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

[cobblers]

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

 

 

You know, I don't think I've ever taken any. It's great. Toilet, shower, central heating, hot and cold running water, wardrobe, oven, sink and hob. There's a bed up in the roof, but it's only any good for kids really so I've taken it out to stop me banging my head on it.

[cobblers]

Back on with this today.

 

Here's the rear corner done - seam sealed and ready for a good thick coat or two of gravitex (textured sill paint stuff)

 

About an hour with a wire wheel left all the cars on the street covered in filler dust, and I got the sill back to metal:

 

 

There actually was metal under there, and it was pretty solid, but instead of using a £30 repair section or a £50 sill, they;d just used a bit of steel cut out of a bonnet and bent it over a lamp post or something.

 

I lopped it all off, tidied it up a bit and then dosed it with Dynax50 rust converter stuff, I sprayed it on

 

The inner sill had been plated over, it wasn't pretty but it was solid. I was tempted to sort it properly, but I can't get carried away, I aim  to be camping in this in a fortnight!

 

Chopped the new panel about to make it fit after repairing the side panel where it was crusty, I ended up putting about half the length of the sill on - The back half had already been done reasonably well, so I just replaced all up to that

 

I had to make an end on this panel too, I proper enjoy doing this bit - Nice clean steel with a corner to weld into, dead satisfying.

 

 

Tacky tack tack to attach it, I was aiming to have it dead flush to make for a zero filler repair, but I fucked it right up. It'll only need a light skim, I might not bother though, I'll see what it looks like when I've finished flatting it off properly. All my flap wheels were knackered.

 

And finally a plate to fill in the gap at the front. This bit will deffo need filler cos whoever did the previous repair just brayed the shit out of the panel with a hammer to make their "panel" fit, I turned the welder up and really stuck this bit on, no big deal if it warps a little.

 

Hopefully I'll get it finished off tomorrow, I need to pick up some filler, some more flap wheels and some paint. I now remember why I decided I wasn't doing welding sills on things again! Bruised and scraped from head to toe, welding splatter marks up my arms and legs and I could pick my nose with a flipping magnet. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[spartacus]

I think I've said before Cobblers, when I first got the camper I paid a place down in Brim, just before the railway bridge, to sort that out, I can't understand why the fuck he did that, I would imagine it would be easier to make up a panel that nearly fits, or buy the right thing, than it is to gob in about 20kg of filler. Thankfully it's being done right this time, crack on, you're doing great job!

[cobblers]

I was going to ask where you took it!

[cort16]

Nice work cobblers that’s a lot of pudding.

[spartacus]

Last place on the left before the bridge. He had a coach built Talbot camper, so I'm my naivety I thought he would know where to get the correct panels and do a good job.

As it was it turns out he was a fucking throbber!

[brownnova]

Top job! I'm loving seeing what can be done...

 

Just got back from a week in Cornwall and Devon in mine, but it has it's MoT tomorrow... and I've seen the underside... ????

 

I R not a welder but I need to be...

[Pillock]

I think we need a competition to find the deepest filler on a repair. That's not a bad start...

[cobblers]

Few skims of filler, it didn't take much, probably 3mm thick at the top. This was halfway through:

 

I gave the pinch weld a good slathering with seam sealer, mainly to protect the sharp end of the steel but it also hides the spot welds a bit, I did the same on the inside.

 

And on with a coat of Gravitex! I love this stuff, it hides sins and it's a right laugh to use.

 

 

 

Unmasked:

 

I'm not struck on the 8" tidemark look, but it'll do for now. I was tempted to spray on some random 2k "brilliant white" I found in a cupboard , but my hardener had all hardened in the 5 or 6 years since I bought it and I could only find my tiny detail gun so it'd have been a crap finish anyway.

 

I still need to sort that rear wheel arch, but it's not an MOT problem. Once that's done I'll do all the other blebs (front arches and door bottoms) and paint the van up to the swage line - It's already been done once, probably a quick wazz over by a trader to smarten it up years ago. I'll try and get the paint matched properly this time though.

[Jim Bell]

Black bottomed vans, you make the rockin world go round!

[Pillock]

Leave the exhaust trim on so you can slap people's ankles as you drive past

[cobblers]

That video where some lad puts a bit of a bike inner tube on the exhaust of a honda is genuinely one of the best things I've ever seen

[cobblers]

Boring update, no pictures, sorry! Yesterday night I was working on this while about 9pm after work - I poked a hole in the passenger inner sill but it was a simple repair.

Today I slipped out of work half an hour early today to get to Rotherham to pick this up and take it 30 miles to the garage for the MOT. It's been three months since I've driven it, but even in rush hour traffic I really enjoyed it. 

There's no rational way to explain how soothing it is plodding along in a wobbly drivers seat at 52mph with some pans rattling in a cupboard behind me and the slight smell of chemical toilet fluid and a rich running engine leaking exhaust into the van slightly. It might be mild carbon monoxide poisoning, but I don't care. 

 

I had been fairly pissed off with it after sliding around underneath it getting rust in my face for so long, but all is forgiven!

If it passes the MOT then I'm going to treat it to a set of tyres, because the ones on it have turned to stone - It will wheelspin in the wet in 2nd gear, with about 55bhp.

 

I'm not sure whether to spend  £200 on some new 185/14 van tyres to fit the current wheels, or try to find a decent set of Vivaro 16" wheels with good tyres, 2nd hand which "should" fit. There's a place selling some offroad 14" tyres which would be useful on wet campsites, but I dunno.

[Exiled_Tat_Gatherer]

fingers etc.... crossed - hope tis good news.

[cobblers]

Passed! An advisory for the exhaust rubbers, which are about 6 months old. They are admittedly quite shit, don't make them like they used to. Obviously I've just ordered another set of shit ones off ebay.

[Tickman]

Excellent news but justified with the work done.

[sierraman]

I just want to know where you got the kebab, looks ace.

 

Nice bit of welding there, I usually go to a chap on the Station Rd industrial estate at Whittington whose pretty handy with the sparkly stick. Needless to say it’s a regular port of call seeing as I’m a compulsive clapped out Ford buyer.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I always found mine much better to drive than I expected. The steering is surprisingly sharp, the gearchange was tolerable (think it had had some mod done on it) and once wound up you could make good progress in it. And I never got backache, despite the foldable front seats looking at first glance as comfortable as a park bench.

 

I would love to try a LHD one with the column shift.

[brownnova]

There's no rational way to explain how soothing it is plodding along in a wobbly drivers seat at 52mph with some pans rattling in a cupboard behind me and the slight smell of chemical toilet fluid and a rich running engine leaking exhaust into the van slightly. It might be mild carbon monoxide poisoning, but I don't care.

This.

 

Exactly this.

 

I love driving mine.

 

Sadly it’s not driving anywhere since it’s MoT failure...

[cobblers]

I always found mine much better to drive than I expected. The steering is surprisingly sharp, the gearchange was tolerable (think it had had some mod done on it) and once wound up you could make good progress in it. And I never got backache, despite the foldable front seats looking at first glance as comfortable as a park bench.

 

I would love to try a LHD one with the column shift.

 

Yeah, the gearchange is better than people say and better than you'd expect when you see the amount of strange linkages and pivots etc. Even fairly worn it absolutely pisses over the gearchange of any VW T25 I've driven (bar my last one that was auto).

 

 

I'm not struck on the steering, it's not baggy but it definitely weights up very strangely, admittedly this could be down to ancient budget commercial tyres and maybe the sheer height of it, but I'd happily drive this van miles and miles whereas you felt absolutely every inch of the journey in my old brown T25, that was so tiresome to drive.

 

Anyway since the MOT didn't cost owt ( £50 including adjusting the rear wheel bearings) I'm going to treat it to a BRAND NEW set of tyres, and I might even paint the wheels as well, and get some paint made up to cover the tide mark too! 

[DodgeRover]

Just be mind full of what the weight plate says for max axle load when it comes to choosing tyres, you may need commercial ones to be fully legal - yep future crimes will count even if you are under weight and safe when stopped they go on the max it could legally be.

[cobblers]

Yeah, it's getting 102 rated tyres, and it feels like it's actually carrying a bit of weight. I bet once fully loaded with water and gear it's probably not a million miles off the plated weight. A few people seem to fit spring assisters on them, but this sits pretty well, I presume that's mainly the coachbuilt ones.

 

I did begrudge fitting properly load rated tyres to my T5, it's a t32 (3200kg GVW) but all it does is carry a couple of whippets around.

[DodgeRover]

You could have done a voluntary downplate to have got round it if you really didn't need the weight capacity.

[cobblers]

Yeah, I read into that, SVtech I think was the place that do it.

The tyres were maybe £100 more for the set, but that was about the same as downplating would end up, but it adds a story to a £11k van, so I picked my battles.

[Zelandeth]

Methinks I need to get some of that Gravitex stuff...it looks way better than a lot of the similar products.

 

Sounds a lot like my old Merc. She's not quick off the mark, but once wound up will quite happily make pretty decent progress.

 

... especially once I realised I was only originally seeing about 60% of the travel on the throttle pedal that I should have had!

[cobblers]

There was one of them mercs for sale at a local antiques auction, even my mrs said we should go and have a look but I bottled it in the end, it'd been stood ten years.

Gravitex is great - Goes on with a Shutz gun. You can paint over it, and when you do, it doesn't stand out as being "wrong" but the textured surface hides all kinds of wobbles without resorting to filler. 

[cobblers]

Aftermarket alarms, I really love ripping them out. If I won the lottery I would spend my time going round peoples old cars taking alarms out for them as a hobby

 

There was one in this van that would drain the batteries over a few weeks. I kept putting it off but when I came to drive home from work today it would barely start, the batteries were shagged. Shame really, they were only about a year old, but they'd spent a month at 5V so they were about 4Ah instead of 46Ah.

 

I looked under the dash (and the bulkhead looks absolutely fine XBOLLOX!) and found the alarm box and just followed the snake of black wire and slimy leccy tape til it joined in with the van stuff.

 

 

Have a look at the state of that. A fucking 20A fuse to power the alarm/immobiliser, ill fitting spade terminals instead of a fuse holder (don't do this) and the whole mess had been buried under half a roll of tape and jammed up next to the steering column.

 

I suppose it's lasted at least 15 years by the looks of things, but it's horrible.

 

 

[Pillock]

If there's one thing I hate, it's the perma-sticky fingers you get from unravelling old insulting tape.

[Dave_Q]

That shit is super satisfying, stripped an old alarm out the now duganabecorporation Impreza.

 

Scotchloks, leccy tape, £shop grade bullet connectors, seemingly the only connection method the 90s/00s alarm fitting industry didn't use was a soldering iron.

 

Also related, when I got this Multipla the PO had installed all sorts of extra LED lights, a permanent Nokia charger and so on. Stripping it all out was very theraputic, a bit like when you pick a fairly old scab to reveal the new skin.

[cobblers]

Changed the oil and batteries yesterday, drama free apart from finding most of the oil running down the street this afternoon.

 

I've just won a set of brand new Vivaro steels with continental tyres off eBay for £190 which was a lot cheaper than a set of really really shit tyres for these wheels - Let's hope they fit! I've just got to drive to Bury to collect them tomorrow.