My MK5 2.5Di 1997

[littleredvan]

So after a while lurking in the shadows, here's my first post, about my latest project, a 1997 MK5 that I'm slowly repairing and kitting out.

After draining almost 10 litres of oil and a new set of filters and belts, plus a cleaner earth the poor starting appears to have been resolved. A couple of new lock barrels, a quick go with the sledgehammer against some terrible plywood shelving, some repairs to the floor pan and an MOT and it's ready for work.

[littleredvan]

Next some repairs to the back doors.



Previous owner had covered most of the rust on the van with mastic, which hadn't really helped at all.



Remove all of the wet straw that was filling the bottom of the door, then a quick cleanup with a wire wheel. Buckets of rust proofing, some aluminium mesh and some fibreglass to get the approximate shape.



Filler and a quick go with the orbital



Followed by two coats of primer and some paint. Could be a little neater but I'm happy with it for the most part.

[littleredvan]

Pulling out all of the major dints.



Quite a while spent with the slide hammer with sill bent back to into shape using torch and pliers.



After a coat of paint, could badly do with getting some t-cut on that panel

[ireland.1495]

looking good

[littleredvan]

Bulkhead goes in.



The folks at memfast http://www.memfast.co.uk were very helpful for getting hold of small quantities of rivet nuts (M6). A quick coat of matte black.



An old aluminium shelf gets ground up to use as a hatch for the bulkhead. Quite want to hinge this but can't decide if I should do it from the top or bottom yet.

[littleredvan]

Fit replacement spare wheel bracket from the scrapyard and get the spare out of the back of the van.



Rear cross member was welded for MOT, left winding tool in the back but the welder cut through the bracket regardless and tacked the remains hastily together. Lies were told about it being stuck fast , although it worked well a few days prior...

[littleredvan]

Start work on the back.

My plan is to have detachable fittings so I can remove them when I need to load bulky objects (especially 8'x4') or carry rubble etc. Decided to create the frames for all my fittings out of unistrut as the large range of brackets and joining plates they produce should cut down greatly on the amount of fabrication that needs to be done.

Everything (except strut bolted to the floor or sides) should be removable in less than half an hour using just a 13mm spanner



Measuring up for the lengths to go along the floor pan and working out where to drill holes for bolts. Important to avoid box sections, brake lines and any parts of the exhaust. Access to both side of the holes is required (although rivnuts are tempting, they didn't feel appropriate in this case).



M10 bolts, with penny washers hold the strut down. Holes are painted with rust treatment before bolting. As this is slotted strut being fixed, alternate each bolt to be against opposing edges of the slot, hopefully preventing any slide.

There isn't space in the channel to get a standard 17mm socket on to the bolt, so a hefty pair of locking pliers was needed to help fix the strut down.



Locknuts are provided for safety - really don't ever want this to ever shift. Some primer and then a couple of coats of underseal should hopefully keep the tin worm at bay

[littleredvan]

Beginning to take shape



For those not familiar with unistrut, specially shaped nuts can be inserted in to the channel and slid to the desired position before a standard bolt is inserted and tightened. I've chosen to use M8 channel nuts (zebedee's ) for the removable sections.



The legs are made out of thicker unistrut (41mm deep) and are designed to stop the rail down the side from bowing under heavy load. I don't intend for these to be removed. The length on the floor is the shallower 21mm deep, hopefully I can get a floor to sit flush to this.

Cable services http://www.cableservices.co.uk/ seem to stock a good range of unistrut for quite reasonable prices if your in the north west.

[littleredvan]

Cut out and glue down a chipboard floor



Fix all remaining holes in the floor then paint anywhere that looks like it might be starting to rust with hammerite.



Weight the chipboard with rocks whilst the silicone goes off. Quickly seal any gaps between the chipboard and floor pan to try and stop dirt and water getting in.

Used six tubes of silicone in total, which might have been a little excessive - smells fairly awful in there at the moment

[littleredvan]

Insulate the panels and fix on the plywood.



25mm thick sheets fit easily and are fixed on with sikagrip. Might possibly fill the remaining space with expanding foam or something similar later on.



The plywood panels are cut out of 6mm ply and fixed on by M6 bolts into rivnuts. Wanted removable panels so that I can later run cabling behind them without too much hassle.



Managed to get the plywood to bend reasonably well to the shape of the van



The lower section is 9mm ply and is fixed on with self-taps. Don't really want to be removing this and expect it to take more of a beating. Still need to box the arches in.

[ake]

Tidy job

[trustytransit]

Looking good

[littleredvan]

Next, fitting a deep cycle battery, a Bosch L4. Plenty of amps for the inverter hopefully



Cleaned up the threads to bolt a tray in from a petrol transit on the passenger side, but the battery is too long to fit the tray....



....but everything can be made to fit with an angle grinder



Necessity being the mother of invention and all. Need to weld up a battery clamp for a more permanent solution.

[littleredvan]

Painted the floor with a couple of coats of textured paint, supposedly the kind for painting on concrete doorsteps. Hopefully should give a bit more grip when moving around in the back. Two coats seems to give a reasonably tough finish. Filler seals the gaps between the floor and the plywood panels.

[littleredvan]

Starting to assemble the frame out of unistrut and lots of M8 bolts. The rail along the floor anchors the upright sections (41x41mm) with the rest made out of 21x41mm to save on weight. Strong enough to take a blow from a lump hammer. The upright sections have the channel facing outwards so that I can attach movable eyebolts to them later for tying down loads.



Cut the three lids out of 18mm MDF for each section.