1972 Crossover Dormobile - Full Restoration Work In Progress

[easy]

Nice work chap. Love it when new bits arrive. Keep it up and take out a mortgage for the welding gas :wink:

 

[Haveacamper]

i get the 6foot gass bottles from my dads work pretty much FREE

 

[easy]

result! 8)

 

[Loxy]

i get the 6foot gass bottles from my dads work pretty much FREE

Thought you had to do the washing up on weekdays? :lol:

 

[Haveacamper]

wahoo!!!!!! my new butters welder No.2 turned up today and it works really well!!....

one thing though, i think i need a bigger bottle......

what do you think???

i had the barn cat keeping me company this evening but the pic i took doesnt show her in her best light....

anyway onto the welding: not paying attention to the N W the two lines across and down arnt too bad i dont think. my dad was pleased with them so they must be ok.

it was it difficult with the shitty bit of cut off from my van. i'm hoping to get some bits from my dad to practise on. however, that didnt stop me from just doing some lines on the scrap bits. i only practised welding onto one bit of metal. i didnt try welding two bits together...

all in all i think its a promising start

 

[Guest]

the welds look nice and smooth without to much spatter, nice. are you using BOC argoshield? if yes what price is the bottle and fill?

 

[Haveacamper]

yes it is BOC Argosheild, which is why there isnt that much spatter and it also limits the amount of sparks. the fill would be about £17 but i dont know how much the bottle would cost because my dad just "happened" to have one lying around

thanks for the kind words johnny. as Loxy and me discussed, i'm a long away away from needing to do anything bar tacking but it was gd to have a go with my new toy

 

[T2-Nate]

We're eagerly awaiting progress made, my van's got some nasty spots too due to PO bodging... Good luck and keep yer spirits high!

 

[Haveacamper]

cheers Nate, I have been making some progress, although a little slow. its been the task of trial fitting the inner sill and strengthener several times to try and line stuff up. think i've got it lined up and then yesterday...

... i found that a PO happened to fit a very flimsy rear O/S jacking point. then i realised they'd fitted a N/S jacking point rather than O/S lol. the geometry with resepct to the sill doesnt change but the flange around the jacking point insert hole is a mirrored version of what it should be.

the rear outrigger O/S was removed because it was shot and i found a bit of rusted through chassis rail which will need to be tidied up and then patched. i have decided to do this before fitting the sill so i can easily weld the plate in place. i may end up tacking the sill in place and then replacing the rear Jacking point. i dont really want to remove it before fitting sill because i then i would have many reference points to ensure that the sill i swhere it is meant to be.

I have taken some photos of my work and will post them up when i got a few minutes in the evening

NaFe out!

 

[Haveacamper]

Well its been a long time since i've updated this thread. initially this was due to a combination of being so busy in work that by the time i got home and had dinner there wasnt much time to get down the van before packing stuff back up again. i was starting to feel that by the time i set my stuff up, figured out where i got to the previous visit i had to pack up. the other reason was because we went through a spell of very cold weather in the evening which, when you are working in a very drafty barn, and lying on the floor alot it didnt make comfortable times. however, since the Volksworld show, my project has come to an end and i am now leaving work at a reasonable time every day. the week that followed the Volksworld show I took off work, before startin my new project in work, and carried my enthusiasm from the show into slingshotting me into gear and doing some good work on the van.

so, i lined up the inner and middle sill O/S with took alot of faffing and tweaking. i spent alot of time lining it up using Loxy's van as a reference.

once i was happy with the location i took the sills off, stripped the black paint off and sprayed them with weld through primer ready for tacking them in place.

i checked the location and stitched the inner sill to the end of the tophat sections and plug welded along the inside of the inner

i then paid my attention to the middle and rear O/S outriggers and the tophats that are attached to them. i had noticed several bad patches and soon appreciated that the removal of the two top hats and corresponding centre chassis section couldnt be taken out until the floor was removed. therefore i thought if i was very careful and zipped out the floor with a 1mm cutter i'd have half a chance of putting it back in. unfortunately this was not the case due to the ever keenness of VW and their spot welds. in every trough of the floor VW opted to put two spot welds on each top hat. in the end i bit the bullet and cut out sections at a time and ended up grinding the spot welds off.

i then went to remove the insulation of the heater channel and was surprised when i opened the insulation and the channel itself fell on top of me it worked out ok because i was removing the y tube and the heater channel as i will be using J tubes from engine straight to exhaust and using proex piped into the dash.

i then started taking the top hats off and prepping the relevant panels and trials fitting them as i went along. i also started cleaning up and priming the chassis sections in this area.

then towards the end of the week off i managed to take off a dodgy angle that a body shop guy i know put on my chassis to mount my new belly pan on and chipped off old waxoyl. then i primed it ready for bits and pieces of patchwork i would do in the near future.

N/S:

O/S:

here is one of the patches i made for going behind the rear outrigger on the O/S:

that brought me to the end of my week off and i went to brighton with g/f to visit her brother and sister in law. had wicked time. i'm now back to work and i've started makng a few patches in the evenings and fitting some more new stuff to the van its all going forward and i can see the progress.

NaFe out... for now

 

[Guest]

i had been missing your posts, full steam ahead now!

 

[Haveacamper]

yip, full steam and as long as it keeps going in the forward direction i will finish the chassis in no time, lol

 

[Guest]

i doubt you could uncover anymore rust than you have :wink:

so its all down hill from here!

 

[Haveacamper]

well thats the first wrong piece i've bought in my project. i know have two schofield's N/S jacking points with corresponding outriggers.

D'OH!!!

i popped down the van with old man and finished welding up that patch and have put another one in which is now invisable. he's amazing with that welder.

will take pics soon. i'm not down on the van over the w/e so will hae to be next wk now

NaFe

 

[71Dormobile]

Nice work on the Dormobile fella keep the pics coming......

 

[Haveacamper]

ok so with the summer on its way and hitting us with some warm weather i thought i;d do a little biut more down the van this evening. i sanded down the area under the front wheel in preperation for temporarily fitting my spruced up beam assembly. i'll hopefully be assembling my beam when my new leaves come (fingers crossed by the w/e) along with my recon trailing arm set from coolairvw. i have a steering damper and two new trackrods awaiting fitment too.

anyway here's the progress:

here is the passenger side all primered up after being sanded down. i had previously chipped off the old waxoyl using a screwdriver so this was the easy bit as you can see there is a section around the top where the shock mount will be that has a considerable hole. that will be all cut out properly and a nice plate put in. i've just primered it as i've learnt that clean metal soon rusts and even if you have the good intentions of doing something tomorrow it doesnt always happen

this is the drivers side. i didnt get all of it stripped down to bare metal for me to prime but got the lower half done. the rest can follow on friday

all in all the metal is starting to look quite nice in places he of little confidence hey!

NaFe

 

[Guest]

sweet 8)

 

[easy]

nice 8)

 

[Haveacamper]

just a little update, i've been down the van this afternoon as i'm managing to finish at 3 on fridays these days.

so i finished off the area under the front wheel arches in preperation for my beam in the coming month or so. i sanded down the paint to bare metal and managed to get the steel wheel in most of the corner bits and primered it all up. forgot to take a picture though.

i then paid my attention back to the chassis sections towards the rear wheels. my dad pressed me some sections that i could use. saved me £24.50 for the chassis section that the heater channel runs through. also, with my heater channel removed i can increase the chassis strength by not cutting that hole out. i spent an hour or so cutting the section to length, getting the correct angle on the edges because the chassis flares out. i also put the tabs on the end to give me the original strength when welding to the inside face of the chassis rails.

you can see the pen marks where i've lined up one of the rigid pipes. i'm going to just drill the hole for this rather than the slot you get in repro sections. keep it with the strength.

I then offered it up to double check the width was good, i had the angle right and double check my pen marks were all right.

didnt have my drill with me so i left the barn and brought the section home with me along with a jacking point that i had to drill a hole in for the rigid handbrake cable.

just a slight ASIDE: I'm picking my front clip up from classy campers in the morning wahoo!!!

 

[Haveacamper]

quick few pics of my new clip picked up from classycampers on saturday.

well i managed to to get a few hours down the van on the w/e which isnt usually the case with other commitments. i first spent a while clamping up the cassis cross member to check that the tophat will fit nicely, which it does.

then i managed do get under the front end and get filthy

slowly but surely i'm getting areas back to good metal and primered. however, i soon ran out of primer so awaiting a new rattle can, hopefully tomorro.

my replacement leaves arrived today so i spent my evening putting the second set of leaves in and slipping my new tailing arms from coolair.