The body's ready to lift off! Just need to get some beers in and a couple of large mates lined up - several local volunteers - and it's going to be sitting in the floor in the garage. Woo!

To give you some idea of the kind of horrible grot and revolting seized fasteners I've been dealing with, have a look at this...



Disgusting, isn't it? Makes me wonder why I'm bothering to rechassis such a knackered shell...

Most of the fasteners holding van box to chassis are nut-and-bolt rather than spire clip. Once they'd been cracked loose, they could be just unwound down the thread with fingers - just like putting brand new bolts on. Amazing.

A grand total of one bolt had to be cut - 'course, sod's law says it was one of the captive bolts underneath the fuel tank... Wasn't seized - the captive just broke loose and couldn't be wedged tight enough to undo. Hiho. Worse things happen at sea.

The little metal cover for the steering lock clamp bolts was still in place, too - removing that showed just how badly the chassis was sagging - only the very end of the clamp was all that was visible, and there was a lot of ally swarf in the cover, where the clamp's been machining away at the lock housing. To remove the clamp, I had to jack the van up under the front damper mount (behind the collapsed portion) - you could see the bendiness "releasing", even without the weight of engine and box in. Even so, I had to go and stand on the front end of the leg to get it "released" far enough to actually get to the clamp bolts. Once they were out, and the pinch-bolt released, the steering column came out fairly easily. Then two secs with the grinder to chop the floors just behind the rotten seized sections, and all is ready to lift.

Oh - and...


Yep, it's an exhaust movement restriction doofy, like wot I've repeatedly sworn I've never seen before...

Adrian,

Looks fantastic, you'll have to move yourself to the town in France where the van came from to stop your whole fleet having to deal with our climate!

Its like something from that huge airfield out in arizona or somewhere like that where they keep those bombers and airliners stored for decades in perfect condition. Except for the chassis of course.

So whats the plan are you just replacing the chassis, repairing the floors and windscreen surround, and keeping all of the running gear and everything else original? Is the engine a runner? if its really only done 80KKm that would be cool.

Chris

Gawd, what a hardship...



I've heard the engine run - it starts and idles sweetly, but not seen the van move under it's own power. The brakes are knackered - and will be rebuilt in full. New chassis, floors, sills, lower bulkhead. Ideally, I'd love to just tidy up the 'screen surround in the one corner that's untidy, and the same with the rear side windows. Patch a couple of little bits on the side flaps. Then, somehow, rustproof the entire thing to within an inch of it's life, and ensure it stays exactly the same as it is now... Scratches, dinks et al.



I really don't know. The speedo says 77,xxx km. The driveshafts have plenty of the original black paint on the surface at their outer ends - which says to me "very little use" - otoh, the pedal rubbers are quite worn - but not all that badly.

When it comes down to it, it's irrelevant. Condition is the only important thing after 35 years!

Your doing great! I wish I already was this far

Think Jeremy had one but i either broke it off or took it off, cant remember as I dont have a puney exhaust like that!

I overtook you I'm riding it again hahaha....

You cheated!

So, not having a hydraulic lift to hand, we took the next best option.

Muscle-power.



The rot is confined to this one area -


If we didn't already have the new chassis, I think I'd be starting to think about repairing this one. It really is that good otherwise. Sure, the sides have gone...

...but there appears to be external influence behind it...


Looks like it's hit a _corker_ of a pothole at some stage, which has twatted the bumpstop hard, and that's caused the weakened chassis to let go.

Top skin of the chassis off, reinforcements for the sides, and rebuild the inner reinforcements, and it's probably eminently re-usable. But. The new chassis is there, so it's going to get used.

Which means this one's free to a good home.

Anyway - new chassis...


That should do the job...

So - the other thing that getting the shell off meant was that I could get a better look at the suspension.
The cans have had a hard life, and are a bit battered...


...worth doing anything with? Or should they be fine?
Also, the front end buffers are a bit tired looking.


and, yes, that shiny black paint and new looking spire clip are exactly what we found after peeling the foam tape off. The rear section of the upper skin, where it's exposed beneath the van box, was thickly covered in dirt - which just brushed off to reveal shiny paint. Same as on large sections of the front suspension arms. The front-to-rear brake pipe is immaculate, as are the rear arm pipes!

There's a scary looking bloke with facial hair

No pics - yet - of the end result, but the axles and the handbrake mechanism are all off. I've also removed the mortal remains of the gearbox mount...

I think I might put a new one on.

Again, the ease of dismantling was scary. A grand total of one damper bush was slightly stuck - and that succumbed with a little light levering behind the thick spacer washer. All the damper pins unscrewed from the old chassis easily and smoothly.


Once the flats machined onto the tie-rods had been found under the foot thick hardened grease, they just unscrewed easily - despite my 9mm spanner hiding and Uncle Roy's adjuster tool being out of stock awaiting a new manufacturer... Fortunately, a 3/8" imperial spanner was lurking in the depths of the toolbox - and despite that being slightly closer to the 10mm of the rod itself than the 9mm of the flats, it was sufficient. Actually, for most of the threads, they unscrewed by hand...

...and there was plenty of thread. I think we can probably spare a bit for lowering porpoises, don't you?


With the tie-rods off, and the tab washers knocked back with a drift, all axle bolts were removed easily - no plates welded over their heads... - and the axles lifted off with arms still in place. There was virtually nothing left of the track-rod end boots, but the rear arm brake pipes look like new - they're so good, I think we'll probably re-use them, suitably protected, and keep the new ones for the Mehari. Just try not to over-extend the curlies whilst manouvring the whole rear assembly... But, of course, that makes checking and re-greasing the arm bearings a big chunk more difficult... I'll have a look at the fronts, and see if they show any significant signs of wear, but I suspect they'll be fine.

The drum handbrake mechanism was one thing I'd never been near before. It's actually dead simple. There's only two tiny little brass rivets - just like the ones on the coil brackets - holding the securing collars to the brackets on the chassis. Remove the rivets (a suitably abused cheap wood chisel and an 'ammer), and the collars slide in towards each other, and allow the mechanism to be lifted out. The new chassis even has a pair of 'ickle bolts and nylocs thoughtfully provided to make re-assembly a doddle.

And - once the two 50mm spanners I've got on order arrive (£12 each plus VAT and delivery - they will, of course, be borrowable once they've done their job here), so I can get the cans off - re-assembly is about to start! I'm in no rush, so it's going to go back to slow and irregular updates. I've got to find a source (Cassis stock them, but the PRICE...!) for replacements for the utterly baked spring can buffers, but that's basically it for the chassis before the ratchets get knocked over from "lefty-loosey" to "righty-tighty".