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Vanette welding


Haverstock

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I have a thing for Nissan vanettes, and I like welding

it's a handy combination

 

so last November my mot guy wouldn't pass it pointing out some stuff he didn't like

come welding season out comes the welder as the old saying goes

definitely the most epic rust so far on the van and that's saying something

knew it was bad but have to drop the tank so been putting it off

then when I was camping last year the leg of metal bed frame I'd made up sunk through the floor when I climbed in . that last mot was more a charitable donation

 

heres some pics of the progress so far the plan is the end of next year another crack at the mot...

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after this picture I fixed my welder up and did some welding practise. this was teaching a youngun' who had never welded before and I started playing with the power settings thinking wow! and decided to crank the power up for the up-coming chassis welds.

 

I use the butt and cut. you take your patch piece and grind it to fit then butt weld it. this is no harder than making a really good patch if there's bends and corners it's easier just to grind it to fit.

and being a butt weld low power welding penetrates a long way. I can see the weld on the other side, smiling

 

I have now done those welds and they're turning out like butter. I'm gonna keep the amps cranked up and melting a lot of metal

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm still welding, you feckers won't stop me hahaha

phase 1 is all set for finishing by the first frost.     .then (I believe modern grammer allows a sentence to start with a full stop)

the plan is to embark on phase 2. this is the large hole in the chassis between the two rear suspension mountings, and also the suspension mounting to the front. there is some yellow scribble there from mot man and I know not what awaits me. but one thing I'm sure of, it can't be worse than phase 1 .. I have already welded that area and all I saw was a few holes way up the top of the mounting. I left 'em due to my hands full on the bottom of the mounting which welded up nicely and I filled up the entire mounting with old engine oil.

the passenger side wasn't nearly as bad. for some strange reason the rust is worse on the drivers side at any place you care to shake a stick at

I welded all the way from the headlight casing, down along the roof and along the drivers floorpan, wheelarch, the rear suspension mounting and now the back quarter area and that held true. the only exception was the passenger side sliding door and the nearby inner sill and wheelarch area that was completely rusted out - but the sliding door sill is a water trap it's not really a surprise. all that has been welded up nicely

maybe it's got something to do with the history of the van

I know for a fact the last owner parked it on a camber next to his house with the right hand side more expose to the weather for 8 years

and he told me he found it in farmers field and because the engine starter when dumped a new battery in he bought it and drove around in the thing till he gave it to me. he said it was covered in green moss when he found it and probably stood in the rain for three or even four years. god knows what the farmer kept in it maybe fertiliser that spilled out and rotted out the drivers side?

but the farmer told Andy the first owner was an asian cash and carry business and it had no bumpers when he found it because the Asian man's wife used to keep driving into things and knocked all the bumpers off. to this day her dents and scrapes are still all over the bodywork. even the petrol tank has this dent in it that stops the fuel guage reaching the top when you fill up. I bet she'd love to know it's still on the road! LOL

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first bit of welding. the floor pan wasn't that bad but i cut it away for access from above

 

Photo0100.jpg

 

This is almost exactly the same repair as my '72 Hiace required when I dragged it out a scrap yard in the mid-90's

 

post-50-0-39914000-1406937328_thumb.jpg

 

Will you make the replacement floor panels ribbed (for pleasure strength)? I made a rough attempt by bashing the new sheets about over an old bit of roof batten. Looked a bit wobbly, but ended up quite solid.

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Christ, I have a Vanette sat in my yard that's rusty, but nowhere near as rotten as that one but was still going to weigh it in! Top marks for effort! I feel bad about weighing mine in now...it only need the step below the door doing for MOT.

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Fantastic optimism, drive and enthusiasm in evidence here.

Dedication to the restoration of shite like a Datsun Vanity puts you in line for a Golden Grinder award.

 

Is it the sort that were also an LDV?

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that hi-ace job is the same thing !

a little bit of welding over the chassis ?
easier to take the floor up and you can wear your good jeans
cause you're not groverlling just weld away at your leisure.
for sure that's hi-ace is a strong job that had to be done

but when it's done ... you can drive it

 

I ran around in a couple of Cherries before so when the van came along I noticed the same Cherry engine

that was an solid engine and running gear.. so I thought, yeah...
I sold my G reg Mazda 323 and ran it around for 5 years and done some camping with hilarious results

 

re: the progress update pic, all this shows is a bit of streghening to the chassis
the floor shape was made by bending with a pair of plier
for the larger floor pan this surely won't work
so i'm gonna weld back the original floor i cut out
with some patches it should slide back in nicely

the welds are done on high power to sink the weld pool to where it belongs

the slight out-of-alignment you see in the pic is
the Asian lady's work... one of her backing-in's hit
this area hard and to save time i followed the general
pattern of the dent but i smoothed out a lot of the crushed
metal.
next the bumper goes back on and the carpet rolled over it
once you get back to bare metal the job takes longer than planned

but still on target

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  • 1 month later...
  • 9 months later...

i'm sure none of you have been waiting for me to update this!.. but maybe occasionally while mowing the lawn was wondering how the vanette was getting on?

 

anyway unfortunately no MOT yet. but the welder has seen some action. the whole corner and floor was really getting quite rusty

here's a couple of updates.

 

Photo0124.jpg

 

 

Photo0123.jpg

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ps the lumpy appearance of the floor pan is whats left of the old layer of mastic stuff they coated it with. i welded back some original pieces where possible. all welds are butt and welded both sides for the chassis parts. you should see the pile of rusty metal i have collected since starting this. the next job is the chassis itself above the wheel area. mot man said it was too soft. i agree with him, a chassis should not be malleable. I'm off now to look at a big piece i chopped of which seemingly has no function but can't really be ignored

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lol, I do thump it a few times.  here's the welding needed for phase 2...


no double skin to worry about. i did find that unusual kind of rust where instead of going thin the metal expands and goes brittle. the chassis is 1.5mm with another 1.5mm strengthening layer in places found tons of strange rust in this area cause it was well rusted. any way, cutting this much chassis out worried me a bit - cause the vans full of all kinds of crap being used for storage and on 3 wheels. recon there's about quarter ton of shite in the back!


 


 


100_0426.jpg


 


100_0425.jpg


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  • 4 years later...

haha, yes indeed. when i got the engine going and tried to move, got stuck in mud in the front garden. had to wheel spin out into street as the camber was against me luckily only 1 wheel was seriously binding. the MOT garage sorted all that out. sprayed the front of house with mud in the attempt. i literally drove it off the garden, through the MOT and started using it as a daily driver after 6 years on the lawn. incredible. i'm wondering what kind of stuff i should be doing to it, but it just works. 

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