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Cobbler's's Talbot Express - Time to move it on?


cobblers

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This is up for an MOT soon. I reckon it would scrape through, but it could really do with a passenger sill, and the drivers side rear arch repairing properly - Spartacus riveted a repair panel on which looked presentable, but I decided to pull it all off to "repair it myself" but never got round to it, so just covered the sharp edges with duct tape. I

Now, I'm not doing the welding myself - I really don't have time or space. I'm going to get the guy to tidy the front arches up too, They're not that bad but will need a 6" section on each to be right. Then I can just paint it up to the bottom swage line and it'll look much tidier and last a good few years yet.

 

I thought I'd make the guys job as easy as possible and removed the fridge and wardrobe bottom and back to get access - a load of pipes and stuff sit just where he'd be welding, plus there's insulation and stuff in there.

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Saves him burning the van down

The sill has a few random "fat" spots and has about 9 coats of various underseals just hanging on it:

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No point messing about patching it, take the lot off!

Next I put the standard wheels back on, it'll make things easier for the guy to get wheels on and off (the knobbly ones use wobble bolts so are a pig to fit) and really it could do with them on for the MOT as the offroad tyres tread protrudes a little bit too far on the front.

 

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While the wheels were off, I decided to pop the rear drums off and change the handbrake cable which was looking a bit crusty.

The first drum was a bugger to get off and I managed to split the retainer and pop a piston out of the wheel cylinder like an ABSOLUTE CLUMSY TWAT

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Luckily it all went back together fine and all the bleed nipples moved easy. For once, everything bled up fine!.

 

The old handbrake cable was a bit overdue!

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Back on the little wheels now! It looks rubbish, I'm so used to it with big ones on, these look wrong.

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I'm thinking of selling this eventually -  A while ago I told myself I would absolutely never sell it.

Without being able to just dip out camping, I genuinely don't know how I would have made it through the last couple of years. Ideally I was going to push it into a corner of the unit and bit by bit do a mega restoration on it over a number of years. But I need to be realistic - I don't have a unit yet, and now running a business, won't ever have the time to do that. The van deserves more than just driving it into the ground and MOT bodging - it's pretty good underneath as far as these go. 

I'm doing the next best thing - I'll get it welded and painted up to a good standard, lash it full of dinitrol etc so it'll last and someone else can take it on.

 

I really could do with something a little bit bigger with a rear or fixed bed. I usually wake up about 3 hours before my wife, so when the bed takes up the entire usable space in the van it's a bit of a nuisance in a morning, I can't get up and ready without waking her up.

All the ready made vans in the layout I want are well into 5 figures, so I reckon I'm going to get the modern equivalent of the Talbot - Citroen Relay/Peugeot Boxer/ Fiat Ducato and build my own camper into it, bit by bit. They can take a traditional double mattress horizontally across the back, which is perfect, and the sides are pretty vertical which lends itself to roomier feeling bathroom/showers. 

A full camper conversion will take a good few weeks work, but just getting a bed into one could be realistically achieved in a weekend, so that's what I'm going to do.

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I’m in a similar position with the T25, needs a bit of welding to sort out lash ups that have occurred over the years. Might have to bite the bullet before the end of my Boris MOT, only trouble is finding someone reliable to do it, too many bodgers especially when they see the VW badge , seems to bring out the worst in workshops  

But with the current situation I could do with something more self contained (I.e bigger). Been watching long wheel base crew vans, all the benefit of dark window less bedroom area at the rear, with ready fitted windows in the middle. Cheap as well as they all seem to be ex plod or network rail so smell of a delightful* mix of sweat, fags and Ginsters. Mmmmm. 

Will follow any build you end up doing with great interest. 

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29 minutes ago, rusty_vw_man said:

I’m in a similar position with the T25, needs a bit of welding to sort out lash ups that have occurred over the years. Might have to bite the bullet before the end of my Boris MOT, only trouble is finding someone reliable to do it, too many bodgers especially when they see the VW badge , seems to bring out the worst in workshops  

He doesn't usually do VWs, but I've met him a couple of times and he's a trustworthy guy - try Simon at Custom Campers (google him). He's a bit of a talbot specialist and he's over your way (Sandbach). I went to buy a couple of doors off him  18 months ago, I was skint at the time and couldn't afford  the 4 I needed. He said just take them and pay him whenever!

I must say I am avoiding crew vans for that exact reason - Back when I used to convert vans for a living we had a few ex-railways T4s and absolutely nothing would get the stink of fags out of them. We stripped them absolutely down to a bare shell, TFR and jetwashed everything inside, outside was fully resprayed. Door cards, handles, seats, seatbelts, headlining, cab mat all replaced! Short of removing the dashboard, we did everything. Even a can of brake cleaner sprayed down each air vent! They would smell OK when left open, but park them up in the sun for an hour and when you opened up the door it was genuinely as if someone had just smoked in there 10 minutes ago. Both vans were just the same, it was doing our head in! We got lucky in the end - one sold to a chain smoking pub landlord who went through the best part of a pack of cigs while looking round it, and the other went to a woman with no sense of smell!

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Dropped the Talbot off with the welder this afternoon and just said "get it tip top" with more of less blank cheque.

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He's sorting all the arches, the passenger sill and a few other bits and bobs. It might look shite with the little wheels, but it is nicer to drive. I will deffo be putting the big ones back on, after possibly painting them silver.

I rang up about a couple of Ducatos today, both had sold to people making campers out of them - It seems like a lot of people are having the same idea.

Today I was talking to a friend across the road from work about my camper conversion, and he specialises in machining and making patterns for castings. A really nice bloke with a fantastic workshop, I could just wander round it for hours. He very kindly offered me the use of this massively expensive bastard:

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A whacking great CNC machine that will take a 10x4 sheet of lightweight caravan laminate and cut it with incredible accuracy. Instead of cutting all the units out by hand with a jigsaw and router like I'm used to, I can draw it all out on the PC, drop a board in the machine and come back an hour later. No fuckups, and I can automatically lay everything out on the PC so it will save so much wasted wood and a huge amount of time, too. I can also be a lot more adventurous with the design, too.

Really looking forward to getting cracking. but it'll be a shame to sell the Talbot.

 

 

 

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We’re in a similar position having just sold our Rambler GL as it has become too small since the arrival of baby_brownnova.

We’re looking at moving on to a coachbuilt Van next. Hopefully another Talbot type.... but it may be a slightly newer Ducato (I.e. the 1995-2001 version) as these have proper rear seatbelts. Depends what comes up... 

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There's a dude that makes up all the common parts - that inner wing is available premade to drop in, but they're £170! They guy I'm using is pretty good so he's happy to knock them up. I put a pair of handmade rear lower corners on last year, they were £75 a side and honestly the fit was really poor.

Arches/Wings/Sills etc are easy to get but they're all crappy Klokkenheim panels, so they're a bit flimsy and don't fit great, hence why we're just fitting the arch lip - I bought a pair of wings at £160 just to slice up.

There's two types of sill available - Klokkenheim or Custom Campers. The Klokkenheim ones look more similar to the original and are cheaper. The custom campers ones are just folded sheet metal and aren't the right shape, plus you can only buy them in "half" sills, but they are nice and thick. I went with the Klokkenheim ones.

 

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Yeah, I didn't really notice it at all until the front bumper fell off on tuesday! (Luckily as I was pulling in to my parking space so I didn't end up running over it)

There was a smear of fibreglass filling the hole, but the wiring loom sat right over the top of it hiding it all. He's not even started on the sill yet.

Dee, the guy who's doing the welding is in Forest town, near Sherwood Pines. He's done me a few bits before - he can properly stick metal together and fabricate stuff, but he's happy to work to a good standard without turning everything into a full on resto. Hard to find someone in the middle ground, I hope the bill isn't too huge.

I just need to find a painter now, the last person I went to quoted £2k to do a "commercial spec" paint just of the bottom half.

 

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Earliest memory of a car, that isn't an FSO Polonez pissing water through the windows after a car wash, was going with my Dad to EH Smiths in Solihull in his works Talbot van. Very same as this, except it has "Somerdale Construction" in black cursive writing on the side of it. And was a builders works van. 

Definitely a van I'd like to own one day. Glad you're keeping yours in tippity top condition*.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The inner sill was worse than we expected:

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So he replaced most of it:

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And done! No in progress pictures of the arches.

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But that's it absolutely rock solid. Well, as solid as any 29 year old Talbot is going to be.

I got it recovered home as the guy had to have all the strut leg off to get behind to weld the inner arch up and had to cut the balljoint nut off and bodge one back on. I didn't have time to go up and do a balljoint in his yard, nor did I want the wheel to fall off while driving it home with no MOT.

 

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Parked up next to it's (eventual) replacement,

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I'm going to sort the balljoint out tomorrow, refit all the interior and give it a quick once over for the MOT. I'm going caving on Tuesday night and would much rather camp afterwards than drive all the way home, but I'm not holding my breath on 1: Getting an MOT slot on Tuesday and 2: It passing an MOT on Tuesday.

 

 

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I've always fancied a crack at it, underground stuff interests me (mainly man made stuff - tunnels, mines etc). I was talking to a mate who works from a nearby unit and when I found out he's a member of Derbyshire cave rescue I was pretty quick to ask if he'd let me know when they were doing any beginner level stuff so I could tag along and have a crack at it.

The place we're going is "Giants Hole" near Castleton, it's about 4 miles from where I usually go to camp.

If I can't get the Talbot ready I might just take the caddy and a tent. I'll miss the nice hot shower!

 

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I got cracked on with this today, changed the balljoint and gave it a good MOT looking over and a test drive round locally to make sure it's all together OK.

It's solid now but it looks very sorry for itself!

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I started to put the fridge and all the wardrobe back in and realised this would cover up the inside of that welded rear arch. I forgot to order some Dynax S50 (I'll be pumping a food few litres into all the sills etc) so I had to settle for Waxoyl that I could get locally. It's nowhere near as good, but it's a lot better than nothing. I used loads and warmed it up first.

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Gotta say, having the talbot all back together in one piece has really put me in a better mood. I even bought it a set of wank £9 wheeltrims, as it'll be staying on these shitty little wheels for a while - the tyres on the Boxer are all fubar so the knobblies will be going on that, these 14s won't go over the brakes.

I had no luck getting an MOT booked for Tuesday so I can go away, I might just risk it TBH, when was the last time you actually saw a police car on the road? 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It flew through the test, zero advisories, not even any verbal ones. It's a good van!

Since putting the fridge back in, it wouldn't light up on gas. Quite common that the jet can get blocked with rust or other schmutz, so that's what I presumed had happened, particularly as I'd disturbed it.

Years ago I used to think these "gas" fridges used witchcraft or the evaporating cooling power of the gas, but no, it's much simpler. Instead of (like a normal fridge) using a pump to move the refrigerant round, these fridges just use any source of heat. Gas, 12v electric of 240v electric. They heat up a column of liquid ammonia which cycles round using convection.

They run well with just a small amount of gas - a flame not much bigger than a candle. It's actually impressive how much energy is in a flame so small - it's more powerful on gas than 12v or 240v, and they both have 120w heating elements.

So yeah, fridge out - I'm getting good at this! The jet is in the end of the pipe, under the union.

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With the jet out, even under a microscope it looked absolutely fine, but there's no sense in putting it back as-is, so I gave it a bit of a poke out with some strands of copper pulled from a bit of mains flex and dropped it in the ultasonic cleaner for a bit.

I thought I better check that the control valve wasn't blocked. I don't have any gas on the workshop, Luckily, its the same thread as a PCL airline connector:

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With the airline pressure turned down to about 15psi, I checked the valve worked, blew out all the shit from the pipes and using a lighter I made sure the safety gas shutoff thermocouple was working properly. All good!

 

Built it back in the van and it's working great, better than ever.

I'm making time to get back out and about next week, I don't really want to drive it in the rain until I can bukkake all the inner sills with litres of Dynax, but I'm sure once or twice won't hurt.

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I had considered that, but it's probably worth about £1500 more than "usual" at the moment. I'd have to rush to get it painted, pay a premium to get it painted quick and then I'd be without a camper van til I finished the other one. Then I'd have to rush that one and pay a premium for getting than one painted quick, and then cut corners to make it usable etc.

I'm not rich, but for the sake of maybe a grand tops, I'd rather hang on to the talbot, use it every couple of weeks as I have and take my time converting the Boxer.

Come December/January it'll be a bastard to sell, but it doesn't cost me anything to store, and I don't mind having a spare camper van. 

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  • 1 month later...

I saw the writing on the wall with regards to lockdown so I've been out camping as often as I can get away with these last couple of weeks, my wife has been pretty understanding about it TBH.

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Now the weather is turning, I had to put the big wheels back on it, and it's a flipping good job I did!

Last time out for a while, it's flipping pissing it down and my field is like a bog:

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I was gonna go down the pub for one last steak and pints, but it's an hours walk and it's absolutely lashing it down, so I put my backup lamb koftas in the oven:

 

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I'm living the dream man, I've got the heater on and I'm lovely and warm in here while it's pouring down with rain and blowing a gale

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