I got the new van on 16th October 2009 - I had been looking for ages - pretty much since I had found out about the DOHC engines in fact (it really had to be a petrol for me as I find the diesel too noisy, but these vans are rare, and trying to find one in good condition is virtually impossible). Anyway, the van I had settled on was an ex cid surveillance van, in "Garnet" Red, bought from a bloke in Dagenham. With no service history and 100k on the clock it wasn't ideal, but it was very clean and original, and as I have not to this day seen a better one, I am happy enough.
The van has two side loading doors - a feature which I really like - although of course it meant re thinking my interior plans to suit. Also it has the one piece tailgate which I really didn't want. I like to have the spare wheel mounted on a rear door for ease of access and a custom look - plus leaving the original spare wheel carrier free to one day hold an lpg tank! I have recently aquired a swing away wheel carrier from a Toyota Surf, but it is gonna take some re engineering, anyway, on with things...
Here is the van as I got it...
The first thing I did was to change the indicators to clear ones...
Although the van had been boarded out with good thick ply, and carpeted in black cord, it was not really up to my standard (lots of holes from equipment mountings etc) so I set about cutting some nice new panels out of the thinest ply I could find (3.4mm?)...
The floor was good and I could use that, but there were a few curious holes in it which had metal plates over them (hopefully not policemans excuse me's!). I took these up and chisselled the floor so that the plates would sit flush so as not to show through the carpet I was going to lay...
I actually fitted the two side windows into both sld's after I had lined out the van, here they are going in...
I had brought the rear bench seat/bed from the other van, so once I had panelled and carpeted the rear, I fitted it in with a little adjustment...
The cooker unit from my last van fits in good in its new location, althouth there is room to do two little cupboards iether side when I get the chance...it is also going to have a pumped tap for the sink with 25 litre water container prolly behind passenger seats...
Next I managed to get hold of the seats, carpet, door cards, electric window mechanisms, gear stick and hand brake boots from a Tourneo, but on taking out my two single seats found that the rubber matting was soaked through underneath, which was a great pity as the previous owner had gon to the trouble of painting the floor black, then sticking down bitumen sheeting (the flashing strip stuff I think). Unfortunately he had failed (or not bothered) to find the source of the water ingress, and voids between the bitumen and floor were all holding water...
There was nothing for it but to rip up all the bitumen (which for the most part came off cleanly taking the black paint with it)...
I got all the floor cleaned up - thankfully no real rust damage...
So a good coat of hammerite (or the sh"ty Leyland equivalent) and the floor was looking much the same as before I started - well silver anyway...
I'd like to relay some bitumen stuff for the sake of soundproofing but decided to just fit the cab carpet straight over for now, along with its thick soundproofing mat that goes underneath (but curiously Ford only saw fit for the mat to come half way back). I will wait and see if my efforts to waterproof the cab (there's a thread on here somewhere) have been succesful or not before doing anything too permanent.
And here we are with all the Tourneo luxuries fitted...
