1995 Mk5 Tilt & Slide Recovery truck project

[bringmycar]

Starting to enjoy working on the van now as its accessories and goodies time. Done the majority of the rewiring and all lights, wipers, hazards (bit of a pain(, heater switching, dash clocks, dash lights, starting circuit, charging circuit, battery leads for both batteries, starter solenoid, pump solenoid, brakes, audio and speakers, roof strobes, beacons, indicators etc now work. Still need to do the rest of the strobes for the sides, rear and front, the led indicators for the fron mirror, the led sidelights, an led light for above the area where the winch is, the horn, central locking and alarm, tracker system, finish off the audio amp & sub woofer, interior light, ignition system (joining wires at the moment but waiting on a RFID keyless start system from China) and whatever else I remember or like the look off.

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[bringmycar]

Being that everything was either rotten or worn out and needed replacing as had become the tradition with this truck, one of the pressure hoses for the bed kept with tradition and split where in had been rubbing. Why don't some people maintain their truck or at least do things properly. Simply cable tying the hoses away from the sharp metal areas would have been a smart move. Anyway I had the pipe repaired by chopping of a length of the damaged hose and mating it to a new hose with a new end. All the rest of the pipes have some abrasion where they've been rubbing but ot too badly. I've padded the rub areas and cable tied them away from the metal areas so hopefully no more damage will occur.

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I also didn't like the open space underneath the bed and adapted some fiberglass panels to cover up the sides. I looked at the truck before and after and prefer after I put the panels in so they will be staying and painted along with the rest of the truck once I get around to it.

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In the interest of reducing the sound and insulating the cabin, I had some of this stuff left over from my motorhome build so I'm going to put it everywhere in the cabin and hope it helps. Does anyone know if there was ever a trim cover/panel made to cover the bulk head? Can't find any on my google searches. Not sure what i'm going to use to cover it yet if there isn't a panel.

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[bringmycar]

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[transitandy]

What motorhome did you build m8y
I hope it was a transit

[bringmycar]

What motorhome did you build m8y
I hope it was a transit

No it was a 02 lwb sprinter - I say this in a hushed breath

[bringmycar]

Alarm is now installed. The central locking motors will be put in the doors hopefully today if it stops snowing. I've carpeted the rear bulkhead with some offcut found locally. I've also installed the tracker system and was a job and a half to hide it well.

[bringmycar]

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[bringmycar]

Quite a few accessories have gone in, phone chargers, camera leads, etc. Still waiting on rfid ignition system so I can finally finish all the under dash wiring. I was trying to go totally keyless - no door key, no ignition key. Unfortunately the door lock system wouldn't play ball as it was too hard to be operated by the central locking motors I put in. So I dug it out and tried to shorten the springs inside which kind of ruined the lock system. Well I put it back in the door as I had to close the door somehow. The door opened and closed easily, so ruining it made it work better. I still couldn't work the lock unlock in it so I used a solenoid to simply pop open the door. I disconnected the door handle and the key lock so now the door is popped open using the alarm keyfob.

Solar panel is in to trickle charge the batteries. This is a long term plan as I intend to export it eventually in years to come to a sunnier climate where it may be parked for long periods of time unused. Replacing batteries can be expensive so this way, it should keep the battery topped up and not allow it to get low enough to kill it.
Speaking of batteries I bought some huge 800CCA leisure batteries £50 each from ebay, with a 4 year guarantee (not sure if it's worth the screen its printed on but..).
They are too big to fit under the hood where they are supposed to be so there will need to be some adapting or relocation to make them fit.

I'm going to wire in the marker lights and flashers around the chassis as soon as it stops raining, the its on to the bodywork. Once that's done, i'll put the seat covers on permanently on the seats then install the seats and it will be MOT time. If it passes then i'm going to do a weigh-in so I can get the weight of the truck. I can start to see a flicker of light at the end of the rusty tunnel.

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[bringmycar]

Got the toolbox and rfid system today. Not sure where or how i'm going to fit the big box, but if it aint raining tomorrow i'm sure going to try fitting it.

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[swbdave]

whats the steering wheel off? looks alright

[DodgeRover]

Not sure if I read you correctly but the MOT needs a manual method of opening the doors from outside, a push bike brake lever hidden under the cill would do it.

[bringmycar]

Not sure if I read you correctly but the MOT needs a manual method of opening the doors from outside, a push bike brake lever hidden under the cill would do it.

I didn't think of that DR. I better rethink that. Thats a good idea. That's something else that's going to have to be done.

[bringmycar]

Decided i'm going to go back to the traditional lock system as I can't figure out an easy way to enable manually opening the door from the outside, so i'm going to buy a lockset and new door mechanism. Shame really as I like the security of only being able to open the door via the remote.
Anyways, finished installing the flashing side lights and also the marker lights. Just need to do the fronts but think ill wait till its resprayed.

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[bringmycar]

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[bringmycar]

So far i've been doing some small jobs that I can't even mostly remember. I installed the Chinese keyless start system and it's faulty. It switches of the ignition when the starter is operated so the starter just spins and the truck doesn't start. If I put direct power to ignition the truck will start, so its the relays on board the Chinese unit losing power when the starter is operated. I now have to find another way of immobilizing and a new ignition system as I don't want to go back to keys tbh. A series of phone charger cables are in, so is a bass box (not deep but punchy due to size constraints). Seats are back in so I can move the truck and i've started to paint the truck because the guy who's supposed to do it has been messing around for a while and not turning up.

So I thought "How hard can it be eh?" Well I soon got fed up with sanding filler and the last straw was when I couldn't get into my phone anymore because I had somehow rubbed of part of my fingerprint and the phone didn't recognize my print anymore. So I thought, no that's it, it will be fine, just paint over it etc etc with short cuts everywhere. Suffice to say, it's not smooth in places but surprisingly I managed to spray primer, paint and lacquer over it with 1 small run watching youtube videos on how to paint .

I used panel wipe and the paint on the bonnet and bumper started melting and clogging up. A friend suggested thinners and well it did not go well so we're still trying to figure out how to sort the resulting mess out. Previous owner used thick layers of house oil paints to paint the front. It won't sand off as it just clogs and melts on the paper and it's just so thick for the thinners, so it just makes new paint. I thought just prime over it and hopefully we can get a surface to work with. Thats not worked neither obviously, leaving artistic cracks all over.We're going to try paint stripper to see if that helps.

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