Another Dormobile restoration :)

[kevinhall]

Hi All,

So about 6 months ago we got our 1972 Dormobile, Bertie. We picked him up from Cumbria and set off to drive him back home to Bedfordshire. Unfortunately we didn’t quite make it!

But, wiring redone and he ran nicely for a couple of months and racked up 1000 miles or so.

When we got him we knew we wanted to redo the interior so a couple of months in we got a second dormobile interior with the intention of taking the best bits of the two interiors and creating one good one.

Out with the old interior and a bit of rust was uncovered (need to get come pics). And then it all went a bit crazy and this ensued!!

Day one. Had the lads round and removed the pop top and started to bare metal the front to see what was what. No pictures on my camera but left with this…

Day two. Had to work half of it so only had a couple of hours. The missus and I decided to nitromors and strip back the rear quarters.

My glamerous assistant

Some previous repairs

Day 3. My dad came over to give us a hand and we dropped the engine out and stripped the drivers side paint.

Day 4. My father in law came over and we popped out all the windows and the dash. Some more rot  These had been covered in fibreglass resin!

And here he is tucked away at the end of the day.

Aim is to get the hold van stripped back to a solid original paint layer, uncover and dodgy old repairs, redo them myself where I can and otherwise get some help with them and then get him painted and rebuilt in time for my wife’s cousin’s wedding at the end of July. We’ll see how we go! Never done anything like this before so massive learning curve but thoroughly enjoying it.

No time to do anything this weekend, so updates in a week.

 

[gninnam]

Welcome to the forum 8)
Welcome to the wonderful world of rust and bodge jobs by the PO :evil:

Enjoy and looking forward to further updates

 

[Justin & Muttley]

Nice work you're doing there! 8)

From the way he's dressed I'm guessing that your Dad didn't know you'd be taking the engine out!! :lol: :lol:

Keep up the good work and updates!

 

[kevinhall]

Believe it or not he had warning and those were my dads work trousers!

 

[Justin & Muttley]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Must be a pretty suave guy!!

Keep those pics coming - it'll look great!

 

[carlislecamper]

hi welcome 2 the world of resto,im in carlisle cumbria and i searched hi and low 4 a van and couldnt find 1 any where local wen to lincon 4 mine,where did u get yours from?luks sweet tho gud luk

 

[71dormy]

nice work dude
and good choice of bus :lol:

 

[rotten bus]

nice job chap - at a simular stage with my dormy - keep up the good work

 

[Guest]

I love seeing pictures of actual people working on their buses

 

[carrottopper]

I love seeing pictures of actual people working on their buses

+2 , its always good too see people getting stuck in and dirty! if i dont get a rollocking off the missus for dirty handprints everywhere , i know ive not done the job properly!!

 

[kevinhall]

Cheers for the interest and comments all Just agreed to give a mate a hand working on his clio this saturday so will lose a day, but in return he is giving me a few weekends of free labour on the van. Hopeing by the end of this weekend to have a bare shell and the fuel tank out, ready to teach myself to weld the following weekend!

Edit: on a related point, if I remove the fuel tank do I need to flush it or anything to make it safe for storage or will any traces of fuel evaporate quickly and leave it safe? Just conscious that petrol fumes ignite quite easily and last thing i want is something unsafe in the garage.

 

[Guest]

dont leave it sitting open at all. i would make sure the appertures are blocked.

I remember an empty tank that had been cleaned and sitting for a while catching a spark and after about a min it nearly blew inside out and my mate still has a scars where a flame shot out about 20 feet and hit him upside the head.

we reckoned there must still have been a dribble of fuel or acetone from somewhere.

 

[kevinhall]

Yikes, that doesn't sound good. Think I'll give it a thorough a clean with some tank cleaner wrap it up safe and pop it in the shed out of the way of all those nasty grinding and welding sparks!

 

[Marvel]

Congrats on the dormi. Don't you just love Dads doing work in slacks and loafers 8)

 

[Pike]

Nice to see another Dormy crossover in Bedfordshire , I'm sure yours will be back on the road long before mine
is finished.

 

[kevinhall]

Quick update on the weekend's progress. Spent Saturday over in Norwich swapping seats between 2 clios. Only took a couple of hours but a six hour round trip meant most of the day had gone and by the time I got back it was raining :roll:

So only had Sunday left and we carried on with the strip back. Neighboor had left her shiny new car on the drieway and we were getting the nitromors out so thought we'd better get the tent up for protection:

Putting on the nitromors:

Rear panel came up great, lovely layer of original primer to work from. Evidence of repairs to the sill and behind the arch again:

Then started don the sliding door - didn't need much nitromors on the top coat, paint just chipped off in sheets:

Knew it was a replacement sliding door but lots of filler.

So we removed it to make it easier to work on and found this under the 3rd layer of paint:

Whole bottom right corner is warped and not connected to the inner strengthening panel anymore. Instead of repair it they have just filled the top part.

Then had a good look around the b post as this didn't look right - now know why, another ton of filelr:

Final few moments of the day spent having a look at the A-pillars as the rain channel on these just looked 'heavy'. Seam has come aprt on the back and just been filled and some good evidence of rot at the bottom of the pillar.

By this point it was getting late and had to get the tent down, and cleared up so we called it a day. Some more to look at next weekend though.

 

[Rexer]

Keep up the good work dude, it will soon be straight and rust free (ish)
And another Dormobile to add to the earlybay.com collection

 

[gninnam]

I hate PO's so much :evil:

What started out as a nice straightfoward (yeah, right!) resto turns into a can of worms the more you strip the paint back.....

Feel for you with what you find, but like Rexer says, soon be back on the road

 

[kevinhall]

Finally getting round to jotting down my weekends progress. Had another mate come round to lend a helping hand and carried on with the strip down.

Started on the roof. Top coat of paint came off with very little effort and revealed some more lovely surprises!

Both corners shot so something else for the shopping list.

Then whipped out the petrol tank to make sure nothing could go bang when I start cutting and welding. Amazing that my van that has had ‘very little work’ has had the petrol tank out before. Tank straps were cut and the tank held in with silicone sealant! Also worked out why we had a petrol smell when filling up. Breather pipes not connected and tank leaking from the half way seam so need to seal it before putting it back in. Generally though the tank area is in good condition with just one hole in the floor.

Also removed all the resin from the window frames and all in need of a bit of attention.

Then Sunday cracked on with clearing out the interior, bagging up all the bits and putting them out of the way and finally finishing bare metalling the front panel. Little bit of rust in one of the headlight recesses and down one side but generally not bad.

Also, removed the silicone sealant from under the gutter. Lots of surface rust but most in ok condition I think. Just need to have a quick grind down and treat with some kurust and see what happens.

One more day of stripping and I might actually have to bite the bullet and start putting things back together!

 

[Justin & Muttley]

You're making great progress on the van - shame about the nasty surprises though!

Keep ploughing on - you're getting there!