Freddie

[Katieriz]

As promised - a few pics of Freddie, our '68 van.

Realising we don't have that many photos!

Will be starting to do some bits and pieces on him in the coming weeks. Have no working side lights & only one tail light, so need to investigate if that's a simple bulb change or something else. Also need to put in a new glovebox in - I took out the old one as it was a little holey!

 

[Davydomes]

Hi, is the body as solid as it looks (for a RHD)?

 

[Katieriz]

Seems to be!

Need to investigate a few bits of rust but I think that's pretty standard for the age. The previous owner is my partners cousin so we know he's been looked after - he was their only vehicle for almost a decade.

 

[gninnam]

Nice van.
Have a good poke around and hope you don't find anything too bad!

 

[Katieriz]

Will do! Have a few rusty spots I'm sure we'll be sticking some pics up for advice on how best to attack!

 

[matty74]

Love the caravan park picture, it’s almost a now and then photo with new versus old ... I’ll take my Bay any day of the week. Last year we toured
fuerteventura in one of those big vans ... it was luxurious and convenient, but not as fun as driving a bay [emoji106]

Watching with interest [emoji3]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Katieriz]

Any tips for headlight removal? Ours are very stuck in place!

 

[sparkywig]

Undo the large screw on the inner edge of each bezel, and then use a lever next to the that screw to prise them off. A piece of cloth or card to protect the paint on the front panel is a good idea, and keep hold of the headlamp to stop it flying off.
They're held on with a lip on the outer edge of the headlamp bowl and the large screw goes into a threaded tab.
The other screws are beam adjustment, so don't touch those.
Oh, and keep an eye out for the sidelight bulb falling out when you undo the electrical connector.

 

[Katieriz]

Matty - we love the caravan park pic too. Freddie was so much smaller than all the others there but held his own well!

Sparky -thank you for the tips, we got there in the end! No seals between headlight & body which may not have helped? Took a fair bit of force but eventually flew off.

Think we may need to play around with the beam adjustment as we've been getting flashed by passing cars. Slightly concerned we've just found a label on the headlight declaring it "For Left Hand Drive"! We're fairly confident it's a RHD lens so hoping some reflector adjustment will be sufficient. Not planning any short term night driving but the evenings are closing in...

Freddie now has both tail lights working, however when we brake the right tail light goes out and the right brake light doesn't turn on! When tail lights are turned off, the right brake light works. Will be cleaning up the connectors over the weekend with our fingers crossed that sorts it.

Next puzzle is figuring out why the horn doesn't work. Trying to get him road-friendly so we can get a few more weekends away to assess what sort of interior we want / need.

Some of the cleaning from a few weeks back - amazing what some elbow grease can do!

Spot the difference...

 

[sparkywig]

There are no seals between headlight and body, that's so any water ingress can escape.
The rear light issues are more than likely bad earths, clean up the connectors and metalwork where they attach.
The horn uses a wire down through the steering column to the steering coupler and is permanently live when the ignition is on, it works when you earth the horn ring against the steering wheel. Check connections under the black cap in the centre of the steering wheel, at the steering coupler and at the horn.
Of course it could just be a faulty horn, stick a 12V supply across the horn terminals to see if it works before doing anything else.

 

[Katieriz]

Thanks! We'll add all that to our weekend list :lol:

 

[Katieriz]

Not updated here for a while! Didn't do too much on Freddie over winter beyond keeping him running & enjoying a few trips out.

At the start of lockdown we decided we'd get the engine out & start to investigate a couple of small oil leaks we'd noticed. Also removed the rusty engine lid as it had reached the point where it was bending the panel to open rather than rotating the hinges! Hinges were a nightmare to remove, in the end took a combination of WD40, dremmel & kitchen blowtorch to get any movement out of the bolts.





With the engine removed we're taking the opportunity to de-rust & paint up the tinware. Smaller pieces are done, currently debating whether to send some of the bigger parts to be shot blasted.







One leak seem to be coming from the push rod tubes. One of the push rod tubes looks slightly damaged so we're ordering a new set.



Also looked like there was a lot of oil sitting around from spillage when being filled up, as the majority was underneath the filler. We've cleaned this up & will keep an eye on it in future, though we're replacing all gaskets we gain access to as a precaution.

We've noticed a carbon build up on the ends of the piston, and there appears to be a small amount of oil underneath the pistons. We're waiting for some carb cleaner to be delivered to clean up the piston ends, unsure how concerned we should be about this area? We hadn't noticed any smoke when the engine was running, the only prompt we've had to open up the engine was these small oil leaks (about a drop per day).





We've also picked up a second hand interior set (found for sale on facebook 5 mins from us) so have a variety of panels & front seat covers to fit at some point in the near future!

 

[Watty]

Hi there, hope you can help me as I have same issue, Have no working side lights & only one tail light. I can see from the circuit diagram it all goes through fuse 1. How did you sort this in the end? Would really appreciate your knowledge on this. Cheers