Just a quick update, i have had a productive week since moving into the factory unit and have stripped the the lunch box down to the chassis. I have started to removed old junk which has been added on by previous owners that i don't require and will start welding new brackets for fittings etc and sort the suspension out before it goes of to the sand blasters for blasting and undercoating. Although there is no serious rust in the chassis there is surface rust which needs cleaning up before painting. I have added a few photos of where i am at now. The windows and door are removed then the air con and 4 season vents and then it was onto removing the small diamond ally cladding off rivet by rivet and there was a lot of them. I removed the wall and roof framing and then the floor which was rotted in some spots.
The wall frames have some serious rust in spots which i will start replacing sections once i finish the chassis and send it to the sand blasters. Some of the pictures are not in order (still trying to work that one out) but you get the idea.
Kind Regards,
Alan.
You can see the windows and door are removed and i have started to take the cladding off.
Sheesh your going way back and starting from scratch . If your going to rebuild it ? Your going about it the right way . No good without a good foundation, frame . They donāt seem to use much rust protection on assembly !! Be better than new when finished .
Looking at the pics I have one thought. I have a stuffed fridge. It's too big to come out the door. It was either built in or went in through the rear window.
Looking at your pics a decent fridge would have to be inside before the door went on.
Yes they don't seem to use much rust protection, but i must say that there workman ship isn't to bad from what i have uncovered so far. For a van which was built in 1975 and is and ex drillers van it is not to bad for rust i think.
I know what your saying, when i took the big fridge out of the van which was a big old kelvenator house fridge/freezer i took the doors of the fridge. I then turned it on its side and it slid out the door and the door being 600 odd mm's wide. The new fridge is 130 ltr and will fit through the door ok like the cabinets so all good with that one. You can see my new fridge on an earlier post sitting in one of the cabinets.
I came across a guy who had reno'ed an old olympic full fibre glass van. He replaced the old 3 way fridge with a 12v compressor fridge. He had to remove the roof vent & remove the fridge through there. He reckoned it would have been installed through there as it was the only place it would fit.
Old vans with modern interiors are cool,old vans with dated interiors are just old vans but they give people a good start to camping,back in our day when we were young a tent was the answer,these days old vans can be had really cheap and the young ones that are not cashed up are buying old vans .
