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Nov 29, 2007 11:29:35 GMT
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Thought it was about time I put the van up here. After years of pestering I finally gave in to my mates and got myself an FK 1250 or Taunus Transit as they were also called Sold the splittie...  flogged the Mercs (were my daily drivers til I got my company Car)   Had a look around and as there are not a lot of them left, the ones that do come up are normally rotten. After spending years getting this sorted on the VW...   I wasn´t going to start from scratch again. After a while I found one in Berlin, so popped over (700miles!) to have a look. As i´d got loads of photos it was worth the risk and as it turned out I bought it and as i´d taken my mates trailer with me, took it back home with me. These are the before pics...    quite a good condition for a start. (most of my old cars didn´t look this good after I was finished    As it was taxed and tested I reregistered it and drove it around for a while. Popped over to visit my mates in Kassel and ended up with a wrecked Dizzy on the way there...  and a having the AA tow my home as my "stirnrad" cog decided it was too old for the job..  (this should be in one piece!!) but after stripping the engine and refitting a new one everything was fine. Then I started to get stuck into it.. The sills on these things are for decoration only, they still rust though and as you can´t get them new I had to patch them..     Found a hole in the passengers floor so instead of plating it up I made it bigger and made a cupboard out of it...    The filler hose is protected by a plate from the inside...these are nearly always rotten because the spray from the rear right wheel makes sure it never dries out.. Mine was no different.....  was a bit tricky but made up a new plate and all was sorted  Tidied up a few bits and bobs then it was off for paint..   more to follow...... ;D ;D ;D |
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Last Edit: Aug 4, 2009 7:44:49 GMT by Oldbus
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Nov 29, 2007 11:37:51 GMT
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What a project... lovely Bus!
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Nov 29, 2007 11:54:16 GMT
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About time Dave! Looking forward to the remainder...
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1986 Citroen 2CV Dolly Other things. Check out my Blog for the latest! www.hubnut.org |
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Nov 29, 2007 20:21:28 GMT
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like these very much mate  .was quite supprised when my mate brought classic ford into work and saw the closest thing to a bay window in there well cool .. |
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Nov 29, 2007 22:24:08 GMT
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Amazing, I have been watching your and Thorstens vans here for a while. Now you start teh story where it should be started.... Thanks.
These vans seem to be fairly simple to work on, even though they have their own set of problems it seems.
Keep the thread going please, I want to see how it developed over time to the point where you now have a thread on the readers modifications.
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Anglia68
Posted a lot
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Posts: 2,049
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Nov 29, 2007 23:50:05 GMT
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Has to be the coolest vans I never knew about till yours appeared this year.  |
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^^^^^ I have to echo that, i didnt know about these until i seen oldbus' ones on the van thread i started!! Lovely little jobs arent they! Looks pretty mean on the black steels and black caps too
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Club Retro Rides Member
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About time Dave! Looking forward to the remainder... You´re right Ian, i know...... here´s a bit more Before i brought the van away for paint i scrubbed all the old paint, welded up 86 holes in the floor (from the old Firebrigade cupboards etc) cleaned it all up and painted it with three layers of boat hull paint (the stuff they use for the wet bits on boats) As i wasn´t sure how i was going to fit it out at this stage i thought better be safe than sorry....   Haven´t got any better photos unfortunately but you can see that i soundproofed all the bodywork from the inside. These vans are not like the modern people carriers (warm & quiet) and as i had a load of soundproofing mats of a mate of mine (he runs a transport company and they actually did fall off the back of a lorry!! ) They are normally very expensive but as the insuracnce company wrote then off i got loads of them and went to town on the van... Normally the doors are metal only, i.e no cardbord door panels and as the door catch was in the way of my lefthand knee i cut open the door, modified the catch mechanism so that it was out of the way...  painted it from the inside, soundproofed it and made a bit of cardbord to match, so that i could cover it with imitation leather/vinyl  Here´s the van ready for off to the painters.  My painter, Alex (here with my son Christian) had just set herself up with her own sprayshop and was really busy..  So it took her a while to get started but i was in no hurry (never say that to a sprayshop owner by the way, even if she is a mate ...)    needed a lot of sanding and filling, nothing serious but lots of small dents and scratches While the van was away i got stuck into a few bits and bobs that i´d kept at home ... Wasn´t going to do much to the engine originally because i knew it wouldn´t be staying inthere long..(55BHP is not going to keep me happy for long! ) but as i´m not keen on rust i sprayed the sump..  Decoked the the radiator and gave it a once over with heatproof rattlecan...  This is the taillight cover, it´s normally painted red but spent 6 hours polishing it to get it to look like this...  ...and while i was at it polished the rear door catch & stay and lacquered it so that i don´t have to polish it every couple of months  Thanks for looking in...Next up...collection from the sprayers! |
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As the van was at the painters i´d got all the odds and sod sorted out. The tank was a bit rusty from the inside so threw in a couple of handfulls of nuts and bolts and gave it 50rpm all afternoon!This is a my Splittie tank but the Ford was the same, just didn´t have any photos of it)  Came up like new so after a once over with the spray gun it was finished...  So the big day had come, pick up the van from the painters. my mates had been giving me a running commentary of how things had been going so went back over to Kassel (2 hours away) Alex had been really busy catching up. It was now April and we had an appointment with bryn & Jon at Santa Pod beginning of June...     she´d done a good job but to be honest i was having a few doubts at this stage whether my choice of colours was right or not..... Anyway loaded it up...   My son Christian, who´s never too far away when old cars are being played with...  My mates Thorsten and Michael along with Alex and yours truly...  What a difference a wheel makes......! Tried out the home made pcd adapters and trail fitted the new alloy wheels and everything fitted...  The van originally didn´t have a rear window,  but i had modified it to accept one from a donor van that i´d scrapped for parts...     Wasn´t completely happy with the colours so decided to paint a black stripe along the rainchannel (the original GT40 paintjob always had a blackstripe between blue and orange)  mocked it up using a bit of tape to see if it would look right..     that was what had been bugging me and i was now happy with the clolours and layout... The black & white stickers in the middle arn´t..they´re just white squares stuck onto the black paint. Sounds easy, when you get it right it is, if not you need fingernails and a lot of patience to scrape the buggers off so that you can do it again.....  thanks for looking in, more to follow Dave |
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I have never been much of a van fan but this is actually making me wanna start on my old bedford ca I was given a while back
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sav
Part of things
Posts: 842
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Great stuff, been looking forward to seeing how it came about. The van looked pretty sound to start with, especially when looking at that spares windowed bus you had. Those corrugated body sections look like a right pain to repair properly that's for sure! I agree that the black rain gutter does make it look a lot better, just enough to break up the split between colours. I must say, the original trim parts, lights, handles etc are very neat and nicely designed. |
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Great stuff, been looking forward to seeing how it came about. The van looked pretty sound to start with, especially when looking at that spares windowed bus you had. Those corrugated body sections look like a right pain to repair properly that's for sure! I agree that the black rain gutter does make it look a lot better, just enough to break up the split between colours. I must say, the original trim parts, lights, handles etc are very neat and nicely designed. Thanks sav, it took me a while to find a half decent one. To be fair though there were a couple of thousand Euros price difference between the two though! ;D The corregated sills are one of the biggest problems with these things, they all have a different radius and are not easy to copy. |
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I have never been much of a van fan but this is actually making me wanna start on my old bedford ca I was given a while back Go for it, mate. We need more vans on here.....! |
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Next little update.... covered the door cards with vinyl and got the side windows back in, and the locks & handles back together...  ..same with the rear door.  Got the back done...lights in and wired up, door stay & catch, rear window fitted, numberplate lights in and working and got my rarer than rare original towbar fitted and wired up. These towbars are rarer than poor quality wobbly children's play pony sh*t. Everybody wants one and you can´t cheat over here as the TÜV won´t play along..  Anyway my mate Thorsten had been after one for his Taunus Transit for years without any success so decided to f*ck the TÜV and build his own. As soon as he´d got it finished and fitted, he got offered an original one. That´s life i suppose, good for me because he bought it, threw it in the corner and a couple of years later very kindly sold it to me, cheers mate! Wasn´t really next job up but finished off the logos....  Pics are from the trailer but the principle is the same, except that it took me two attempts (at 10 Euros per logo) to get it right..     Got stuck into the electrics, as i still wasn´t sure how the vans´ interior was going to end up at this stage i laid a few spare wires from front to back to be sure and as i´d planned fitting some sort of radio and cd player i needed to get the wires out of the way before i got stuck into making cupboards and stuff.   next up is the interior.... Cheers, Dave |
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How long did it take to do the chess board stickers!?!? Love this van, keep the pics coming |
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Wasn´t that long mate. They´re on a clear vinyl backing. They´re 1m long and 5 squares wide.
So it´s just a case of lining then up, wiping them on and pulling of the plastic backing. Sounds easy and is unless you get it squint then you have to peel off every square individually- and that takes ages ;D
Thanks for looking in, i´ll post up the interior tomorrow.
Cheers,
Dave
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Speedle
Posted a lot
Need a Country Rock band in the Hampshire Area? https://www.facebook.com/DirtRoadDiaryUK
Posts: 2,221
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awesome mate i like that very much looking foward to seeing some more  |
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Next up was the interior. I´d been dreading doing this from the start as i hate woodwork. Once i´d got all the electrics sorted and loads of spare wiring hidden i thought it would make sense to start with the headlining. I tried to sweettalk the misses into sewing up the headlining but she wasn´t having it! So promptly stole borrowed a 3m long wooden board from work and covered our pool table (my lads were not too happy with that) with it so that i had a decent size worktop to work on. The Van originally didn´t have a headling so had to drill a few holes to take the supporting rods and sew up god knows how many meters of heavy duty vinyl.  I´d never done this before but after reading up on the net i got the hang of it...   Started making up a few cupbords and getting the floor in...did i mention i hate woodwork... Filled in all the screw holes and joints (hope normal bodyfiller lasts) and sanded everything down...  The side cupboard is very handy as i can access it even when the bed is down and the kitchenette is in use.. Made it all out of rotproof chipboard, apparently this stuff still stays in one piece when it´s under water - hope i never have to try this out  The cupboard on the right with the fire extinguisher on, was born out of necessity because i couldn´t get the headlining to match the curvature of the roof in the corners without wrinkles, so i just hid them with a cupboard! Will be putting some speakers in there next year.  ![]() www.saufen-baunatal.de/busraser/gallerie/albums/Geeste07Autos/Geeste_2007_016.jpg[/img] The left hand wall is the bottom of a bed (2m x 1m) and folds down..  to this...   not enough room for two (well there is but not if you want to sleep ) more importantly the fridge (normally full of cold german beer) still fits in.... In the rear left hand cupboards i´ve hidden the gas bottle and gas cooker and kettle...well you can´t drink beer all the time. I need my brew now and again to sober up! ![]() www.saufen-baunatal.de/busraser/gallerie/albums/Lobbach07/Bild_003.jpg[/img] It doesn´t matter how much room you have, you always need more. Glad i got the roofrack.....   I´ll have to see if i´ve got any pics of the front but basically that´s it. I´m a bit busy at the moment but as soon as we´ve got Christmas done and dusted then the thread will go on when i try and fit this in...  Scorpio2.8i V6, and to answer the typical eBay questions no it doesn´t just bolt in! ;D |
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Lovely stuff, the V6 should help !!!! I can imagine it'll just plug straight in!!
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Club Retro Rides Member
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.was quite supprised when my mate brought classic ford into work and saw the closest thing to a bay window in there well cool ..
