1992 - T4 Transporter - Much advice needed

Hello Retro Rides.

Like many of you, I have a few retro cars and I have a daily driver. My daily driver is a imported L200 truck and it has been a very faithful, reliable old truck that is appreciated by the whole family. We load it up for surf trips, tip runs, parts collecting, even use it for the odd bit of off roading and it has been a reliable old truck.

Have some photos of it.





As reliable as the truck is, its fuel bill is quite crippling with the miles I occasionally drive, and it is a bit of a chore when on the motorway and once again the fuel economy drops off the face of the earth if I tip over 65mph.

This truck was a replacement for my vito which I had last year, I wanted to have a go at a camper but couldn't afford a T4 which was my preferred choice, so I found a cheap little Vito which was only up he road. I bought it as a non runner and got it on the road which unfortunately suffered an early demise due to a sleepy lorry driver.

Full thread can be seen here including smashed up vito photos - retrorides.proboards.com/thread/181175/mercedes-vitos-cool-bought-died

However, as you can imagine this has left me with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth and I went for the truck.

Following a recent trip to the coast my uncle brought a new van, a T4 camper, this got my mind spinning again. Here it is in all its glory, a very nicely built camper.



After having a good poke about, and hearing about his weekends away, adventures and trips Me and my better half seriously wanted to have a go. There were also a lot of other positives to accompany buying a van, better MPG, better motorway handling, I could fit motorbikes in the back far easier than in the truck, somewhere to change out of wet clothes, it also gives me a good enough reason to buy a jet ski and a lot of other reasons, however I didn't want to sell and regret selling my truck. The task was to try and find a cheap T4, a mission in itself.

Cheap T4s did seem to be out there, but they didn't fit my bill. They were panel vans with no rear seats which wasn't the best of things, because ideally I wanted at least 4 seats, something my Vito and caddy didn't have which therefore made them a little bit of a hindrance.  

After browsing through certain classified sites daily, almost hourly, with the notifications set on so I received a message every time something was advertised within budget I kept missing out on vans, I just wasn't quick enough and I found myself on the brink of giving up. However this Tuesday one came up and contact was made. The chap was 45 minutes away, but happened to work just down the road from me, so we arranged to meet. At this point I was not fussed by what model, spec or trim I got, I just wanted one.

This was a photo from the advert.

Upon meeting the chap and the van it was apparent that it has had a seriously hard life. It was an ex work van, which I knew about from the advert, I have a work van and I keep it in very good shape, after viewing this van it appeared that not all people have the same take on a work van.

The interior was very well used, abused and incomplete but did have the factory rear seats, captain seat swivel bases and electric windows which I wasn't expecting. Mechanically the van seemed to be quite sound, a few advisories on the mot for track rod ends which appear to have been left untreated. There was a lot of bills for components which had recently been replaced, inlet manifold and a new starter were among the parts, both of which were invoiced from the local VW Commercial main dealer.

My biggest problem with the van was the state of the body, it had suffered some scrapes and dents, bad ones by the looks of things, and rather than eave them, or have them suitably repaired someone has deemed it acceptable to slop kilos of filler into the dents and scrapes. I seriously have never seem filler so thick, i'm talking like an inch thick! however Although put off by this I continued to poke around the van. I got the MOT history up and noticed there was no fails, or advisories for rust or corrosion, something my Vito van suffered from very badly. I had a pretty in depth look at all the arches, sills, floors, even got the thing up on some small service ramps and for 45 minutes of looking, couldn't find any rust. This is what did it for me.

With a bit of bartering with the seller I ended up with It for a price I was very happy with, money was exchanged and I dropped him off at the train station. Here it is parked up in my ownership.

Upon Taking ownership there are a few other things that I have noticed, Engine temp gauge doesn't work, no power steering, odd mirrors, missing and damaged interior trim, although with all of this I still have a bit of faith.

My plans.

My plans are to make a useable, yet modest day van that I can use for some weekend trips away, parts lugging, towing a jet ski and moving bikes around.

I need to sort the body work out, remove the filler, sort the damage properly and I want to go matte blue. So any matte blue suggestions would be excellent. I also need to change the wheels and lower it a bit, I have no idea how these are lowered so again, suggestions would be great.

Inside I want some nice leather seats with twin arm rests ideally. All of the ply will be removed and the van suitably lagged, deadened, lined and carpeted. I want to put some funky flooring in, along with some camper side units and a rock and roll bed. I also want to throw in some EPS out of a corsa, make it a little easier and nicer for my other half to drive. With it being the long wheel base model I am hoping that I can still have a well spaced conversion in the back.

Engine wise, I need to give it a good service and I also want to have it converted to LPG.

Anyway, that's probably enough for now, if anyone has any suggestions, inputs, ideas or photos to share please do post them up!