Mk6 Transit Restoration

[seakoot]

Had this been purely a restoration carried out at the owner's request, then it would likely, as you say, be non cost effective. Fortunately for ourselves it provides an opportunity to pattern and produce a wide range of repair panels that will assist other owners in repairing their vehicles, now and for many years to come. We have also been able to provide fitting instructions for the parts that we produce to assist customers with repairing their vehicles, so the time has been well spent.

Well that I can understand!!!

Keep up the good work.

Martin

[stevo]

Fantastic work there, those parts will keep a lot of crusty old vans in the road. I may be asking you for some prices myself sometime in the near future as my mk6 is 16 years old and only ever needed welding in two places.


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[dieselhead123]

Fantastic work there, those parts will keep a lot of crusty old vans in the road. I may be asking you for some prices myself sometime in the near future as my mk6 is 16 years old and only ever needed welding in two places.


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Thanks for your kind words and support, please let us know if you need help or advice in the future.

TIM

[dieselhead123]

A bit more on this one people.

The FWD vans have a lower rear cargo floor than the RWD versions, to acheive this Ford added some extension panels the the rear wheel tubs, these are often found to be corroded and the ones on our van needed replacement.

We set about producing a repair panel for these, Ford will only supply you this part with the complete rear wheel tub, so the repair part offers a significant cost saving.

The original Ford panel is a 'U' shape and fits all the way arround the wheel tub, our production facilities required us to produce these in two 'halves'

As you can see, we added the pressing in the centre of the panel to match the Ford part.
We then set about fitting these to the van to confirm they were suitable.

The corroded part was removed and our first 'test' part was secured to the van with self drill fixings;

A couple of small repairs were carried out to the wheel tub, but the majority of the wheel tub was found to be in satisfactory condition.

Here is a picture of the rear 'half' in position;


These parts fit beneath the rear floor panel, we drilled holes in the lower flamge and plug welded up onto the floor panel from below. This avoided the need to remove the ply lining from the rear of the van, if you don't have a ply lining system in your van it would likely be easier to drill through the floor panel and plug weld from above onto the new repair panel.

This picture shows a view from inside the van;


With the exception of the short join between the two 'halves' of the repair panels 'plug welding' or spot welding techniques can be employed as the 'joins' between these panels and the van are 'as per factory'.

A generous coating of your chosen rust protective paint and you are 'good to go'.



Again, if you need these or any of the other parts we manufacture or simply require some advice on repairing your van then please drop us a message via the 'hyper-link' below.

TIM

[dieselhead123]

A bit more done on this people.

The left hand rear wheel arch was a bit tatty and on full inspection it was decided that the inner rear arch would also need replacing.

We decided to use a replacement part cut from a written off Mk7, this is the repair part we started with;


The rear wheel 'tub' was removed and saved for a future repair, so we were left with the lower part of the rear quarter panel with the inner rear wheel arch still attached,


It was decided that it would be easiest to join the lower rear quarter panel to the existing panel beneath the side door runner, so the repair panel was cut off at this height. A 'fence' was clamped to the repair panel and an air 'nibbler' used to produce the required straight cut line,

In the background you can see that the van has been prepped ready for the repair panel to be fitted.

The panel was secured in place with a few self drill fixings while allignment was checked, you can clearly see the differance in the shades of white between the Mk6 and Mk7 panels,


Spot welding techniques were employed on the two vertical seams and where the inner wheel arch meets the rear wheel 'tub', the horizontal seam where the repair panel is joined to the upper part of the rear quarter was fully welded. This was welded in short 'runs', allowing the panel to cool often so as to limit distortion.


Once we were happy with the panel replacement, we tried out our own mix of PURPLE paint.



I think I quite like the colour!

TIM

[RustWidow]

Oh yes Tim I love that colour

[DodgeRover]

Nice to see the development of rust repair panels, interesting too

[dieselhead123]

Nice to see the development of rust repair panels, interesting too

Thanks for the kind words DR

Lots more to come on this one,
TIM

[dieselhead123]

Now, moving the repair towards the front of the van we found we needed to replace the front outer wheel arch, the front inner wheel atch, the front step, inner door step sill and outer door step sill.

We used some new parts but for the door step we had a good re-cycled part cut from a dismantled Mk6, here is a picture of the result;

As can be seen, the repair moved into the floor panel.

We used our bead roller to produce a swage on the repair panel so that the replacement lapped under the existing floor plate;


You can see the result in this picture;

This produces a far stonger joint than simply butt welding the panels together and is also easier to weld up.

Unfortunately, we do not possess a a set of rolls with the appropriate profile to match the floor 'dent' that runs parallel to the top of the step, so we had to do this 'the old way'.

Once the floor panel was cut and fit confirmed it was tack welded on top of a length of fairly heavy channel section. A length of tube was cut to the length of the required 'dent' and the tube then pressed down into the repair plate. We used a press, as we have one, but the same results can be acheived by clamping the assembly in a large vice or simply hammering on top of the tube.

These pictures show the 'dent' from above and below, I think you will agree that it looks fairly original.



So, with simple basic tools and a bit of imagination, you can create most of the shapes you need to ensure your project looks it's best.

A bit more of our favorite rust preventative paint and we are ready to move onto the next repair area.


TIM

[dieselhead123]

Moving forward to the front end panels, it was decided that having gone thus far we might as well carry out a front end conversion.

The existing inner wing panels were in poor condition so we set about replacing these with 're-cycled' Mk7 parts.
Here are a few pictures of the result






We also fitted the outer part of the Mk7 scuttle panel, again we used a re-cycled part,


All the panels were secured in place with self drill fixings, this allowed us to make fine adjustments to the panels prior the welding. Because the panels were pre-used, they already had holes in them where the spot welds had been removed, plunge welding techniques were employ to secure the panels and 'fill' the holes.

Next for the 'fun' part,



A 'sneaky' little 'pre-view' of what is to come


TIM

[dieselhead123]

Oh dear!

It looks like we have a gap between the front wing and the door;


We will have to sort that out!

TIM

[Scooby doo]

Oh dear!

It looks like we have a gap between the front wing and the door;


We will have to sort that out!

TIM

Bit of filler should sort that gap out Tim lol
Though am I thinking that’s a mk8 front end? Kinda looks like an old ldv convoy in some angles

[dieselhead123]

Oh dear!

It looks like we have a gap between the front wing and the door;


We will have to sort that out!

TIM

Bit of filler should sort that gap out Tim lol
Though am I thinking that’s a mk8 front end? Kinda looks like an old ldv convoy in some angles

You are correct, yes, a Mk8 front end.

Is this any better?










Part Mk6, part Mk7, part Mk8 and a few other bits of metal joined together, now to make a mirror image!

TIM

[Scooby doo]

I’m still trying to picture this in my head what it will look like when finished, maybe with the sportier front look of the m-sport will do it justice....

[RustWidow]

That’s some work there tim, well done,I can’t wait to see it finished!