Pinto Bill's Mk4 SWB Van

[dieselhead123]

Nice to meet you two, hope you both had a good Christmas.

TIM

[layalog]

very neat work tim shame your so far away mine will need it in the near future

[MinorMatt]

He's not that far away...

He's only an hours drive from Haywards Heath, won't be much more from Billingshurst

[noah]

Nice to meet you two, hope you both had a good Christmas.

TIM

yep work 25th to 28th

[layalog]

true matt
just seems miles for me i feel im miles away from home when i get past crawley

[dieselhead123]

A bit of an update, some pictures from the paint shop.

Primer applied, for convenience I normally use a single pack high build primer, applying several coats, allowing the paint to fill any minor imperfections;



This was left overnight to fully dry then a light coat of matt black was applied using a 'rattle can';



Once dry we can then 'wet flat' the repair area, rubbing through the light matt black coating to smooth the primer, any areas we have missed will be highlighted by visible areas of 'matt black'.
This 'guide coat' will show up any areas we have missed during the flatting stage but will also highlight any 'low' areas that remain in our repair;



In a commercial environment we are always conscious of the time we spend on a repair, but for those of you working on your own vans, the longer you spend on the preparation stage, the better the eventual result.

And here it is, top coat applied;




TIM

[transit mark]

Looking really good. As said before i cant believe the exellent condition this van is in

[dieselhead123]

Thanks for that.

Although we have some more replacement doors to paint, the owner has managed to source some really clean front doors, the next and final stage will be the n/s front corner.

This will include a new wing, step, arch and the newly available inner front arch panel.

Keep 'em peeled

TIM

[dirtydog]

Excellent work there Tim!

If I can get mine looking half as good as that I'll be a very happy chappy!

[dieselhead123]

Excellent work there Tim!

If I can get mine looking half as good as that I'll be a very happy chappy!

It does not need to cost loads if you can tackle the work yourself, just a bit of time.

My advice to any 'novice' body repairer would be to take your time and tackle the work in small 'bite sized chunks'.
Some of you will have floor and chassis repairs to carry out, but most of the panel work repairs on a Transit can be divided into the four corners.
Front wings, front arches and front door steps.
Rear arches, rear end of side sills, (under side loading door area) and rear lower corners.
If you concentrate on one 'corner' at a time, you will see what you have achieved and this will provide you with the motivation necessary to carry on.
Above all, don't despair, you won't accomplish a total refurbishment in one weekend, but with the depth of knowledge available on this forum, you will get there in the end.

We have spent many hours on this Mk4, over a period of months, working on it in between other 'more mundane contract work', given some dedication and a few basic facilities, most of you would be able to achieve a satisfactory result.

I hope that this thread, and others like it on the forum, will provide the inspiration and motivation for others to achieve a good standard of repair.

TIM

[dirtydog]

Thanks for that Tim, these threads certainly do seem to give people the motivation to get their own vans sorted!
my biggest issue may be the paint as I don't have access to a compressor etc so will need to be done with rattle cans.

[PintoBill]

For sure this has been a work in progress and Tim is a brilliant fabricator changing my Mark 4 from a rusty example into something that you would be proud of, in fact not only is Tim a brilliant fabricator but he has a passion to work to a very high standard as anyone looking at his work will see and knows the Ford Transit inside out. I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of brand new front doors from up country a few weeks back and delivered these to Tim's workshop facilities where he set about preparing them for my Mk 4. The engine has been overhauled and runs like a dream and thanks go to BD Engineering for there work after the rebuild and for tuning the van on their rolling road, they are normally more used to tuning Ferrari's and the like but they worked wonders with my 2.0 pinto.

If I said I was'nt getting excited about the vans return to the road I would be economical with the truth as I am, Well Done Tim !!!!

[robbie.cee]

Only iust ventured into this thread, read it end to end!
Top work Tim

[Freebird.]

Top job there Tim, hows pinto Bills van coming along ?

[dieselhead123]

We have now completed the near side front corner, fitted a new wing, front wheel arch, drivers door step, inner sill and one of the newly available inner front wheel arch panels.
The inner front wheel arch panel was well worth fitting, a straight forward job with the wing removed and like the rear inner arch we fitted, was so much easier than attempting to carry out repairs to the inner arch 'lip'.
The inner and outer arch were spot welded together at the 'lip' as per 'factory spec'.
Pinto Bill inspected the work prior to top coat application and was more than pleased with the result.
Both rear doors have now been refitted after being stripped to re-paint, the replacements were a different colour.
All that remains to be done now is paint the replacement front doors, re-hang these and then fit them out.

I have taken a number of photos during the last stage but unfortunately photobucket seems to be suffering some 'issues' at the moment.
I will get the photos up over the next few days but I know Pinto Bill has taken a good few of his own, hopefully he will oblige.

One thing that was necessary though was to cut the heads off the outer front bumper retaining fixings as these bolts would not remove from the brackets inside the outer edges of the front bumper. Fortunately, these small plate brackets are available as replacements, being the same as those used on the Mk3 model. My supplier seems to be running low of these, I am not sure if replacements will be available for much longer, so we shall be producing these ourselves. Pictures will be included soon.

TIM