The first task Jon is facing is to lift the fibreglass high top to allow for repairs to the gutter and roof below it. It's not quite off yet but has started to budge. These pics show the metal roof starting to appear as the fibreglass one is lifted away. I've no idea at the moment if the fibreglass is hiding a load more work, but there's only one way to find out.

Phew - the fibreglass roof came off in one piece. I now have a convertible...

The front and rear gutters were rusted out so removing the hightop was the only way to gain access to repair them. Jon is hard at work repairing the guttering and then the hightop will be put back on. I considered putting a pop top in instead, but as I don't have much of an existing roof that would be a major undertaking. And although the fibreglass roof isn't everyone's cup of tea I love having the hightop and it is unique.

Underneath the fibreglass the roof and majority of the gutters weren't too bad. Here are a few pics.

The welding to the roof and gutters has been finished now, so the hightop is going back on today.

Front gutter replaced and roof repairs where required:



Rear gutters placed as well:

Next up is the repairs to the cab doors and then driver side step and arch and cab floor. I'm hoping it won't be too long now until the van will head on over to Cookie for some new paint.

The welding is FINISHED

The arches and cab floor are done and looking good.



So here she is, roof back on and ready to go for some paint. Heading over to John Cook next week.

My van was delivered to Cookie on Friday for painting. Its been such a relief to get things moving over the last couple of months. VW Welding have been a delight to deal with and now I just can't wait to see John start to get some colour back on the van.

I'm planning to put a buddy seat in behind the drivers seat. I've had an extra seat belt mount installed the facilitate that. The purpose of this will be to put my daughters (18 months old) car seat on when we're travelling. I prefer the idea of her being there behind the bulkhead as opposed to up front. Does anyone have any experience and/or recommendations of child seats in vans? Also any tips or recommendations on which buddy seat to go for would be good.

Cookies has made great progress and my van is now in primer

Good progress, must be nice to see it on some paint (even if it is primer) at last.
As for child seats etc, if you go for a fold up/down buddy seat try to have some way of attaching the leg bit to the floor. Should the unthinkable happen the last thing you want is for the seat to collapse with the child seat strapped to it. We've just bought the next size up for little Empi and according to the blurb we shouldn't have to buy another one ever as various parts of it come off as he grows until it ends up as just a booster seat. It's in the loft but when I'm up there next I will see what make it is.

Cheers, Lee.

Certainly is Lee. In a another week or so I hope we'll start to see some colour on there too.

Cheers for the child seat tip. I'm tempted to go with one of these:
http://www.volkswares.co.uk/buddy-seats/
But take the point that securing the leg to something would be good. Once I have the seat I guess it will be easier to assess any extra mods needed to make it safer - I'm thinking that attaching an isofix bracket would be a good addition.

New seats - taken out the Vauxhall Sri seats and gone back to stock. These are from a Fleetline and I picked them up complete with all the other bus seats for the rear as well - although those probably wont see any action in my van.

I've just heard that I can collect my van from the paint shop on Wednesday next week. Haven't seen it yet but really excited so just wanted to share the news.

I'll upload pics as soon as I have them.

The first coat of colour went on this morning.

Looking good

Thanks - Nearly the end of the working week so hopefully I'll be able to get to the lock-up and start putting things back together over the weekend.

One job I'm not looking forward to is putting the cab door tops back together. Does anyone have any tips / know where I'd find a diagram that might help?

This was once parked outside my house. Unless there's another just like it. Which I doubt! Really unique and original bus and I'm glad it's getting such good treatment.