First job was to swap out the slightly suspect 2.5di engine that was noisier than I would have liked it to be, replacing it with the recently reconditioned engine out of my now scrapped Mk4 SWB.
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Next job was to make her a bit more secure, so I pulled a favour from my mate Nick (the welding world's equivalent of The Stig) and had some super-tough grilles welded into the rear windows and into the centre bulkhead, making the rear load area nice and secure. He also fitted my rear door padlock hasps, seam welding both sections solidly to the doors and adding further reinforcing webbing inside the rear door cavities.
As this is my work van, I had to sort some storage and shelving in the rear load section, this included making some much-needed repairs to the existing ply lining and then forming a shelving unit above each rear wheel arch boxing. Thanks to my good mate Oliver for the use of his driveway and workshop, and the free supply of wood!
A spare Saturday morning resulted in a new exhaust system, totally uneccessary but absolutely worth it! viewtopic.php?f=13&t=61697
Next came the task of removing all the dead wiring left over from the van's days as a fire and rescue vehicle, all the 'blues and twos' had been removed but the wiring system was still there, though in somewhat of a state. The dash surround had been drilled for a multitude of toggle switches and panel lamps, most of which were broken or looked in a poor state. Behind the dash panel was like a rats nest of cabling, so every cable was removed, checked for dead then cut and taped up, I chose not to strip them out completely as they may be useful at a later date. Most of this extra wiring loom ran through the front bulkhead and into the engine bay, connecting to a bank of six relays. These were all labelled as 'spots', 'fog' and 'blue', again indicating the van's previous history as an emergency vehicle. Again, I have left the relays in place for use further down the line. Suprisingly the alternating relay for the old style two-tone horns was still fitted and powered up ok, I may just have to do something with that someday!
Thankfully I had removed the dash surround from my Mk4 which was unmolested, so this has been fitted in place of the drilled one to give a cleaner look. Whilst the dash was off I took the opportunity to remove the green caps from the dashboard illumination lamps, now I can actually see my speedo and fuel gauge properly at night!The van had a second battery tray on the passenger side so I have fitted another battery identical to the starter battery and connected the two with heavy duty starter cable, at the same time adding extra negative cables from both batteries to the engine block and also the chassis. A third battery now lives in a battery box under one of the seats in the crew cab area, fed from the second starter battery via a Smartcom self-switching split charge relay.
The heater panel surround including the blower fan control and cigar lighter was in a poor condition as it had many holes left from having things screwed into it at some time, once again the Mk4 was raided and the panel replaced.
The most recent job involved fitting the alarm/immobiliser system, without going into too much detail I have used two different systems to make one very effective anti-theft unit, which incorporates a remote engine starting/warm-up feature as well as a proximity anti-hijack system and a two-way paging/control unit made out of some old PMR radio sets.
Thats as far as I have got to date, next jobs on the list are fitting interior striplighting and a fuse/switch panel for the auxilliary battery, full central locking for all doors integrated into the alarm system, and adding a couple of extra worklights over the rear and side sliding doors. As far as bodywork goes, Nick the welder is planning to chop out the sills and weld in some box section steel and side rails ( I think the off-road crew call them rock sliders) so there is no more worry about rusty sills ever again! He also has designs on making a front winch bumper and nudgebar setup from scratch, which will probably get started toward the end of this month.
Also a mention for the chaps at Southern Tyre Wholesalers in Westcliff who have done me a fantastic deal on a set of four Deestone Extra Traction tyres, though I think that they dropped the price just to get the things out of the way! Just need to find a couple more then I'll get the lot fitted in one go.
I'll post up some more pics soon, have got to go to Maplins to get a new battery for the digital camera, I could use my camera phone but they dont come out too clever on a bigger screen.
Thanks for all the help, advice and positive feedback from fellow Transit lovers, hope to meet as many of you at some of the meetings planned for this year. A127 Diner on the 8th is a deffo!
Look forward to seeing you at the 127 Diner meet next monday 
Since the bars went on, not so many people are as keen to get in front of it. 
