Club 80-90 Forums

Time for another project sold my last T25 in 2010 and have missed it so time for another one!


This is what ive bought 1979 hand painted pop top



The plans for this one are a full exterior restoration, brand new interior fit out and subaru engine fitted not decided whether to go turbo or non turbo????

Few more pics

Interior very tired



Pop top open will be fitting new canvas



Exterior stripped



Back to bare metal and the cutting has become



inner sill cut out



Interior ripped out



Engine removed

interested to watch this project as i,ve just bought my first t25 that i,m going to restore & was thinking of changing engine as well , (once i finish my rover p5 restoration) , keep pics coming

'Project' is just a catch-all phrase for blood sweat, tears and money.

Nice to see an old metal rear grill being restored mate, nice 1

Blimey - nice one,
that is a quick work Was the paint difficult to get off? Is that a Viking roof? Is it hard to do the sills? Mine is in body shop at moment and has rooted through completely in front of rear wheel where there eas a rats nest in the panel and the wee has gone through the metal. The guy doing the work is making pieces to weld the outer part but not sre what his plans are for inner sill - poss to hide it!

An old 'Xplorer'; one of the best early t25 conversions. Shame the interior had to go but then I'm sentimentally attached to them

having said that it's your van and as mickyfin said, good that you're saving it

Merlin Cat wrote:Blimey - nice one,
that is a quick work Was the paint difficult to get off? Is that a Viking roof? Is it hard to do the sills? Mine is in body shop at moment and has rooted through completely in front of rear wheel where there eas a rats nest in the panel and the wee has gone through the metal. The guy doing the work is making pieces to weld the outer part but not sre what his plans are for inner sill - poss to hide it!

I found a product called clean and strip discs they are a poly abrasive disc that strips the paint back in seconds but does not damage the metal, That side of the van took me 30-40 mins to strip back. Only warning is to move around if you get the panels too hot they will warp!
From the research i have done it is a viking roof my last one was a high top but have to say this pop top is very spacious.
As for the panels and sills i am getting my parts from just kampers they are great quality the inner sill was £130 pounds but will make a proper job of it im not a great fan of patching up better to get in there and cut all the rot out then plenty of waxoil applied,
I have a fibreglass bodykit to go on it that will cover all the lower parts of the van but if you cover things up you always know it is still rotting away beneath you