3 weeks! time goes too quickly and not enough gets done!
So, got the rear crossmember out in almost 1 piece. That'll be winging its way to Karl at Autocraft later this week once I've got the remnants of the front one off as well! Just for info, the Autocraft front crossmembers are almost identical, just two small mods to line the cable tubes up and should be good to go. The rear ones aren't anywhere near. Far too short so hopefully Karl will be able to reproduce these. Their panels are really good, good value, clean lines, excellent fit.
Gear link tube out. For reference, they are "blob" welded at as it passes through the front tophat at the front, at the bottom of the two I beams and at the bottom inside of the tophat with the seat belt mounts, then the last one is at rear of final tophat! While it's out I'll replace the two bushes in the tube.
Heater tube came out OK. They are stitch welded where the Y tube joins the tube at the back, 2 small stitch / blob welds at the back of the rear crossmember, at the bottom of the tube where it slides into the slightly larger tube between the front I beam and the front crossmember, and finally 3 stitch weld at the front of the front crossmember. You can then slide the tube forward into the slightly larger one and out of the rear crossmember then drop it and pull it free. The bigger front tube then slides out of the front crossmember. Hopefully this will work in reverse when putting it all back together! Anyway! enough rambling.
So the front crossmember is also out (well almost, just got the bit where the brake pipe tube is welded to it). Should be 30 mins or so and that's out so I can clean up and pack it up with the rear one and post it off to Autocraft.
Sacrilege! cut down a perfectly good Autocraft tophat from 1470mm to 1364mm for the front tophat that sits over the front crossmember and where the rear panel of the front arch closes off
Got a small dilema with the closing plate at the rear of the front arch. I've drawn a red line where I think the original metal line would have followed. I've searched most of the resto's on here to see what it should look like but can't find any so if anyone has a pic of this area that's all original please let me know
If it is the line I think it is (as drawn above) I may stitch in the repair panels before fitting the tophat as getting to the bit behind the seat / corner of the walkway will be a nightmare to do properly once the tophat is welded in.
Remember this from a few months ago?
Thanks to Grazy for collecting these from Vanfest, I've now got a decent rear corner to replace it with
well chuffed.
A body cut from a cali 68 courtesy of Fruitpiece on here. Thanks Jon
Hopefully it won't be another 3 weeks before anything happens! Got a serious bit of motivation from going to Action (in a pre production Bay - funny thing with the windscreen in two halves!), going for a blast in Grazy's bus after sorting his electrics, and the kids moaning "I thought we were going on holiday in it this year" :roll:
