Rolling restoration/conversion

[moaning old trout]

Hi all
Perhaps you might be interested in the rolling (ish) restoration/conversion of my T25. Always been into buses and last had a T2 that I wish I hadn’t sold a few years ago before they went bonkers in price.
I bought “Daisy” about three years ago, she had been previously registered in Belgium and brought over to the UK by a guy in Kent who over the next few years seemed to have put a huge amount into the engine, box and other mechanical repairs but used it very little. Receipts for about £5000 !
It is a LHD and was a bus with 3 rows of seats. I have a massive file of stuff from when it came to the UK but only a small amount from Belgium.
Couple of pics of the outside. Roof rails from a shogun.

[moaning old trout]

Rolling conversion continued
First thing I did was strip everything out but the front seats. There was a bit of surface rust on the cargo area which I dealt with and two small holes about 1.5 inches long. One rust hole in cab. All of these were ground back and welded up (not by me as I don’t have this skill)
Once everything cleaned up I started with some “sound proofing” – as I was doing this bit by bit I bought some roadkill anti vibration material from Halfrauds. Seems ok but not dynamatt quality. There is also a bit of B and Q special on top of that in places. At the same time I got some quality stretchy carpet (Veltrim) for the walls which went on okay but boy did it take a lot of it, yards and yards.

[moaning old trout]

Rolling conversion continued
As things progressed doing an area at a time I also started to make some fresh panels to replace the previous ones. They were shot but good enough for templates. I the rear ones first – flat panels from hardboard that was varnished and covered with the veltrim. You can just see it below.



I also used some High-density foam I had left over from another project as sound deadening in the walls. Struggled with the roof but eventually used some High density 10 mm thick stuff glued on with high temp spray adhesive.

thought i would try to make a custom panel for the tailgate;

here it is covered with speaker box fabric

this became fluffy in a short time so is currently out of the van whilst i try to get a quality fabric to recover it

[moaning old trout]

Rolling conversion continued
Continuing with the antivibration theme I moved on to the seat bases/boxes


After much measuring and wandering about the local scrapyard I got some Vectra seats, half leather £30 for front and rear. Came up really well after a good vaxing. Lots of fiddling and they fit like they should have been there from the start. They are a bit high though but its driveable. Rear seat material was used to make the rock and roll bed base/backboard

[Cobra88]

Looks great so far MOT

ill mark this thread to see progress

Rick

[moaning old trout]

Conversion continued
Thanks Rick, just realised I didn’t take enough photos when working on the bus over the last couple of years.
Back to the work i had taken some pics of, after what seemed like hours of work I eventually had the middle and rear bare metal areas all covered in anthracite veltrim. I found this fairly easy to put on but went through ¾ of a box of 100 stanley knife blades as the carpet seemed to blunt the knife very quickly. I was happy with the areas that resulted in joins which did not seem to be that noticeable. As stated above I made replacement panels for the sides that wasn’t going to have storage cupboards, the sliding door and the floor area over the engine bay.

Next I started making some side cupboards. For some unknown reason I did this the hard way, bonding a laminate to ply for the fronts and doors. I think I used 9mm ply and the cost to make the units came in at under £100 . I now know why I did it the hard way as the lightweight ply with the laminate already bonded was £150 a sheet at Magnum Motorhomes (local caravan and motorhome supplies warehouse North East Lincs), not knocking them as they have some good gear but I’m on a budget and I would have needed at least two.

in the picture bellow only the base of the RnR bed is complete, the back is just wrapped around the foam


Next came a couple of tambour roller doors that I put in. These came from Magnum and were simple to make.



Also had the wheels refurbished at a local powder coater. Very impressed with their work.

Need to check if i have any more photos

[adie89]

Looking great, you’ve given me the idea to save having to pay for the ‘proper’ board for some modifications I have to do to.

[jgrace2008]

Great job! Was hoping to do something similar and had a couple of questions:
1. How did you do around the windows, are there a number of joints or is it one piece?
2. Do you have anymore pictures you could post, especially around windows and ceiling?

Really good job, love the panel for the boot!

[moaning old trout]

1. How did you do around the windows, are there a number of joints or is it one piece?
2. Do you have anymore pictures you could post, especially around windows and ceiling?

Hi, sorry for the late reply, interesting times at the moment!
I did the windows in 2 sections and there is one join between the two windows. I cut roughly to shape and masked the windows and rubbers with tape before liberal use of spray glue, I used some plastic tools to lever up the window rubbers and the fed the veltrim under it. This was a tricky job and took a bit of time to get it how i wanted it. Overall fairly happy with the end result but id i was to do it again i would do it in one peice .

i have some photos to put up but cant remember how to do it.
regards
andrew