'68 Panel resurrection

[Citrus]

Thought you guys might be interested in what goes on in a small garage up in Western Finland, so here we are

Anyway, the van in question here is a 1968 Panel that me and two buddies (volkswaffe here at the forum being one of them) rescued back in December of 2008. What really made us go and check this van out in the first place was the price, it was quite a bit lower than any other early bay for sale here at the time. According to the seller he rescued it from the junk yard several years ago and planned of restoring it himself, but as the years went by he realized that it wasnt going to happen..

We could tell from the pictures in the ad that there were plenty of rust to be dealt with. And since we had low expectations as we went to meet with the seller we were a bit suprised to find the van in a better shape than we thought it would be. And since the price was right, it didnt take long before we were curious owners of this fine piece of german engineering 8)

These are the pictures that the seller provided in the ad. As you can see, the floor in the back looked like it needed to be replaced completely, amongst other things.

The Panel in its new home, ready for a closer inspection.

Notice the white spokes. Came with the van, were later sold at a hefty price and gave us extra cash for parts :lol:

We decided not to replace the floor as it wasnt as bad as we first thought. Part from some smaller holes it was only around the wheel wells that it was really bad.

1600 with single intake ports..

As I said, we are 3 guys working on this project. As we are all students who study at a university about 300km from where the panel residues, progress is sometimes slow. There can go months when we simply do not have any spare time for it, but we try our best to find at least some time for her :lol: Also since we are poor students, we're not aiming at a concourse restoration. First of all we simply want to get her fixed up and road legal again. After that, god knows

Thats it for now. I will post more pics soon though!

 

[sparkywig]

Welcome to EarlyBay.
Looks good, keep the pics coming when you can.

 

[aircult]

Looks like many hours of work or is it many days.....week...years....
Good luck and keep on posting !!!!!!!!

greetings

 

[easy]

Hello and welcome 8) will be cool to see the progress pics :mrgreen:

 

[gninnam]

Welcome and glad the van is better than you thought 8)

 

[mattd1984]

welcome, will be good to see how you get on

 

[61 stu]

Welcome and good luck

 

[Grazy]

Looks like you have alot of work there mate , I will follow this with interest as this van looks like my vans twin brother 8)

 

[Citrus]

Thank you all

Yes we will have some work cut out for us for the time being. However our goal at the moment is to have it road legal in the summer, so we better hurry up :roll:

I shall however emphasise that we have already got some work done over the last year. Unfortunately not everything has been photo documented so I cant display all our work right now. For example the engine has since those pictures were taken been completely torn apart, line honed, prepared for external oil filter, got new main bearings and what not. We also got our hands on cylinder heads with double intake ports, however they still need some work. But more on that later when I get som pics :mrgreen:

Started to cut som rust out:

Wheel well not quite finished yet, but gettin' there

Smaller holes filled in

Hole next to the driver's seat

Not anymore!

All patched up :lol:

The rims were terrible, but after some elbow grease;

Painted in L581 Cloud White

Tires from a Transit van..

 

[surfbus]

Nice, another panel getting saved.
Keep up the work!!

 

[Coast Cruiser]

I like it !!
Good luck !

 

[Citrus]

Here comes another small update

Gave the brake drums a shower with the ol' rust-preventive coating;

Followed by a layer of satin black

That along with the newly painted wheel already made a huge difference

We got some more rust replaced with new nice steel but unfortunately I didnt take any pics of that.. Will post them when I get them though!

At this point we decided that it was about time we got under the car. Basically all the jack supports were scrap and needed replacing. One problem however was that no car lift was/is available.. So, how do you solve it then?

With a tractor and som pallets of course

Yes I know, judging by the picture it looks quite unstable. It sits however on a double layer of pallets (just in case) and is actually very stable. In other words, there is absolutely no risk of the van coming down on our heads while we're sitting there :mrgreen:

 

[RICH-I-AM]

Yes I know, judging by the picture it looks quite unstable. It sits however on a double layer of pallets (just in case) and is actually very stable. In other words, there is absolutely no risk of the van coming down on our heads while we're sitting there :mrgreen:[/quote]

Evning, you should use this picture as your Avatar :mrgreen: .
I was looking into buying an Early panel van a while ago but its not to be unfortunately. Yours is looking good though 8). Lucky people 8) .

Rich

 

[volkswaffe]

Evning, you should use this picture as your Avatar :mrgreen: .
I was looking into buying an Early panel van a while ago but its not to be unfortunately. Yours is looking good though 8). Lucky people 8) .
Rich

Give us a good bid and the van might be yours ..8) We have some other projects as well..

 

[Citrus]

Evning, you should use this picture as your Avatar :mrgreen: .
I was looking into buying an Early panel van a while ago but its not to be unfortunately. Yours is looking good though 8). Lucky people 8) .

Rich

Yeah thats too bad. I understand that they're also becoming quite hard to find in the UK? Correct me if I'm wrong.. We still got a couple of them around here in Finland, at least when it comes to panels. Window models on the other hand are more exotic up here :?

edit: Thanks btw 8)

 

[alex4057]

Decent Panels in RHD are very rare now here in the uk.

Good work on yours, coming along nicely :mrgreen:

 

[lard]

Loving this thread some great progress made - putting the refurbed wheels on made a load of difference! - btw, what are the numbers on the door for? Was this a government or company fleet van?

 

[volkswaffe]

Thanks for the kind words Every van in Finland had those numbers in the '60ies. The first number is the vans own weight, the other is the van + max cargo. I'm not sure about the third number, maybe how heavy trailer you are allowed to tow.
We are pretty sure the first owner was a construction company in Turku

You'll get more updates in some weeks when we are on christmas holiday

 

[froggy]

Started reading this thread and thought you said you were working in a small garage? Thats a huge garage :lol:
Liking the make shift van lift.
Keep thinking at some point i would really like to convert mine back into a panelvan, 8)
Good luck and keep us posted

 

[Citrus]

Well, small and small.. Its not a car garage per se as it is mainly a garage for larger agricultural equipment. But fortunately its large enough that there is some space left over for the van as well :lol:

You should definitely convert yours back, panel is the new sexy you know