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One year on and I've made some progress, even though life got in the way a bit! There was quite a lot of rot in the chassis, I realised it would take me ages to sort it myself, so I dropped it to my friendly local welder/fabricator, who replaced fairly large sections of chassis rail, made a new rear crossmember, and also modified a pair of late Series 3 Landy axles to fit my leaf springs, as the Volvo axles are incredibly hard to get parts for, and had the wrong gearing for what I wanted. The reason I wanted some longer gearing was because I had also pickup up this 2003 Octavia TDI donor car, to get its engine. It's an ASV, so a 110bhp with the Bosch pump. I originally wanted the VW 5 pot that Volvo used in the 850/V70, but didn't really want or need the extra bulk of it. The 4 pot should be simpler to setup too. My current plan is to stick with the ECU as a fly by wire throttle would be handy in this, and a manual setup is never quite perfect. Whilst I've been getting the engine ready (flywheel and adaptor plate from Sweden, removing ancillaries that I don't need) I've also been cutting the extensive rot out of the cab. There's a lot! Most of it is now out, so I need to get good at fabricating new footwells etc. before it can go back together with new body mounts. I've also managed to get an original back panel for the cab, from the owner of a pickup in the Netherlands, who was enlarging his cab and making his own new panel, so that's a big help!

I keep seeing a couple of VW T5s around West Cumbria with number plates that make me chuckle. One is F157 KEV, and in a similar manner the other is BJ54 followed by another chap's name - can't remember it now...

Great news! An engine that runs and an overdrive box will have you well on your way to making it a useable classic. The new tyres on it will be because the oooold crossplies on it were so bad that when I delivered it I temporarily swapped a set to get it rolling. One tube had blown and obliterated the sidewall of the tyre. The buyer had a narrow driveway and a Spitfire to get in and out, so it needed to be rolling. I don't think he got much further than fitting the tyres, by the looks of things. Glad you're keeping the patina! I wanted to keep it looking like that, but with a turbo diesel swap. The original colour is a bit brighter, mind. Glad it's back in the fold! I did break an Amazon a couple of years ago and still have a few bits, if you need anything. I can't recall much missing from that one, I did think the bonnet hinges were missing so I threw in a set from my breaker (red ones) and then found the originals - if you're wondering why it has 2 sets.

I'm heading south from Cumbria LA12 to Yeovil in Somerset on the bank holiday weekend, got an empty beavertail trailer behind an empty disco 3. Happy to help shift a car and/or other bits if not too far off a sensible route. @The Moog I could shift those tool chests southwards but not to London!

I love that it has the antimacassars! Can you open the rear door from the driver's seat? Last time I saw it was at Roy's ices in the sunshine. I'm sure you'll have seen Jonny Smith's taxi videos.

I've seen that Toyota Crown around quite a bit lately, seems to be getting plenty of use!

Nilsson are the Scandi equivalent of Tissier - they make beavertail car haulers as well as this sort of thing. I want one!

I think that's young Mr Hudson's house - I assume you know him and his dad!

They look great! Happy to be of assistance 🙂

That's a rarity! The Transit with modern motorhome body on the back is regularly around Ulverston, it's an interesting one.

I must look on Little Tony's page - they've rebuilt the K Series in the kit car some pals are driving to Benidorm this summer on a cheap car rally.

I had a few weeks of little to no progress, as I've been working through my new to me daily XC90 when I've had a chance. I did manage to separate the cab from the chassis, and decided it was worth getting a local fabricator to sort the rusty rear crossmember and few other bits for me, to speed things up. The portable gantry crane made easy work of this job! I'm weighing up whether to get the chassis galvanised at this stage. It's not without its risks, it could warp the chassis. I'll take advice from the fabricator on that, as I may regret not doing it.

I think we might be seeing this again before too long!

My experience of Sierra owners in NI isn't so much drifting or rallying, but 'diffing', a much more culchie, much less skillful version. Look it up, tragic. 😅 No, me neither.

LMC Volvo delivery service thoroughly recommended too!