Tales of a new business, trials and endless uphill battles

[Jikovron]

On 22/04/2024 at 10:39, Mr_Bo11ox said:

You look like you might have the right setup to have a look a job for me actually.

I've got this thing sat on my drive slowly getting fettled. Stud pattern on these is 4 x 110, really odd size. I've got a quite rare set of refurbished Lotus Eclat (not elite) 14" alloys that i reckon would look the business on it, but they're 114mm pcd. I can well imagine that fitting them might involve redrilling hubs or whatever, if its even possible at all. Might you be up for taking a look? I guess I'd have to send the car & wheels over to you on a truck (no big deal as I'm only about 9 miles from your workshop) and you could see what you think about it.

Yeah we're into all that shenanigans, can easily work to a hand drawing like also to save a couple of quid moving cars, mind we like having stuff like it down here! 

[Jikovron]

Today's job is currently to empty the big unit of my large machines and we have the most temperamental forklift imaginable hence we've had to jump start it and tow it about with the car!

[tom13]

Looks good and loving the Proton. Especially as you are putting it to work.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Jikovron said:

we have the most temperamental forklift imaginable hence we've had to jump start it and tow it about with the car!

I think it's just getting lathey...

 

(Sorry)

[Jikovron]

This is an old image now, but shows roughly the job that's been achieved, all moved out from the little unit and returned to how it used to be in 3 days flat 

Onwards and upwards, of course now the new unit is full of crap till ive got a temporary shed built and the mezzanine constructed !

 

[DeanH]

You're clearly a busy man but at least you can look back on your efforts and see what you've achieved. Beats a desk job any day of the week.

[Dangermouse]

This is such an interesting thread to follow! Well done for taking the leap

[Minimad5]

Absolutely love this sort of stuff, well done !!
Seeing you turn that bellhousing plate, really grabbed my attention, as i can confirm clocking non round stuff up is a nightmare.

Keep the update coming (please)

[2flags]

Best of luck with this venture. It is a brave step to go self-employed. I have been for the last 29 years. Looking good so far. Please keep us updated on what you are doing. Top chodding on your choice of cars. Love the Ital estate. Great work horses. The Proton is good too. I remember when they first came over. 

[dollywobbler]

Great stuff! See you've got an L251 Charade in. They can be a good test for fabrication...

[bobdisk]

Looks a wonderful venture, Best of luck and good progress with all of it !

[MJK 24]

Good luck!

Keep this thread rolling!  Always find this kinda thing interesting!

[83C]

Bookmarked, best of luck!

[AnthonyG]

I wonder if the Freight Rover was ex BT? The yellow looks similar to their early 80s colour scheme.

But I suppose it might have been one of the factory colours in the days when commercial vehicles could be purchased painted something other than white! 

Good to see a new business busy, the Transit owner must have loved his truck to have most of the front passenger side rebuilt…,

[Jikovron]

This has turned up for welding, basically just a cut to rough out and make it decent type job just how i like them,,the roof however will be a shitey job to change 

As a slight aside I scattered my old Sammy dogs ashes up here where he omce climbed to aged 15 like it was bugger all effort, much missed.

Motorbike pickup, always enjoy these local jobs as they're easy and we're in a marvelous place to drive around tbf

Here's the latest job, as the mezzanine is taking forever because its a massive civil engineering task, I've had to get a shed to fill up with all the rammel out of the small unit and tbf it will need more than that even !

These steel sheds are absolutely bollocks, nearly impossible not to end up with a pile of crumpled scrap as they're so damn thin, so I decided to make a timber inner frame and just clad over with the sheet metal with a view that it will be way stronger in 4x3 beams, the base is 3x2 stacked into a sort of huge pallet and I'll remake some of the roof structure as that was garbage also !!

O series powered machinery assembled, can't wait to get these out there !

The freight rover is a BT van at one stage, before it went onto horsebox duties for a short while 

[High Jetter]

Now that's a proper AS tow car!

[Jikovron]

We're slowly getting there with this monolithic block, translating a timber frame into this has been a mega work out with it being an 1inch wider than expected, or something overlapping something else etc, but the worst is done and can fire the roof on next 

Also picked this mutha up to try and get running eventually , dolomite sprint 16v with an OD gearbox 

 

[robt100]

On 01/05/2024 at 19:29, Jikovron said:

O series powered machinery assembled, can't wait to get these out there !

The freight rover is a BT van at one stage, before it went onto horsebox duties for a short while 

Just spotted the Reg on the van, only 1 letter out from my mum's old sierra C336HHJ 1.8GL with the pinto engine rather than the cvh or "e-max" versions.

[Jikovron]

Sorted the roof on the shed, but had left the missing sheet where I bought it from, I've since gone and picked it up and now the shed is utterly full of parts already 😄 

Next up 26 3m lengths of 3x9 timber for the mezzanine floor, I picked this up from Doncaster and immediately was pulled over on the M18 by the rozzers, trailer weight, lack of type approval, brake light and a just about illegal OS front tyre that I'd left abit late,,he let the trailer off thankfully but I got ticketed for the tyre which tbf I should have sorted out.

This crafter tdi top end build job is dragging on abit as the customer is adamant on buying the bits, only one issue is that the sets keep turning up incomplete, he's not sure what the stuff is et  and I'm waiting for ages for stuff off him, I prefer getting these jobs cracked on rather than being sat around building up ideally.

[sierraman]

I’m sure I saw you on Monday morning driving through Frechville in that Proton! 

[Jikovron]

9 hours ago, sierraman said:

I’m sure I saw you on Monday morning driving through Frechville in that Proton! 

Yep that was I on route through for the school run !

[Jikovron]

It's all been going off at the unit after abit of a malaise waiting for shit to turn up, equipement out of action  etc 

The Sprint engine freed up ok but wouldnt run, 50psi and buggered plug leads is my guess with this, so the plan is to strip the head , clean and rebuild and I might whip out the pistons to free off the rings 

This got a full set of rocker arms, 2 tappets as they appeared siezed, and 2 valves with all valves getting a lap in with paste, bonus jigsaw action ensued as the front was removed and there was loads of random bits for it 

The other Mez beam got fitted up with the recalcitrant forklift 

Then some concrete blocks got moved so I could gain 2 spaces !

This came in with a 'dodgy' gearbox, as it turns out its been drive  with no oil for years so the gearbox is toast!

The parts are mega money for these so I'm fitting a rover p6 manual gearbox as it's the same length and uses the same input shaft spline etc for the clutch

Just loads of parts to fabricate and machine up !

And also this needs some bits making to run on a carb and distributor 

 

[sierraman]

9 minutes ago, Jikovron said:

Yep that was I on route through for the school run !

I figured there can’t have been many J reg Protons! 

[808 Estate]

Excellent stuff. Looks like your building was the subject of a 28 days later visit as few years ago.

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/derwent-castings-whatstandwell-matlock-derbyshire-june-july-2019.122828/

[Jikovron]

So today was a mission, front lower arm joints and a flexi to weld onto an ecoboost fiesta

Then more importantly pickup a 2.0 SD1 engine from its spiritual home of  Birmingham 

4 point strap 

All the goodies with it, half of which I don't need really, ie the twin carbs and manifold as I'm not bothered about a van with 'performance' 

[Jikovron]

Y

On 21/05/2024 at 23:42, 808 Estate said:

Excellent stuff. Looks like your building was the subject of a 28 days later visit as few years ago.

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/derwent-castings-whatstandwell-matlock-derbyshire-june-july-2019.122828/

Aye its not been established all that long really, I love the location for its beauty!

[Jikovron]

We had this machine in, a new customer who found us via the Google pin of which is actually where the unit is !

He wanted a dpf delete which seems to be abit of a Chinese puzzle job these days with front ends to be removed or in this case, the bastard subframe and ideally the steering rack has to come off the column ! 

Unforseen to the job was the fact that the dpf was rotted around the flexi so i just cut it in 2 which saved taking the rack off the column 

We got a flexi short notice, gutted the DPF and also made a bolted flange so that I could refit the bugger !!

And bonus it started up without the usual drama associated with disturbed plugs and wiring !

[bezzabsa]

On 22/04/2024 at 10:39, Mr_Bo11ox said:

You look like you might have the right setup to have a look a job for me actually.

I've got this thing sat on my drive slowly getting fettled. Stud pattern on these is 4 x 110, really odd size. I've got a quite rare set of refurbished Lotus Eclat (not elite) 14" alloys that i reckon would look the business on it, but they're 114mm pcd. I can well imagine that fitting them might involve redrilling hubs or whatever, if its even possible at all. Might you be up for taking a look? I guess I'd have to send the car & wheels over to you on a truck (no big deal as I'm only about 9 miles from your workshop) and you could see what you think about it.

4x108 and "wobble bolts" ??????

[Jikovron]

I pulled out the Sprint engine pistons and gave them a good clean and prised the rings out of them, it's already a +20 rebore and the cylinders aren't totalled so I'm just going to glaze bust it and stick new rings in, the head leaks on all of the valves too !

This needs some tricky roof drip rail welding so I've started taking out the windows and trim ready for it 

Localised to a panel so at least it's just weld in a single skin and joint on 

The mez is coming along, 9x3m just a stairwell to blast together 

the cromford canal runs up the back of the units also  so it was a good excuse on the bank holiday to have a ride out !

The proton water pump is now dead also, and its a timing belt driven one too !

 

[Jikovron]

So today has been fairly decent, we've dragged in a mini with what seems like a severe headgasket fail in the sense that the coolant is partially oil and the head is full of water, not sure whether it's some sort of bollocks heat exchanger or is actually the headgasket, will see !

Also a small job completed in clearing off the mill and adding shelves at long last to store all the daft mill widgets underneath !

There's still loads of work ahead in terms of sorting everything out and building the rest of the facility! Onwards and upwards hopefully