My Bedford CF - Saxperience

0rang3peel · 19th January 2015, 15:27

Hello saxp, wasn't intending on putting this here probably the wrong audience! But thought I would anyway!

I've wanted a project for awhile, ever since I sold my mk2 golf that was a bit of a non starter due to a smegging landlord, I felt like something old but I was undecided... I looked at everything really and was quite open minded as long as it had a bit of character.

Anyway last year I bought a house meaning I now have space to put something with no landlords to appease and no need to feel like a rush to finish which is everything for me, because I'm a lazy fuck.

Here he is (yet to be named)

it needs a really good clean but I don't have an outside tap lol.

roof pops up, supposed to create the room for two hammocks... might do if you're a primordial dwarf I suppose.

I'll put up some more pics & that later, literally just leaving work!

Ok so home from work now.

So the van was in Tonypandy (the place where fireman sam comes from) and it was on ebay, I happened to have the day off so went to view it on a piss poor day just to see if the welding/fab work was beyond my skill, to be honest I didn't think it was that bad. This van left the factory as a camper too, most you see have been converted so that was a bit of a selling point, the chap and his old man owned a garage & shared this, it went to cornwall just last year so I figured it couldn't be too bad surely? He also said he could deliver it on his flat bed for me (he would later regret this, due to the van weighing a ridiculous 2.5 tonnes!) On Thursday it arrived on an extremely overweighted flatbed, he was thankful he got here to say the least.

The vans inside is actually in far better shape than the outside, it seems relatively dry, a couple of window seals are letting in a bit of water.. I imagine the rots got to the steel underneath, the interior is all there ie the cooker,hobs,fridge & sink and so far everything I've tried seems to work.

the inside of the van with the poptop up, it's actually alright.. you can stand up easily. little leak at the top left though.

the handle on the rear door is flimsy as anything so I'll be sorting that out sometime, a bracket has broke on the exhaust too hence it hanging so that's an easy fix. The exhaust is pretty much new actually and appears to be a stainless number.

I really need to remove this truly awful sticker :-/

the gas cannister for the oven goes into the little square hole, the leisure battery is on the right too I need to figure out how it's wired up, I hope it charges when you drive the van (the best way) but no idea as I'm not using the van and my neighbours cats have a better understanding of electrics than me.

Here's a really wank repair someone has done, I'm going to cut it out and either find a replacement panel or make one and then hopefully weld it so that it doesn't look like it's been attacked by a retard on ecstasy.

we have all the mod cons!!

a giant bee came in and started terrorising me when I was giving it a bit of a clean

drivers side arch is nowhere near as bad as the other one, going to give it a grind and clean up anyway.

That's about it for now I'll post something else when I've had sometime off work!

Giraffe · 19th January 2015, 15:35

I immediately love this thread even more due to the mentioning of primordial dwarves.

Dave_P · 19th January 2015, 16:31

Weapon.

I have an ex met police LWB sprinter as a camper van, its gonna be getting jazzed up inside in the coming months.

Bring on the night heater.

Prickle^p · 19th January 2015, 18:11

Nice. I'll keep an eye on this

0rang3peel · 27th January 2015, 18:35

Just bought a 3 ton trolley jack and a few axle stands from sgs engineering, vans also booked in for an MOT tomorrow too it won't pass but it'll give me a gigantic list of stuff to fix over the next few months

holdawayt · 28th January 2015, 08:21

As I said on FB mate, looks a great little project.

Ours was quite a bit older than this, had the rounder body and headlights, plus your interior is far nicer. The main issue with ours was rot, it rained down on us when we towed it home lol. Ended up being too much of a project so we sold it on.

0rang3peel · 28th January 2015, 09:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by holdawayt

As I said on FB mate, looks a great little project.

Ours was quite a bit older than this, had the rounder body and headlights, plus your interior is far nicer. The main issue with ours was rot, it rained down on us when we towed it home lol. Ended up being too much of a project so we sold it on.

Yup cheers tom, put the shits right up me lol. It doesn't seem that bad though imo either that or I'm incredibly naive

holdawayt · 28th January 2015, 10:05

Nah you can tell yours isn't half as bad as ours was.
Ours had these tacky wheelarch extensions, the steps were rotten, the roof above the driver's seat had pretty much gone, all around the raising roof bit had gone too. Yours will be far easier!

Spares are easy to come by too thanks to the mass production of these.

0rang3peel · 28th January 2015, 15:12

She's back from the garage, surprisingly alright to drive apart from the exhaust bouncing all over because a mounts broken.

So, first 3 on the list are welding. Which will be the first thing I'm going to tackle.
the 4th failure is that a bracket has rotted away that the shocks bolt to, so once I get it up on stands I'll see what I can do.
5th is just an exhaust hanger.
6-11 are all various electrical failures, possibly due to stuff like bulbs or the buttons missing. I know for a fact a few of these actually do work but the buttons fallen off when I drove to the garage haha.
12 - the outer arch is sharp, would pass even if was bodged with foller.

advisories which are no biggy

emissions pass

overall pretty chuffed with that, now I need to wait for this bloody jack to get delivered which was supposed to come today (I even paid extra for next day delivery)

Giraffe · 29th January 2015, 13:38

So it basically produces no light and has a bit of rust that you want to sort out anyway? Bit of a result that mate, maybe you should keep your eyes open for an actual project!

0rang3peel · 6th February 2015, 17:43

Basically it was the first decent day I've had off since buying the van. I got it up on stands, fixed the exhaust mount and started cutting out rot I took a couple of snaps along the way but whenever I upload them to photobucket they go pink? quite bizarre because on my phone they appear fine. I'm going to try another hosting site

#edit#

seems the photobucket app doesn't work for me but can do it via the web anyway.

os rear sill (MOT fail)

chopped out

a fair bit more needs chopping out but I need it for a reference point at present, once I've repaired the sill I will cut that out too.

This is just from 1 arch/sill some joker replaced that L shaped bit which is structural and held it on with 1 screw and a fuck tonne of mastic?

The inside arch is all solid just covered in surface rust, I gave it a grind/wire brush

applied a coat of 'vatcan' which is one of the best rust treatments, It's used on ships etc. It turns the rust and leaves a paintable surface, awesome stuff - it goes on pink but when it's dry it's black.

I've made a template out of a cereal box for the sill, I'll be making it when I go to college on Tuesday

This is the ns rear quarter, it failed the MOT on this but to be honest the sills actually solid, it's just the outer steel that's rotted so I've cut it out, made a template and will make it soon.

The new jack, it's an absolute beast I can hardly lift the dam ting

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making the most of the time while the mrs works away by turning the dining room into a shed.

RobVT · 7th February 2015, 08:29

looking forward to more progress on this!

0rang3peel · 4th March 2015, 21:59

Managed to get some done today with the decent weather & had the day off. Rebuilt the os rear sill, built the section back up that was rotten, gave it a coat of good ole red oxide just to protect it from the elements for now as I don't have any zinc spray, bit annoying as you can't weld through it. Had to totally cut the outer arch off/back further than I'd hoped it was rotten as a pear, not looking forward to making that back up.

before

after

0rang3peel · 5th April 2015, 22:14

Lovely day today, glorius sunshine.

thought I'd do a bit on the van

I prefer the look of these vans without the bumpers/plastic crap similar to the CF1 so I removed the rear bumpers to see what lay beneath, bit of a ball ache as all the nuts/bolts and whatever else were corroded so ended up drilling them all out.

it wasn't as bad as all that but still a fair amount of work to get it sorted.

bumpers off

Took off this fucking thing, the weight of it is unbelievable they've made it with like 6m plate

not really much left of the brackets

I polydisked the fuck out of it which revealed some shite steel so cut it out, also cleaned out the inside and covered with vactan rust converter.

cut some more steel, 1.6mm thick, think it's slightly thicker than the original, bit of a slut to bend to shape without a roller, tapped it around a washing line to get a decent shape.

cleaned it up a bit, gave it a quick spray of zinc to stop the elements.

Far from perfect, pretty happy with it though think it'll look better with some filling & high build primer.

Next time I'm off and it's nice I'm going to do the corner that's cut out, and start on the other side of the rear.

Does anyone know the legality of having no rear bumper? Is this an MOT fail? If I can get a good finish I might leave it off and relocate the reflectors .

Took out these while I was at it too, the rear plate lights which were an MOT fail. absolutely filthy, going to give them a clean and get some new bulbs.

Now it's time for a beer, hope you all had a decent easter!

holdawayt · 7th April 2015, 08:21

Managed to find a pic of our old one, those arches were fibreglass, and the rust underneath was horrific lol.

Keep it up, looks like it's heading the right way now!

0rang3peel · 7th April 2015, 22:35

Cheers Tom, bloody hell that thing looks to have had a hard life!

It's obviously a CF1 and hence has a much more retro shape that I love, might get some of those chrome corner bumpers for mine when it's not such a shed. Those wing mirrors on your old one are worth a stupid amount now too, much nicer than my plastic ones!

0rang3peel · 19th April 2015, 20:27

So, got a bit of welding done this last week or so

really rotten corner of the rear arch & sill

cut it out, it's been patched poorly so many times which is why it looks so shitty the it was solid apart from the corner though also made a new outer skill..

the rust was treated with vactan, made a corner section and then covered in zinc spray

also the other side I hadn't finished off, this was a bit trial and error but with a bit of hammering I kinda managed to beat not a bad shape it's going to need dressing but I ran out of time, also need to finish the swage bit. Also realised I don't have any seam sealer so I've ordered some

anyway pretty happy with my efforts so rewarded myself with a burger, lets hope this awesome weather keeps up!

0rang3peel · 10th May 2015, 16:11

Did a bit more work this weekend, managed to finish off one of the rear arches. It's not going to win any awards, shaping metal is quite difficult without a bench or vice (can't wait to get a big shed to use for shit like this).

it's a solid job though and a hell of a better job than any of the shambolic repairs others have done to the van.

during

I seam sealed everything with tiger seal added a fair bit of filler and some rust proof primer.

I'm going to aim to get the van solid before spending any cash on anything 'fun', there was a lovely set of wheels on ebay but I withheld the temptation.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3217439846...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

The good news is I'm taking redundancy at the of the month so I'll have more time to do stuff, but the bad news is I can't really spend much until I've secured another income!

0rang3peel · 17th August 2015, 14:27

Well, long time no update but alas stuff has been happening.

I've been collecting parts, going to try to put part prices down so I can keep a rough log too.

a pair of fibreglass wings from honeybourne mouldings, think they set me back about £200

genuine lucas lamp fixings all brand new to replace my old rusty shit £40
new lucas lamps £40

a pair of rockers picked up from some chap from facebook, they are brilliant condition just a couple of holes for me to fill, took me ages finding these as cf1 are different from cf2. Think the pair cost me about £120

a rear quarter from a lwb bedford, needs shortening I was planning to cut a section out the middle to shorten it but I've seen sourced 2 rear quarters from a local guy from a swb bedford for a really good price, this one set me back about £90 absolute rip off but finding them not rotten is very difficult, I will probably resell it.

To fit the rockers it became evident mine had been very bodged and welded on so grinded off.

I also found out the wings also need to come off to remove the rockers, to get the wings off you can remove the whole front of the van in one piece. So I tackled this awhile ago.

Then I realised some of the spot welds holding the wing on are only accessible if you remove the door, took the door off snapped a few bolts in the process because they were so fucked so I've drilled them out filled the holes with weld and they will need to be drilled & tapped, Nothing is ever simple with old rot boxes.

I cut the wing to pieces getting it off, it was fucked anyway and wound me up.

this was rotten around the screen

metal shaped

and this bit on the pillar

bit of filler and jobs a goodun

while the wing was off I repaired any holes and undercoated in red lead

I wasn't happy with how they'd bodged the arch so I cut it out and started from scratch, also the step has been rebuild but I didn't take many pictures.

this was a big pain -

had to cut this out and repair

repaired the bit that holds the door

seats and bases have been removed I've started cutting out all the rot and butt welding in replacement panels no pics but this is new metal.

this is the latest picture from today, I fitted the new wing it's been tiger sealed I could have used rivets or bolts etc but from my research tiger seal should be absolutely fine.

Next thing is fitting the rocker which will require no doubt a load of modifying of my step to get it sitting and then putting the door back.

Then we've got the other side of the van to start, winters nearly here though so I doubt I'll be able to get much done

chinkostu · 17th August 2015, 16:54

Good work on not just bodging the bodges. It's awful finding half arsed welding on cars, makes repairing it 10 times harder!