mk2 transit tidy up

[oldskooler]

it was the usual story when i tore into my tranny with the big hammer to see how solid it was after 6 years on the road.

heaps more work needed than i thought but i wont begrudge it to the old girl as she has never let me down.

she suffers from the usual mk2 tranny ailments, front spring hangers, sills/steps lower door skins etc, but some real rough arch on top of arch work done previously has left her in bad shape with lots to sort out.


ive only took a few pics but heres a bit of the progress on going.




















front spring hangers and chassis sections replaced.



















rear tubs and floor section around them gone very bad along with the outer arches!











rather than trying to repair i ripped em out.







and luckily i have a scrapper mk1 (12 years older than this van) and amazingly in much better order round the tubs to chop the sections needed from.


one side almost fitted, will tidy things up a nice bit. easiest way out of trouble i think.






the main chassis sections are in good order only needing a couple of small repairs no doubt thanks to the regular shots of cavity wax i give it.

ive also replaced the drivers under door sill and done some inner floor and step repairs. it also needs lower door repairs along with plenty more bits ill find to do!!

im thinking its gonna be busy times for the next while but its gotta be done!!

[conrod]

good work, but I didn't expect any less from you after the mega power steering installation you did a while back! And the van looked so mint in earlier pics, I didn't realise it needed that much work.

[oldskooler]

the van looked so mint in earlier pics, I didn't realise it needed that much work.

ya, i had known the van had been "tarted up" before i got it by looking at the amount of filler in the sides of it but you never know what its covering up. the rot has really been starting to take hold of it recently so it was time to get stuck in.

the van is still very good structurally so im hoping to get a few more years service out of it after this job. i love it to bits and couldnt imagine being without it.

[RustWidow]

Wow, that's going to be an interesting project, good luck and keep us updated please

[Luke]

wow how much work that van is lucky to have you as an owner

nice work so far (as usual)

[BROWNYS V6]

holy sh*t that's gonna keep ya busy for a bit, nice job on them spring hangers

[irishtransit]

The rust has definately been busy but im sure youll get the better of it.
I must start mine when the kids break up.

[oldskooler]

nice bit of progress on this one recently. i employed the help of my mate frank to fit the outer panels with me as hes a dab hand at that end of things. ill manage all the rest of the patching and welding myself. it made a big difference and we got through a nice bit of work in a few saturdays.


got an inner arch section made up and fitted on the r/h side and got the bad parts of the middle and lower sill replaced.










the left side arch, tub and floor was worse again than the right when i cleaned it back.










again the scrapper came up trumps for this side as the tub, floor and even the outer sill sections needed were ok so i chopped it out of the donor van in one section. took a nice bit of fiddling to get it to fit!!









outer arch and back corner now fitted. im well happy with how this turned out as it was the worst part of the van.










i was lucky enough to come across a pair of genuine door skins last year along with a few other bits ive been collecting for this job when it came up.







but like all tranny doors the rot had travelled further than the skins into the inner lower door sections which has always been a problem when trying to repair em properly.

i got two panels from motomobil in germany which will be a real saviour if they fit nice and my doors ill be good as new with these and the new skins fitted.








i got the old skins stripped off ready for the new sections.






thats as far as ive got for the moment. i keep finding more bits to sort out as is always the case!!

[irishtransit]

Thats looking nice and tidy already.them door panels looks good.

[1958 harry]

Great work. The van is gonna be mint once it's all done.

You keeping it the same colour?

[oldskooler]

Great work. The van is gonna be mint once it's all done.

You keeping it the same colour?

i was thinking about changing the colour but ive now decided to keep the original colour. that particular colour swb van seems to have been used in a lot of the sales brochures and adverts when they were new. i have some old brochures and smile when i see my vans twin in them!!

[oldskooler]

well this job has now more or less turned into a full resto rather that a tidy up as planned.

im happy i ended up goin this way as the van should be well sorted with no stone left unturned.



got the back section welding repairs of the van all finished.












i decided to take the front wings off for a look as i knew there was some nasties hiding under them.



i had picked up these genuine headlamp panels along with a pair of genuine wings over the last few years knowing id be needing em some day!







before doing anything i made up this bracing frame to hold the position of the headlamp panels so it should be easier to get all the new bits lined up.














nice bit of work needed when the wings came off.






was patched up before.






tops of wing rails also rotted through in places.





wing was covering this hole in scuttle also.






glad to say the bonnet hinge mounting repairs i did 6 yrs ago held out fine!








i was in a bit of luck with repair sections for the inner wings. one of my scrappers had mint ones. this has already provided cuts to repair two other transits and now its saving my bacon. its invaluable to have this stuff at times.









bits cut out.








drivers side done, worked out nice.








more progress to follow.

[oldskooler]

the bottom section of the drivers inner wing had gone a bit thin so the scrapper came up trumps again!












left side was ok. just the section on top was needed.









the headlamp panels look like they ill go in easy enough.











the front crossmember has seen a bit of bodging in its time! was thinking bout gettin a full replacement made but ended up just chopping out the few bits of badness and repairing it.











will just cut a piece of sheet metal to go across the outside of it like was done before.





i treated her to a timing belt and water pump when it was very accessible with the front off.

next job is start building up the front now that all the rot is dealt with. the list of jobs are gradually getting smaller!!

[transitandy]

Wow

[Luke]

are you going for a colour change when you re-paint? seeing as most of its new metal now?