1966 Ex BRS Austin VAK 100 "Noddy" van. Shack building.

Thanks again to everyone for the words of support. 😀👍

The lorry list, for the time being, consists of repairing the front chassis rails, then sorting out engine and gearbox mounts. I’m not looking beyond that at the moment.

I didn’t get much done today, because although I’m officially on holiday, the current industrial relations situation at work means that, as an ASLEF officer, there’s quite a bit of stuff going on at the moment. 

I did get to spend some time this afternoon though, having a poke about and a proper think about the chassis repair situation. The good news is that there appears to have been very little further deterioration in the structure in the time it’s been sat here unloved.

There’s about 24” (600mm) of chassis rail on the passenger side that’s very crispy along the bottom, and both passenger and driver’s sides are quite pitted for the front 12” or so ahead of the spring hangers on the vertical and top faces where they’re exposed to the elements. What little paint was ever applied has long gone.

I dug out the front leg that I salvaged from one of the Lincolnshire hulks. It’s pretty bad, but I thought it was worth getting for its bumper bracket and that the spring hanger might be salvageable. From what I’ve seen the front parts of the chassis are the most vulnerable. All three of the Lincolnshire ones were really bad, as was JOY and, obviously GUG too.





As you can see, it’s even worse than GUG’s one.

Then I dug out the front sections of chassis that I’d kept from JOY.



And that’s worse again; even the spring hanger is rotted through on this one, which was one of the main reasons for deciding to look for a better vehicle as a starting point.

The chassis is about 9” deep in the centre between the axles, and narrows at the front to about 4” deep. The top rail also narrows down towards the front. Fortunately, the rearmost parts of the rails that I have kept are in good enough condition to yield repair sections of the correct profile and material that I should be able to make an invisible repair. This is important, because commercial MoT standards don’t allow for the kind of “slap a plate on it” repairs that you can get away with on cars. 

I had hoped that I would be able to carry out the repairs without disturbing the front spring hangers, but sadly both sides have some deep pitting immediately next to them on the outer sides of the vertical faces and they’ll be really visible if they don’t look right. The spring hangers are bolted through the bottom flange, and riveted through the side one. Taking the hangers off should allow me to keep the side holes original, and hide at least part of the welded join behind them. Plan is to do it in sections on the passenger side, first the bottom edge and side that’s really bad, then the top. 

The driver’s side should be more straightforward. That is in much better condition, both on GUG and on the salvaged part from JOY. I should be able to cut a section from the outer and top part of JOY’s old chassis, and let it in with the welded join largely hidden behind the spring hanger once it’s refitted. 





I have a trip out tomorrow morning to collect an eBay win of a pair of Land-Rover front seats that I’m going to be using in the Austin. The existing driver’s seat is from something else and has just been wedged into place. Having the same type of seats in both vehicles makes things a more straightforward, as getting Land-Rover bits is easy, and I know they’re comfortable. Traffic permitting, I’ll be home by lunchtime and able to make a start dropping the front springs out of the hangers.