I did it!!!

[Passion Fingers]

After many many hours of cursing and swearng, I got the van back on the road on Tuesday, complete with her new lowered and narrowed beam and a whole load of chassis welding!

She went back on the road at 2pm and was at te MoT centre at 2:15.....

and she passed. First time, no snags or "only just's".

And then we loaded her up for her maiden voyage.

To Cornwall. We couldn't have picked anywhere a bit closer to run her first. :roll:

And she made it there, and she made it back again, with no snags as such.

However, she got through just over 2 litres of oil for 600 miles. This can't be right can it?

And someone please tell me I should be getting a bit more than 15mpg! Please. The return journey cost us just shy of £150 in fuel and oil.

I'll hazard a guess and say the carb isn't set up properly, and/or needs a bloody good clean out.

I might as well whip the engine out, give it a good clean up and replace all gaskets and push rod tubes.

On top of this, is there anything I should be doing/looking for. (The fuel consupmtion wasn't down to a heavy right foot either, the whole journey was at 50-55 mph)

 

[ant]

Congrats on the completion of your resto dude... bet your buzzin.

 

[Araon]

good one....15mpg bit heavy :shock:

did you take any pics of the front beam before it came off? that had to be the worst I,ve seen...

 

[Passion Fingers]

I've still got it sat in the back garden. I'll have to get a couple of snaps of it and get them chucked on here for everyone to laugh at.

Here's one for now of it on the van.

The chassis behind the shock tower was rusted through and needed patching up. The patch that can be seen to the right of the beam was crap. The patch had been welded to the beam end plate. There was nothing holding the front lower mounting bolt in apart from the beam itself, so a new lower corner and threaded tube insert has been made and grafted in. There was a bit of welding to be done on the other side, but not a great deal.

On top of the chassis being a lace curtain, the new beam I'd bought was for an early early bay/splitty with the narrower lower mounting holes.

I've ended up getting a set of capping plates made up to sandwich the beam against the chassis (pics to follow).

It has been a ball-ache, I've wanted to set fire to it many times, but the chap doing the MoT was "very impressed" with the underside, so I must have done something right.

 

[Passion Fingers]

Oh, and I've re-trimmed the interior.

mmmmm, yellow!

(The bed's a bit arse at the moment, I'm going to bin all the MDF and replace it with something less saggy!)

Front seats, trim panels, all the bed cushions, two top bunks, bunk covers and whatever buddy seat(s) we have, all re-trimmed for about £70.

It'll never win any prizes, but it looks alright and it's cost us bugger all.