Arch trims

[Hewzey]

Yea they moved the goalposts half way through my build last year, pretty much gave up on that one. Was gonna take them off but they’ve ended up staying.it’s now officially a van with windows!

[Hewzey]

...you have a 125 trend, rare as those

[Jay2018]

Yeah I need to start a thread for mine. Did a few interior mods ages ago, but up until very recently hadn't done anything to the outside. Now I am at a stage where I feel I can start a small project thread. I will be starting something in the PROGRESS REPORTS section very soon.

You should start a thread about yours and reupload those pics plus more lol.

[Bryan_K]

Very smart!

Will look at getting some of those - trouble is my Jumbo already has arch liners at the back (twin wheel T430) so the rear set would be surplus. Wonder if anyone would want just the rear set..

Your van looks brilliant! I like the black wheels. Was considering painting mine black, though they are the standard steel wheels - Somewhat limited on options for mine as they are the six stud wheels. I did find some stainless wheel trims, but expensive and looks way too easy to pinch!

The whole DVLA thing is a minefield. I'm on a couple of self build groups and the majority of people now only get "Van with Windows". Supposedly even professional builders are having problems.

Cheers,

Bryan

[Hewzey]

Yeah I need to start a thread for mine. Did a few interior mods ages ago, but up until very recently hadn't done anything to the outside. Now I am at a stage where I feel I can start a small project thread. I will be starting something in the PROGRESS REPORTS section very soon.

You should start a thread about yours and reupload those pics plus more lol.

Yea that’d be cool if you can, I don’t think I would have the time,unfortunately I always seem busy atm and am trying to shed my workload a bit. I’m not the quickest at typing/uploading stuff so I don’t think starting a thread is for me right now

[Hewzey]

Very smart!

Will look at getting some of those - trouble is my Jumbo already has arch liners at the back (twin wheel T430) so the rear set would be surplus. Wonder if anyone would want just the rear set..

Your van looks brilliant! I like the black wheels. Was considering painting mine black, though they are the standard steel wheels - Somewhat limited on options for mine as they are the six stud wheels. I did find some stainless wheel trims, but expensive and looks way too easy to pinch!

The whole DVLA thing is a minefield. I'm on a couple of self build groups and the majority of people now only get "Van with Windows". Supposedly even professional builders are having problems.

Cheers,

Bryan

Cheers Brian, Yea dvla are public enemy number one in my self build groups

You could easily spray your wheels for a change up if they are in good nick. I have recently just put some new lassa 10 ply nice load rated tyres on so I wasn’t bothered with upgrading wheels (alloys look great but not for me cost wise) so I just sprayed wheels & wheel trims in Matt black and cleaned/wax oiled inside the arches. I like the black too. It looks half decent and was not expensive.

[Jay2018]

10 ply tyres are horrible. Like driving on concrete. Your one is a t350, how come you didn't go for 8plys?

[Hewzey]

Yea they are pretty hard but it’s not that much different to my other mk7 to drive, the van build is quite heavy along with the extra seats/kids I have in the back it’s pretty much maxed out for weight all of the time. Do you have much experience with suspension? It’s quite bouncy/rocks front to back on road bumps do you think I could do something to the rear leaf springs to help? It’s got 75mm wide singles atm but the ride height is level and I don’t want to jack it up at the back too much? . Don’t suppose the 10 plys are helping that side of things then but they will have to stay for now
Cheers

[Jay2018]

Mine used to do that, on 10plys, the hard bounce off and on bumps. Rocking here, there and everywhere. The difference down to 8 plys was quiet big.

[Hewzey]

Maybe I should of researched it more before replacing the two bad rear ones for like for like. It already had them on but having looked at it they are well over the top for 3.5 tonne like you say, can I reduce the pressure a bit to help maybe? I’m not planning on the expense of changing all four right now, What’s the lowest do you think I could use? They are 60psi atm do you think 50 is too low?

[Jay2018]

I wouldn't worry mate. You have some brand new tyres now. Also underload these hard tyres are a lot more comfortable than when the van is empty.

In my manual it says for a 350 medium or long

215 75 16 on normal or full load FRONT = 51psi & REAR = 70psi

So on these tyres front and rear should share the same psi regardless of whether it is full or normally loaded.

When I had my steels I used to run it on 51 at the front and 60 at the rear because I always felt 70 was unnecessary unless I was absolutely maxed out. I say used to because I have alloys now.

YOU MIGHT HAVE TO WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO GIVE YOU BETTER ADVICE ABOUT TYRE PRESSURES TO BE HONEST.

[Jay2018]

I was wondering where you got your sidesteps from. Are they Transit mk7 specific or are they universal? Did you have to do modifications to the body in order to fit them? Do you find they work for you as a functional sidestep or do you feel they are more of a style thing? Do you know if the same company does them for a MWB...? How strong do you find them? How far do they stick out from the body in terms of being a sidestep? I love the way they look on the van.

[Hewzey]

Cool, funny you should say that because after the advice you gave me about tyres I thought I’d try the easy fix by trying 51in front and 69 in rear over the weekend up from 42 front and 59 rear which the tyre shop had done and I hadn’t checked, and I have noticed it is a touch firmer now which doesn’t really bother me too much but it has helped the ‘bouncing’ pretty considerably which was a bit annoying so I can only assume the tyre pressures were a part of the problem as well, not just the heavily loaded springs like I had always assumed since building it and I’m pretty happy how it handles better now, albeit slight.

Cheers for the help/advice mate, appreciated.

[Hewzey]

The side steps are from a company called bragan (Irish I think)who are reputable in running boards/bars and were under £200 pair if I remember. Yea they are quite solid aluminium profile with plastic caps front and back ends and are strong fit with a couple extra bolts added underneath, can easily take my weight bouncing up/down on them, easy to fit took about 2hours both sides, come with 3x galvanised brackets each side and 15-20mm wide rubber (foot grip)strip inserts in black/blue/red which you choose what colour you want to use. They are defo useful as steps too but don’t come out past cills very far so more of a toe step so to speak. You can slide them in and out on the fixing brackets, they’re around 105mm but I like them tight to the cills so only leaves around 80/90mm showing.

Yea they do different sizes but I think the mwb and lwb probably use the same boards. Not sure though.

[Hewzey]

Found them, eBay item number https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/283692927811