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

[Pillock]

Yeah, it seems a shame to ruin a perfectly good minibus as what I really want is a camper - basically because of the tales on here (yours included) of just fucking off to a campsite for a weekend.

 

I think I used the same "shame to ruin a minibus" excuse when a mate offered me a very similar van about 15 years ago. Caravelle GL with the two tone paint etc, but full of seats. I'll only make a hodge podge of throwing in some kitchen units and wonky cushions anyway - supposedly IKEA do a nice range of shallow units that fit nicely into caravans and stuff, but they'll look a million times better in my imagination than reality because I never finish a DIY job.

[cobblers]

We were away in the Talbot last night. We weren't going to go away after my usual Edale campside was shut because it was too boggy, but yesterday morning made a last minute decision to piss off because the weather was OK and as such the shithead neighbours had what sounded like 39 kids and 15 thick mouthy smelly parents in the garden so we both needed to just get the fuck out of here.

 

We ended up near Hartington, it was nice. New charging system worked spot on!

 

I'd noticed the van had used about half a litre of water over the last few hundred miles, and noticed this puddle:

 

Yup, radiator is leaking. Can't believe I didn't notice it when I was running the big fat power wire along underneath it last week - That said, I did notice the rad looked rough and made a mental note to keep an eye on it.

 

 

There were a load of new rads on ebay for £70 or so but it turns out they were for diesels and are the same apart from being a perfect mirror image of the petrol one, with only £150+ nissens petrol ones available. 

Found one in the end, "new unused" from a private seller, for £75, so that's alright. While I was nosing around I found a couple of iffy pipes and didn't like the look of the rad cap either so they'll all get replaced.

These have a non-adjustable belt to run the water pump, it seems you just ABUSE THE FUCK out of it to get the belt over the pulleys and that's that, you can't slacken owt off or adjust the tension.

The one on there seems pretty flipping baggy if I'm completely honest - you can quite easily turn the water pump by hand, but I suppose the "v" of a v belt makes the most of what tension it can get when things are spinning etc. I should replace it if I can find one, but I can't see a size on it.

 

 

I thought I'd also put some new "yellow" philips headlight bulbs in that I've had kicking around for years. Turns out they aren't very yellow at all, see the comparison. NSF is the "Yellow", OSF is a poundland special bulb.

 

When I came to swap the other I found the passenger side connector is melted to bollocks, so I've ordered another one of them as well.

 

 

 

 

[cobblers]

A few pages back I posted about how I bought a Blaupunkt head unit and fitted it to the T25 running off the "stock" speakers. TBH it did look nice, but in the meantime I came to realise that

1. Tapes are a fucking pain in the arse. There's always a gap at one end of a recording and its just a logistical nightmare. There's a reason I stopped using them entirely in about 1997.
2. While the existing speakers were better than I was expecting them to be, they were still absolutely shit.
3. Even thought the stereo had aux in, any bluetooth adapter caused it to make incredibly loud noises like a robot being fisted or something

So I bit the bullet and bought a cheap kenwood mechless bluetooth head unit, which had the advantage of being about 5" deep so it actually fitted in the dash.

It was better, but I really needed to replace the speakers. I didn't want to put owt to gaudy in, but I wanted something quite efficient so that they would go nice and loud. I also had an amp and a little sub to slip under the rear seats.

 

I was umming and aahhing over some JBLs when I saw some Blaupunkt ones come up for £25 a pair. They were fairly plain looking and don't look out of place. I had to get rid of the drivers door pocket though, but I never used it. I might shave a bit off it so I can refit it, one day.

 

 

Before: Note the baggy door card. I made an attempt to sort this by soaking the hardboard backing in PVA/water solution and then squashign it flat for a few hours under some batteries. It made a bit of difference but it's not great.

 

After:

 

 

I don't think they're too offensive. I also did the rears:

 

I must do something about that rear trim panel - I'll either make another, or just cover that one in some black leathery vinyl stuff.

 

The rear speakers run direct from the head unit, but the fronts and the cheeky subwoofer run off an amp under the drivers seat, giving about 75W for each front speaker and 200w ish for the subwoofer.

 

 

It's not my neatest work, I kept getting interrupted.

Overall though, I'm pleased. It sounds great - I'd never realised what a difference buying efficient speakers made. These £25 a pair speakers absolutely piss all over the £250 worth of 3 way focal ones I had in the other T25, simply because you can hear these over the road noise! The Focals would have needed about 250w each to keep up with these.

The sub is only 7" in a tiny box, but it does what it can. It hardly rattles the windows, but I don't really want it to do that.

[cobblers]

Little update. T25 is in my mums garage again, potentially sold. Shame really, but running three vehicles is silly. My mum's moving house soon so I'll lose the use of the garage, potentially giving me nowhere to work on anything that goes wrong - so I'm flogging the T25 and keeping my Abarth.

 

The Talbot hasn't got many brakes (master cylinder failed) so I've gone against my gut and dropped it off at the local garage for them to sort it. I've never took owt to a garage and not end up wishing I'd just done the job myself. I hope I'm pleasantly surprised this time, they're a decent bunch of lads.

I haven't got the time or inclination to wrangle with four bleed nipples in the dark at the side of the road at the moment. 

I've also asked them to have a look at doing the Exhaust Manifold studs which'll hopefully quieten it down a bit.

 

We're going away (Robin Hoods Bay) in it over christmas, so I'm fairly thankful the leak has shown up now, rather than in three weeks time. Or even worse, when we're driving down one of the massive great flippin hills on the way there!

[cobblers]

Evening!

With the van MOT looming, I banged it in for a "pre MOT" and was pleasantly surprised really, all the required welding was on one corner.

 

I'd sworn off welding vehicles when my last welder broke, but in the absence of having anyone I trust to do the work for me, I bought a new welder:

 

 

Here's the problem:

 

Boy was I surprised that those bumper securing nuts came off without pulling the captive studs out.

 

The true extent of the problem was masked by that foamy thick underseal stuff that PSA use. A few minutes with a wire wheel and we were here:

 

 

So I just cut the lot off. But then I looked underneath, saw a "bubble" on the outrigger (that the MOT man didn't mention!!) and poked it.

 

Oops:

 

This is going be tricky. I'm working on a sloped drive and can't jack the van up much at all, so I can't really take the leaf spring off.

But, I have a plan. I'm going to make a bracket to fix a bottle jack between the axle and the chassis, where the bump stops would go, and I'll use that to take the weight of the van so that I can free the back end of the spring.

 

 

With "a quick job" turning into a bigger job, I thought bugger it, so I went at the strangely shaped drivers sill with the wire wheel:

 

 

Great!

 

I also took off the riveted rear arch repair, I'll just weld it on properly:

It's not that bad underneath really.

 

The MOT is out in about 3 weeks, so I very much doubt I'll make it. I'm going to give the lower half a good fettling though and sort out all the bodging, I'll probably do the scabby front arches too.

A lot of the van has some weird paint on thats got grit in it or something, and other bits have rattlecan paint over POR15 which is all flaking off. I'll take it all back to good metal and give it a good seeing to with gravitex, and then probably paint the bottom half of the van up to the first swage line with proper 2K paint. It deserves it really.

[spartacus]

Nice one Cobblers, obviously I 'fess up to the riveted arch repair, the paint over the POR 15 is supposed to be stone chip stuff, I'd like to think POR is holding up, I'd be interested to see how well it's stuck.

I knew that rear corner wouldn't be long before it needed work but like you I'm surprised it's that bad, good luck with it.

I'm not very pleased about that filler on the drivers sill,I paid a body shop to do that when I first got it. Grrr.

 

Edit to add, I know that when somebody from the forum buys a vehicle it's theirs to do with what they want but I really do feel it's in the spirit of the forum when it gets looked after and a long lease of life. It really makes my day when I spot the old bus around, usually in Eckington!

[cobblers]

I wasn't under any impression that there was anything other than a load of filler under that drivers door sill bulge, I'm pleased there's metal under the filler TBH, but it's no big deal, the panel is only £20 anyway - as long as there's somert to weld it to I'm happy enough with that.

 

That POR 15 seems to be super mega impermeable diamond hard stuff which itself holds up well, it's just so hard and shiny that paint can't get a grip on it and just falls off. I'm going to wazz it all off and paint over with etch primer and normal paint other than the bottom 4" which will be textured gravitex stuff.

 

I drive it to work a couple of days a week which is why you'll see it in Eckington, I'd rather keep it in regular use so I can keep on top of any issues and TBH I really enjoy driving it.

[Talbot]

*shudder*

 

That corrosion in a J5/express/C25 looks all too familiar! Click my "historic shite" link to see what I'm on about.

 

The spreader plates for the rear of the leaf springs are a known rot-point too, so if you remove them, give them a good clean out. I re-manufactured ones for my van, and still have the jig somewhere, so if yours are rotten, rather than spending £90 a side, you can re-make them with about £5 of steel.

 

Be aware also that the bolts to hold the spreader (and the fixed end of the leaf spring for that matter too) are an absolute bastard to remove. They will fight you every turn of the way, and will need either new bolts, or a die-nut to clean them up and a tap to clean the captive thread in the body. I spent an entire day fighting with mine. I won in the end, but it was an uphill battle.

 

I think I may even have some sill section somewhere that I had made up if you need/want it. Not available elsewhere to my knowledge

 

Good luck! Metal surgery on a J5 is a looong process.

[Tickman]

Good to see someone else fighting to keep their camper on the road. 

Quite nice that it is just the one corner that is needed for MOT. 

I like the 'investment' in the new welder, you were not kidding yourself there at least.

[cobblers]

 Click my "historic shite" link to see what I'm on about.

 

 

I just read that and really wish I hadn't. I'm quite scared now.

 

I've got some sill sections on order, there's a bloke in stoke that makes them up, also coastal motorhomes do em.

[cobblers]

Went down to my mums and did a few hours on the van today, finally got my regulator and stuff for the welder, and robbed some steel from the scrap bin at work to make the bracket thing to hold the bottle jack between the axle and chassis

Supplies:

 

 

Shazam:

 

I was MEGA PLEASED that all the bolts holding the little crossmember type thing on came out easily with the impact driver. Well, I lie - One just span, but it was the one that was attatched to a rusty hole anyway. Even the nuts for the damper and rear spring hanger came out easy peasy, I wasn't expecting that at all.

 

This rusty hole:

 

Not too bad, I gave it a good poking about and whatnot and it didn't grow further. I'm going to repair it with a big U shaped patch rather than pick it off and replace it entirely, it's totally solid all round the edges.

 

 

The bridge/leaf spring hanger thing is also in great condition thankfully:

 

 

At this point the sun had moved so I wasn't working in the shade anymore and I was sweating like a beast, so rather than go grinding and welding in the hot sun, I decided to clean the bridge thing up. I gave it a good hard dose of wire wheeling, then a couple of coats of Bilt Hambler Hydrate 80 which seems quite mega, turning any rust instantly into some black stuff.

 

 

I was going to paint it all up with a few coats of gravitex (sprayed from a paint gun rather than the pebbledash gun) but it says to wait 24 hours before painting, so I left it at that for today.

 

I need to source some decent thickness steel for the patch, and ideally fabricobble some kind of a bender to form my repair patch.

 

 

 

[cobblers]

On my way home today I was reminded there's a sheet metal fabrication place about half a mile away. I'll draw up that whole outrigger and see if they can fold it me up just as a 3 foot length from decent steel (so I have spare to do the other side if/when it needs it)

 

Realistically making a bender would take a day and £50 of steel, I might as well just pay someone to fold it up for me, they'd have it done in half an hour. Once I get set up in a new house with a garage/workshop I'll make a bender, as we are I'm just scratching round on the garage floor over at my mums house, it's not conducive to quality panel making.

 

That way I can replace the whole part if I want (I'd just have to fold the ends over) or cut out and replace what I need.

I'm swaying towards replacing the whole thing, but I'm wary of welding up to the floor of the van as there's the wood subfloor above and I don't really want it to go on fire. There's no way to remove the wood floor without taking out the whole interior of the van which ain't happening - worst comes to worst, I'll just soak the wood and weld away, it's under a cupboard anyway.

[Talbot]

The bridge/leaf spring hanger thing is also in great condition thankfully:

Best condition one I have *ever* seen. Usually they fill up with mud and rot from the inside out. One of mine actually collapsed. I did wonder why it was rather low one side...

[cobblers]

Best condition one I have *ever* seen. Usually they fill up with mud and rot from the inside out. One of mine actually collapsed. I did wonder why it was rather low one side...

 

I reckon it might have been replaced before, the bolts had split spring washers on and I doubt PSA/Talbot would use them seeing as they're useless. The bushes seem alright too and just slid out.

 

It's as solid as it looks, I gave it a braying with a pointy hammer. I still swished some of that rust converter through it, I'll pump it full of dynax whatever once it's back on.

[Talbot]

the bolts had split spring washers on

That's factory. I suspect your vehicle has had a sheltered / less muddy life than mine ever had!

[brownnova]

Great van!!! I love mine.

 

Did you ever get the manifold studs done? Mine need doing and was wondering how bad a job it is...

[cobblers]

I drew the outrigger section up, took the drawing down to the fabrication place and they're folding me up a 60cm length of it out of 1.5mm steel, that's enough to do both sides (or make a cockup of this side).

£40 seems reasonable, better than fannying around myself.

 

 

 

Great van!!! I love mine.

Did you ever get the manifold studs done? Mine need doing and was wondering how bad a job it is...

Nope, never got round to it. With the rest of the exhaust leaks plugged up, it's not as bad as I thought. It's pretty much plugged itself up with carbon, I don't notice it anymore!

[brownnova]

I can hear mine clattering away... although to be fair the engine sounds clattery at the best of times.

 

I do need to look at it sone time. Problem is at the weekends either I'm going away in it or it's cold/wet...

[cobblers]

A bit overdue, I got a call off the engineering place this morning saying my steel was ready, so I went straight down:

 

I got them to fold the full section, but didn't end up using it all - I wanted to avoid welding up to the floor of the van. Once I cut everything out I was happy with the surroundings, and made this repair bit:

 

I had to use a normal M10 captive nut - the other fasteners were m10 fine, but a normal m10 will be OK:

 

 

And then I welded it in - It's butted up, not overlapped. 

Quite pleased with that considering I've hardly touched a welder for four years, and never used this one before. My first guess settings were pretty much bob on - power was high at 5/6 on a 160 amp welder.

The 1.5mm steel is fairly forgiving.

 

Then I gave it a coat of etch primer, and a thick dose of gravitex:

 

Along with the rear bridgeing plate thing:

 

 

I called it a day at that - it's ready to go back on it's wheels as soon as the paint dries, but there was no chance of that happening today, I really laid the paint on nice and thick.

 

Tomorrow I'll be able to start doing the job I intended to do in the first place, which is the outer rear corner. I've just realised I forgot to order the sill, corner and arch for the other side too.

[spartacus]

Nice one Cobblers, looking good!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Lovely work

[cobblers]

It's been too long since I did owt with this, stuff got in the way and I bought a VW T5 which meant I could fulfill my need to withdraw from my life completely by driving to some random place straight from work, walking for ages, having a pub dinner and 4 pints of beer then kipping in a van only to go straight back to work the following morning. I've done this many times in the last few months and it is of massive benefit to my mental health. It's not a camper van, so I have a shitty air bed that I sleep on and a clammy sleeping bag, but it gets the job done

 

Anyway, I finished the back corner, covered it with gravitex, and got the van back on it's wheels.

 

 

 

 

It's all solid and straight, there's a few dips where it warped cos I was welding at fairly serious current and didn't want to piss about tack tack tacking, but I'm happy with that really. It's all behind the bumper anyway.

 

Just need to do the same panel on the other side - it has already been done, but it's a really shit job and was never painted right so it's hanging off. I've ordered another one of the repair panels along with a full outer sill for the drivers side - I might not use it all but I like to have the option to, but there's about an inch of filler over a flat panel repair under the drivers door that I just can't ignore:

 

 

I'll take a few days off work next week and get cracked on.

 

A mate of mine is getting married in a field late August and I'm aiming to have this back on the road by then so we can camp in comfort rather than "style" on a blowup bed in the back of the vw.

[Jim Bell]

Only critisism is due to lack of Whippets.

[cobblers]

Booked three days off work to try and get this old tub back on it's feet.
 
I'd never really looked all that closely at the drivers side rear corner beyond just deciding it needed changing.

 
When I actually got right at it, it was a real mess. there were three layers of bodged, crusty damp "steel".
Bear in mind this is the side that it didn't fail the MOT on.

No tools were involved, It just came off in my hand
 

 
 

 
 
About 10 minutes later there was a big pile of aggro on the floor, and I was left with a hole in the van but nothing left to fucking weld to.
 


 
 
So I cut a load of the inner sill out and put some fresh steel in the way. I'm pretty disappointed with this, it looks fucking shit. It's on there really well, but I really should have done it better. Not that it would last longer if I made a proper repair panel with the pressings in it, and nobody will see it again once I put the cover over,  but I'll know! It's way oversized, I'll cut it down once I've welded the corner back on.

 
Then I used a cut from the full sill I bought (to cut in half) to repair the rear side panel, and added a 90 degree angle to give me something to actually weld to at the top:
 

You can see this bit and I wasn't going to piss around with filler, so I made sure I got it right!. A few minutes with a fresh flap wheel later:
 

 
I'd not eaten all day so I took advantage of being in Rotherham, and got myself mixed kebab meat and chips. You can't get a decent kebab in Bolsover, they're all absolutely dogshit. I was double plus pleased because they had chip spice too, but the mint yoghurt sauce was the cheap stuff that's sweet. 6.5/10.

 
I'm trying to look for a picture of the actual repair panel, but I've took none cos I'm a fanny, so here's a library one:

Basically you can't buy a proper panel so this bloke that's a bit of a Talbot express specialist had some steel folded up to make sill repair panels, and then he makes these out of three bits of sills, cut and shut. frankly they're really no good but it's the best I could buy and better than I could make. £80 a side stings a bit too!
They don't anywhere near fit, none of the angles are right and they are supplied 2" too long either end with no return on the wheel arch. But I shouldn't moan, I'd rather pay £80 for a shit but usable panel than spend all day to make a worse one myself.
So once I'd cut and bashed it around to make it "fit" and cut it to size I had to weld an end on it:

 
I just welded a big strip of steel on then shaped it to match the other side:

 
I got it all welded on the van, zinc primed and seam sealed round, but the heavens opened and I had to quickly rush to drag everything in the garage.
 
I'm back down in the morning to do the drivers sill and rear wheel arch.

[mrbenn]

Your welding looks absolutely spot on. Top stuff!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Great stuff!!! I reckon you've been pretty lucky for rot so far. Have you shoved your head under the dash and looked up at the bulkhead? i did that on mine once, never again

[spartacus]

Looking good Cobblers, I'm really happy it's being looked after by somebody with your skills!

[Talbot]

OOoohhh... this is really bringing back memories of a few years ago. I had to do the same repair (albeit on the nearside) on mine. I have no photos of that repair, as I just needed to get on with it, but essentially I did exactly as you've described: Make a section of sill, cut it up and weld three bits back together.

 

It was at about that point that I discovered that the sills on J5/Express are not all the same.. there are three different profiles as you go around the vehicle, and the rear corner is a junction between two of the differing profiles.

 

So nothing will ever fit properly if you only have one sill section, as it's always a compromise!

 

The easiest thing to do is just weld where it touches, and then beat the bits that don't touch untill they do, and then weld some more. (he said, glibly)

 

Great work, keep it up! I feel I should try to get my van roadworthy again now. Can anyone lend me a month?

[Exiled_Tat_Gatherer]

Great work Cobblers..... I often look at the bits I'm able to pull off by hand as the easily accessible parts - so a positive* is taken somehow. Glad it's getting peeled and skin grafts as any ageing movie star/ beauty queen tends to go for/need.

Admittedly - I can't do the kebab thing though - sauce or not - that had me retching....... 

 

Any shots of the interior? Or have I missed them?

[Talbot]

Admittedly - I can't do the kebab thing though - sauce or not - that had me retching.......

That just made me feel hungry and have had to go and get one for lunch.

 

Mmmmm Kebab!