Emily's thread mk1 landliner (lot of pics)

[rottie_007]

Here is the first post regarding my rolling resto of Emily our 1975 ford landliner,

How it started..

I have been into the monkeybike scene for quite a while and the missus not being into bikes hasnt been able to join me on the rallies or when im out adventuring so I decided a camper would fit the bill..
Being a fabricator I wanted something not too "restored" where I oculd do the rust areas myself and not have to wait for them to appear rfom badly resto'd areas done by other people...
All the vans we looked at were going for stupid money though like £1500+, I had a few conditions as well. Needed to have character, preferably fibreglass or alloy body, a decent sized bed and for me to be able to stand up in it easy (i'm not tall but like my space).
It was purely by luck one night late night surfing I spotted "Emily" on ebay for a 300 buy it now, this made me dubious but I had a good long discussion with the owner and decided it was worth the risk being only 3 weeks out of mot and a runner..

So on friday night armed with a pocket full of cash I rode this:


from my hometown 130 miles to doncaster and drove her back to the mot station where I left her for test the following morning...

MOT fail was as follows

Corrosion behind steering box
front tyre perished
Hazards inoperative (now traced to too weak a relay and working ok now)
washers inoperative (everything full of that dried soap scum now also working ok)

anyways heres some pics of her taken today


outside the house-bit long for the drive but hey its MY drive


the worst visible rot


panel behind bumper looks a bit frilly as well


my new kitchen !!


passenger side seats set as sofa


drivers side set as back seat (both do this)


found this under a seat presuming its a jack


cupboard beind toilet gutted out by previous owner, gas bottles go here as well

and lastly

view down the van showing just how huge it is inside

[rottie_007]

have just spent a couple of hours underneath with a wire bursh and it seems the chassis is as good as it looked when I first looked at it...
couple of small holes in the cab floor and the steps havn't been done to my standards but thats rectifiable

any ideas on best preservative for the chassis? its got an old bitumastic coating on which is getting pretty dry now so figure scraping it all off and re-applying something else????

[Guy88]

get the waxoil out

[rottie_007]

use this on the OUTSIDE of the rails as well yeah?

[Smooth Hound]

Youve done well , good van,

[Guy88]

you can get underseal with it in

[Smooth Hound]

Youve done well , good van,

[rottie_007]

you can get underseal with it in

ahh

we use this shutz stuff at work which I recently did our courier with (jeesus was that thing ever rot, inners and outer sills both sides full arches and more on a p reg motor !)

comes in a big bottle you scrwe into a gun and blast it on..

but dont really want to use something that might crack and trap water under

[Luke]

nice project i use waxoil on the inside of the chassis rails and shultz on the outside - the stuff i use stays tacky for ever and doesnt go hard and crack like the old stuff

[wardy-uk]

I have seen a few Mk 1's with same body as yous and I have never really liked them but I do think your is nice. Well done mate looks like you got a bargin

[FredTransit]

Five minutes into the ownership and looking good, as apposed to five weeks! You have dropped lucky there.

[rottie_007]

hi Fred !

I am taking her to work for the MOT welding tomorrow...
have got our old school boy coming r9ond to drop the steering arm off for me cause hes a dab hand, and I broke the last one I did (didn't matter cause we had a spare then)

then down to garage for a couple of new tyres with one good front going to spare then back in for retest

reckoning on about 4 hours to weld up the back of the box plate,
will try and remember to take the camera with me and get some pictures

I just love the fact everything works... even the heater controls still light up

I found a folder jammed full of previous mot's and history of repairs...

[rottie_007]

right then..
took the old bird to work today to start the welding for her MOT,

as expected the drop arm was an absolute tit to get off and ended up fabbing a mega duty thing to do it..
(tried to take pic but too dark)

also think I have sourced the lumpy low running..
am I right in thinking the breather from the right hand (looking at motor from front) should be returning into my non-existant air filter?

so as far as I can tell the left hand breather is just pulling air straight through the right hand one and into the base of the carb, temporarily blocking the breather from the oil filler cap has transformed the low end running, anyone got an air filter?

changed her plugs as well, figure this is always a good indication of the health of an engine all four plugs were a nice light brown colour with no apparent oiling, although they seemed reasonably new...

time will tell anyways

corrosion of plate behind steering box has turned into 10 inches of the chassis rail top plate a couple of small plates where inner wing meets rail, and a plate near the brake servo where the bulge in the bulkhead joins onto the flat bit. ( I know I know dont poke bubbles...)

will take some pics tomorrow and add them to a following reply

[rottie_007]

heres how the plugs looked...
wish I had paid attention to where they came from as it appears I got a pair slightly browner than the others..


at a guess I would say the leaner ones came from the brake servo side though (same side as that plate under the carb funnily enough that the breathers run through

[MarkM]

I have no idea what the gaps are supposed to be BUT the left hand one in that set is well out compared to the other 3, actually looking at the full set they appear (could be the angle of the pic) that they are all different largest gap from the left going to smallest gap on the right. That certainly wouldn't help smooth running.