My 1971 bay project...

For those of you not on Volkszone, thought I would post my new project up on here and get to know you all a bit better.

it's a cheap bay project bought on ebay for just under a grand.

After a 9 hour drive / pickup last night ending after 3 this friday morning.

This is what just under a grand buys you in bay window land these days.

The journey back (thanks Percydub):



The good:







4" narrowed axle beam with creative adjusters - oh yeah - he'll go nice n low on it.


The bad:









Just a bit rusty, but nothing a tickle with a welder can't sort out.

The ugly:





he's been resprayed in the past and had a lot of filler work done which is now looking a bit worse for wear.

Anyway, this thread will chat the progress of my work on it

The aim is to get it MOTd by march at the latest so I can complete my bug whilst having something to drive. Fingers crossed.

14/10/06:

Last weekend Tom (tomarse) (and several others in fact) came round and had a good look at the bay. Apart from destroying most of the front panel which was more heavily fillered than I expected), Tom (with a tiny amount of help from me :lol: lowered the arse end of the bay properly - 2 splines down. Now looks so much better, I'm really chuffed

Before:



(the pics from on eBay from whence it came)

After:







I can still get my foot between the ground and the exhaust tailpipes though, so it can still go a bit lower


Those pictures really don't show it very well mind you when they were taken we had only done the one side so it is bound to look odd. We did the other side in total darkness.

More to come :hangloose:

Total costs so far:

Van : £940
trailer: £60.50
fuel for towing van: £60 (Bristol to Maidstone and back)

I manouvred the van round into the flat part of my drive, to see how it sits.



Ideally the front will go down a little bit to make it better.
I'm thinking dropped spindles.

This is how i'd love it to be, but unfortunately the front end is jacked up for this pic.



I've also sorted out the handbrake so it works again. One of the wheels (front) is sticking so that needs to be sorted, and one of the back ones is a bit sticky as well.

Tom also sorted out the gear linkage as the front connection had had a wrong size (too small) bolt but in place, which meant it continually was falling apart. Now all the gears seem to work quite well.

14/10/06 continued 8)

Remember this?



It's a perfect example of why you should cut out old metal before welding in new:





Underneath had just continued to deteorate








Kept on finding rust...



And then filler lower down the arch too...

18/10/06


This bit fell off after I undid one bumper bolt and unwired the horn (I knew it was crap already )




Made a nice mess in my garden:



This hole:



turned into:


And I also made this bit worse:





It's getting there, although progress was slow this afternoon.

I've had a stinking cold today and feel even worse than yesterday, so no new work today. Hopefully a good update on saturday though







Spent ages trying to get the profile of the inner bit there right, think it looks OK now. Looks shit in the photo though :crazy:
At least I know there are the right number of layers and the double layered bit for strength is double layered

22/10/06:

OK, one trip to manchester and back (!) later...









180 miles with it like that ^^ we did get a few strange looks.

Heh. Too little progress on this thread for a day or two.

24/10/06 - Tom came over today and gave a hand to do this:



We also started attacking the roof. Tom didn't take many pics with my camera though, so not many of the actual scary looking holes tonight. I'll post them tomorrow when I bother to go to the garage again



This bit is above the sliding door. as the new roof is LHD it is important to preserve this bit carefully.



This is the other side. Oops.



Good job my garage isn't any smaller:



Spot the bit that is meant to hole the windscreen in place?

It is so rotten . I was going to cut the red line in the above pic, but it may have to be the blue line instead. (everything above the line would be got rid of and replaced with new)






This old roof repair was a bit "interesting":











but the new roof is a lot better

Tom came over in the afternoon, after going to look at a garage we got to work:

This is why you shouldn't let tom play with a screwdriver



or an angle grinder...



Together, Tom and I cut the old roof off.



back end off:



both ends off







We did wonder whether to brace the doors, but decided it wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. We shall see .

All the above work happened around last October.

Since then, I've done sod all work on it. Until today.

This morning, I got off my lazy backside and got to work again:



Cleaned up most of the bits that I will be welding the new roof to round the sliding dooor.



With roof strengthening brackety thing (which Dormobile cleverly removed when fitting the poptop - what a crap conversion ) ^^

and without:



Finally, whoever invented fan heaters should be given a medal





Not looking too bad, some should be saveable, but as shown below some needs attention.





I'll keep this thread updated as and when I do work to the van, so keep me inspired

Good work!
Keep the pics coming as it will motivate me to get off my backside :lol:

Fantastic! I've never seen a roof off resto.

Keep the pictures coming.

nice work, personally i would have braced it.
just keep your eye on the rear end as you have a late roof and the vents and hinge area are different, the "hinge arms" are different on the early buses so your have to use your old set up.
good luck

8) Cheers guys

Slammedkustom, the van will be keeping the early vents

I wasn't aware of the differences in hinges. The new roof was from a '74 tintop. I'll have to have a play about when the roof is on to see how it goes together.

nuff respect matey it will be a worthwile experience Top Job son :wink:

Always impressed when people put in this amount of time and effort into a van !! I wish I had the skills !

Cheers 8)

Yesterday, Tom came over and we did a bit more work to the van



No more roof strengthening posts, and we prepped a large amount of the remaining area for the roof to weld to.

Some of the innter roof parts were too far gone, so this resulted in me standing in the pouring rain with a jigsaw trying to cut thin strips of metal



Unfortunately, at this point some grumpy bastard from 4 doors down my road came and had a big rant about the noise we had been making. (at before 5PM too), Including threats of phoning the council etc.
My next-door neighbour had just come home at this point, and after the grumpy bastard had left, my neighbour called him a cunt, told us we weren't that noisy and that we should carry on cutting :lol:

Anyway, I've still got to cut more so I will be continuing sometime soon. If he comes and moans so rudely again, I'll be a lot less polite to him this time.

More to come :hangloose :wink:

Tell the guy to f**k off. Expect he's only jelous anyway :roll: Good to see the restos going well anyway. I don't know which one looked worse at the start yours or Ianbs? She'll be ready for vanwest i hope :shock:

wow...thats a whole lot of work...hats off to you 8)

Keep going mate, summer will be here too soon for you i am sure! It will be worth it