanks for checking in!