Decided tp take the interior out of the bus for the first time since i've had it. Wasnt as bad as i thought it was gonna be but could have been a whole lot better as well!!!!
Having problems uploading pics at the moment. Gonna give it a break for a while because i'm starting to lose my rag now

shalom, Lee

Come on empi you can do it

Lee, text me the worse one and I'll put up so we can all have a laugh!!







Joking bud, hope it isn't that bad!

big thanks to Paul Miller at Harry Harpic in Saarfend on Sea for fitting it in at such short notice and for his excellent work and good rates. And for never batting a eyelid when i bring it in to him with a list twice as long as i originally told him about..Top work fella!!!!

okay, lets have another go...

interior all taken out but the lino and plywood still waiting to be lifted to see any horrors lurking beneath. Took a deep breath and started pulling it all up. Mrs. Empi said "just rip it all up, its gotta come up anyway and we'll deal with whatevers underneath". I wasn't quite so confident


so up it came. didnt look too bad but you could see some previous repairs along with some grot where the I-beams went across under the floor and also where one of the outriggers was


this is one of the previous repairs, next to where the floor had a cut-out that would have originally been used to top up the underslung water tank. You can see some lines along it where the rust is taking hold under the repair.


so i did what any self respecting vw bloke would do......and got a nice big pointy screwdriver and started to have a scrape and a poke!!!! And then ended up with a nice big hole and some pretty skanky metal surrounding it


after some cutting and prying it about with some better screwdrivers it was found that the plate had been welded over the original floor leaving all the previous rot to fester underneath. The silly thing is that the welding was really good, they just hadnt bothered to cut out what they were trying to fix. muppets!!


I-beam under the dodgy plate was starting to turn back into base metal and was like a twisted bit of car-crash hardly connected to anything!!


so new I-beam had to be welded in and all the surrounding area cleaned up and part of the sill repaired to take the new beam


nice new bit of floor welded in. now its actually proper floor, not like the bit of plate that the previous monkey welded ha ha ha. give it a bit of paint and job done.


same underneath, give it all a clean and then some paint so that it doesnt start rusting away again in this lovely weather we're having!!!

Next installment will see the floor next to the long side panel cut away to find the beast from beneath along with more fantastic plates welded over the original flooor!!!!!
i guess that back in the day thats the way that things were done Still, could be worse....it could have been chicken wire and filler

shalom, Lee

Cheers for the vote of confidence Lodge!!! I'm better with a hammer and a chisel that a keyboard ha ha ha.

Sooty,
I'll upload some more pics later of the long side floor and you can have a chuckle over them. Let's just say I got an even bigger screwdriver and then started with a hammer as well...eek!!!!

Shalom, Lee

My mate ended up taking my screwdriver away from me when my van ended up like this



Take your time Lee and you will get there.

good work dude , make sure you paint it with some proper paint not bbq .... lol , i haave been using a chassis epoxypaint that i bought out of practical classics mag its proper stuff thats slightly rubberised and bonds checically to the metal so should keep the rust at bay for man years

rustydiver wrote:Take your time Lee and you will get there.

Yeah it had to be done. Its all finished now, just gotta sort through the pics and get them in order before I post them up. I think your pics have scared my bro-in-law a bit as he's yet to dig too deep into his bus
Believe it or not I had a running, driving, useable 10 month mot'd camper the week before these pics were taken
I'd had a good poke around it before I stripped it so I knew what was coming, been putting it off for ages as we use the van so much but thought that whilst the b*****d f******g olympics were on and we can't get any time off work to go away I might as well pull it apart.
Aloha Matt! If you don't know already Jimbo has moved down and is living in Langtree. He was at Westward Ho! this morning for his first paddle. Give him a buzz dude. I'm going to be using hammerite on the underneath as it sticks to everything known to man and I can get it in a spray as well for all the difficult bits to get to. Just gotta get under there with a wire brush attachement on the angle grinder first to get all the old underseal and crud off. Will let you know how it goes once I've picked the bits out of my hair/teeth/beard/eyes!!

Shalom, Lee

Hammerite is expensive and rubbish compared to how it used to be as all the good stuff has been removed from it.
If you have a Brown Bros near you or another automotive paint factor near you go and see them as there are much better brushable paints around that cost far less

Lee dont use hammerite its pants ill get u the details of the stuff i use its far better hammerite will be shagged in two years this new chassis paint will last years and is not as toxic as por15 . Honestly dont waste ure life with hammerite dude

Rustoleum "straight to rust" primer's pretty good and much better than Hammerite.

okay, now for the next installment of why you shouldnt go poking around the cruddy rust bits with your best screwdriver and toffee-hammer

First bit to attack was the short panel behind the cargo doors. i knew that this was fairly bad as i'd gobbed it up with filler to make it look passable for last years shows. As there wasnt much in the way of metal by the bit near the front closing panel i did a hatchet job and then used a bit of plate held in with (if i remember) silicone sealer just so i'd have something to load the filler onto yeah, i know.....but it was just a tempo repair so i dont feel too guilty about it, plus i wasn't in a position to remove the interior to get it welded up....
Anyhow, this was all cut out and the surrounding bit in the closing panel was cut out as well.

this is the bit that would have required removing the interior. we use the bus so much and i didnt want it off the road too long so i didnt have time to strip it out hence the tempo job


into the closing panel, this bit want too bad as it had been done before and undersealed so it was just a couple of inches up in to the inner arch



mmmm, check out my nice new lower short side small skim of filler some satin black and it'll look fine and dandy!!


in the mean time, whilst i had and empty garage and the sun was shining i thought i'd better get on with the interior. This had all been taken out and dismantled to its component parts with all the screws carefully labelled and put into packets so when it came to re-assembly i'd hopefully know where it all went. The plan was to sand it all back and re-stain and varnish it whilst making any repairs as i went along. Remember this interior has a pretty hard life as it's used in all weathers and has me and Mrs. Empi climbing all over it in wetsuits, dripping salt water everywhere (don't get too excited Jayfor!!!) and chucking stuff about all over the shop. Anyhow, it was pretty easy to sand it back using a mouse sander for the large parts and some sanding blocks for the fiddly bits. Off to B&Q for a couple of tins of dark mahogany stain and varnish all in one and then a pleasant afternoon in the garden getting sunburnt while i varnished it all up. Once it was dry i thought i'd mock it up in the garden just to see what it looked like and to make sure i could remember how it went back together. After all, it's not like the neighbours dont think we're weird enough without having a camper van interior set up in the back garden!!!!!





Next installment will be tackling the long side and the inner sill eek!!!!!!

shalom, Lee

okay, the digging and prodding continues with the floor area next to the long side.

thats the rear section, again with a flat piece of plate welded across it. Again, fantastic bit of welding but over the nastiness underneath


you can see the lines across the panel where its crispy and cruddy underneath and also the section by the B -pillar is a bit grotty as well so that will have to be cut out too. time to get the chisel out and lift it up for a liitle peek. .


eeek!!!!!!!!!!!!!! where'd all the i-beams go!!!! The inner sill doesnt look too clever either...


further along the floor doesnt look much better and the same for the sill area. This will all have to be cut out before the new beam s can be fitted.
i did think about pulling up the whole floor at this point and renewing the beams right across but decided against it as i wanted to keep as much of the OG metal as i could.


slightly worse than the short side as it was going to be every I-beam on this side plus one outrigger. just a case of taking the floor back until you get to decent metal then trimming it all up so that the new I-beams can be welded to the old ones.


from underneath you can see the sill hasnt faired much better. Although its definately rusted better than the one on the other side


its gone slightly beyond a couple of pin holes so its going to be an inner sill as well. The only bummer with this it that its going to mean that i'll have to do some work i was hoping to swerve on the outside of the long side panel and paint it in. Oh well, thats the way it goes i s'pose

thats all the rot cut out now so just the replacement beams, one outrigger and an inner sill to go in on the long side.
stay tuned for the next eposode folks when the nice shiney metal gets grafted it

shalom, Lee

okey dokey....onwards and upwards, time to get some metal back in there.

first off, cut the rotten I-beams out and weld in new ones, as was done on the other side


oh and dont forget that there was that mankey inner sill to be replaced as well. was originally hoping to get away without doing the inner sill but it was waaaaaaay too far gone.


once thats done the floor section can be welded in place, nice proper bit of floor rather than the bit of sheet (or should that read sh1t) that was there when i started


dont you just love the sight of some freshly welded and painted floor


nice bit of undercarriage, and we all like looking at a nice bit of well prepared undercarriage!!!!! you can just see a bit of the chassis brace that i've had made up, more pics of this later. also a sexy shot of my spangley outrigger as well....


so with the floor all welded in i did a quick trip to Wickes and bought a sheet of 25mm celotex and measured up between all the struts and cut the celotex to slot inbetween. if you cut it to roughly the size you want you can then "squash" it into the gaps and theres a lip on the struts that digs into the celotex and holds it in place. once the panels are it it will all be held nice and tight (ooeerr missus) but it holds in pretty well anyway. i didnt use any glue at all. i did the long side, short side and both cargo doors with a single 8' x 4' sheet that cost 20 quid. if you use the 25mm its fits nice and snug and wont get in the way of the panels as you screw them on.


once that was done, 2" brush and some hammerite for the inside of the cargo floor. bloody stinks and gets all over your hands!!!!


i gave it 2 coats just to make sure i hadnt missed any bits. i also went up the rear and front bulkhead for an inch or so as the paint there looked like it was a bit thin.


all done it did look really nice all shiny and clean but it took aaaaaaaages to dry. in the end i just put in in the garage and left it for a few days with the windows open so that the smell didnt knock me out when i had to go back to it seemed a shame to cover it all up with ply and then lino but hopefully that'll be it for another fair few years!!
next up will be covering the garage in plastic so that i can spray up my nice new (old) rust free churchkey engine lid

shalom, Lee

onwards and upwards....
unfortunately i didnt take any pics of the engine lid as it was when i bought it so i cant show you what you get for your 275 quid.......not much
here it is as i was prepping it

just needed to give a couple of bits a light skim of filler where it has some minor dings then into primer it goes


bit of flatting down between coats. check that the neighbours are not having a bbq in the garden cos you know its gonna stink when the painting starts!!!!


and then forget to put all the plastic sheeting back up when you spray the bloody thing
the engine lid came out better than i thought it would but the rest of the stuff in the garage paid the price
next time maybe less haste more sheeting up!!!!!

shalom, Lee