My name is Colin and a couple of years ago myself and three friends set up a small charity to help disadvantaged work age kids and people with a physical disability find work. We do that by finding employers willing to give them a work trial, to let the employer see that they are willing to work and can do the job, and then hopefully the company take them on at the end of the trial.
We go to the work trial with the people to supervise and train them in workshop practises etc.
Anyway to cut a long story short and before everyone thinks I am about to touch them up for cash, we have had a serious need for a van for a while and decided to bite the bullet and buy one.
Not having a lot of cash, none in fact, we bid on a 2003, 135000 mile Connect in a salvage yard auction and won it with the giant bid of £390, yahoo.
She is a bit of a clunker, a bit rusty and looks like she has been unloved for many years but she is ours. There are things that are obviously wrong with her and there will be other things wrong that will come to light when we try to MOT her next week.
I have read the “what did you do today” thread and there are some very connected people on here so my request is not for cash but your genius knowledge.
So here goes
1) We don’t want the van to win shows but we do need it to be presentable both inside and out, so remembering we have no money and that the van will be used for transporting us and our tools around, is there anything that we should do that will benefit the van, and us, without costing the earth?
2) The dashboard has more holes in it than a colander, I think there has been a phone, a two way radio and some switches of unknown purpose. What are the options, i.e. any dash up to 2009? We are hoping to persuade the salvage yard to give us one but they don’t have another 2003 in their yard but they do have a 2006 one which the bumper came off of.
3) The front bumper is broken, there is a big crack on the nearside, and needs replaced. We persuaded the salvage yard to give us another bumper but it is from a newer face lift model.
Is the newer bumper a straight swap for the old one or should we sell the new one and buy an older one?
4) The rear bumper cover is missing and the bumper itself is in a bad way, can we just replace it all with a kit off ebay (TPUK) for £50 odd pound or is there something else we need to do?
I think that will be enough for one night, just leaves me to say that any help and words of wisdom will be most appreciated but that the four of us are getting on, I’m the youngest at 56, so if you could keep the text speak to a minimum as we don’t understand it, we would be grateful.
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Also worth checking the "For Sale/Wanted" section on here when looking for parts and maybe list anything you may need as someone may have one laying around 
