Mk5 camper project

[Cheensbo]

Hi All,

This is my first transit, a 95 lwb 2.5di high top camper.

It was bought for me as a gift and I plan to try get it back roadworthy for some road tripping.

Mechanically she's pretty ok, needs a propshaft bushing or two and I have done a little work on the brakes but otherwise seems fine.

She is pretty rusty though, has had a nice glittery spray job at some point but was done over some low quality repair work - lots of newspaper, expanded metal and fillers.

Has rust in most of the usual places, front panel beside the light, front wings inner and outer arches steps and sills, rear arches, side, rear floor, inner rear arches, sliding door, bottom of rear door, rear member behind the bumper and bursting through in spots around most of the rear windows. She's quite the project and is much more than i've ever taken on so will likely be a lengthy process and definitely a learning curve!

Have been reading through a lot of posts on the site and look forward to logging my progress on here.

Anyway, here's a few photos from when I picked her up.







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[Luke]

looks a good project, once you've welded up the bad bits it should be solid for years to come

[Cheensbo]

A few photos of the bad bits:

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[Cheensbo]

looks a good project, once you've welded up the bad bits it should be solid for years to come

Cheers Luke, here's hoping anyway!

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[Cheensbo]

Parts gathering update, have a few bits sourced for the repairs now,

Got most of it from Poland, have a bit of difficulty with centralpanels regarding delivery to Ireland, its not too easy for them but struggling to source inner arches and inner sides for it, also noticed the panel around the d/s headlight is gone too while doing more stripping - see last pic Is this available as a piece or will i be better off repairing it?

Any comments, tips, advice etc is very welcome

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[Cheensbo]

Started a cleaning up the underside and stripping the front end last Saturday and again today.

Wire brushed around the rear section of the chassis, checked the rear spring mounts and both sides seem structurally ok.







Inner sills aren't awful, much better than i thought they would be anyway.



Found also that the bigger dome cover at the back has been broken, maybe it got a slap of a branch on a trailer ride.



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[Cheensbo]

Started poking around the front wings, had a go at drilling out the spot welds and prising with a beveled wood chisel.








Instead of removing the doors I cut the wings close to the doors, as it's usually stored outside and I would like to keep it dry as i can.

Inner arches are shot altogether, battery tray was dust , Most of the firewall looks good from what I can see, small bit of the a pillar on driver side looks a little rusty so will need further investigation.

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[bambi mk 1]

Pm sent

[Cheensbo]

Went back in today to remove the rear bumper - this was a right b*itch, 8 bolts, all nyloc and thoroughly siezed, had no gas and couldn't get the grinder in, broke the recipro saw blade on the first one so had to go at it with the long bar, took forever and my arms are dead but it's off now, going to run it through the shot blaster in work and give it a fresh lick of paint.





Next was just to go back cleaning underneath, ran over the rear axle rear quick just for the sake of it, looks a lot better with just the crud taken off it.



That's her for now, hopefully get a few evenings at it for the rest of the week and full day again next saturday, it's probably unreasonable to think I'll have her done by the end of summer but that's the goal anyway.



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