The guy turned up earlier and paid for and took the golf away.

He's a really nice guy really into his VWs and I'm sure its gone to a good home.

I didn't watch him drive it away... I just couldn't :(

I listed the golf on ebay the other day, it didn't make reserve but have just had a call from the highest bidder who had bid 100 pound below the reserve and we settled in the middle.

He's coming down tomorrow with the cash and a view to take the car away with him.

I'm sad...   but it had to go to fund the new conversion plan for the T25... more of this another time.

More woodwork and the floor si down :)   Just the two trim pieces at the back left to do, some segments are already glued in for that but its a double radiused curve and without building up layers of veneer the only other solution is complex and really requires the bond on those two sticks near the rear hatch to be very hardened.. as in days....  anyway the floor pics :)

OK here's the pics as promised :)

Another weekend with Mick, got the engine in and his van running quite nicely yesterday and got abck on with lining my van out.

A day's work and a grand total two pieces of lining ply put in the van.  Doesn't sound much does it?  Well its the two pieces that curve right over the roof and down either side a little way.  Took the decision to smooth out the inside with bendy ply right the way across and feathered down to the side panels we put in before.  The two ceiling pieces were very tricky to cut and to fit and I'm doing us a dis-service, we also built some boxing round the rear door hinges which requires pieces of wood cut to all manner of wierd curves to achieve neatly.

All that's really left to do is finish the join between the roof and sides, add a couple of trimming pieces to take the current side panelling back to the rear door and then do the floor and rear deck which is easy lay in bits of flat board with teh remaining Armaflex underneath.

It was dark by the time I got home so no photos today, I'll get some up in a  day or so though, does look good!

After the toils of yesterday I've got wood.  Here are the pictures of the side panelling.




Oh and for the record...   the front arches turned up for the T25

So its another weekend of working on vans :-)  Skill sharing with my mate Mick the woodcarver. Today the task was to panel the sides of the bay out with plywood, not throw in some ply and to hell with it oh no...  neatly fitted and all nice tidily lined up edges and screw heads and so forth.  Pleased to say after a few hours of making battens and filelets to fix into and fixing those to the van...  both sides are now fully panelled :) 

Tomorrow the first job is to put the greabox in Mick's 73 late bay camper and then reassible the ainciliaries ont the engine and get it back in and running.  If there's any time left in the day the roof of mine has a load of bendy ply waiting to go in to line that, if not then it'll be next weekend, either way its getting there now :)

OK after a phone call to Just Kampers to find out where things have got to, finally the front arches for the T25 and the bay screen rubber have turned up.  I'm still awaiting the rear arches...

Pictures (obligatory) to follow I'm sure...

Went to vanfest this weekend, wicked time as always and of course its HUGE so you can get everything you want for your van there.  Was after a new windscreen rubber for the bay and having tried a status one and a scholfields one (both crap and leaky) got a JK one this time.   Also went to Schofields to look for all 4 arches for the T25... the rear panels seemed OKbut every single one of their front arches were dented and mis-shaped, looked like the whole batch has been dropped on its corner, I doubt they sold any of them to be honest.  Anyway, four duly ordered from JK so I await boxes in the mail again woohoo

Just had news the bay passed its MOT, just needed the horn to be made to work and some water in the washer bottle (DOH I forgot)

Other than that sailed through fine... I'm sooooooooooo  happy :)

Well, went and picked up the finally available reversing light switch for the T25 I think once that fitted that's absolutely everything on that van working...   I'm lending the van to Spooky Paul friday night and getting it back saturday so might do it saturday.

In other news... took the bay over to Billericay tonight for its MOT tomorrow...   obviously it won't fail on rust now...  but I can't account for the wear and tear items.  However all the lights work and it brakes pretty straight.   There is play in the steering and I think the idler pin bushes are starting to wear but it might pass...  we shall see what will be ...

So after a fairly productive saturday I'd killed a couple of drill attachments...


and headed for halfords for another one this morning also mindful that primer is porous and there's a need to cover yesterdays work and seal it before wetness undoes it all again so bought two cans of spray paint topcoat while I was there and mindful of a good colour match I picked up some blue ones hahaha

You can't see the join at all can you?
Right then... to work on the near side: Moody rear arch and a bit (but less) of the usual seam trouble as on the other side....

Three dents, one on the door

and two on the rear quarter


and the worst bit of the van... the unsaveable front arch

its pretty much detached half way down the rear seam and is flapping about.  Did all I could de rusted what's left and baremetalled back and red xided it and all up inside the seam side of the pillar then primered over that for now.  It has to go... and the arches need widening anyway

So some filling and sanding and more ripping out of seams...



Yours truly flatting like its February all over again ...

Yes the old punk is wearing a Ramones Tshirt and DMs while working on the van :-)

and tadaaaa!




Oh and the other good news is the battery on the golf was fairly flat, so its in being charged in the kitchen and I'm hoping that will solve the lack of starter motor movement.

Right then, the second weekend of T25 work,  Saturday has gone well I must say.

I decided to spend a day de-rusting and treating the seams down one side fo the van.  After a bit of a late start due to the excesses of Friday night in the pub What started the day like this:


Ended the day like this:


Attacked the van with the drill and wire brush attachment and ripped out all the seams and found some seams that had been previously filled over for no apparent reason...  perhaps the previous owner's attempt at de-seaming the van.. I dunno...  anyway it all went back to bare metal about an inch either side of all the seams that are grey now, I think I caught it in time, there wasn't any real deep rust, just surface, but I cleared the seams right out and redid them anyway.  The piece on the trailing edge of the door needed filling a little, as did the previously poorly filled aerial hole in the front pillar.  The rear arch wasn't pretty...   ripped it back and its in a bit of a sorry state under there.  I've done the best I can with what's there but it really needs a new arch putting on that one.


Oh... and I also got rid of a load of the stickers off the back window finally
Here's a couple of final shots of the finished side...   I'm shattered now, but I intend to have a good attack at the other side tomorrow.although the front arch has come adrift from the B pillar so I'll be making the best of what's there again in that corner and theres a couple of dents that need filling down the side on the sliding door and rear panel too so we'll see how successful all of that really is when I do it.





Oh and the golf won't start...   I think the battery is just too flat to kick the starter motor into life to be honest.

Me n Rexoid and Dan on saturday for a bit...

Did loads of little T25 jobs like fixing lights and fault finding electrical bits n bobs and also after much glueing of Armaflex and fighting with hardboard....

I finally have a roof lining in one of my vans woohoooo



Don't worry about the slightly moody gap between the cab and the rear...










































Its covered ;-)




. and yes I have tested it for catching fire over the cooker... all three gas rings on at once in a closed van extinguisher in hand and its fine - well I gave it ten mins of the worse case of using all three at once and no probs

Not sure what to do with the bit over the cab... it might collect stickers... 

Rex came round today with his recent T25 purchase and we set about fixing his non working dashboard lights.  This proved a good distraction as today hadn't started well to say the least.

It was an easy task and good to accomplish something fairly early on.  We then got ambitious and managed to insulate and line the roof of my T25 with hardboard.  Not by any means easy as the board ins't as bendy as the roof near the gutters of the T25 and needed three of us (Dan turned up too) to lever in the cut sheets drill the pilot holes and put the screws in to hold it.  However the roof is now insulated and lined up to the rear of the cab and the van no longer goes "cling!!!!  when you shut the sliding door, nor will it over bumps as the roof can no longer flex that way.

The bit over the cab needs doing next, that will be tricky its a terrible shape to try and work and the fixings aren't going to be easy...  looks liek rain tomorrow so may try that on bank holiday monday.