My first van!!

[ChrisTriple]

Your doing a great job Steve, I can't wait to get mine back so I can put her back together. I'm going to recover all the cupboards, fit new carpet. I'm having new curtains made for her. Just hope I can have her back and all put back together before my visit to Silverstone for the F1 weekend.

[stevelane]

Your doing a great job Steve, I can't wait to get mine back so I can put her back together. I'm going to recover all the cupboards, fit new carpet. I'm having new curtains made for her. Just hope I can have her back and all put back together before my visit to Silverstone for the F1 weekend.

Thank Chris - Because I have three young children I cant get stuff done when they are around so when the other half takes them out I get as much done as I can, so at the moment progress is good and I have tomorrow off so should get more done, but then it could be another 6 months before it happens again - I have a classic mini in the garage in bits at the moment too. I clearly like my life stressful

Sounds like you have a lot to do yourself - Do you have pics?

[ChrisTriple]

As soon as I've started doing the cupboards I'll take pictures and again once the vans back. I'm a bit stuck at the moment I've just had my Achilles' tendon reattach so I'm in plaster and not allowed any weight on that leg for a few more weeks so it may be a long time before I get anything done myself

[petethefeet]

"I'm a bit stuck at the moment I've just had my Achilles' tendon reattach so I'm in plaster and not allowed any weight on that leg for a few more weeks so it may be a long time before I get anything done myself"

That sounds like it will be expensive on Ebay; all that time on your hands and no way of getting to the van to work on it, you are bound to buy bits for the van that you don't need and can't afford

[ChrisTriple]

That sounds like it will be expensive on Ebay; all that time on your hands and no way of getting to the van to work on it, you are bound to buy bits for the van that you don't need and can't afford

Well it been 2 weeks so far and I've spent about £200 most of that on curtain material but I have my eye on LOTS of other bits.

[stevelane]

Fair amount of progress today as I had the day to myself and parts turned up all at one, so happy when that happens

Change the seals and scrapers on both cab doors, maybe I was just being a perfectionist but something told me they needed changing:



Only a little perished!! lol

The seals went in really easily and took 5 minutes to fit so that was another job jobbed!

Secondly I wanted to attack this:

I don't know if this is standard but it looks into the cupboard at the back so if it wasn't then I guess someone just decided they needed a bit of privacy - Again was a very quick job and with some new frosting paper from ebay it looks 10 times better

Also got the sliding door handle refitted as I have had to get it out of the glovebox every time I wanted to open the door.

Have painted the wheels with black hammerite throughout the day and just waiting for them to dry before adding the hubcaps back.

I have to say I am well chuffed with the caps and the finished result. I spent ages with a wire wheel removing all of the old paint and was relaly pleased with how they were coming up.



For a little while I thought I could get away with polishing them up but was gutted to find that the last one I stripped was as rusty as hell and will be chucked. I have still painted it so that I have four on the van but the finish is nothing like the others and I will keep an eye out for one more to replace it and then paint them the same.



But the other three came out so much better than I imagined they would:

Cant wait to see them back on. There are still dents on them as I didn't want to try and knock them out and make them worse but I was blown away with how good they finished

[petethefeet]

Hi,
Looking good, just keep picking off all the jobs and soon you will see the difference.
The frosted glass bit is a standard Devon thing.

Keep it going

[nsjtaylor]

With regard "sticky sweets" and such on your interior, try searching on YouTube for "interior car detail using steam". Whilst the videos from professional Detailers shows them using fairly industrial (read: expensive) steamers, I've done vehicle interiors using a household steamer that cost around £30 (the actual steamer part is hand-held... for hand-held use... but then pops into a larger unit making it look more like an upright vacuum cleaner for use one floors in your house). It's amazing what you can remove from carpets/seats etc, using steam! (and it's harmless to the material, as long as you don't hover for too long... just long enough to melt the crud, then wipe away). After steaming all of the really nasty bits off, you could then hire a proper wet/dry vac to clean the hell out of it (enjoy the many buckets of black/brown water )

[stevelane]

With regard "sticky sweets" and such on your interior, try searching on YouTube for "interior car detail using steam". Whilst the videos from professional Detailers shows them using fairly industrial (read: expensive) steamers, I've done vehicle interiors using a household steamer that cost around £30 (the actual steamer part is hand-held... for hand-held use... but then pops into a larger unit making it look more like an upright vacuum cleaner for use one floors in your house). It's amazing what you can remove from carpets/seats etc, using steam! (and it's harmless to the material, as long as you don't hover for too long... just long enough to melt the crud, then wipe away). After steaming all of the really nasty bits off, you could then hire a proper wet/dry vac to clean the hell out of it (enjoy the many buckets of black/brown water )

Cheers for the advice, might have to ask Santa for the steam vac, won't be doing inside until next year, got plenty to get on with

[stevelane]

So the wheels are all painted up and looking good!



Really pleased with how they turned out.

Over the weekend my wife to be decided that she would like to go camping this year so now things are a little more urgent and will be taking up a few of my days off from now to summer

[ChrisTriple]

Just fill her up and go somewhere local, just a few miles down the road for a test camp. Just to iron out the oh we need that we need this, we don't need that or this, and if it's really bad you can just pop home

[ChrisTriple]

Oh yeah and the wheels are looking great

[stevelane]

Just fill her up and go somewhere local, just a few miles down the road for a test camp. Just to iron out the oh we need that we need this, we don't need that or this, and if it's really bad you can just pop home

I wish we could but with the little uns being so young I wouldn't have them sleep in there until the upholstery has been done, not sure what we would all breath in from those lol

But it does give me an excuse to keep telling her I have to take it out on long drives

[stevelane]

So, got a free buddy seat today. All i had to do was a 500
Mile round trip from Essex to Manchester to pick it up lol

[stevelane]

That's my new seat in that meant a 500 mile round trip - Thought for a minute I wouldn't be able to fit it as it was overlapping the grill on the floor.

This now means I can get them all upholstered to match but more importantly I can take steps to get the belts in and then all the kids can get in