Mk2 Transit Dormobile Camper - Restoration

[joda]

Early 2015 i picked up a 1979 Mk2 Transit CI Travel home - the large Brown / Beige coachbuilt type - a restoration was started.

In August 2015 a Mk2 Dormobile turned up localy on Ebay - It was a proper barn find, a farmer had owned it, and put it off the road in 1998 and forgotten about it, had recently died, the farm was forsale and the place was getting sold off.

i went to view, made an offer there and then, it wasnt enough tho, they wanted to let the auction run, i was a bit disheartended but 4 days later i won the auction for £500 less than my offer !

The van was brought home, and soon a decision was made, that was better than the lager van, it could sit inside the garage and so the large van was sold.

Photos to follow......

[glenanderson]

Excellent. I'm in.

[motardman]

The book, has been marked.

[joda]

With a bit of digging through the history, it turns out that it was a mk1 Transit dormobile, the original owner had this all swapped into a new mk2 transit when the mk1 was beyond repair.

Ausust 2015 - was that really eight years ago, i collected the van and it was delivered to the house, first job was to get it running and driving, fresh fuel in a temporary bottle, clean points and a dead battery and jump leads onto a Nissan Terrano and we were away - not fast and no real stopping power, it was alive again after it had been laid up, in 1998.

As things happen, life gets in the way, other projects come along and it was moved from garage, to polly tunnel to shared unit - a few false starts in May 2016 saw it partly stripped and a wheel arch replaced, but again work soon ground to a hault and it was stored.

Roll around March 2020 and we go into lockdown, with a new garage in the garden, free time in the evenings alone, the trasnit was again pulled out, and onto the four poster ramp - work had started, again.

Photo from March 2020 prior to driving into the garage to start works




On the whole, it is very solod underneath with only external panel rot, sills and arches - turns out the farmer never really washed it and the underside was covered in dried mud, this has both preserved it in places and caused rot in others.










I have since lot alot of photos, so iam trying to find as many from messeger conversations from friends etc at the time and recover them - updates as i find them.

[joda]

Just found this photo of the mud in the sill




I did put a load if it in an ice cream tub and plant flowers - photos to follow

[75swb]

Did the farmer plough with it? Wow. I've never seen that much mud in a sill

[raceyrover]

Wow! Trying to wrap my head around how that much mud even got that packed in there!

Mate of mine has a mk1 he's spent years converting to a camper, looks great now.

[joda]

Ive just found a few more photos from when i went to view it - this is how it was found

[raceyrover]

What were those little fuzzy things with the banner called, every person that lived through the 90's must have had at least two!