1972 Crossover Dormobile - Full Restoration Work In Progress

[Guest]

very nice 8) , i got a set of 18mm adapters for my cookie cutters and would love to know how the back sits when you get them fitted.

 

[Haveacamper]

very nice 8) , i got a set of 18mm adapters for my cookie cutters and would love to know how the back sits when you get them fitted.

i think tonight's fun is going to be trial fitting them. not much work as such being done on the van tonight the rear 8.5's look pretty wide to be honest. we'll soon see.

as they say in the trade................watch this space.

 

[Loxy]

............watch this space.

Or lack of space when the wheels are fitted.........

 

[Haveacamper]

ok.... trial fit
rear stock

17" 8.5 wit 215x50x17 tyres

looked a bit high because the rear is stock height, so tried the wheel on loxy's slightly lowered rear:

still a little higher than i'd like but once engine and gearbox is in it will sit a bit lower.
this had 18mm adapter plates and was about 12mm from spring plate but about 3mm off the flare of the arch. i then tried the 7 wide (fronts on the back) tosee if it gave difference stance:

slightly more tuckage, but think i should be able to achieve this by lowering the 8.5's bit more. also more clearance from the wheel arch flare:

the biggest problem with the clearance from the arch is the fact that the tyres are curb savers fo it makes the overall wheel that little bit wider.

hear is a pic of the two wheels fitted with the correct thickness adapters and correct wheels on my bus. its got a bit of a rake due to several inch lower at front and nothing at the back, which also doesnt have engine or gearbox weighing it down

 

[Haveacamper]

there's little to report on the camper front due to a combination of slight loss of enthusiasm and the fact that i'm missing driving it around.

due to committments changing (Girlfriend and i moving in together) i think that i'm going to have to evaluate where i will get to at the start of october and then get a body shop to finish it off for me. i'll be moving away from where the camper is and it will be impractical to work on it during the week due to distance, and i dont think i'd get to work on it much during the weekends due to commitments with girlfriend - seeing friends and family etc....you know how it is.

So i've jotted down what i think i can tackle between now and October. do you guys and girls think that this is feasible if i've got evenings and probably the odd weekend.

to do list:

Inner and Middle N/S sills
Jacking points and Outriggers N/S
Chassis front Cross member
Top hat sections x3 (2 rear, 1 front)
Seat bulkheads N/S and O/S
B & C pillars
Rear wheel Tubs
Rear Cargo Floor
Front Clip – require doors and prepare replacement clip
Front Door Section O/S
Front Inner Wheel Arch N/S
Front Cab Floor

as followers of this thread know, alot of the cutting out has been done, so it will be prepping and welding.

i thought about moving the camper to where we will be living, but dont think neighbours will appreciate me grinding and hammering late into the night.

thoughts please

 

[Guest]

id like to say how nice the wheels look 8) i was surprised the 8.5s fitted the back but they looks really well even at stock.

not sure about the work, i cant remember if you were cutting more than just the front panel out or replacing the whole clip? the rest is straightforward except maybe the floor but with most of the cutting done im sure you could get it to prep stage before Oct? with loxy and your dad (?) and his excellent welding i doubt youll have much of a problem :wink: .

 

[Haveacamper]

there was about 1.5mm between the inner lip and the curb saver part of the tyre when i fitted the 8.5 wide wheels. i think that with a bit of flaring of the new tub and the outer wheel arch, along with possibly cutting the inner lip that little bit it should be fine when you take into account a bit of roll of the body.

i've got a section cut that runs from the drivers side bottom corner that travels up the A piller and over the the top of the door and down the other side to the swage line and a complete new clip with about 18inches of A pillar. so i've got a bit of overlapping. think this part will be the most time consuming, making sure everything lines up with the doors etc.

 

[andewilson]

get your self some 195/40/17 toyo prox4's for maximum tuckage mate. mine are on 85.j rims on my golf and i would never go back. got them for 60 notes a peice from camskill on the interweb

 

[pinheaduk]

there's little to report on the camper front due to a combination of slight loss of enthusiasm and the fact that i'm missing driving it around.

due to committments changing (Girlfriend and i moving in together) i think that i'm going to have to evaluate where i will get to at the start of october and then get a body shop to finish it off for me. i'll be moving away from where the camper is and it will be impractical to work on it during the week due to distance, and i dont think i'd get to work on it much during the weekends due to commitments with girlfriend - seeing friends and family etc....you know how it is.

So i've jotted down what i think i can tackle between now and October. do you guys and girls think that this is feasible if i've got evenings and probably the odd weekend.

to do list:

Inner and Middle N/S sills
Jacking points and Outriggers N/S
Chassis front Cross member
Top hat sections x3 (2 rear, 1 front)
Seat bulkheads N/S and O/S
B & C pillars
Rear wheel Tubs
Rear Cargo Floor
Front Clip – require doors and prepare replacement clip
Front Door Section O/S
Front Inner Wheel Arch N/S
Front Cab Floor

as followers of this thread know, alot of the cutting out has been done, so it will be prepping and welding.

i thought about moving the camper to where we will be living, but dont think neighbours will appreciate me grinding and hammering late into the night.

thoughts please

shouldnt be too much of a problem just done a lot of that on mine, but i would recommend a few helpers onm the front clip as youll be tacking checking doors etc for quite a while to get the lineup right, or you could get real lucky and get it in one go

and i do a lot of work in my mums garage i just shut the grinder off after 7.30 cause of old dear next door but i continue welding until early hours sometimes. have a word and see what they say as youll get so much more done when you dont have to travel there and back

 

[71Dormobile]

Crack on as you are and do as much as you can, should get that all sorted by Oct given the speed and progress shown to date. I was in the same conundrum last year worked on my 71 Dormobile from Jan - July did as much as I could and then due to moving and also wanting some of my time back sent the van into the spray shop. Would have liked to have done the respray myself, perhaps do that on the next vehicle!!

Note your looking at FBI for panels got my doors from them and rear engiene lid, they do have very good parts worth a drive down.

Best of luck with the resto, take a look back through your thread that should build the enthusiasm back....

 

[Haveacamper]

Note your looking at FBI for panels got my doors from them and rear engiene lid, they do have very good parts worth a drive down.

i popped down there before one friday afternoon but i caught them at a time just before they got a shipment in so they didnt really have that may top quality doors. i'm after some mintos

 

[Haveacamper]

recently i've ben going down the van and not really feeling it to be honest. i've been coming away frustrated for some reason. ithink it is a multitude of factors contributing to it and another factor can to the forefront yesterday. the fact that some of the Previous Owners have carried out shocking jobs on the van has simply made my life a hell of a lot harder/time consuming. due to people welding things and patching things in areas that i cant get to with a blade makes removing hard work.

anyway, there are a few things to report on the camper front. i have managed to prep the new clip by removing the old floor and side steps, which were both shot, and primering the chassis legs and floor lip. I have kept all of the chassis legs for the time being until i come to fit the clip and then i will cut the legs down accordingly. photo of this to follow

also, i have been contemplating what to do with the sliding door sills, whether i remove the sills and keep the floor edge in place of remove the whole thing. i sanded the edge of the step to find where the plug welds were but didnt see anything, so after marking certain points opted to remove the edge of the floor. obvious probably not the best thing to do if you have the rest of the floor in place - I havent.

whole section out:

another example of what i have to complete with when trying to pick sections out without cutting other bits. that is the Bpillar where the "sill" ends.

i quickly sanded the Ibeams and top hat clean and primered. surprisingly good for the Original:

sill with floor edge:

i primered the cargo floor edge part as i had sanded this to try and find the plug welds.

a little shot down the sill where the bottom roller runs. it sin pretty good nick to be honest. i wont be cutting the track until i have bought the bits to replace - or i may just cut off too much

this is the front of the track where you can see someone has had a pop at replacing sections of the track. also, you can see why it took an evening to carefully pick this crap off.

floor section:

as i dont yet have the required parts for the sill replacement i took the rest of the evening tonight to start fitting the O/S rear cargo floor section. it took a bit of trimming of the rear tub patches - but mainly because the patches aren';t a true representation of the original i think. it only took about 2 hours of multiple offerings and i managed to get it to fit pretty well i think:
the rear wheel arch fitting quite nicely. see what i mean about the patches

i probably took about 2mm of the floor section to get it to fit under the Cpillar, which allowed the lip to meet up to the wheel tub (previous picture

the punched holes in the floor section match up pretty well with the original seat bolt holes - promising that i'm pretty close - although not quite concentric

i just placed the section provided with the LHD floor on top but will need to be offered in underneath

here you can se the the fron tlip of the floor section is a nice flush fit to the bulk heads and walkthrough step.

i dont what to jinx it because i still have to fit the new wheel tubs, and do something with the two bulkheads, but it seems to fit ok at the moment.

Bed Time for NaFe

 

[combideluxe1969]

I watched the whole post is a good novel photo. :lol:

You must be motivated.

Good for continued work. :wink:

Raphael

 

[Haveacamper]

I watched the whole post is a good novel photo. :lol:

You must be motivated.

Good for continued work. :wink:

Raphael

i've been given a boost with that section of floor fitting fairly eaasily. the floor appears to sit quite nicely on the top hat and I beams which is also promising. i now have a fairly good datum to align the wheel tub to. i just have to do the same with the other half and see how they both fit together.

NaFe

 

[Camperdan]

It's obvious that loads of great work and a shed load of effort is going into this!

Top job, keep your chin up - it will be great!!!!

 

[andewilson]

there seems to be a few good restos going on here at the minute seeing what your doing with the floor and what you plan to do on the rear tubs makes me wish i'd replaced my rear tubs. i didnt think the 8.5j rims would go on. i ended up buying two sets the same off a 911 and sold the 9j rears that they come with to a guy from scotland so i have a full set of the 7j fronts for mine. how ever after seeing the phat ones on the back i might have to have a look in my hoard of rims as i'm sure i bought a set of 8.5j rears a while back just because they were cheap on fleabay. keep up the enthusiasum mate looking forward to meeting up in a year or two when we're all on the road.

 

[Haveacamper]

its quite a snug fit with the 8.5's to be honest, but think it should be ok with little or no mod to the tub. i didnt really have a choice with the tubs because they are pretty much shot. i'm not too sure how difficult it is going to be to remove the old tubs due to multiple patchings. ready to get my teeth into it again now though.

i tell you what i'll do... i'll let you come down to south wales and you can help me replace mine ... i know, what a guy!!!

 

[Haveacamper]

i got a bit of work this evening while the rain was lashing down outside. spent the evening lining up the inner sill and checking how this would line up with the floor and floor/middle sill assembly i cut out the other day

here you see where i had to cut a hole in the bottom of the bulkhead where the replacement partition plate will be going. previously this was patched up and the sills didnt petrude through into the wheel arch atall. it lines up quite nicely.

here you can see where i have offered the old floor edge/door track back into place to see how it lines up with the new inner sill

and you can see how much of the middle track sill is left compared to the nice silver inner one. i presume it should be the same height as the inner sill??

anyways, i'm off on holiday for a week up to north wales. i am meant to be walking up Snowdon som epoint in the week, depending on the weather. hopefully it will hold out as i'm camping for the week. Unfortunately its in a tent and not my bus but beggers cant be choosers.

NaFe

 

[Haveacamper]

after a week off up in north wales where i walked up Snowdon and down all on my own steam. none of this train malarky - well not at £15 anyway.

since i've been back i've managed to make up the front cross chassis section that the heater channel used to travel through. not having the heater channel so i didnt have to cut that hole out. also i've decided to replace the front n/s jacking point too as i decided that it wasnt worth saving. Loxy popped in as i was doing it and soon reckonised that i was missing a conduit. thats when i remembered that i removed the accel cable one as it was a bit shot. lol thats on the list to replace.

the inner sliding door sill has also been put back in and this time measured a few times and compared to the O/S inner sill. the position appears tobe pretty close so i've marked up and clamped in place.

i also clamped together the rear jacking point for the N/S and clamped in position to check it lined up with the inner sill - double checks the sill is in the correct place.

also checked the front jacking point would fit. appears pretty good to me... only joking. it appears to fit ok but not enough clamps

if anyone is wondering how i lined up the inner sill without either N/S jacking point i line it up with the lips on the original top hats and I beams and also measured how much it petrudes through into the front wheel tub. although ropey, i also lines it up with the rear wheel tub and then got the height by measuring the distance from the top of the inner sill to the top edge of each bulkhead. NOT FROM FLOOR TO SILL incase the van is on a slant.

the old man is coming down with me tomorro and we're going to measure up for making up a plate that will replace the foot wells/strenghtener scoops in the bulkheads.

 

[easy]

nice work dood 8)